The Watch Below (9 page)
Authors: James White
Which was very true, because they had decided some days previously that
the preparatory work of the crew should be completed and the officers
themselves placed safely in Long Sleep before the chosen females were
warmed -- that way it would be less unsettling all round. So in addition
to Deslann's efforts to make his officers understand the necessity for
leaving behind them a simple yet complete training program for the future
generations of astrogators, engineers, computer and communications
technicians, Hellahar and himself had the future generations of captains
and healers to think about.
Despite this pressure from more immediate problems, Deslann still found
time now and again to worry about those females, even though he no longer
mentioned his concern to Hellahar. Part of the reason for this was because
Hellahar had stopped mentioning the subject to the captain. But it became
very obvious one day that the healer was giving this problem considerable
thought.
Deslann found him in the recreation room studying a tape, the title of which
startled the captain because it was not a work which he had expected to find
in his ship, or to find the healer reading. It was
The Life of Targa Wunt
.
"It's rather boring, really," Hellahar said defensively as he saw Deslann's
expression. "Just a list of names and dates and repetitious incidents --
sheer statistics! But there are passages here and there which could be,
well, helpful."
"I'll borrow it when you're through," said Deslann, and left him to get on
with his studies.
Targa Wunt had been possibly the worst blackguard and undeniably the greatest
lover in all of Unthan history.
IX
Gulf Trader drifted submerged but close to the surface for what seemed
like three or four weeks, and during that time there were many changes
inside the ship. The lighting was the most dramatic and important change,
although the sense of drama was rather spoiled in the early days by
the number of failures. But for a few minutes each day to begin with,
and then as the various snags were eliminated for as long as there was
someone on the pedals, the cold metal walls and littered floors of certain
tanks were, to eyes accustomed so long to darkness, brilliantly lit.
Another change was that the patients had become mobile, although in
Dickson's case it was with the aid of crutches. The altered privacy
requirements together with the fact that they were still down by the
stern, and the air in that section of the ship was beginning to go stale,
made it necessary to shift the living quarters forward to Number Three,
which was partitioned off and insulated with sacking. Everyone said that
it was a warmer, more comfortable place to sleep in, although this may
have been because the two girls were now able to bundle together for
warmth instead of lying on separate litters each "night," and because
Dickson was now adding his body heat to the pool under the men's heap of
sacking. Another reason for the slight increase in warmth was the double
one of the approach of spring and a possible southward drift past the
west coast of Ireland.
They had not heard any ships passing since they had been torpedoed --
the Atlantic being a very large ocean -- but if the drift continued they
would arrive eventually in the busy area of the southwest approaches to
the English Channel. That was why Wallis had them spending so much time
on signaling devices.
When the ship again began to slide dangerously far below the surface
the necessary measures were taken almost as a routine drill. The major
problems were those of drinking water and air supply, and they worried
about those constantly.
And today, thought Wallis irritably,
the subject is going to spoil
our lunch
....
Dickson had just said, "How does your garden grow, Doctor?"
It was a question which Dickson had asked, in exactly the same form,
far too often for it to be funny anymore -- except possibly to Jenny
Wellman, who approved of practically everything Dickson said. Wallis
took a firm grip on his temper and tried hard to make allowances.
They were seated around the workbench, which had been smartened up by
the girls for use as a dining table. A flashlamp hung above it since
there was nobody on the generator, and the faces were in shadow while
the meal was being spotlighted. They were having a cold stew that was
composed of powdered eggs and sea water and that varied, according to
individual taste, from the consistency of a thin paste to that of thick
porridge, with a cup of tomato soup, also chilled, to wash it down. They
had been very lucky in finding the two large crates full of tomato soup
cans, because the doctor had insisted that he needed a lot of pure,
or at least unsalted, water for his beans. Even so, the meal was like
all the other meals, a freezingly cold, unappetizing mess, and having to
eat it must have been much worse for Dickson than for any of the others.
