CV

37

When Norman Yeager got up the next afternoon, he found a flimsy in his tray about a new lifeboat assignment. He knew from the number that it was a passenger lifeboat; now why was that?

He sat down at his terminal, accessed the main computer, and looked over the lifeboat lists; then he called Bliss’s secretary.

“Bunny, it’s Norm Yeager. Why are you fooling around with the lifeboat assignments all of a sudden, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“There’s going to be a special drill,” said Bunny. “Something to do with the parasite. Keep it under your hat.”

“Oh. All right.” Idly he called up the lifeboat lists again and looked at the people he was going to be with: nobody special, and nobody he knew. Next he searched for Claiborne, Mr. and Mrs. Malcolm. They were in Lifeboat Thirty-one.

Back to the lists, and he plucked out a name at random, M. Shanigar, and substituted his own. Then, to tidy up, he put M. Shanigar in the other lifeboat, the one where he was supposed to be. It would make a little confusion when Mr. S. got to Lifeboat Thirty-one, but never mind. At least he would get to see Mrs. Claiborne again, perhaps even to say a few words.

He really wanted no more than that, just the chance to sit down and have a talk with her, the good talk they had missed having in his room because she was so tired. He couldn’t even claim that he knew her, and yet he felt that he really did: he knew the sweetness and gentleness in her, the deep enduring qualities her husband had never seen. He had watched the two of them together, after she got out of the hospital. Her husband was a gross physical presence, heavy and thick and stinking of tobacco: how could she stay with him? Sometimes he imagined her saying, “Only you can save me.” And he knew that he would; he would carry her off to a mountaintop and they would live there highly and nobly, with his sword between them when they lay down at night.

And he knew at the same time that these were only imaginings, that she was a married woman with responsibilities somewhere, maybe even children; a house, friends he had never met, an occupation, the thousand details of a life. And even knowing all this, he longed for just the chance to speak to her, to hear her say, “You can help me.” Because it was possible that she really wanted to get away from that man—how could she not?—and even if she only said, “Hide me,” or “Please lend me some money,” or anything, it would be a joy to him, yes, even if he knew he would never see her again.

The boat drill took place at three-thirty. A few people were drunk in their staterooms, or elsewhere, and did not attend. There were other problems, too: the manager of the Promenade Theater had not received word, or had forgotten, and had failed to turn off his screen. Thirty people had to be rounded up from the theater, but by that time it didn’t matter: the parasite had been found.

From his seat in the middle of Lifeboat Thirty-one, the fat man watched with interest as the steward called the roll. He remembered being in a lifeboat before, but he had not been paying much attention then. The lifeboat, evidently, was a small vessel which could be released from the bigger one in an emergency. Was there any possibility that an emergency would occur while he was aboard it?

“Mt. Eller?”

“Here,” he answered.

The passengers opposite him were mostly prosperous-looking middle-aged Americans. There was one younger couple, holding hands, and farther down in the row there was a still younger man, unusually dressed.

The steward was explaining the features of the lifeboat and what would happen in the event of an emergency. The fat man was not looking in that direction, and could not see the control panel; hoping for a better view, he slipped out, across the fuzzy space, and in again so deftly now that she felt almost no disorientation as the fat man’s weight slumped against her and then rolled to the floor.

People were standing up to look. The steward, aided by a man with a white armband, rolled the fat man over and loosened his collar. Then the steward returned to the front of the boat. “Please take your seats, ladies and gentlemen!” he called.

The lifeboat door opened and a rope flew through the opening. The steward picked it up, pulled on it; a bed on wheels came rolling in. “May I have some assistance?” he asked. Two men came forward; with the steward and the security guard, they lifted the man’s body and got it onto the bed. They wheeled the bed up to the front. The steward spoke on the phone again; the door opened, the steward threw out the rope. Presently the wheeled bed, with the fat man on it, rolled through the doorway and disappeared.

The steward turned. “Ladies and gentlemen, I can now inform you that this boat drill has been held for a special purpose. The purpose is to isolate the carrier of the epidemic, in order to allow the other passengers to resume their normal activities. As you know, the disease is quite harmless—”

“Wait a minute,” called a white-haired woman. “Are you saying that we’re all quarantined on this boat?”

“That is unfortunately the case. However, this merely means that each of us, including myself, will be here until they become ill, and then we will spend ten days in the hospital receiving the best of care.”

There were other voices, but she hardly heard them. It was clear now that she had made an unforgivable mistake: she had underestimated her opponents.

Was it possible that they were now prepared to let one of their number die in order to be rid of her? If so, her destiny had turned, all in that single unsuspecting moment when she had walked into the lifeboat; the game was lost, her death certain, her children unborn.