Ship of the Damned

by James F. David

  Dr. Kellum came around the table, looking first at Ralph’s hip unit, and then at Jett’s.

  “How is it supposed to work?” he asked.

  Jett hesitated, and was prodded with a spear. His underresponsive nervous system registered no pain. He felt no fear, just the the tension of readiness. He knew he could kill the man behind him, and three or four others before they got him. It wasn’t the time, though.

  “It generates a magnetic field that allows us to get back out,” Jett said.

  “It’s too small,” Dr. Kellum said. “It won’t work.”

  “Miniaturization has paralleled every technological advance since you’ve been in here,” Jett said.

  “You can’t miniaturize the laws of physics,” Dr. Kellum said.

  Dr. Kellum removed his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief from his pocket, then he put them on and said, “Let’s go find out. We’ll go to the barrier and you can test it.”

  Jett realized that if they took him to the field surrounding Pot of Gold, he could escape and notify Woolman about the Nimitz—still, he hadn’t seen the Nimitz with his own eyes yet, and he couldn’t trust Dr. Kellum’s word. The Professor was saner than the men and women surrounding him, but Jett was sure he was holding something back.

  “I don’t need to try it,” Jett said. “I know it works.”

  “You mean you won’t try it until your business here is finished. Until we’re all dead?”

  Jett didn’t protest. Dr. Kellum couldn’t be reasoned with, and his followers were as fanatic as the Crazies.

  “I want you to turn on your little device and put your hand into the barrier. You have to know they sent you in here with no way out.”

  Jett saw no point in arguing. They had his gun, and the rest of his team was surrounded. He would go with Dr. Kellum and watch for his opportunity. The Norfolk’s crew had little of their military training left, and somewhere, sometime, they would get careless.

  “I came down here with my hands up as a sign of good faith,” Jett said. “I gave up my gun to show you could trust me. Now show me that I can trust you. Give me my gun back.”

  “If I did, I would be dead in the next instant,” Dr. Kellum said.

  “I don’t need a gun to kill,” Jett said.

  Dr. Kellum’s eyebrows rose in alarm, and the guards with machetes stepped closer. If Jett had trained them, they would have taken those positions when Dr. Kellum had first come around the table.

  “I’ll make this deal with you, Mr. Jett. Come with me to the barrier, and if your device works, I will give you your gun and you and your friends are free to go.”

  “And if it doesn’t work?”

  “Then I’ll give you your gun and you and your friends are in the same boat we are—no pun intended,” Dr. Kellum said, smiling at his own joke.

  Jett nodded agreement, and Dr. Kellum shouted orders, sending a small party of armed men on ahead. He led Jett to the door. Jett paused when Ralph didn’t follow. Ralph was again mesmerized by the model.

  “I could fix their toy ship, Nate. Really I could.”

  Jett handed him another pack of gum to shut him up, then pulled him away from the miniature ship. A small group of guards fell in behind. Two of these men had their heads shaved and their scalps tattooed—one with an American flag and the other with a battleship. They both carried spears, and Jett felt as if he was on safari, being accompanied into hostile territory by friendly natives. Except he wasn’t sure these natives were sane.

  INTEGRATION

  The dreamers returned to the lab at ten P.M. While Wes could simulate sleep by reducing cerebral activity, he thought that natural dreaming would maximize dream sharing, and without Margi they needed the extra sensitivity. Elizabeth and Anita arrived first, both so sleepy that they could hardly keep their eyes open. Sadly, even when they were allowed to sleep, the ship dream would deny them rest. They would wake tomorrow a little worse off than today.

  Wanda came last, a cigarette in her mouth. Familiar with the routine, Wanda walked straight to her cot, sat on the side and waited for her helmet. When she sat, Len left the lab. Wanda waited on her cot for Len. When he didn’t return immediately, Monica took his place, fitting her with her helmet. Then Len was back, a string of garlic around his neck, another in his hand. As he entered he took a bite, chewing noisily.