They had had a short spell on the generator to warm themselves up in
preparation for their refrigerated lunch, but Dickson was still not fit
enough to work the pedals and so felt colder and more miserable during
meals than at any other time, which was saying a lot. Definitely, Wallis
thought, allowances should be made, and from the mildness of Radford's
reply it seemed that the doctor agreed with him.
"Not very well, I'm afraid," he said. "All but three of the beans planted
in the first tray have taken, although they don't seem to be exactly
flourishing. I'm not an expert on plant biology. All I know is that bean
plants, when mature, have a large quantity of leaves and these should
be good at absorbing our CO2. . . ."
Radford had not known much about gardening, but he had done everything
possible to make those seeds grow. For days he had carried tied to his
waist next to his skin the bottle of water in which the dried beans were
soaking, and later he had transferred them into tobacco tins packed with
his specially prepared soil and carried them in the same place so that
his body heat would aid the process of germination. But now his precious
beans had been cast out into a cold, cold world.
". . . At the moment they have light for about one third of the 'day,'"
Radford went on, "although it is broken up into hour- or half-hour-long
pieces instead of being continuous. This may have a bad effect on them,
so we must arrange the shifts on the generator to give them constant
light for as long as possible. There is also the low temperature. So far
as I know the plants are not injured by a periodic drop in temperature,
for during spring and autumn it can become very cold at night, but so long
as it remains above the freezing point there is no damage. This constant
low temperature, however, must be having some effect. Then there is
the quality of the lighting -- "
The doctor broke off, looked around the table, and ended on a note
of forced optimism, "I'm hoping that the bad effects Of the cold and
lighting will be negated by the quality of our, uh, fertilizer."
In the dim light around the table it was difficult to read expressions.
There was too much hair on the faces of the men, one-half of the Murray
girl's face was hidden by the bandages she had started wearing again
when the generator began working, and Jenny Wellman was sipping cold
tomato soup. It was she who finally broke the silence.
"If your garden doesn't grow, sir," she said quietly, "how long before
the rest of the air goes stale?"
"It's hard to say," the doctor replied. "You see, the air astern isn't
really foul; to the contrary, it's quite breathable right now, so our
reasons for staying away from it may be purely psychological. Of course,
we have no lighting there as yet, but, too, the old sick bay has
unpleasant associations for most of us while the present quarters are
relatively more comfortable.
"Another point," he continued, "is that when the air finally does become
foul it will be a very gradual process, due to the tremendous volume of
these tanks. The onset of symptoms will also be so gradual that there
will be times when our emotional state will exaggerate them to a dangerous
extent, and we'll have to guard against this. There is also the possibility
that the change will be so gradual our lungs will be able to adapt to it
to a certain extent and so increase slightly the time left us.
"All this makes it difficult to give an accurate answer," Radford concluded,
"but I would say that we have until the middle of June or early July."
"Thank you, sir," said Jenny Wellman.
Something about the girl's tone, and the expression on the visible half
of the other girl's face made Wallis add quickly, "Of course, this
presupposes that the garden is a total failure. Even if it were only
partly successful in renewing our oxygen, that time could be extended,
perhaps even doubled."
"Oh, certainly," said the doctor, catching the ball neatly. "Mid-June
is the most pessimistic estimate."
Shortly after that they went to bed, it now being the accepted thing to
retire after the main meal, when the psychological reassurance of a full
stomach, the calorie content of the food, and the recent exercise on the
generator all conspired to increase their physical comfort. It was while
the doctor, Dickson, and himself were burrowing into their sacking that
the mate asked the question which Wallis himsell had been about to ask.
"Doctor," he said, "how do we know when it is mid-June, or July, or even
Christmas? Have you found a clock somewhere, or maybe a bootleg calendar?"
Radford paused a moment before replying, then said softly, "Something like
that. I'm a doctor, you see, and the girls are my patients -- and there's
no privacy in this place anyway. Let's just say that we have two fairly
reliable biological clocks on board. They are no good on hours or minutes,
but they can be depended upon to record the passage of the months.
