Jupiter's Reef (39 page)

“They are like jellyfish,” observed Tony. “But they look lighter than air.”

“I wish we could take one of them out of here.”

Alex frowned. “We have our samples,” he said. “The recorder is working and so are the cameras and all your scanners.”

“But a specimen”.

“Dingers,” said Alex. “A specimen? We’ve fucked the reef up. Now you want to murder one of its citizens?”

The Professor was at the window, examining the cloud of dark creatures that floated before the ship. “Hard to pull in the reins of science. Right, Alex? No, there’s no way to do that. Just my way of saying I wonder how those things tick.”

“Well,” said Alex, darkly. “I have a pinger, why don’t you just go out there and shoot one?”

“Alex,” said Mary, looking at him in shock.

Johnny turned around. “That’s a city out there, Alex. You know that, don’t you?”

“I guess so.”

“Sure we’re invaders,” said Johnny. “But I think that those guys out there would check out our cities if they had half a chance.”

“Maybe they already have,” said Tony. “If the Gaia theory holds,” he added.

Johnny faced the window again. He looked much older than he had on Mars. Alex regarded it as adverse effects of gravity and fatigue.

“Yes,” said the Professor. “I’ve thought about that.”

“So have I,” said Alex. “If you mean that all this is one thing.”

“Well, that’s how we see the Earth,” said Johnny. “In biological terms all planetary life is connected.”

Alex looked past Johnny at the clicker men who floated at the window. One of them had flown away and another took its place at the window. Then, as he watched, another exchange took place. “They’re all having a look-see,” he remarked, pointing his coffee squeezer at the window. Then he raised it to eye level, and cleared his throat.

“Here’s to the clicker boys and to the reef and to us,” he said loudly.

“I don’t have a drink,” said Mary. “Don’t toast them yet.”

Alex laughed as Mary quickly poked at the food panel. A moment later she held a squeezer of bubbly soda in her outstretched hand. “Okay,” she whispered.

“To Gaia and to all,” said Johnny.

“To Oz,” said Tony.

6
The analogy was perfect. Mary had seen the movie while visiting Earth.

“So where is the wizard?” she said, looking at the window.

“And it’s a golden city, not emerald,” said Johnny, smiling.

Outside the cabin window clicker men were still taking turns looking into the strange fish bowl that had visited their world. And behind them was the gigantic spherical cave -- a city alive with clicker men.

Mary had her suppressing tabs on as she stood beside Alex and Johnny at the window. She felt secure with Alex’s arm around her. In Mary’s arms, alert and watching the clicker men with the same interest as the rest of the
Diver
’s crew, was her kitten. And just behind Johnny stood Sciarra, who had donned sunglasses and was holding binoculars in his hand. “I got these at an antique store on Earth,” he said holding them up. “Alex, you want a look?”

Alex eagerly accepted the binoculars. It took a moment to focus them, but soon he was able to see details in the distance quite sharply.

It looked like a city. Flying back and forth, in and around the spheres that were suspended in the cavern, were scores of clicker men. Some of them were carrying things and some of them looked different from the black ones that still floated outside the window.

The spherical and translucent objects that were hanging in the golden web looked like they might have been homes. They all looked basically alike except that they varied in color. Some were very dark and some nearly white, but all were different shades of color. Alex realized that the spheres weren’t painted or coated with external coloring. Rather, it appeared that the color came from inside.

“Could be a city,” said Alex. “Could be farms.”

“Could be any damn thing,” added Tony.

Alex handed the binoculars to Johnny and he put them to his eyes. He had thought about handing them to Mary but realized that her perfect eyes were probably seeing all the detail that he had seen through them. Surely Johnny needed field glasses most.

Baltadonis watched the city for a long time. Then he handed the glasses to Tony.

“I have no idea what we’re seeing. Some collective activity,” said Johnny.

Alex walked to the dash and turned on the cabin speakers. The radio was still tuned to the clicker men’s frequency. Seconds later the now familiar din of clicking sounds sounded inside the cabin, but they were different now. There was a harmonic sweep to the sound that almost sounded musical.