  Len walked directly to where Monica was working with Wanda. A Lucky Strike hung from Wanda’s lips, the smoke curling around her head pushed into swirls by the air-conditioning currents. Stopping face to face, Len leaned forward, and with a lot of breath, said, “How are you today, Wanda?”

  “Is that garlic?” Monica asked.

  “Yes it is,” Len said with more breath than necessary, his face still inches from Wanda’s.

  “Expecting vampires?” Shamita said from her console.

  “I’m teaching Wanda a lesson,” Len said, again breathing into Wanda’s face. He took another bite of garlic. Wanda remained impassive, a bit of ash falling from the end of her cigarette.

  “Len, it stinks,” Monica said. “Take that putrid necklace off and stop chewing that stuff.”

  Len ignored Monica and leaned even closer to Wanda’s face, until their noses almost touched.

  “I’ll make a deal, Wanda. If you stop smoking in here, I’ll get rid of the garlic.”

  Now Wanda sucked in a lung full of smoke and blew it into Len’s face.

  “Ha!” Wanda said. “My mother’s maiden name was Petrocelli. I was weaned on garlic.”

  Then she took the clove from his hand and took a bite, chewing it.

  “You think cigarettes smell bad—just wait till you smell it mixed with garlic. Ha!”

  Len’s face fell and he looked ill. Without a word he turned and stomped from the room, returning a minute later without his garlic. Glum, he sat at his console, checking to see that all the leads to the dreamers were functional.

  “You won the battle, Wanda, but the war isn’t over,” Len said as he worked.

  “Do your worst, Lenny,” Wanda said. “There ain’t nothing you can do to make me stop.”

  “I love a challenge,” Len said.

  “Everything’s a challenge to you,” Wanda said, blowing smoke out through her nose.

  Monica waved her hand through the smoke, then went to stand at Wes’s console, waiting for the integration.

  Wes held Elizabeth’s hand as she settled down on the cot, and pulled a sheet over her. There were bags under her eyes and wrinkles he’d never noticed around her mouth. Something had happened to her at the end of the first integration—something physical and not at all dreamlike. She was a receiver now, and it had cost her dearly.

  “You’ll have to let go of my hand if you want me to go to sleep,” Elizabeth said. “I’m not used to having someone hold me at night.”

  “I’d like to change that,” Wes said.

  She smiled, then closed her eyes, nestling her head into the pillow. They turned down the lights and waited. Wanda went under first, making snorting noises and jerking as she fell asleep. The snorting and myoclonia were both normal for her sleep routine. A few minutes later Len whispered that Anita was showing sleep spindles and was well on her way to dreamland.

  “They’re all asleep,” Len said finally, “but they’re at three different stages. Wanda will get to the dream first.”

  “Let Anita set the pattern; she dominates anyway,” Wes said. “Set the parameters for Elizabeth like Margi’s—that should approximate the quality of reception we had before.”

  “How conscious do you want Elizabeth?” Shamita asked.

  “Just supraliminal. The more dreamlike, the less it will drain her.”

  Minutes passed as the brain wave patterns of the dreamers were coordinated and then slowly synchronized, Anita’s brain setting the master pattern. Then, with a microimpulse here and a blocking impulse there, the electrical activities of the other brains were coordinated into synchronous patterns.

  “We’re almos
t there,” Shamita said.

  Wes watched the perfectly synchronized brain waves on his screen and knew that in a few seconds Elizabeth and Anita would once again find themselves on the ship.

  SOURCE

  Elizabeth found herself sitting with her back to a bulkhead on the dream ship. The detail was rich and clear again. There were people wearing silver suits like the one Ralph had worn, but no Ralph. One was a woman who leaned against another bulkhead. She had short brown hair and her face was hard, determined. With a start, Elizabeth recognized her from Dr. Birnbaum’s sketch—the woman who had helped kidnap Ralph. Another man squatted a short distance down a corridor. He was tall and thin, with nearly white-blond hair. She looked the other way and saw the scarred man squatting near the top of a steep staircase. They were at a corridor junction, with stairs leading to the decks above and below. Everything around them was steel, painted navy gray. Then she remembered Anita. The little girl was next to her, holding her knees to her chest. She was staring at the scarred man, terrified.

