Collected Stories Of Arthur C. Clarke (165 page)

Though I was tempted to call Shapiro and report that I had company, I decided to wait for more information. There were only three nations with depth ships that could operate at this level, and I was on excellent terms with all of them. It would never do to be too hasty, and to get myself involved in unnecessary political complications.

Though I felt blind without the sonar, I did not wish to advertise my presence, so I reluctantly switched it off and relied on my eyes. Anyone working at this depth would have to use lights, and I’d see them coming long before they could see me. So I waited in the hot, silent little cabin, straining my eyes into the darkness, tense and alert but not particularly worried.

First there was a dim glow, at an indefinite distance. It grew bigger and brighter, yet refused to shape itself into any pattern that my mind could recognise. The diffuse glow concentrated into myriad spots, until it seemed that a constellation was sailing toward me. Thus might the rising star clouds of the galaxy appear, from some world close to the heart of the Milky Way.

It is not true that men are frightened of the unknown; they can be frightened only of the known, the already experienced. I could not imagine what was approaching, but no creature of the sea could touch me inside six inches of good Swiss armour plate.

The thing was almost upon me, glowing with the light of its own creation, when it split into two separate clouds. Slowly they came into focus – not of my eyes, but of my understanding – and I knew that beauty and terror were rising toward me out of the abyss.

The terror came first, when I saw that the approaching beasts were squids, and all Joe’s tales reverberated in my brain. Then, with a considerable sense of letdown, I realised that they were only about twenty feet long – little larger than the lobster, and a mere fraction of its weight. They could do me no harm. And quite apart from that, their indescribable beauty robbed them of all menace.

This sounds ridiculous, but it is true. In my travels I have seen most of the animals of this world, but none to match the luminous apparitions floating before me now. The coloured lights that pulsed and danced along their bodies made them seem clothed with jewels, never the same for two seconds at a time. There were patches that glowed a brilliant blue, like flickering mercury arcs, then changed almost instantly to burning neon red. The tentacles seemed strings of luminous beads, trailing through the water – or the lamps along a superhighway, when you look down upon it from the air at night. Barely visible against this background glow were the enormous eyes, uncannily human and intelligent, each surrounded by a diadem of shining pearls.

I am sorry, but that is the best I can do. Only the movie camera could do justice to these living kaleidoscopes. I do not know how long I watched them, so entranced by their luminous beauty that I had almost forgotten my mission. That those delicate, whiplash tentacles could not possibly have broken the grid was already obvious. Yet the presence of these creatures here was, to say the least, very curious. Karpukhin would have called it suspicious.

I was about to call the surface when I saw something incredible. It had been before my eyes all the time, but I had not realised it until now.

The squids were talking to each other
.

Those glowing, evanescent patterns were not coming and going at random. They were as meaningful, I was suddenly sure, as the illuminated signs of Broadway or Piccadilly. Every few seconds there was an image that almost made sense, but it vanished before I could interpret it. I knew, of course, that even the common octopus shows its emotions with lightning-fast colour changes – but this was something of a much higher order. It was real communication: here were two living electric signs, flashing messages to one another.

When I saw an unmistakable picture of the lobster, my last doubts vanished. Though I am no scientist, at that moment I shared the feelings of a Newton or an Einstein at some moment of revelation.
This
would make me famous….

Then the picture changed – in a most curious manner. There was the lobster again, but rather smaller. And there beside it, much smaller still, were two peculiar objects. Each consisted of a pair of black dots surrounded by a pattern of ten radiating lines.

Just now I said that we Swiss are good at languages. However, it required little intelligence to deduce that this was a formalised squid’s eye-view of itself, and that what I was seeing was a crude sketch of the situation. But why the absurdly small size of the squids?

I had no time to puzzle that out before there was another change. A third squid symbol appeared on the living screen – and this one was enormous, completely dwarfing the others. The message shone there in the eternal night for a few seconds. Then the creature bearing it shot off at incredible speed, and left me alone with its companion.

Now the meaning was all too obvious. ‘My God!’ I said to myself. ‘They feel they can’t handle me. They’ve gone to fetch Big Brother.’

And of Big Brother’s capabilities, I already had better evidence than Joe Watkins, for all his research and newspaper clippings.

That was the point – you won’t be surprised to hear – when I decided not to linger. But before I went, I thought I would try some talking myself.

After hanging here in darkness for so long, I had forgotten the power of my lights. They hurt my eyes, and must have been agonising to the unfortunate squid. Transfixed by that intolerable glare, its own illumination utterly quenched, it lost all its beauty, becoming no more than a pallid bag of jelly with two black buttons for eyes. For a moment it seemed paralysed by the shock; then it darted after its companion, while I soared upward to a world that could never be the same again.

‘I’ve found your saboteur,’ I told Karpukhin, when they opened the hatch of the lobster. ‘If you want to know all about him, ask Joe Watkins.’

I let Dimitri sweat over that for a few seconds, while I enjoyed his expression. Then I gave my slightly edited report. I implied – without actually saying so – that the squids I’d met were powerful enough to have done all the damage: and I said nothing about the conversation I’d overseen. That would only cause incredulity. Besides, I wanted time to think matters over, and to tidy up the loose ends – if I could.

Joe has been a great help, though he still knows no more than the Russians. He’s told me what wonderfully developed nervous systems squids possess, and has explained how some of them can change their appearance in a flash through instantaneous three-colour printing, thanks to the extraordinary network of ‘chromophores’ covering their bodies. Presumably this evolved for camouflage; but it seems natural – even inevitable – that it should develop into a communication system.

But there’s one thing that worries Joe.

