The Watch Below (14 page)

that
. . . ."
"Perhaps not," said the doctor grimly, "but I
am
worried. More accurately,
I'm scared stiff. And I'll be doing my best for more than the usual reasons
-- Hippocratic oath, medical ethics, and so on. The truth is that I can't
allow anyone to die on me. The very thought of it gives me nightmares.
In this place, what could we do with the body?"
Wallis was unable to answer the question then or later, when the doctor
had fallen into an exhausted sleep sitting up, or even when he thought
about it during odd moments in the weeks which followed. It was not
a nice question, and trying to think of an answer started a train of
thought which was usually too horrible to be completed. Especially when
it involved Margaret. The thought of her being dead was bad enough. But
for her to be dead and close by all the time, with the processes of decay
going on. They would probably put her in some out-of-the-way corner of
a tank, in a tool locker, perhaps, with cargo piled around it to mask
off the smell. But she would still be there and everyone would know it.
For Wallis it would be a parting which was not a parting and he did not
think that he could stand it.
Like the doctor, Wallis had quite a few nightmares and woke with Margaret
holding him tightly and stroking his head as if he were a baby. She wanted
to know what was the matter and he could not tell her; all he could do
was hold her as tightly as she was holding him. Again like the doctor,
he learned how not to think about it and to pretend that it could
never happen.
The Game suffered because Jenny wanted them to be quiet so as to let
the baby sleep, and their own sleep was interrupted because the baby
decided to wake up again at the wrong time. Despite himself it made
Wallis furious. Getting to sleep was difficult at the best of times
and he looked on it as a most desirable condition, since it was only
during sleep that he could forget the cold metal of their prison with
its deadly monotony of unwarmed food and pedaling the generator and
trying not to go insane from sheer boredom. During sleep he could dream
of things like eating porridge and hot stew or just drinking tea all
night long. It was odd how the dishes never were fancy or exotic, they
were simply warm. And when the waiings and whimperings of the recently
arrived Geraldine Elizabeth Dickson started up, Wallis gritted his teeth
and tried vainly to hang onto his lovely warm dreams and felt like murder.
The care and feeding of the new arrival was a complicated business in
many ways.
"Basically it's a problem of keeping the thing warm without smothering
it to death," the doctor said on an occasion when the men were in the
generator room together, "especially when it's being changed -- which
brings up another point. We've given it all the blankets and slapped
the squares of sacking in use for nappies . . ."
"Diapers," said Dickson.
". . . against the plating until they are not only dry but nearly as
soft as cotton wool. But this doesn't satisfy the maternal instinct.
The girls insist that the nappies are damp and harsh against its skin.
I keep telling them what the Spartans used to do with babies, but . . ."
"They are things you put on your lap in a restaurant, Doctor," said Dickson
firmly, "or tuck into your collar if you're uncouth."
". . . it doesn't get me anywhere," Radford went on, disregarding him.
"Admittedly there is some chafing of the skin, but all things considered
it is a very healthy child and there's no need for all the complaining.
About the only thing they don't complain about is the feeding of the child.
That particular process is the same here as anywhere else and is relatively
uncomplicated."
"So far, Doctor," said Dickson, grinning; "what bothers me is how we are
going to wean it off mother's milk and onto cold powdered-egg soup -- "
"This is serious!" Wallis broke in irritably. "There is too much complaining
and too much fuss generally about the baby. Morale is suffering. We're being
too damned quiet for our own good and thinking too much about all the wrong
things! With respect to your daughter, Dickson, I think she should learn
to sleep with a certain amount of talk going on around her. I myself have
a nephew who can sleep for hours in the same room as a wireless going
full blast -- "
"Radio," corrected Dickson automatically.
"It's a good idea, sir," Radford said quickly, seeing the commander's
expression. Wallis had very little sense of humor these days, and even
less patience, as Margaret's time came steadily nearer. The doctor added,
"We've all missed playing the Game, sir. Even the girls . . ."
