CV

33

In the name of the emergency, and with a sense of profound relief, Bliss had canceled all his formal entertainments, but the curious result was that time hung heavy on his hands in the evenings. In the ample space of his living room, intended for jolly cocktail parties of thirty or more, he felt himself isolated, almost imprisoned. He could not invite any of the VIP passengers without having to listen to their complaints all over again, and as for the staff, he saw all he wanted of them during the day. The only ones he could talk to were Dr. McNulty, who as a professional man did not exactly come under the heading of staff, and Captain Hartman, who was neither staff nor passenger.

After dinner that night in Bliss’s suite, McNulty told them about his interviews with the recovered patients, particularly Geller and Barlow. “As far as I can make out,” he said, “the only principle they recognize is what you might call more or less enlightened self-interest. They’re intelligent young people, and they’re not exactly antisocial, but they just don’t see the point of supporting a system they think is cockeyed.”

“And that makes you uneasy?”

“Yes, it does. Maybe the system is cockeyed, but it seems to work. I’ve been thinking about that lately. Lots of the things we do aren’t rational. Love isn’t. Having babies isn't. ‘Irrational’ is a dirty word, but maybe it shouldn’t be. This thing, this parasite, maybe it’s a completely rational being, and it just doesn’t understand that human beings don’t work that way. You know what they say about the road to hell?”

“No, what do they say?”

“It’s paved with good intentions.”

After McNulty went home, Bliss brought out the chessboard. It was his turn to play white; he used a conventional Ruy Lopez opening. Hartman played for position, as usual, but Bliss developed an unorthodox queen’s-side position which turned into an ingenious combination twenty moves later. Hartman smiled when he saw it. “Well done,” he said, and tipped over his king.

Afterward he accepted a whisky and said, “You know, I think the doctor is right to be worried. The other day I had a talk in a bar with two gentlemen, both recovered patients and both veterans of the Nicaraguan War. They both say quite emphatically they wouldn’t do it again.”

“Did you ask them,” said Bliss, “what if the U.S. were invaded?”

“I did, and they said they’d fight then if they had to, because they could see some point in it. By the way, I also talked to a recovered patient who’d spent twenty years in some giant corporation or other. He said if he had it to do over, he wouldn’t do that again. After he retired, he took up making stained glass, and now he says he’s happy for the first time in his life."

"That’s worrisome," Bliss said after a moment. “There are a good many things in life one doesn’t particularly like to do; still, they've got to be done. Where would we be if everyone did just what they liked?"

"Wouldn’t be any war, perhaps.” Hartman said. “Nobody would go and fight for democracy, or Bolshevism, or the Holy Roman Empire."

"You have to fight sometimes.”

“Quite right, to defend home and family, but that’s where your enlightened self-interest comes in. As far as I can make out, these people would fight if they were attacked, but they wouldn’t attack anybody else; they would see that as a foolish risk of their own necks. I don’t suppose you’ve read Tuchman on the Hundred Years’ War?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Well, read it sometime. You know, there was no earthly reason for that war unless you count things like wounded pride and stupidity. The French especially. They wouldn’t even use archers, thought it was beneath them, and we slaughtered them at Crecy.”

“Oh. well, the French,” said Bliss.

“We were no better, or not much. Think of the Wars of the Roses, or the Crusades.”

“Well, it’s not my line, but I suppose there must have been some wars that made sense—economic sense, anyhow. Expanding markets, and so on.”

“Yes. certainly, but here you come back to the doctor's enlightened self-interest again. It was in the economic interest of some people in Germany to overrun Europe twice this century, but what about the poor sods who were in the trenches getting shot? Why did they do it? Weren’t they pumped up with loyalty to the Fatherland?”

“I expect so. Afraid of their sergeants, more likely.”

“All right, but how many sergeants would it take to stop a platoon if they decided to go home? That’s my point, you see. If it wasn’t for loyalty, and these grand abstractions, you couldn’t get people to fight in an ordinary war. They wouldn’t let themselves be conscripted, in the first place, and if they did, you couldn’t keep them from deserting.”

“It goes beyond war, though, doesn’t it? We all have something to be loyal to, even if it’s a shipping company.”

Hartman sucked on his pipe meditatively. “I worked my way up in Cunard, same as you did. Thin times we had at first. I’m thinking of a steward I knew on the old Queen. They demoted him to staff service for some minor offense, and he was completely devastated. It wasn't just the job to him, it was his life. There’s that, and then there’s getting so accustomed to a thing that you can’t imagine anything else. To me the interesting question is, would there have been any shipping companies as we’ve known them, or any navies, if the ordinary seamen had been infected by this microbe or whatever it is? You know what Nelson said about them, that they were used up at thirty-five, half dead with scurvy, couldn’t eat their rations without agonizing pain. I can’t help thinking that if we’d had seamen who consulted their own interests, the whole thing would have had to be organized in quite a different way.”

“All right, but are you saying that things would be better if we didn’t have any nations? Or religions, or anything?”

“I’m damned if I know.”

That night, as he drifted off to sleep, McNulty had a fantastic vision. It was true, he realized, that they could communicate with the parasite. All they had to do was line up some prospective victims—gagged and bound, probably— and ask the parasite yes-no questions. Take Victim Number One if it’s yes. Victim Number Two if it’s no. Or they could even set up an alphabet, with lettered cards on the victims’ chests, like a human ouija board. After all, it would be in the interest of research.

Toward morning he dreamed that he was on his way across the lobby to his office, and the lobby was full of children. They were sitting in rings in a conversation pit, playing some incomprehensible game; he could see their bright eyes and moving lips, although he couldn’t hear a sound. They were beautiful children, every one, but when he got nearer he could see that their faces were not human, and he woke up feeling as if he had been drenched in ice water. It was only a little after six, but he got up and dressed and went out into the lobby, just to make sure they were not there.