  “Don’t be afraid, Anita,” Elizabeth said.

  “I can’t help it. He’s a monster.”

  “What did you say, Dawson?” the woman asked.

  Elizabeth realized that the people in silver suits could hear her, but not Anita.

  “Where’s Ralph?” Elizabeth said.

  The woman stared at her, puzzled.

  “You know where he is, Dawson.”

  The blond man and the scarred man turned to listen. The woman had called her “Dawson.” Elizabeth held out her arms and looked at them. She was wearing the blue shirt with the cut-off sleeves. Her arms were the muscular ones of the man she had seen in the mirror. He was channeling her, letting her see through his eyes.

  “Why are they calling you Dawson?” Anita asked.

  “They don’t see me the way you do,” Elizabeth replied.

  The people in silver suits stared as she appeared to talk to herself.

  “I’m not who you think I am,” Elizabeth said.

  The others exchanged looks, the woman stepping closer, pointing one of their strange pistols.

  “What’s the game, Dawson?”

  “It’s not a game. My name is Elizabeth Foxworth and I’m a social worker. Right now I’m lying on a cot at the University of Oregon.”

  “Elizabeth, this is Wes,” a voice broke in. “Your vitals are elevating—Anita’s too.”

  “Don’t pull me out, Wes. Give me some time.”

  The woman aimed the gun between Dawson’s eyes.

  “Who are you talking to now? Who’s Wes?”

  “He’s schizophrenic,” the scarred man said.

  Elizabeth spoke quickly. “Dr. Wes Martin is here with me in the laboratory. He’s the one that created the machine that allows us to link minds together. We found people who have been dreaming of this ship and we think someone on the ship is telepathically transmitting from here. Probably this man,” Elizabeth said, pointing at herself “Using Doctor Martin’s equipment, we linked the minds of people dreaming of this ship in order to make them a better receiver. When we did, we linked with this man’s body, and now I’m seeing through his eyes.”

  “He’s talking nonsense,” the scarred man said.

  The blond man watched the exchange from his position, but his only contribution was a wink whenever Elizabeth caught his eye. The woman stared, her jaw set, her finger tensed on the trigger.

  “I say we kill him and break out of here,” the scarred man said. “We don’t need him to get the job done.”

  “We wait for Jett,” the woman said.

  “Jett’s lost his nerve,” the scarred man said. “Look at the way he protects that moron.”

  “Is she going to shoot you, Elizabeth?” Anita said.

  “No. It’s only a dream, Anita.”

  “Who’s Anita?” the woman asked.

  Elizabeth started to explain, but was cut off.

  “Just shut up and sit there, Dawson, or Elizabeth, or whoever you want to be.”

  Then the woman in the silver suit turned away.

  “Elizabeth, what’s going on?” Wes asked.

  “I can’t speak for a while, Wes. You’ll have to trust me.”

  The woman whipped around, the gun back in Elizabeth’s face.

  “Not another word,” she hissed.

  The gun frightened Elizabeth even though her left brain told her it was “just a dream.” Her right brain wasn’t as easily convinced, and insisted on imagining the horrible consequences of a bullet in her face. Then, in her mind, she saw the black woman with the afro haircut shot dead, and the others peppered with bullet holes, blood trickling from their wounds. There was an image of a burning man, too—a black man, his flesh turned crisp and peeling away from the meat underneath; then the flames repeated the process and burned away another layer.

  All these thoughts ran through her mind, and yet they were alien to her. Real yes, but not memories of events she’d seen. These were Dawson’s memories, like the dream of fighting a fire on a ship, shells exploding all around. She was sharing the mind of the man wearing the blue shirt with the cut-off sleeves, and she was feeling his fears.

  She tried to displace the gory images that made her recoil from the gun, tried to regain control, but her own emotions were elusive, too insubstantial to be grasped. Then the strongest emotion yet poured in, pushing out everything else. She didn’t understand what it meant, but she knew something—or someone—was coming, and it terrified the man whose body she shared. A warning bubbled up from the inaccessible depths of their shared mind, and she couldn’t help but speak.

