by Damon Knight
“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 Crécy.”
“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.
34
On Monday, at the Town Council meeting, Mrs. Bernstein said, “Item five. A complaint. Mrs. Livermore, will you state the complaint?”
Clarice Livermore stood up. “My complaint is, the Korngolds have let a couple from the passenger section move into that apartment they own at the corner of Fifth and Pacific. I didn’t find out about it till they’d been here three days. That’s right around the corner from our market, and it’s only two blocks from the school.”
“Are they disorderly people, Mrs. Livermore?”
“Well, I don’t know, but that’s not the point. They could be carrying that awful disease. Why can’t they stay where they belong? I’m not the only one that feels this way,” she said, and sat down.
“Mr. Korngold, do you want to respond?”
A stout gray-haired man in the audience stood up. “Mrs. Bernstein, gentlemen, the Harrises are old friends of ours, we know them for twenty years. They’re worried about the situation in the passenger section and they asked us if they could move in till the trouble is over. I don’t see how that’s any of Mr. and Mrs. Livermore’s beeswax.”
“Well, my children’s health is my business,” cried Mrs. Livermore. “Let me tell you—”
Mrs. Bernstein rapped with her gavel. “Out of order,” she said. “Mr. Korngold, do you have anything more to add?”
“No, that’s it, except I think she’s making a tempest out of a teapot.”
“Any discussion?”
Ira Clark leaned forward. “Mrs. Livermore, is it just these two passengers you object to, or would you like to keep everybody from the passenger section out of perm? I hope you realize that I’m the only dentist on Sea Venture, and Dr. McNulty is the only physician.”
“Well, that’s one thing, but bringing in people that might be infected for no reason, that’s another. That’s all I say.”
Higpen caught Mrs. Bernstein’s eye and said, “You know, we have about a hundred people living here and working in passenger. There’s traffic back and forth every day. If we could close off perm and keep the epidemic out, I’d be for it, but we’ve discussed this and agreed that it isn’t possible. Luckily, there hasn’t been a
single case in perm, and the Harrises have been here, how long?”
“Since the first of last week,” said Korngold from the audience.
“Well, I’d say if they were going to infect anybody, they would have done it by now. Sorry, Clarice. I move to dismiss the complaint.”
“Further discussion?” asked Mrs. Bernstein. “All in favor.” All the Council members raised their hands. “You can step down, Mrs. Livermore. Item six, repairs to the gymnasium.”
The next day Yetta Bernstein walked into the back room of Higpen’s hardware store, where Higpen sat going over his accounts. “Ben, let’s talk.”
Higpen pointed to the plastic bag on his desk. “I was just about to have lunch.”
“Bring it, we’ll sit in the park. You ought to get out more anyway.”
They walked to the park, an open space the same size as the town square. Children were running up and down the gravel paths, playing on the jungle gym. The scent of mown grass was sharp in the air.
“Ben, I’m worried,” Bernstein said. “We’ve been lucky so far, the thing has stayed in the passenger section, but how long can we be lucky?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe in trusting to luck. We’ve got to do something.”
“All right, but what?”
They sat down on a park bench, and Higpen opened his lunch bag. “I’ve been thinking,” Bernstein said. “The people who live here and work in passenger, maybe we could trim that number down. Talk them into staying here till the emergency is over. Or some of them, those that don’t have families, they could stay in passenger.”
“You’ll never get them all that way.”
“I know it, but we might be able to reduce the traffic to something manageable, say thirty or forty a day. Then suppose—just suppose—we station people at the entrances, and every time somebody comes in, we get another person to go with them and watch them for twenty-four hours.”
“That wouldn’t keep the parasite out.” Higpen unwrapped a sandwich.
“No, but listen. Suppose it gets in, God forbid. All right. Then it leaves and goes to another person. The first person collapses, the second person feels faint. Now we know which person has the parasite. And we’re watching. So we take that person back to passenger—maybe we tell them the truth, or maybe some cock-and-bull story—and that person doesn’t get back in until the parasite jumps to somebody else.”
Higpen took a bite, chewed and swallowed. “You know,” he said, “I feel two ways about this. Even if we could keep the parasite out, would it be fair? Why should the passengers take all the risk?”
“Ben, I’m ashamed of you. There are children here. Grownups can take their chances, but these kids?”
35
On Tuesday, at Bliss’s invitation, Higpen and Bernstein attended the staff meeting. McNulty was also present; Geller and Barlow had been invited, but neither of them had shown up.
“Apart from the epidemic itself, I think it’s fair to say that morale is our principal problem,” Bliss said. “People are frightened, and some of them are behaving badly. Our head of security, Mr. Lundgren, isn’t here because he can’t leave the job, but speaking for him, I can say that the problem is out of hand. Our normal security staff, as you know, is only ten people. We need at least a hundred and thirty. My deputies have been working with Mr. Lundgren when they’re off shift, and we’ve got Mr. Islip, the entertainment director, and his staff, and about fifty staff from the restaurants and the casino, but it still isn’t enough; we’re overworking our people and falling behind.”
Higpen said, “How many volunteers do you need? What kind of duty?”
“Well, we need at least a dozen for guard, and say eighty more for patrol.”
“Will they be armed?”
“That’s never been necessary. We don’t have firearms in Sea Venture.”
“What are they supposed to do if they have to subdue somebody and arrest them?” Mrs. Bernstein wanted to know.
“Mr. Young, our chief carpenter, has provided some batons. We’d like the patrolmen to work in pairs, in three shifts around the clock. We haven’t got uniforms for them, of course, but we’ll give them brassards. Then we’ll need about twenty-five, they could be older men, for supervisory work.”