"Now I would like to go to sleep while I'm still warm, if you don't mind."
Slightly more than a month passed and in that time Dickson was pronounced
fit to man the generator, the ship began to sink again twice, and a vessel
passed over them so closely that if it had not been a shallow-draft mine
sweeper or an escort, judging by the sound of its engine, it would have
run aground on their navigating bridge. Dickson's spirits improved,
although he had a bad habit of asking the doctor "What time is it?" as
well as "How does your garden grow?" The decrease in buoyancy was dealt
with almost as a matter of course and their near collision gave them a
chance to try out their signaling devices for the few minutes it took
the ship to pass.
Then one day they found themselves drifting onto the flank of a passing
convoy.
They were pretty sure that it was daylight because of the number and
quality of the explosions. The convoy was under heavy air attack -- the
sound of a bomb hitting the deck of a ship having a much softer quality
than the sudden, savage shock of a torpedo hit under water. There seemed
to be a couple of U-boats sniping at the convoy from the wings as well,
and the ocean all around them was filled with the thuds and thumps and
crashes of bombs, depth charges, and torpedoes against a background of
ships' engines which sounded like the rumble of distant trains.
When the rumble began to die away Dickson was taking his turn on the
generator, Jenny Wellman was using a small part of its output for
signaling purposes, the Murray girl was also signaling -- with a hammer
against the inside of the hull -- and the doctor was tending his garden.
Wallis, who had just come off the generator, was with the doctor. They
were all aware that their various ideas for signaling with electrical
discharges were unlikely to be effective without an antenna floating on
the surface, that the sound of any given ship's own engines would almost
certainly drown out the sound of their hammering, and that the ships'
crews were too busily engaged to listen to odd noises from under the
sea. Wallis had told everyone, including himself, that they should not
feel too disappointed if the signals did not attract attention. Wallis
did not know how the others felt, but he was so disappointed that he
wanted to break something.
Suddenly Radford said, "Mr. Dickson and Miss Wellman have been. pestering
me, Commander, singly and in small groups, but it's you they really want
to talk to. You must have seen what is going on, sir. I think your duty
is plain in the matter, sir."
The sounds of the convoy had died away until they were lost in the metallic
echoes of Miss Murray's hammering. Three widely spaced blows, three close
together, then three spaced out again.
SOS
Wallis said, "Eh?"
"Marry them," said the doctor.
Wallis found suddenly that he had completely forgotten the convoy as his
mind grappled with this newer situation, even though it was a matter on
which he had already spent a good deal of time and mental energy. But the
doctor, apparently, had mistaken his silence for sheer astonishment.
"I realize that the Royal Navy doesn't instruct its officers on how to
marry people," the doctor commented, "but I was married and I can remember
the important parts of the service. Besides, it's becoming downright
embarrassing to watch those two mooning at each other. As things are it's
too blasted cold to do anything but hold hands! Supposing that they could
find a private spot, and even if they were married and bundled together
legally, I still think it's too cold for -- "
"I don't," said Wallis sharply. After a pause he retorted, "I had no idea
that you were such a romantic soul, Doctor, or that your feelings would
blind you to the realities of this situation! When two people marry
there are not infrequently a number of by-products. Do you consider
this a proper place. to bring up children? And how about dealing with
a confinement without proper equipment, in this . . . this icebox! And
suppose someone dies. Is there any possible way of disposing of the body?"
He stopped suddenly as a new thought occurred to him, then went on,
"As a doctor you must have considered these problems, and very likely a
lot more besides. I'd have thought that you would have been completely
against any pairing off down here, utterly against it! The fact that
you aren't suggests to me that you have good reason to think that we
will not have enough time left to us for these problems to occur, that
our Romeo and Juliet should have what fun they can while they can. Do
you have reason for thinking like that, Doctor?"
the preparatory work of the crew should be completed and the officers
themselves placed safely in Long Sleep before the chosen females were
warmed -- that way it would be less unsettling all round. So in addition
to Deslann's efforts to make his officers understand the necessity for
leaving behind them a simple yet complete training program for the future
generations of astrogators, engineers, computer and communications
technicians, Hellahar and himself had the future generations of captains
and healers to think about.