‘What were they
doing
around the grid?’ he keeps asking me plaintively. ‘They’re cold-blooded invertebrates. You’d expect them to dislike heat as much as they object to light.’

That puzzles Joe; but it doesn’t puzzle me. Indeed, I think it’s the key to the whole mystery.

Those squids, I’m now certain, are in Trinco Deep for the same reason that there are men at the South Pole – or on the Moon. Pure scientific curiosity has drawn them from their icy home, to investigate this geyser of hot water welling from the sides of the canyon. Here is a strange and inexplicable phenomenon – possibly one that menaces their way of life. So they have summoned their giant cousin (servant? slave!) to bring them a sample for study. I cannot believe that they have a hope of understanding it; after all, no scientist on earth could have done so as little as a century ago. But they are trying; and that is what matters.

Tomorrow, we begin our countermeasures. I go back into Trinco Deep to fix the great lights that Shapiro hopes will keep the squids at bay. But how long will that ruse work, if intelligence is dawning in the deep?

As I dictate this, I’m sitting here below the ancient battlements of Fort Frederick, watching the Moon come up over the Indian Ocean. If everything goes well, this will serve as the opening of the book that Joe has been badgering me to write. If it doesn’t – then hello, Joe, I’m talking to
you
now. Please edit this for publication, in any way you think fit, and my apologies to you and Lev for not giving you all the facts before. Now you’ll understand why.

Whatever happens, please remember this: they are beautiful, wonderful creatures; try to come to terms with them if you can.

To: Ministry of Power, Moscow

From: Lev Shapiro, Chief Engineer, Trincomalee Thermoelectric Power Project

Herewith the complete transcript of the tape recording found among Herr Klaus Muller’s effects after his last dive. We are much indebted to Mr Joe Watkins, of
Time
, for assistance on several points.

You will recall that Herr Muller’s last intelligible message was directed to Mr Watkins and ran as follows: ‘Joe! You were right about Melville! The thing is absolutely gigan—’

The Secret

First published in
This Week
, 11 August 1963, as ‘The Secret of the Men in the Moon’

Collected in
The Wind from the Sun

Henry Cooper had been on the Moon for almost two weeks before he discovered that something was wrong. At first it was only an ill-defined suspicion, the sort of hunch that a hardheaded science reporter would not take too seriously. He had come here, after all, at the United Nations Space Administration’s own request. UNSA had always been hot on public relations – especially just before budget time, when an overcrowded world was screaming for more roads and schools and sea farms, and complaining about the billions being poured into space.

So here he was, doing the lunar circuit for the second time, and beaming back two thousand words of copy a day. Although the novelty had worn off, there still remained the wonder and mystery of a world as big as Africa, thoroughly mapped, yet almost completely unexplored. A stone’s throw away from the pressure domes, the labs, the spaceports, was a yawning emptiness that would challenge men for centuries to come.

Some parts of the Moon were almost too familiar, of course. Who had not seen that dusty scar in the Mare Imbrium, with its gleaming metal pylon and the plaque that announced in the three official languages of Earth:

ON THIS SPOT

AT 2001 UT

13 SEPTEMBER 1959

THE FIRST MAN-MADE OBJECT REACHED ANOTHER WORLD

Cooper had visited the grave of Lunik II – and the more famous tomb of the men who had come after it. But these things belonged to the past; already, like Columbus and the Wright brothers, they were receding into history. What concerned him now was the future.

When he had landed at Archimedes Spaceport, the Chief Administrator had been obviously glad to see him, and had shown a personal interest in his tour. Transportation, accommodation, and official guide were all arranged. He could go anywhere he liked, ask any questions he pleased. UNSA trusted him, for his stories had always been accurate, his attitude friendly. Yet the tour had gone sour; he did not know why, but he was going to find out.

He reached for the phone and said: ‘Operator? Please get me the Police Department. I want to speak to the Inspector General.’

Presumably Chandra Coomaraswamy possessed a uniform, but Cooper had never seen him wearing it. They met, as arranged, at the entrance to the little park that was Plato City’s chief pride and joy. At this time in the morning of the artificial twenty-four-hour ‘day’ it was almost deserted, and they could talk without interruption.

As they walked along the narrow gravel paths, they chatted about old times, the friends they had known at college together, the latest developments in interplanetary politics. They had reached the middle of the park, under the exact centre of the great blue-painted dome, when Cooper came to the point.

‘You know everything that’s hapening on the Moon, Chandra,’ he said. ‘And you know that I’m here to do a series for UNSA – hope to make a book out of it when I get back to Earth. So why should people be trying to hide things from me?’

It was impossible to hurry Chandra. He always took his time to answer questions, and his few words escaped with difficulty around the stem of his hand-carved Bavarian pipe.

‘What people?’ he asked at length.

‘You’ve really no idea?’

The Inspector General shook his head.

‘Not the faintest,’ he answered; and Cooper knew that he was telling the truth. Chandra might be silent, but he would not lie.

‘I was afraid you’d say that. Well, if you don’t know any more than I do, here’s the only clue I have – and it frightens me. Medical Research is trying to keep me at arm’s length.’

‘Hmm,’ replied Chandra, taking his pipe from his mouth and looking at it thoughtfully.

‘Is that all you have to say?’

‘You haven’t given me much to work on. Remember, I’m only a cop: I lack your vivid journalistic imagination.’

‘All I can tell you is that the higher I get in Medical Research, the colder the atmosphere becomes. Last time I was here, everyone was very friendly, and gave me some fine stories. But now, I can’t even meet the Director. He’s always too busy, or on the other side of the Moon. Anyway, what sort of man is he?’