CV

18

Captain Hartman came down to breakfast as usual on Friday morning, and found himself alone in the sea of tablecloths except for a large young man seated two tables away. Presently a waiter came.

“Not much of a crowd today, is there?” Hartman said pleasantly.

“No, sir.” The waiter, an Indian, did not smile.

“Orange juice, poached eggs, toast—cool the toast before you bring it, please.” Hartman closed the menu. “Look, will you ask that young man if he’d mind my joining him? Not much sense in both of us eating alone.”

“Yes, sir.” The waiter bent over the young man’s table. He looked up, smiled faintly and gestured.

Hartman walked over. “Sorry if this is an intrusion. Hartman is my name.”

“Hal Winter.” They shook hands. “Please sit down.”

“I rather expected to be the only one here this morning,” Hartman said, unfolding his napkin.

“Yes. Most people are hiding in their rooms.”

“Mind my asking why you’re not one of them, Mr. Winter?”

“There doesn’t seem to be much point in it. My friend collapsed when we were in our room—first a steward, and then him. How about you?”

“Oh, just bloody-mindedness, I expect. I’m a seafaring man, retired now, but I’ve never thought much of hiding in one’s room.”

The waiter brought their orders. Hartman’s toast was warm. Winter, he was interested to note, had a strip steak and a salad. Over breakfast Hartman chatted easily about his experiences on the Queen; Winter seemed entertained, and even smiled once or twice.

“Any news about your friend?” Hartman asked.

“No, he’s the same. I’m doing volunteer work on the night shift—they won’t let me nurse him, of course, but I can sneak in every once in a while. He doesn’t recognize me.”

“You’re a nurse, then, Mr. Winter?”

“Practical nurse, and I’m trained in physical therapy.” After a moment he added, “This is a rotten thing to happen. He was in a wheelchair to begin with. He never complained.”

“It must be very hard for you.”

“Yes. He’s a great man. Paul Newland.”

“Oh, yes, I read he was aboard. There’s some controversy about it, I believe.”

“There were people who didn’t want him to come.”

Hartman thought a moment. “Mr. Winter, as a professional man, what’s your opinion of this disease?”

“I’m not a doctor.” Winter tore a roll apart, his eyes unfocused. “There doesn’t seem to be anything like it in the literature. Dr. McNulty is a G.P., but he’s consulted with a lot of specialists, and they don’t recognize it either.”

“Not a mutation of some virus, like the Asian flu?”

“It doesn’t act like any known disease.”

Hartman chewed reflectively. “New things do seem to turn up. You remember Legionnaire’s Disease, and AIDS, fifteen or twenty years ago?”

“And herpes. But this is different.”

“Yes, I think it is. Mr. Winter, I remember reading once that some physicians can actually identify an illness by sriiell. Have you ever had that experience?”

Winter thought about it. “No.”

“Please don’t laugh. This isn’t quite the same thing, but I have the strongest conviction that I can smell something in Sea Venture—not the individual patients, but the whole vessel. A scent of illness, perhaps.”

“Or evil?”

Hartman put down his fork. “Have you felt it too?” “Yes,” Winter said.

“I don’t suppose,” Hartman said delicately, “you’ve had nightmares?”

“Yes.”

Hartman said good-bye, left the restaurant and strolled down the corridors. The only people he met were stewards with carts; they all looked grim. The shopping mall was deserted; only the pharmacy was open. There was an eerie silence and a sort of darkness in Sea Venture now, as if the lights had gone dim, although when one looked at them, they seemed as bright as ever.

He was thinking about the first ships that carried the plague to Europe in the fourteenth century. What must it have been like to be the master of one of those ships, watching the people around him fall one by one?

New things did tum up. This might very well be something like the Black Death. Perhaps, he thought, it was something worse.

That night he dreamed that he was in a dark corridor of Sea Venture; all the lights were out, and in the yellowish no-light he saw that the corridor was occupied by a monstrous squid, with garage-long tentacles that writhed toward him like sucker-disked serpents; and he felt utmost despair, because he knew the monster was an evil that could not be killed. He woke with the smell of rotting seaweed in his nostrils.

Monday morning, while they were having breakfast, Jim’s phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and said, “Yeah?”

“Mr. Woodruff, we have a collect call for you from Mrs. Morrison, will you accept?”

“Yeah, put her on.” He covered the phone with his hand. “It’s Debbie.”

“Dad?” said the voice in his ear.

“Hello, sweetie.”

“Are you all right? We’ve been so worried.”

“Yeah, we’re okay. How are the kids, how’s Ted?”

“We’re all fine, but what about you? We heard there was this terrible epidemic, and we’ve been trying to call you for days.”

“Yeah, well, we tried to call you too, Sunday, but the lines were all jammed.” Emily was gesturing at him. “Your mother wants to talk to you. ”

Emily took the phone gingerly and held it half an inch from her ear. “Hello, Debbie?”

“Yes, Mom. I was just telling Dad, we’ve been so worried.” Debbie was their younger daughter; she was thirty-five, married to a systems analyst in Boston. “Where are you, in your room now?”

“No, we’re in a restaurant, having breakfast, dear. How are Robbie and Michael?”

“They’re fine. Michael had the New Flu, he was out of school for two weeks, but he’s okay now. Mom, don’t you think you should eat in your room?”

“It’s so small,” Emily said.

“What?”

“The room is so small.” She couldn’t bear it for more than an hour or two at a time, except at night when she was asleep, because it seemed to get even smaller, as if the walls were thickening and growing inward, as thick as mossy stone, and the doors growing into the walls. “Is Michael all right now? Why didn’t you tell us he was sick?”

“Well, we didn’t want to worry you and spoil your vacation. When do they think they’ll cure the epidemic?”

“I don’t know, dear. Is Ted all right?” Ted Morrison was a pale, silent man who could not seem to stand Emily’s company; on the few occasions when they had met, he had hardly said a word.

“Yes, he’s fine. He’s thinking of starting his own company.”

“Isn’t that nice!”

“Yes, and if you and Dad wanted to buy some shares, it would really be a great investment. He’s going to send you a fax about it.”

“That’s nice, dear.”

“Well, I really wish you’d stay in your room more.”

“It’s so small,” Emily said.

“I’m glad you’re okay, anyway. Let me say good-bye to Dad. You be careful, Mom.”

“Yes, I will. You too.” She handed the phone to Jim. He listened, spoke a few words, and put the phone away.

“Some cockamamie scheme,” he said. “Every time they call up, it’s money. Eat your eggs, Em, they’re getting cold.”