Despite this pressure from more immediate problems, Deslann still found
time now and again to worry about those females, even though he no longer
mentioned his concern to Hellahar. Part of the reason for this was because
Hellahar had stopped mentioning the subject to the captain. But it became
very obvious one day that the healer was giving this problem considerable
thought.
Deslann found him in the recreation room studying a tape, the title of which
startled the captain because it was not a work which he had expected to find
in his ship, or to find the healer reading. It was
The Life of Targa Wunt
.
"It's rather boring, really," Hellahar said defensively as he saw Deslann's
expression. "Just a list of names and dates and repetitious incidents --
sheer statistics! But there are passages here and there which could be,
well, helpful."
"I'll borrow it when you're through," said Deslann, and left him to get on
with his studies.
Targa Wunt had been possibly the worst blackguard and undeniably the greatest
lover in all of Unthan history.
IX
Gulf Trader drifted submerged but close to the surface for what seemed
like three or four weeks, and during that time there were many changes
inside the ship. The lighting was the most dramatic and important change,
although the sense of drama was rather spoiled in the early days by
the number of failures. But for a few minutes each day to begin with,
and then as the various snags were eliminated for as long as there was
someone on the pedals, the cold metal walls and littered floors of certain
tanks were, to eyes accustomed so long to darkness, brilliantly lit.
Another change was that the patients had become mobile, although in
Dickson's case it was with the aid of crutches. The altered privacy
requirements together with the fact that they were still down by the
stern, and the air in that section of the ship was beginning to go stale,
made it necessary to shift the living quarters forward to Number Three,
which was partitioned off and insulated with sacking. Everyone said that
it was a warmer, more comfortable place to sleep in, although this may
have been because the two girls were now able to bundle together for
warmth instead of lying on separate litters each "night," and because
Dickson was now adding his body heat to the pool under the men's heap of
sacking. Another reason for the slight increase in warmth was the double
one of the approach of spring and a possible southward drift past the
west coast of Ireland.
They had not heard any ships passing since they had been torpedoed --
the Atlantic being a very large ocean -- but if the drift continued they
would arrive eventually in the busy area of the southwest approaches to
the English Channel. That was why Wallis had them spending so much time
on signaling devices.
When the ship again began to slide dangerously far below the surface
the necessary measures were taken almost as a routine drill. The major
problems were those of drinking water and air supply, and they worried
about those constantly.
And today, thought Wallis irritably,
the subject is going to spoil
our lunch
....
Dickson had just said, "How does your garden grow, Doctor?"
It was a question which Dickson had asked, in exactly the same form,
far too often for it to be funny anymore -- except possibly to Jenny
Wellman, who approved of practically everything Dickson said. Wallis
took a firm grip on his temper and tried hard to make allowances.
They were seated around the workbench, which had been smartened up by
the girls for use as a dining table. A flashlamp hung above it since
there was nobody on the generator, and the faces were in shadow while
the meal was being spotlighted. They were having a cold stew that was
composed of powdered eggs and sea water and that varied, according to
individual taste, from the consistency of a thin paste to that of thick
porridge, with a cup of tomato soup, also chilled, to wash it down. They
had been very lucky in finding the two large crates full of tomato soup
cans, because the doctor had insisted that he needed a lot of pure,
or at least unsalted, water for his beans. Even so, the meal was like
all the other meals, a freezingly cold, unappetizing mess, and having to
eat it must have been much worse for Dickson than for any of the others.
They had had a short spell on the generator to warm themselves up in
preparation for their refrigerated lunch, but Dickson was still not fit
enough to work the pedals and so felt colder and more miserable during
meals than at any other time, which was saying a lot. Definitely, Wallis
thought, allowances should be made, and from the mildness of Radford's
reply it seemed that the doctor agreed with him.