The nursery on the flagship was a small compartment whose water was
maintained at close to blood temperature and whose walls, ceiling, and
floor, except for the small area covered by the transparent observation
panel, were lined with soft, spongy plastic so that the two tiny beings
darting about the interior with nearly mindless violence would not
injure themselves.
"Look at him go!" said Hellahar excitedly. "Did you ever see such a
healthy child! You know, without wishing to seem boastful, and making
due allowance for paternal pride, I really do think that he is one of the
nicest and most physically perfect male young 'uns that ever was born!"
"I agree," said Deslann, "provided you admit that mine is one of the
nicest females. . . ."
Above and beyond Gulf Trader the war was over, conventionally in Europe
and then a little later in Japan in such a fashion that the world would
never feel completely safe again. But inside the ship they very rarely
talked about the war. They had been withdrawn from it at a very critical
period and, while they hoped and believed their side would win, they had
no way of knowing for sure. Another reason was that three years or more of
the Game had so developed their faculties for recalling sights and sounds
and people that they did not even want to think about it, because there
was very little in the wartime memories of any of them which was pleasant.
During this period the improvements in the comfort and appearance of
the tanks were minor, inasmuch as there was only a limited amount of
insulating and building material and as the doctor did not want them to
use too much of the paint supply because of the danger from the fumes
in the confined space. They heard ships passing, but in the distance
and not very often, so they gradually stopped signaling. Banging with
crowbars against the hull plating, besides frightening the children,
made them all start thinking about the wrong things again, even though
everyone knew that the
right
things were the current Game project of
ways to improve the Game itself.
With nothing to do for three-quarters of each and every day except sleep
and talk and think -- and sleeping did not seem to take up as much time
as it ought -- they should have gone stark staring mad during the first
six months out of sheer boredom. Wallis had encountered a character in
a science fiction story once who had said that if a person were to study
one single fact or object for a long enough period of time the complete
structure of the Universe could eventually be deduced from it. In Gulf
Trader they had time and many facts and occasionally they even discussed
the nature of the Universe, but the big thing was that they had been left
very much to their own mental devices and had not gone mad. If anything,
the doctor affirmed, they were going steadily more sane -- although just
recently he himself was not behaving in any sort of adult, logical manner.
Currently they were engaged in digging for French, the idea being that
when the data from all their school-days memories, sayings, and snippets
of overheard conversations and so on were assembled they would speak only
French to each other for a few weeks, just as they had done with Latin a
few months back. The children were building things with empty powdered-egg
tins and knocking them down again, but they were three tanks away so that
the noise was not distracting, and the doctor was pedaling silently while
the others talked. Perhaps unconsciously they had been digging around in
the memories of French grammar and pronunciation and similar school-days
material, so that it was not a surprise to anyone when they wandered off
the subject, as often happened, and onto another which would eventually
form a future Game project -- that of educating the children.
Except for the doctor, who had the breath to speak if he wanted to despite
the pedaling, they all had a great deal to say about the subject. But it
was Wallis who pointed out an aspect of it which had not yet been considered,
that of religious education.
"How much of it we teach," Wallis offered, "and the form it takes rather
depends on what we ourselves feel about it. We might teach only the basics
without going too deeply into any particular religion. But it's a touchy
subject. Does anyone here have strong feelings in the matter?"
The doctor held some strong views on this subject, although he did not
as a rule try to ram his own beliefs down anyone else's throat; so the
question should have roused him if anything would, but he continued
pedaling in silence. It was Margaret who spoke first.
"I haven't read all the Bible," she said, "but there are the Commandments,
everybody believes in them -- "
"And the opening questions and answers in the Children's Catechism,"
Jenny broke in. "I can remember most of them without digging, even.
It starts like this. Question: Who made the world?"
"Answer," said her husband. "The Brooklyn Navy Yard."
