LEVY

The group broke up. Harry, exhausted by the sustained effort of decoding, immediately went off to sleep. Ted went to C Cyl to tape his personal observations on Jerry for the book he was planning to write. Barnes and Fletcher went to E Cyl to plan battle strategy, in case the alien decided to attack them.

Tina stayed for a moment, adjusting the monitors in her precise, methodical way. Norman and Beth watched her work. She spent a lot of time with a deck of controls Norman had never noticed before. There was a series of gas-plasma readout screens, glowing bright red.

“What’s all that?” Beth said.

“EPSA. The External Perimeter Sensor Array. We have active and passive sensors for all modalities-thermal, aural, pressure-wave-ranged in concentric circles around the habitat. Captain Barnes wants them all reset and activated.”

“Why is that?” Norman said.

“I don’t know, sir. His orders.”

The intercom crackled. Barnes said: “Seaman Chan to E Cylinder on the double. And shut down the com line in here. I don’t want that Jerry listening to these plans.”

“Yes, sir.”

Beth said, “Paranoid ass.”

Tina collected her papers and hurried off.

Norman sat with Beth in silence for a moment. They heard the rhythmic thumping, from somewhere in the habitat. Then another silence; then they heard the thumping again.

“What is that?” Beth said. “It sounds like it’s somewhere inside the habitat.” She went to the porthole, looked out, flicked on the exterior floods. “Uh-oh,” Beth said. Norman looked.

Stretching across the ocean floor was an elongated shadow which moved back and forth with each thumping impact. The shadow was so distorted it took him a moment to realize what he was seeing. It was the shadow of a human arm, and a human hand.

“Captain Barnes. Are you there?”

There was no reply. Norman snapped the intercom switch again.

“Captain Barnes, are you reading?”

Still no reply.

“He’s shut off the com line,” Beth said. “He can’t hear you.”

“Do you think the person’s still alive out there?” Norman said.

“I don’t know. They might be.”

“Let’s get going,” Norman said.

He tasted the dry metallic compressed air inside his helmet and felt the numbing cold of the water as he slid through the floor hatch and fell in darkness to the soft muddy bottom. Moments later, Beth landed just behind him.

“Okay?” she said.

“Fine.”

“I don’t see any jellyfish,” she said.

“No. Neither do I.”

They moved out from beneath the habitat, turned, and looked back. The habitat lights shone harshly into their eyes, obscuring the outlines of the cylinders rising above. They could clearly hear the rhythmic thumping, but they still could not locate the source of the sound. They walked beneath the stanchions to the far side of the habitat, squinting into the lights.

“There,” Beth said.

Ten feet above them, a blue-suited figure was wedged in a light stand bracket. The body moved loosely in the current, the bright-yellow helmet banging intermittently against the wall of the habitat.

“Can you see who it is?” Beth said.

“No.” The lights were shining directly in his face. Norman climbed up one of the heavy supporting stanchions that anchored the habitat to the bottom. The metal surface was covered with a slippery brown algae. His boots kept sliding off the pipes until finally he saw that there were built-in indented footholds. Then he climbed easily.

Now the feet of the body were swinging just above his head. Norman climbed another step, and one of the boots caught in the loop of the air hose that ran from his tank pack to his helmet. He reached behind his helmet, trying to free himself from the body. The body shivered, and for an awful moment he thought it was still alive. Then the boot came free in his hand, and a naked foot-gray flesh, purple toenails-kicked his faceplate. A moment of nausea quickly passed: Norman had seen too many airplane crashes to be bothered by this. He dropped the boot, watched it drift down to Beth. He tugged on the leg of the corpse. He felt a mushy softness to the leg, and the body came free; it gently drifted down. He grabbed the shoulder, again feeling softness. He turned the body so he could see the face.

“It’s Levy.”

Her helmet was filled with water; behind the faceplate he saw staring eyes, open mouth, an expression of horror.

“I got her,” Beth said, pulling the body down. Then she said, “Jesus.”

Norman climbed back down the stanchion. Beth was moving the body away from the habitat, into the lighted area beyond.

“She’s all soft. It’s like every bone in her body was broken.”

“I know.” He moved out into the light, joined her. He felt a strange detachment, a coldness and a remove. He had known this woman; she had been alive just a short time before; now she was dead. But it was as if he were viewing it all from a great distance.

He turned Levy’s body over. On the left side was a long tear in the fabric of the suit. He had a glimpse of red mangled flesh. Norman bent to inspect it. “An accident?”

“I don’t think so,” Beth said.

“Here. Hold her.” Norman lifted up the edges of suit fabric. Several separate tears met at a central point. “It’s actually torn in a star pattern,” he said. “You see?”

She stepped back. “I see, yes.”

“What would cause that, Beth?”

“I don’t-I’m not sure.”

Beth stepped farther back. Norman was looking into the tear, at the body beneath the suit. “The flesh is macerated.”

“Macerated?”

“Chewed.”

“Jesus.”

Yes, definitely chewed, he thought, probing inside the tear. The wound was peculiar: there were fine, jagged serrations in the flesh. Thin pale-red trickles of blood drifted up past his faceplate.

“Let’s go back,” Beth said.

“Just hang on.” Norman squeezed the body at legs, hips, shoulders. Everywhere it was soft, like a sponge. The body had been somehow almost entirely crushed. He could feel the leg bones, broken in many places. What could have done that? He went back to the wound.

“I don’t like it out here,” Beth said, tense.

“Just a second.”

At first inspection, he had thought Levy’s wound represented some sort of bite, but now he wasn’t sure. “Her skin,” Norman said. “It’s like a rough file has gone over it-”

He jerked his head back, startled, as something small and white drifted past his faceplate. His heart pounded at the thought that it was a jellyfish-but then he saw it was perfectly round and almost opaque. It was about the size of a golf ball. It drifted past him.

He looked around. There were thin streaks of mucus in the water. And many white spheres.

“What’re these, Beth?”

“Eggs.” Over the intercom, he heard her take deep slow breaths. “Let’s get out of here, Norman. Please.”

“Just another second.”

“No, Norman. Now.”

On the radio, they heard an alarm. Distant and tinny, it seemed to be transmitted from inside the habitat. They heard voices, and then Barnes’s voice, very loud. “What the hell are you doing out there?”

“We found Levy, Hal,” Norman said.

“Well, get back on the double, damn it,” Barnes said. “The sensors have activated. You’re not alone out there-and whatever’s with you is very damn big.”

Norman felt dull and slow. “What about levy’s body?”

“Drop the body. Get back here!”

But the body, he thought sluggishly. They had to do something with the body. He couldn’t just leave the body.

“What’s the matter with you, Norman?” Barnes said.

Norman mumbled something, and he vaguely felt Beth grab him strongly by the arm, lead him back toward the habitat. The water was now clouded with white eggs. The alarms were ringing in his ears. The sound was very loud. And then he realized: a new alarm. This alarm was ringing inside his suit.