"Not very well, I'm afraid," he said. "All but three of the beans planted
in the first tray have taken, although they don't seem to be exactly
flourishing. I'm not an expert on plant biology. All I know is that bean
plants, when mature, have a large quantity of leaves and these should
be good at absorbing our CO2. . . ."
Radford had not known much about gardening, but he had done everything
possible to make those seeds grow. For days he had carried tied to his
waist next to his skin the bottle of water in which the dried beans were
soaking, and later he had transferred them into tobacco tins packed with
his specially prepared soil and carried them in the same place so that
his body heat would aid the process of germination. But now his precious
beans had been cast out into a cold, cold world.
". . . At the moment they have light for about one third of the 'day,'"
Radford went on, "although it is broken up into hour- or half-hour-long
pieces instead of being continuous. This may have a bad effect on them,
so we must arrange the shifts on the generator to give them constant
light for as long as possible. There is also the low temperature. So far
as I know the plants are not injured by a periodic drop in temperature,
for during spring and autumn it can become very cold at night, but so long
as it remains above the freezing point there is no damage. This constant
low temperature, however, must be having some effect. Then there is
the quality of the lighting -- "
The doctor broke off, looked around the table, and ended on a note
of forced optimism, "I'm hoping that the bad effects Of the cold and
lighting will be negated by the quality of our, uh, fertilizer."
In the dim light around the table it was difficult to read expressions.
There was too much hair on the faces of the men, one-half of the Murray
girl's face was hidden by the bandages she had started wearing again
when the generator began working, and Jenny Wellman was sipping cold
tomato soup. It was she who finally broke the silence.
"If your garden doesn't grow, sir," she said quietly, "how long before
the rest of the air goes stale?"
"It's hard to say," the doctor replied. "You see, the air astern isn't
really foul; to the contrary, it's quite breathable right now, so our
reasons for staying away from it may be purely psychological. Of course,
we have no lighting there as yet, but, too, the old sick bay has
unpleasant associations for most of us while the present quarters are
relatively more comfortable.
"Another point," he continued, "is that when the air finally does become
foul it will be a very gradual process, due to the tremendous volume of
these tanks. The onset of symptoms will also be so gradual that there
will be times when our emotional state will exaggerate them to a dangerous
extent, and we'll have to guard against this. There is also the possibility
that the change will be so gradual our lungs will be able to adapt to it
to a certain extent and so increase slightly the time left us.
"All this makes it difficult to give an accurate answer," Radford concluded,
"but I would say that we have until the middle of June or early July."
"Thank you, sir," said Jenny Wellman.
Something about the girl's tone, and the expression on the visible half
of the other girl's face made Wallis add quickly, "Of course, this
presupposes that the garden is a total failure. Even if it were only
partly successful in renewing our oxygen, that time could be extended,
perhaps even doubled."
"Oh, certainly," said the doctor, catching the ball neatly. "Mid-June
is the most pessimistic estimate."
Shortly after that they went to bed, it now being the accepted thing to
retire after the main meal, when the psychological reassurance of a full
stomach, the calorie content of the food, and the recent exercise on the
generator all conspired to increase their physical comfort. It was while
the doctor, Dickson, and himself were burrowing into their sacking that
the mate asked the question which Wallis himsell had been about to ask.
"Doctor," he said, "how do we know when it is mid-June, or July, or even
Christmas? Have you found a clock somewhere, or maybe a bootleg calendar?"
Radford paused a moment before replying, then said softly, "Something like
that. I'm a doctor, you see, and the girls are my patients -- and there's
no privacy in this place anyway. Let's just say that we have two fairly
reliable biological clocks on board. They are no good on hours or minutes,
but they can be depended upon to record the passage of the months.
"Now I would like to go to sleep while I'm still warm, if you don't mind."
