"So what do we do?"
"Last resort only," Fletcher said. "That'd be my recommendation."
The group looked at each other, nodded.
"Okay," Norman said. "Last resort only."
"Let's just hope we don't have another attack."
"Another attack ..." There was a long silence as they considered that. Then the gas-plasma screens on Tina's console jumped, and a soft pinging filled the room.
"We have a contact on peripheral thermals," Tina said, in a flat voice.
"Where?" Fletcher said.
"North. Approaching."
And on the monitor, they saw the words:
I AM COMING.
* * *
They turned off both the interior and exterior lights. Norman peered through the porthole, straining to see out in the darkness. They had long ago learned that the darkness at this depth was not absolute; the waters of the Pacific were so clear that even a thousand feet down some light registered on the bottom. It was very slight-Edmunds had compared it to starlight - but Norman knew that on the surface you could see by starlight alone.
Now he cupped his hands by the sides of his face to block out the low light coming from Tina's consoles, waited for his eyes to adjust. Behind him, Tina and Fletcher were working with the monitors. He heard the hiss of the hydrophones in the room.
It was all happening again.
Ted was standing by the monitor, saying, "Jerry, can you hear me? Jerry, are you listening?" But he wasn't getting through.
Beth came up as Norman peered out the porthole. "You see anything?"
"Not yet."
Behind them, Tina said, "Eighty yards and closing ... Sixty yards. You want sonar?"
"No sonar," Fletcher said. "Nothing to make ourselves interesting to him."
"Then should we kill the electronics?"
"Kill everything."
All the console lights went out. Now there was just the red glow of the space heaters above them. They sat in darkness and stared out. Norman tried to remember how long dark-vision accommodation required. He remembered it might be as long as three minutes.
He began to see shapes: the outline of the grid on the bottom and, dimly, the high fin of the spaceship, rising sharply up.
Then something else.
A green glow in the distance. At the horizon.
"It's like a green sunrise," Beth said.
The glow increased in intensity, and then they saw an amorphous green shape with lateral streaks. Norman thought, It's just like the image we saw before. It looks just like that. He couldn't really make out the details.
"Is it a squid?" he said. "Yes," Beth said.
"I can't see. ..."
"You're looking at it end-on. The body is toward us, the tentacles behind, partially blocked by the body. That's why you can't see it."
The squid grew larger. It was definitely coming toward them.
Ted ran from the portholes back to the consoles. "Jerry, are you listening? Jerry?"
"Electronics are off, Dr. Fielding," Fletcher said. "Well, let's try and talk to him, for God's sake."
"I think we're past the talking stage now, sir."
The squid was faintly luminous, the entire body a deep green. Now Norman could see a sharp vertical ridge in the body. The moving tentacles and arms were clear. The outline grew larger. The squid moved laterally.
"It's going around the grid."
"Yes," Beth said. "They're intelligent animals; they have the ability to learn from experience. It probably didn't like hitting the grid before, and it remembers."
The squid passed the spacecraft fin, and they could gauge its size. It's as big as a house, Norman thought. The creature slid smoothly through the water toward them. He felt a sense of awe, despite his pounding heart.
"Jerry? Jerry!"
"Save your breath, Ted."
"Thirty yards," Tina said. "Still coming."
As the squid came closer, Norman could count the arms, and he saw the two long tentacles, glowing lines extending far beyond the body. The arms and tentacles seemed to move loosely in the water, while the body made rhythmic muscular contractions. The squid propelled itself with water, and did not use the arms for swimming.
"Twenty yards."
"God, it's big," Harry said.
"You know," Beth said, "we're the first people in human history to see a free-swimming giant squid. This should be a great moment."
They heard the gurgling, the rush of water over the hydrophones, as the squid came closer.
"Ten yards."
For a moment, the great creature turned sideways to the habitat, and they could see its profile - the enormous glowing body, thirty feet long, with the huge unblinking eye; the circle of arms, waving like evil snakes; the two long tentacles, each terminating in a flattened, leaf-shaped section.
The squid continued to turn until its arms and tentacles stretched toward the habitat, and they glimpsed the mouth, the sharp-edged chomping beak in a mass of glowing green muscle.
"Oh God..."
The squid moved forward. They could see each other in the glow through the portholes. It's starting, Norman thought. It's starting, and this time we can't survive it.
There was a thump as a tentacle swung against the habitat. "Jerry!" Ted shouted. His voice was high, strained with tension.
The squid paused. The body moved laterally, and they could see the huge eye staring at them.
"Jerry! Listen to me!"
The squid appeared to hesitate.
"He's listening!" Ted shouted, and he grabbed a flashlight off a wall bracket and shined it out the porthole. He blinked the light once.