“That’s different,” said Alex. “How does it sound to you, Mary?”

Mary took off her tabs and listened to the sounds her body was receiving. “Same as the cabin sounds,” she said.

The crowd of clicker men had increased near the ship but they didn’t seem as frantic as they had been when
Diver
arrived. Now they were looking it over and flying in and out of its gravity field.

Mary pointed to two clicker men who were hanging back from the rest, near the cave wall. “Those two are talking to each other,” she said. “I hear one clicking and then the other. Talking.”

“Can you hear these at the window?” asked Johnny, looking over the creature nearest him for signs of vocalizations. The central white core to which the velvet black and red wings were attached reminded him of a bowling pin. On top was a bulbous rippling knot that seemed to have the texture of whipped cream. In fact, the more he examined it the more it looked like a tubular packet of foam. But there was something inside it, a series of lumps that ran straight down the length of its body. Despite its undulating movements the creature reminded Johnny more of a plant than an animal. He said the white stalk reminded him of a Jack-in-the-pulpit; a swamp plant from Earth that Johnny found appealing because it required a lot of water. He said he once told his daughter that he hoped he would live to see them growing wild on Mars. He knew that it would take hundreds if not thousands of years for that to happen even by the most optimistic terraforming estimates, but he didn’t care. It was the spirit of the thing.

Johnny felt it was poetic that his favorite plant was emulated by the foremost of Jupiter’s creatures.

Johnny described his long standing affinity for the jack-in-the-pulpit as he watched the clicker men. But neither Alex nor Mary were as familiar with the plant world as the botanist from Mars.

“They had them growing near the pond at the Marys’ compound, I think,” said Mary, petting her kitten. “They’re a rude looking plant, as I recall.”

Johnny laughed. “They’re one of a kind, related to the pitcher plants. People love’em or hate ’em. I love ’em.”

Alex had taken back Tony’s binoculars for another look. He tried to determine if the cavern contained other life forms besides the clicker men. He focused on the far wall and panned slowly. The cavern was at least a kilometer wide, and where he could see the far wall past the golden cables, the white spheres, and the flock of clicker men, he counted at least a dozen other tunnel openings. But apart from the clicker men Alex could see no other life forms in the cavern.

Just when he was ready to conclude that the cavern was the exclusive domain of the clicker men, Alex spotted a green oval object clinging to the far wall. It was moving very slowly on scores of tiny feet that lined the edge of its body. After watching it for a few seconds he noticed that it was leaving a shiny trail on the wall.

“Slugs,” he said.

“Did you say slugs?” asked Johnny.

Alex scanned more of the far wall and spotted two more. One was a bit bluer than the first, but both were similar in size and appeared to sport a segmented but otherwise featureless shell. “There are slugs on the walls,” he said, handing the glasses to Johnny.

Johnny finally saw what Alex referred to. “Oh,” he said when he saw it. “Yes, I see it. It’s bluish, moving slowly. It looks like it’s cleaning the place.”

“Somebody has to do it,” said Mary with a grin.

“Not to be selfish, or anything,” said Sciarra. “But those are my binoculars. I wouldn’t mind having a look.”

Johnny apologized and handed the field glasses to Tony. “I’m going back to my bubble,” he said. “I should be documenting all this with the cameras.”

While Tony peered through the binoculars, the flock of clicker men who had been floating in front of
Diver
like a phalanx of warriors began to disperse.

Alex and Mary went back to their seats, still watching the clicker men with interest.

“What do you make of it all, Tony?” asked Alex.

But Tony was engrossed in watching the activity in the distance.

“I see those slugs,” he said. “They have feet.”

Now three clicker men remained in front of
Diver
. Alex had the impression that they had been part of the original group that had gathered when the ship nearly entered their cavern. But he wasn’t sure why he thought so. The clicker men all looked basically alike.

One of the creatures seemed particularly interested in Tony and moved quite close to him. Alex noticed that it hung to Tony’s left as if trying not to block his view. Sciarra was so engrossed that he didn’t notice the creature only inches away from him on the other side of the polyceramic glass.

“Looks like you’ve got a friend there, Tony,” said Alex.