Slightly more than a month passed and in that time Dickson was pronounced
fit to man the generator, the ship began to sink again twice, and a vessel
passed over them so closely that if it had not been a shallow-draft mine
sweeper or an escort, judging by the sound of its engine, it would have
run aground on their navigating bridge. Dickson's spirits improved,
although he had a bad habit of asking the doctor "What time is it?" as
well as "How does your garden grow?" The decrease in buoyancy was dealt
with almost as a matter of course and their near collision gave them a
chance to try out their signaling devices for the few minutes it took
the ship to pass.
Then one day they found themselves drifting onto the flank of a passing
convoy.
They were pretty sure that it was daylight because of the number and
quality of the explosions. The convoy was under heavy air attack -- the
sound of a bomb hitting the deck of a ship having a much softer quality
than the sudden, savage shock of a torpedo hit under water. There seemed
to be a couple of U-boats sniping at the convoy from the wings as well,
and the ocean all around them was filled with the thuds and thumps and
crashes of bombs, depth charges, and torpedoes against a background of
ships' engines which sounded like the rumble of distant trains.
When the rumble began to die away Dickson was taking his turn on the
generator, Jenny Wellman was using a small part of its output for
signaling purposes, the Murray girl was also signaling -- with a hammer
against the inside of the hull -- and the doctor was tending his garden.
Wallis, who had just come off the generator, was with the doctor. They
were all aware that their various ideas for signaling with electrical
discharges were unlikely to be effective without an antenna floating on
the surface, that the sound of any given ship's own engines would almost
certainly drown out the sound of their hammering, and that the ships'
crews were too busily engaged to listen to odd noises from under the
sea. Wallis had told everyone, including himself, that they should not
feel too disappointed if the signals did not attract attention. Wallis
did not know how the others felt, but he was so disappointed that he
wanted to break something.
Suddenly Radford said, "Mr. Dickson and Miss Wellman have been. pestering
me, Commander, singly and in small groups, but it's you they really want
to talk to. You must have seen what is going on, sir. I think your duty
is plain in the matter, sir."
The sounds of the convoy had died away until they were lost in the metallic
echoes of Miss Murray's hammering. Three widely spaced blows, three close
together, then three spaced out again.
SOS
Wallis said, "Eh?"
"Marry them," said the doctor.
Wallis found suddenly that he had completely forgotten the convoy as his
mind grappled with this newer situation, even though it was a matter on
which he had already spent a good deal of time and mental energy. But the
doctor, apparently, had mistaken his silence for sheer astonishment.
"I realize that the Royal Navy doesn't instruct its officers on how to
marry people," the doctor commented, "but I was married and I can remember
the important parts of the service. Besides, it's becoming downright
embarrassing to watch those two mooning at each other. As things are it's
too blasted cold to do anything but hold hands! Supposing that they could
find a private spot, and even if they were married and bundled together
legally, I still think it's too cold for -- "
"I don't," said Wallis sharply. After a pause he retorted, "I had no idea
that you were such a romantic soul, Doctor, or that your feelings would
blind you to the realities of this situation! When two people marry
there are not infrequently a number of by-products. Do you consider
this a proper place. to bring up children? And how about dealing with
a confinement without proper equipment, in this . . . this icebox! And
suppose someone dies. Is there any possible way of disposing of the body?"
He stopped suddenly as a new thought occurred to him, then went on,
"As a doctor you must have considered these problems, and very likely a
lot more besides. I'd have thought that you would have been completely
against any pairing off down here, utterly against it! The fact that
you aren't suggests to me that you have good reason to think that we
will not have enough time left to us for these problems to occur, that
our Romeo and Juliet should have what fun they can while they can. Do
you have reason for thinking like that, Doctor?"
Other books
Grief Encounters by Stuart Pawson
Precipice by J. Robert Kinney
Sight Unseen by Robert Goddard
Starlight Christmas by Bonnie Bryant
Elemental Omen (Paranormal Public Book 10) by Maddy Edwards
Biting the Christmas Biscuit by Dawn Kimberly Johnson
Lord Portman's Troublesome Wife by Mary Nichols
Four Past Midnight by Stephen King
The Knight by Monica McCarty
The Widow's Friend by Dave Stone, Callii Wilson