“Most of the things you see around here are Joseph’s work,” went on Regulo, as the meal was nearing its conclusion, with fruit that had a taste and texture similar to pineapple. “I did the basic engineering of Atlantis, and decided what the living quarters ought to be like — we made them all from the ore in the middle of the original asteroid, which was an interesting problem in the use of materials. But Joseph did all the rest: the layout of the labs, and the detailed balance of the aquasphere. It’s not a simple ecology out there, far from it. You should take a good look at everything while you’re here.”
Morel remained silent, but there was a pouting of those full red lips that could be interpreted as a look of displeasure.
“I’d certainly like to see more of the aquasphere,” Rob said. “I had a very brief glimpse of it as Corrie and I were coming in along the entry shaft, and it looked fascinating. Could we have the panels open?”
Darius Regulo glanced across at Morel. “He’s been asking me about Caliban, and I gather that Cornelia has been teasing him, too. Are you willing to bring him over?”
“I suppose so.” The tone was grudging, but Morel’s eyes lit with sudden pleasure.
Regulo turned again to Rob. “Caliban is Joseph’s pride and joy. We won’t keep you in suspense any longer. Switch on the outside lights, Corrie, and open the panels.”
It was scarcely necessary to dim the internal lights. Regulo kept them at a level just enough to see each other and the food. As the big panels slid back, Rob found himself looking out onto a dense underwater jungle, lit by the faded, distant glow of sunlight and underwater lamps. Corrie turned a switch and the scene was transformed by powerful searchlights, mounted on the outer wall of the chamber.
The sheath of material behind the sliding panels formed a great transparent wall. Layers of vegetation attached to the supporting grids were clearly visible beyond it. Moving schools of fish drifted through the floating plant life and headed towards them, attracted by the beams of light.
“Where is he, Joseph?” grumbled Regulo. “Bring him on over here and let Merlin take a good look at him. I thought the light would have drawn him this way by now.”
“It depends what he was doing when the beams went on,” said Morel. He reached into the pocket of his shirt and pulled out a small, flat communicator. Staring out into the quiet underwater scene, he pressed two of the keys set into the black surface. After a few more seconds, he pressed a third. “He’s playing hard to get,” he said. “I had to provide a stronger incentive. Watch over to the left now, I think that ought to have been sufficient.”
Rob stole a glance at the other three. Corrie’s face was calm, with a look of quiet interest. Regulo’s expression was impossible to read behind that spoiled mask of flesh, but his eyes were calm and quiet. Only Joseph Morel seemed to feel any strong emotion. He was moistening his full lips, with a look of suppressed gratification on his face as he handled the tiny communicator. He was tense and expectant. Suddenly, he relaxed and leaned back in his seat. Far away, at the edge of the lighted area, something was stirring the fronds of vegetation.
“Here he comes,” murmured Regulo. “Now, Merlin, here’s one of your illusions spoiled. You think I’m in control here, but you’re wrong. Meet Caliban, the real Master of Atlantis. The rest of us are bound into this little region at the center, inside the living quarters. Caliban rules the aquasphere.”
A huge dark shape was slowly approaching, pushing aside the densely layered weeds. It was the same irregular mass that Rob had glimpsed in the distance during their brief pause in the entry shaft of Atlantis. Now, as it came closer, he could begin to estimate its true size. A mass of waving arms surrounded a great central trunk. As the creature came closer Rob tried to count them. He could see at least nine or ten, two much longer than the rest. None was fully extended, but he guessed that the biggest ones would be about thirty meters long, branching away from the cask-like head. The latter was a couple of meters across, with one huge, staring eye set on each side of it, placed so that the animal could never achieve binocular vision. The trunk and longer arms were a deep gray-green in color, merging into the lighter shade of the eight shorter arms.
“Know what you’re seeing?” asked Regulo. “You won’t find many like that back on Earth.”
“It’s some sort of squid,” Rob said. “But I’ve never heard of anything even a tenth of the size. That’s Caliban?”
“It is.” Morel’s voice was quiet and precise. “Not just `some sort of squid,’ if you please. That’s Architeuthis princeps himself, the biggest invertebrate ever. He’s responsible for the old stories of the kraken — and of the sea serpent too, in my opinion.”
The giant squid had moved in right next to the transparent wall. It placed four long, suckered tentacles against the glass. Rob saw the great body flex with effort. The surface of the panel distorted, just a little, under the strain.
“He’s strong,” Regulo said. “Stronger than you’d believe.”
“But he’s changing color,” said Rob, watching the barrier that separated them from the creature move under the force of the long arms.
“Aye, he’ll do that.” Regulo looked on calmly as the skin of the squid darkened, becoming a uniform black. “That’s the chromatophores in his outer layer — he can change all sorts of different shades. He only goes black when he’s angry, though. I think Caliban hates Joseph more than anything or anyone in Atlantis. He’d just love to get in here.”
“He is an ingrate,” said Morel drily. “By rights he should be more than grateful. He should worship me as his god. I am his Maker. Before we began work on him he was no more than any other cephalopod; brighter than any other of the invertebrates, but no more than that. Now” — he pouted his rosebud mouth, incongruously small in the fleshy face — “in intelligence he exceeds all the creatures of Earth. He should be devoted to me.”
Rob had finally caught his breath. Until reason asserted itself, he could not get rid of the feeling that the great beast beyond the window would tear the shield free, hurl it away, and reach in for them with those muscular arms. And then there would be the savage beak, set in the center of the massive head…
He shook off the feeling. Regulo knew far too much about the strength of materials to permit any such danger.
“Are you implying that Caliban is actually intelligent?” he asked. “That you have created something you are able to communicate with — something that can think?”
“That’s a damned good question.” Regulo had watched Rob’s expression of alarm with apparent amusement. “Obviously, he can’t speak, and in spite of all those arms we’ve never been able to get him to take any interest in writing. I’m not sure if he’s intelligent or not.”
“Regulo is joking.” Morel did not look at all amused. “Caliban is certainly intelligent. Communication with him is naturally a complex procedure. He is electronically connected with Sycorax, the central computer of Atlantis, and receives from it constantly a signal stream. In return, he produces a modulation that returns to the computer. Sometimes that return signal contains significant changes. Sycorax decodes the result, and converts it to message form for our output terminals here.”
“And it’s gibberish, more often than not,” grumbled Regulo. “I’ll never deny that Caliban does something with the signal, and Sycorax gives us an interpreted version of it. But whether it’s Caliban or Sycorax that puts the meaning into it, there’s the real question.”
“Yet you do not deny that the combination displays intelligence,” Morel replied. “It is not human intelligence — how could it be? — and it is not easy to understand. I don’t deny that. I merely assert that Caliban possesses some type of high-order thinking processes. Higher, perhaps, than ours. I was not joking when I suggested that in intelligence he perhaps exceeds all the creatures of Earth.”