“What?” said Sciarra, looking up. He yelped involuntarily and jumped back, nearly falling onto the console in front of Mary.

Mary’s kitten hissed at Tony, jumped out of her lap and ran to the back of the cabin.

Tony ignored everything but the clicker man.

“What does it want?” he said, his voice tinged with fright.

“Maybe you should go out there and ask him,” said Johnny, who was looking out of his bubble and watching in amusement.

The clicker man seemed to note Tony’s reaction and moved back to join the other two. They just floated about three meters in front of the ship, flapping their arms smoothly, holding their position like fish watching a baited hook.

“Why are they looking at me?” asked Tony, returning to his seat.

Alex looked Sciarra over as he passed by. Like the rest of
Diver
’s crew, Tony was wearing a silver flight suit. There seemed to be nothing to distinguish him other than his slick black hair and glasses. But when Sciarra left, their clicking sounds changed pitch and rhythm. It sounded like a conversation.

“Hear that?” said Alex. “You got a big reaction.”

“They’re talking about you, Tony,” said Mary.

“Really,” said Tony, giving Mary an angry look. “And how do you know that?”

“I don’t,” she said. “Just a feeling.”

“You’re not the only one with feelings, here,” said Tony. “Unless you have some facts, I’d appreciate ...”

“I’m sorry, Tony,” said Mary. “That wasn’t very thoughtful of me.”

Diver
was still at the entrance to the tunnel with the three hovering sentries in attendance. Alex saw the situation as a standoff. He was about to ask Johnny what he wanted to do next when movement in the distance behind the clicker men caught his eye. They were large and white and they sent chills up and down Alex’s spine.

7
Larger than the ones hovering before
Diver
, they were the clicker men from Alex’s dream.

“Dingers,” said Alex under his breath as he watched them close in on the ship.

“Incoming,” said Professor Baltadonis. “I’m even seeing these puppies on radar.”

Alex looked at Mary. She saw them too but her eyes were on Alex.

“It’s them, isn’t it?” she asked.

Alex nodded and slumped back in his seat as they approached.

Five large white clicker men with golden heads were nearing
Diver
, moving at high speed. Alex guessed they were easily three times the size of the other clicker men, but other than size and color, they were physically the same and moved through the air in the same squid-like manner.

The white clicker men moved smoothly between the bubbles that filled the spherical cavern. In less than a minute they joined the three black sentries, unfurled their great white fins, and floated before the ship.

“This is new,” said Tony.

Alex felt they were looking directly at him but he just bit his lip and watched them, wondering what they would do next.

“I have to see this in person,” said Johnny, climbing out of his seat. “Do you think we have some authority on hand?”

Mary looked at Johnny doubtfully.

“Are you asking me?” she said.

“Not particularly,” he said, touching the back of Alex’s chair.

“I’ve dreamed about them,” said Alex.

Johnny looked down at Alex, then back at the clicker men.

“That’s right!” he said wide-eyed. “I remember you telling me about your dream. That’s really remarkable. And you say you’ve never seen them before?”

“Never,” said Alex.

“Jeez,” said Tony. “You’re not kidding, are you? That’s spooky.”

The sounds of the reef had changed when the white creatures arrived. There was a lull in the background clicking and a new group of clicks had emerged, but they blended smoothly into the meter of the overall sound. It was as though a new instrument had been added to an orchestra.

“Do you hear them, Alex?” asked Mary.

The black clicker men moved slowly away from the white ones, deeper into the cavern, but their smooth treading-of-air motion never changed. As Alex watched them change places he tried to remember his dream. But all he could recall was that the white ones had been central powerful figures in a vast crystalline chamber.

Had they talked to him? Were they the sovereigns of the clicker men world that they appeared to be? He slumped deeper into his chair, watching the flowing white creatures hover before the ship.

“What next?” he said. “Dingers... maybe we should just grab the stick and punch it out of here.”

Alex looked back at Johnny. The Professor wasn’t in his bubble; he was sitting sideways with his elbows resting on his knees, staring straight at Alex, but his expression suggested that he had nothing to say.