  “They’re coming,” she said out loud, voice trembling.

  “Who?” the woman, Anita, and Wes asked at the same time.

  Elizabeth dug deep into her mind, finding no clear image. Then she relaxed, letting the Dawson mind direct the flow. Out of the depths came more images of death and burned flesh, of bright lights and bloody mayhem. Then an answer formed, but it was meaningless to her.

  “The Crazies,” she said through the man’s lips. “The Crazies are coming.” The thick tissue that was most of the scarred man’s face was capable of only slight emotional expression, but his eyes clearly showed a mix of hate and fear.

  The silver suits came alert now, the blond man peeking around the corner and down the corridor. Then there was the sound of thumping above them, and the sound of a hatch being slammed closed.

  “Give me my gun,” the scarred man said to Compton.

  “No, Evans,” the woman said.

  Elizabeth began putting names to the faces of the people in the silver suits. Evans was the scarred man with the angry eyes. Then Elizabeth heard running feet in the corridor above, followed by the screech of metal on metal. Someone screamed above them, and the corridor at the scarred man’s end lit up as if a strobe light had flashed. Elizabeth and the Dawson part of their unified consciousness both cringed, tensing their shared body, getting ready for fight or flight.

  “Give me my gun!” Evans ordered again.

  The sound of running came closer, and then a half dozen men and one woman ran down the corridor in front of the blond man. Most wore sailor uniforms, but a few of the men and the woman were dressed in street clothes, adding to the surreal feeling of the ship.

  “Compton, the Crazies will be here any second and you’re going to need me,” Evans said.

  “Use your power,” the woman said.

  Elizabeth noted the woman’s name, and also her reference to the scarred man’s “power.”

  “We’ll need both when they get here, and you know it takes time to hook the gun up,” said Evans.

  Compton waffled only a second.

  “Get his gun,” Compton said, backing up toward the blond man.

  The blond man dug in Compton’s pack, then tossed the gun to Evans, who set about reattaching the weapon to the pressure hose. Elizabeth noticed that Compton kept her gun trained on Evans while he attached the hose to his gun.

 
Now there was more thumping and banging, closer than before. It was coming from Evans’s side, and Compton moved forward to reinforce his position. The blond man kept his position, protecting them from a rear attack. Evans had his gun reattached now, and was checking the pressure gauges and his load. Elizabeth kept down on the floor, arm around Anita, whispering comforting words to her.

  “What’s going on, Dawson?” Compton asked.

  “I know it’s hard to understand, but I’m not Dawson right now, I’m Elizabeth. At least some of me is. A little girl named Anita is here with me, too.”

  Compton stared icily, her gun swinging toward Elizabeth. She acted as if she thought Elizabeth was lying, but it was Dawson’s body Compton saw and Dawson’s voice she heard. The idea that Dawson was channeling for a social worker in Oregon would be hard for any rational person to accept.

  “I need to get a message to Ralph,” Elizabeth said through Dawson’s body.

  “I need to know what is happening,” Compton repeated, her words cold steel.

  Elizabeth knew that Compton was desperate. They expected an attack at any moment, and Dawson had been some sort of guide for them. When Elizabeth took control of Dawson’s mind, she turned Dawson from an asset to a liability. They had no reason to keep him alive now, and Elizabeth expected a bullet at any second. She feared being in Dawson’s body when it died, not knowing what that would do to her own mind and that of the other dreamers, but she also feared for the Dawson part of her. It wasn’t his fault that they had taken control of his body, and she feared for him as she would for a friend. Then, from that deeper part of her mind where Dawson’s consciousness dwelled, a new thought came to her.

  “The Crazies know the outsiders are here,” Elizabeth said suddenly. “They’re coming to kill them.”

  As the words came out of her mouth, Elizabeth realized that she was with the outsiders.

  “You’re scaring me, Elizabeth,” Anita said.

  “Don’t worry, Anita, I won’t let anyone harm you,” Elizabeth said. “It’s just a dream, remember.”

  “Elizabeth, can you talk yet? Your vital signs are roller-coasting up and down,” Wes said.