“Or women?”
“Or women, of course. Thank you, Mrs. Bernstein.”
“I wasn’t volunteering, although I may yet. Mr. Bliss, are you exaggerating this in any way? I can’t believe you need a hundred and thirty policemen to keep order in the passenger section.”
“Believe me, Mrs. Bernstein, if anything, I’m understating it. I had a delegation yesterday morning that nearly turned into a mob—some gentlemen demanding that we launch them in the lifeboats.”
“You turned them down? Why not let them go and be rid of them?”
“I hope that was not a serious suggestion,” said Bliss after a moment.
“Sea Venture is quarantined,” said McNulty. “We can’t take a chance on letting this thing spread.”
“Why not, if you know it only affects one person at a time? Lock that person up and let the rest go. Mr. Bliss, for your information, that was a serious suggestion. I’d like to know what your plans are. You tell us Sea Venture is quarantined. I assume that means we can’t land at Guam. What are we going to do, just keep on going until you’ve lost all your passengers?”
Bliss seemed incapable of speech. McNulty said quickly, “Mrs. Bernstein, please. We’ve already found out that we can’t lock this thing up. What we’re dealing with here isn’t an ordinary infection, it’s some kind of intelligent parasite.”
“I don’t believe in intelligent bacteria,” said Bernstein.
“It isn’t a bacteria,” McNulty answered. “I don’t know what it is. It’s aware, it knows what we’re doing, and it’s outsmarted us every time. About the only thing we’ve got going for us is that it can’t get off Sea Venture.”
“So what are you going to do?” she demanded, looking at Bliss. “Just keep on drifting? Why aren’t we getting help from the mainland?”
Higpen cleared his throat. “Yetta, we’re getting overwrought. Mr. Bliss is responsible for the safety of CV, and I think we have to let him do his job. There’s something else, too, talking about the lifeboats. This thing is infecting, what, about six or eight people a day?”
“About that,” said McNulty.
“Well, so far it hasn’t got into the perm section. If Mr. Bliss were to evacuate the passengers in lifeboats, where would it go for its victims except to us?”
“Good point,” said Mrs. Bernstein. “But is there room on the lifeboats for everybody or not? Why not evacuate perms and passengers both?”
“Because,” said Bliss, “then the parasite would be aboard one of the boats.”
“All right, but at least then you’d have it confined to forty people. How about this? We announce CV is being evacuated. Everybody gets on the boats—everybody. Then we announce there’s been a delay. And we wait until someone collapses. Then everybody from all the other boats goes back on board. What’s wrong with that?”
Bliss rubbed his face wearily. “Mrs. Bernstein, it’s the same as the other scheme. If we did as you suggest, presently we’d have one person taking care of thirty-nine victims—that’s an impossible situation on a lifeboat. And then if we did nothing, the remaining person would go into convulsions, presumably, and we’d be back where we started.”
Bernstein was doodling on her pad. After a moment she said, “We’re not thinking this through. The point is, do we want to isolate the parasite or not? If we do, there’s got to be a way. Dr. McNulty, you said the thing can’t go from one person to another more than four or five feet away, is that right?”
“About that, apparently,” McNulty said.
“So we’ve got two problems here. The first one is, if people collapse on the lifeboat, we can’t leave them there. They’ve got to be taken back to the hospital.”
“And the
first thing the parasite would do would be to jump to one of the people who come in to get the patient,” said Bliss.
“All right. So put a rope on a gurney or whatever you call it. Open the lifeboat door, throw the rope in. People inside put the patient on the gurney, throw the rope out. We pull the patient out and close the door. The parasite is still inside.”
“That might work,” McNulty said. “But then you get to the point where there’s one person left, and I just don’t see any way out of that. Either you go in and get that person, or else—” His voice stopped.
“That’s the second problem,” Mrs. Bernstein said. “But the only reason it’s a problem is we’re looking at it the wrong way. Why is there only one person left? Because nobody else is coming in.”
“I don’t quite follow,” said Bliss.
“Volunteers,” said Mrs. Bernstein. “Get volunteers to go into the lifeboat one at a time, whenever we take a patient out. That way there’s always somebody else for the parasite to jump to, and we can keep it there, in isolation, until we figure out something else to do.”
After a moment Bliss said, “By George, I think she’s got it.”
36
The final plan, everyone agreed, was eminently dislikable, but it was the best they could do. There had been a suggestion from Skolnik to evacuate just one deck, whichever one the parasite was known to be on; that had obvious attractions, but it quickly became clear that it was unworkable. For one thing, it would have meant new lifeboat assignments for people who happened to be on that deck at the time but were normally assigned elsewhere; for another, it would have meant closing elevators and stairways in order to keep people from wandering out of the area; and, finally, it would have been an unusual procedure which would very likely alert the parasite that something was up.
In the end they went back to the original idea, with refinements. A boat drill would be announced. In order to guard against the possibility of confining staff members on the boat that carried the parasite, they would be reassigned to passenger lifeboats. After the passengers had boarded, there would be a thorough sweep to round up any stragglers; that would take the best part of three hours, during which time the parasite, if it was on one of the boats, would probably reveal itself. At that point the sweep could be abandoned; if not, it would go on to conclusion. At the end of the procedure, everyone in the passenger section, passengers and crew alike, would be in the lifeboats except for the duty officer and Bliss himself; a skeleton crew of kitchen staff, security people and essential members of other departments; the patients in hospital; McNulty, and the current shift of nurses.