CV

54

Down at the end of the lobby, people were gathering around someone who had just come in. Curious, she went that way. The watcher inside her was intrigued to notice that the center of the crowd was a black-and-white goat, dressed in a gray suit and tie, sitting in a cart. It was clear from her host's reactions that this was an amusing sight, but she was not quite sure why. The relationship between human beings and the other species on their planet was something she had never clearly understood. The goat was considered an inferior animal, but if this one was dressed like a human, did that imply that some goats had a higher status?

As soon as she was near enough, she slipped out, across the fuzzy void and in again, feeling the alien body slump as she entered. She had just time to realize that the goat was indeed a lower animal, without speech or reasoning, before the needle entered her neck.

They carried the limp body into the fishery section, where the crate was ready. The crate was partly filled with concrete; they lowered the goat into it and then poured more concrete and bolted on the top. The hoist took it out over the surging green water, lowered and released it. The crate sank and was gone, on its way to the bottom. The horror went with it.

Both windstacks had been carried away in the storm, and there was other damage above decks; the radar dishes and antennas were gone, screens and railings broken. Sea Venture could not signal, but she floated, and at last the helicopter touched down on the landing area. Bliss was there to meet the Marines when they emerged with drawn pistols.

“That won’t be necessary, gentlemen,” he said. “Our resistance is over; you’re free to come aboard.”

“Who are you?” the Marine officer demanded.

“I’m Stanley Bliss, Chief of Operations.”

“My orders are to place you under arrest until the vessel is secured, Mr. Bliss. Will you go ahead of us, please?”

“Certainly.”

McNulty had been watching himself with clinical attention, waiting for alterations in his outlook, and he thought he had found some. It was a little as if all the things that were important to him were weighted parts in a Rube Goldberg machine, and the weights had shifted silently and smoothly to new positions. They were all still there, but their relationships were different. His view of the universe seemed perfectly coherent, and he was comfortable with it; in fact, it seemed to him that he was viewing things more sensibly and rationally than he had before. It was funny to be seeing the situation from the inside, and even funnier that it didn’t seem to make any difference that he had been expecting it.

To begin with, he was not sorry that he was a doctor, and he meant to continue in the practice of his profession if he could get away with it, but he didn’t feel the same way about the rules and conventions. He had a feeling that he had been doing a lot of things just to touch base or protect himself against malpractice suits, not especially for the benefit of the patient, and not doing some other things that might have been helpful. He was discovering in himself a sudden curiosity about herbal cures, for example, and psychosomatic stuff that he had dismissed as pseudoscience. Maybe it was pseudoscience, but did that matter, if it worked?

After consultation with the carrier, it was decided that two hundred passengers would be taken off now, the rest later when Bluefields was joined by two more carriers. Sea Venture, now far off her course, would be assisted by tugs to reach Manila. After that Bliss was not sure what would happen. Probably they would try to fit new windstacks there in order to get the vessel back to her home port in San Francisco. It was doubtful that Sea Venture would ever cruise again; the best thing might be to break her up for scrap.

As for himself, he was more or less scrap too. He might have to face criminal charges in the States, and there would certainly be civil suits as well. If he got through all that, it was still doubtful that Cunard would take him back. He could perhaps get a job managing a hotel inland somewhere. That would suit him very well.

On their last night together, Bliss, Bernstein, Higpen, Hartman, Winter, and McNulty had a late dinner. “I must say I’m proud of the lot of you,” said Hartman. “If there’s any justice, you’ll all go down in the history books. Even if not, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve met and defeated the greatest threat humanity has faced in a hundred thousand years.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to you. May you live and prosper.”

“Now I suppose we’ll never know what might have happened, if it had gone the other way,” said Winter. “It’s a shame we didn’t find out more when we had the opportunity.”

“Such as?”

“Oh, well, for instance—how does the thing reproduce?”

McNulty looked startled. “Good question. Maybe it’s just as well none of the passengers were pregnant.”

About twelve hundred of the passengers were taken off by helicopter, over a three-day period, and transported after further delays to Guam; the rest elected to stay with Sea Venture to Manila. The vessel seemed emptier and older than she was; there was a curious sense of decayed majesty in her lobbies and corridors, as if she were an ancient hotel about to be tom down. Some of the passengers became quite sentimental in their loyalty, and spoke with scorn of those who had “left the sinking ship.”

Tugs warped the battered hull into Manila Harbor on a May afternoon. The sky was cloudless, the air hot and moist. Jim and Emily Woodruff went down the ramp together, her hand tucked into his arm. “It’ll be good to get home,” Jim said.

“Yes.” Her expression was calm as she looked out over the sprawling city. Jim was getting used to that. “Feeling okay?” he asked.

“Yes, Jim.” And she pressed his arm, gently, as if to reassure him.

Captain Hartman boarded the ramp with a twinge of regret. It was not an experience he wanted to repeat, but, after all, it was something to tell the grandchildren about: a real sea adventure. He and Bliss had exchanged promises to meet. Perhaps they would, someday, and reminisce over their pints like two old seafaring men.

Julie Prescott boarded the ramp with her parents. Stevens was a little ahead of them; they had said their good-byes. Stevens was going to fly to Switzerland; they had arranged to meet in New York in October. “When I come back, you must not mind if I have another name,” he said.

Feeling a little dizzy, she thought of something she had not told Stevens about: the circled date on her calendar, two weeks ago. She had never been this late before. She was still not sure how she felt about that, or about Stevens. Was there anything ahead for them?

Well, she thought, they would all have to wait and see.