The Watch Below

by James White

  Somewhere in the depths of Deslann's mind an idea stirred, stretched, then went back to sleep again. Perhaps the idea would be a useless one, but the captain thought that he should drag it out into the light and look at it just to make sure. Meanwhile the conversation was rolling on, drifting inexorably away from the subject which had almost given him an idea. He had to get them back onto the subject, but he didn't know which subject it was.

  "Let's go back a little, Gerrol," Deslann said quickly. "You said that everyone would be needed to land the ship and guide in the fleet. But that is not strictly true. You could do without one of the captains."

  Abruptly, he stopped. The answer was staring him in the face.

  And from the other side of the control room Hellahar said softly, "You could do without the healer, too, Gerrol. The captain might need a little help."

  Deslann knew then that Hellahar had seen the answer also, that the exchange between Gerrol and the engineer had given him the same idea and started his mind on the same train of thought as that followed by the captain. They stared intently at each other while Gerrol registered disapproval at his mentioning the other captain, and the rest of the crew talked and pretended the lapse had never occurred. Deslann had often felt impatience with the weird ideas and activities of the Board of Psychology, but one of their members would have been very useful to him just now.

  And in the years to come.

  When he had dismissed the crew with the exception of Hellahar, Deslann decided to test the healer's thinking. The truth was that his pride was a little hurt because Hellahar had found the answer as quickly as he himself had seen it, and while he realized this was sheer pettiness he couldn't help himself. And besides, the test might show that the healer had arrived at an entirely different, and perhaps easier, solution to their problem.

  Deslann said, "Since this is the flagship, the crew is the best available. Veritable geniuses of astrogators, engineers, computers, and communicators. Not to mention healers and captains, of course. But they, and we, are going to have to organize this highly specialized knowledge and break it down into easily digestible pieces. It will be a long time before we are able to cool them."

  "That aspect does not worry me," Hellahar replied. "They will realize the importance of what they have to do. The thing which concerns me is what we will do after they have been finally cooled. Do we pick for physical fitness, or heredity, or a combination of the two?"

  As he talked on there could be no doubt in Deslann's mind that Hellahar had arrived independently at the same answer. Briefly, it called for the existing crew with the exception of Hellahar and himself taking the Long Sleep once only, which would mean that the mental effects would be negligible, and being warmed shortly before the target system was reached. Before the cooling, however, they would have to prepare a written and taped record of their training, duties, and knowledge, this data to be broken down and simplified so that the basics would be within the mental grasp of a child.

  The children and the children's children, who in the generations to come would stand watch in the flagship and keep the great fleet together and on course, would be the responsibility of Hellahar, the captain, and two unfortunate females whose identities were as yet unknown.

  Even though the identities of the two were not known, Hellahar was already outlining their personalities by the simple process of eliminating traits which in his opinion were dangerous or otherwise undesirable. Not only had Hellahar got the idea, he was -- perhaps because of his specialty -- way ahead of the captain in some respects.

  Simply picking them at random was out for several reasons, Hellahar said. The choice might be physically or mentally unsuitable. Or if capable of withstanding the considerable shock of being told of the situation and her position in it, the female in question might already be mated and emotionally tied to another Long Sleeper and this would be a psychological barrier too difficult to overcome. Even as it was, warming two females and requesting that they mate with them because the safety of the fleet and the continuance of the race demanded it was not going to be easy. It was very rare to find a female whose thought processes were not colored and to some extent guided by emotional considerations, and they would be unlikely to find two of them who would be willing to accept logical argument as a form of courtship. . . .

  ". . . Fortunately for us," the healer went on, "there is a medical profile of each Long Sleeper attached to their tanks, and a great deal of psychological data can be gathered from a purely medical case history -- especially when the history gives endocrinological details and an outline of heredity factors. These data give, however, only a general idea of the personalities concerned, which is going to make our final choice a very uncertain business."

  As he had been speaking Hellahar's initial excitement had dwindled until now he sounded deadly serious, even afraid.

  "First," he continued grimly, "they will have to be in good physical condition. There must be no history of hereditary diseases. They must be psychologically stable, intelligent, and adaptable. At the same time there must be the widest possible difference in their generic background, because from the third generation on there will be the problem of inbreeding to consider -- "

  "Where," Deslann broke in quietly, "does er, uh, beauty place on this list of yours, Healer?"

  Hellahar stammered, fell silent, and gave the captain a long, searching look. Then he said, "With intelligence and stability and good health on the list, the other goes without saying. A physically efficient person is normally, uh, well-constructed -- it's a simple matter of good design. And it could be argued that a beautiful female is much more likely to be psychologically stable than an ugly one, so that we are forced to choose the former type.

  "Also," he went on, "since females are more susceptible to emotional rather than logical arguments, and since for the best results the emotion in question must be a two-way affair, in my opinion it is vital that we choose the sort of person we can feel emotional about.

  "There are many reasons," Hellahar concluded seriously, "why we should pick the best-looking ones."

  "I'm glad," said Deslann, just as seriously.

  They both laughed then, loudly and long and at the same time a little self-consciously because they both knew there was nothing at all to laugh at in the situation. They were two children laughing in the dark to show they weren't afraid of the Big Black Gobbler. It was a most uncomfortable, unsatisfying laugh, and it was the last they were going to have for a very long time.

  For there was nothing in the least amusing about Deslann's explanation of his idea to the rest of the crew, or the more detailed planning and subsequent orders which followed it. There was nothing funny about the responsibility he bore -- a little matter of the continued survival or the extinction of his whole race -- or about the many second thoughts he had.

  "Why can't we simply warm two couples?" he said to Hellahar some weeks later during one of his periods of self-doubt. "That would relieve us of the initial problem with the females."

  "Wouldn't work," replied the healer, respectfully but definitely. "We must teach the children, subject them to training and disciplines which will be harsh at times. We could not do that without interference if the children were not our own. Besides, there is still a lot to do before the problem of how best to woo our future mates comes up. . . ."

  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 abo
ut 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.