"Dickson," said the doctor sharply, breaking a silence which had lasted
since the moment two days ago when he discovered that both of his
biological clocks had stopped again, "don't be so blasted irreverent!"
XV
In another corner of the same ocean records were being broken and great
deeds were being done. One of the new nuclear submarines, bigger and more
powerful and capable of diving to a greater depth than any conventional
submarine, had astonished the world by running submerged and completely
cut off from all contact with the surface for two whole months. Had they
known about this the inhabitants of Gulf Trader might have felt a certain
amount of justifiable smugness. But they did not know, and while the crew
of that fantastic vessel were being given the freedom of the city for
their exploit and already beginning to talk in terms of circumnavigating
the world submerged and/or sailing under the North Pole as an encore,
the people in Trader were relaxing after a stiff session of the Game by
talking about anything at all which came into their heads.
"It was nice of you two," said the doctor, looking at Dickson and Wallis,
"to arrange your families the way you did. A boy and a girl each.
Considerate."
"Think nothing of it," said Wallis.
"It was a pleasure," said Dickson.
"If you hadn't been so thoughtful," Radford went on, "we might have had
polygamy raising its ugly head, or that other thing where there are more
men than women -- "
"A fate worse than death," murmured Dickson.
". . . but even as things stand," the doctor went on, ignoring him, "we will
have to do some thinking about our respective medical histories. All of us
here have passed the Service entrance medicals so we know that we are
reasonably healthy specimens, but I'm more interested in the ailments of
our ancestors -- especially in hereditary diseases they may have suffered,
like hemophilia or leukemia, or TB or . . ." he looked pointedly at Dickson
". . . insanity. The coming generation is all right, but with the next one
there will be inbreeding to consider.
"Or maybe I'm thinking too far ahead," he ended awkwardly.
On the other side of the tank the children were playing a game of their
own, quietly and almost surreptitiously for them. Wallis recognized enough
of the whispered dialogue to suspect that the adults would shortly be
treated to a new full-scale production of
Snow White
, with Gerry Dickson
in the name part, Eileen Wallis as the Wicked Queen, and Dave Wallis and
Joe Dickson sharing the other seven parts between them. They seemed to
be improvising quite a lot on the original theme.
To the doctor, the lieutenant commander said, "No, I don't think so.
It's a funny thing, but I find myself thinking more and more often that
this place is the normal, everyday world and the real world on the surface
is something we know by hearsay, like material in a book dug up during
the Game -- "
"Speaking of books and the Game," the doctor put in, "I was wondering if
it wouldn't be a good thing to specialize more. Instead of all of us
helping to remember a book or a play, have each of us remember something
he or she has read, but doing it solo and then talking it out on request.
There are a lot of things that we have read or done which are not common
to the others. I think we are good enough at remembering now to be able
to do that.
"I myself have read the Hornblower trilogy five times," he went on,
"so that I could start with those stories."
"I read
The Happy Return
once," Margaret said. "Just once. I didn't
understand the technical bits, but I loved Hornblower. He was a nice,
understanding, worried sort of hero for a change, with thinning hair
and skinny, too. I really felt for that man."
"Faithless hussy," said Dickson.
"The Hornblower stories resemble science fiction in many ways," said Wallis.
"They show the past rather than the future, of course, but they describe
a slightly alien world whose language and technology require a certain
amount of effort to understand, and the effort increases the enjoyment.
"But I'm not an authority on Forester," Wallis added quickly, seeing the
doctor's suddenly glum expression. "I've read only
A Ship of the Line
and that only once, so I'd be glad to hear the first and third books,
Doctor, if you can dig them out of your brain. The only story which I
have read anything like five times was by a Dr. Smith -- not a
real
doctor, Doctor, just a Ph.D. -- who, as well as stretching my imagination
to its elastic limit, had horrible alien beings who were actually good
'uns instead of being utterly and completely hostile.