CV

2

At his desk in the Control Center of Sea Venture, the Chief of Operations, Stanley Bliss, was watching the embarkation in a bank of television screens. Bliss was a Cunard veteran, fifty-three years old, a portly man with pale blue eyes. He had been lured away by Sea Venture, somewhat against his better judgment, by a large advance in salary and a stupendous retirement plan. Part of the understanding was that he would become an American citizen; he didn’t mind that, and he didn’t mind the more or less permanent separation from his wife in Liverpool. What he did mind was the sheer infuriating complexity of the job he had taken on. On Sea Venture he wasn’t called “Captain,” and he wasn't a captain; he was the chief executive of an operation involving anywhere from nine hundred to fifteen hundred employees at any given moment. In theory and in fact he was responsible for the safety of the vessel (which was safe as houses), but also he was indirectly in charge of the chefs, the bakers, the electronics crew, the maintenance department, the stewards, the publicity office and the newspaper, the entertainment staff; and as if that were not enough, he was ex officio a member of the Executive Council which more or less ran Sea Venture, or tried to run it, with its all-day monthly meetings and the endless committees in between, and the Stockholders’ Meetings, and the Work Sessions, and the Planning Sessions, and, my God, the Initiatives and Referendums. . . .

The passengers he was seeing today were the usual lot, some of them San Francisco people reboarding after the layover in Honolulu, others boarding here for the first time, burnt red or brown, with flowered shirts and leis—a little more geriatric perhaps than the old Queen; the largest number were couples in their fifties and sixties, with a scattering up to eighty—blue-haired women tottering on canes, heaven knew why they wanted to go on a cruise, they never left their cabins except for meals, and two or three never came out at all; then there was a sizable group in their forties, taking up most of the seats in the bars; then the “younger crowd,” twenties and thirties, who flocked together and were visible out of all proportion on the dance floor, the tennis courts and so on; then a forlorn sprinkling of teenagers glumly following their parents about. It was impossible to know how they had been attracted to Sea Venture in the first place; once you had got them, you had to keep them busy, entertained; give them the illusion, at least, that they were having a marvelous time.

In another bank of screens he could see the permanent residents boarding at the stem, nine hundred feet away. Their ramp went up to the loading area on the Sports Deck; it was an insult to the integrity of the hull to have the passenger entrance so low, but that was not the only compromise the designers had made.

He turned to the guest beside him. “Well, what do you think of us so far?”

Captain Hartman smiled noncommittally around his pipe. He was another ex-Cunard man, retired now, traveling on a courtesy pass. “Impressive,” he said.

“The size, you mean. She is the largest passenger vessel ever built, let alone the biggest submersible vessel—or ever likely to be built, if you ask me.”

“You don’t think they’ll go on with the programme? You’re meant to be a prototype, aren’t you? Isn’t that what the P in POSH is for?”

Bliss grimaced slightly. “Prototype Open Sea Habitat, yes, somebody must have thought that was funny once, but not anymore. We call her Sea Venture, or CV for short. What she is is a bloody raft.”

“Boarding completed, Chief,” said the First Deputy, a handsome young Midwesterner named Ferguson.

“All right. Signal the tugs.”

“How many tugs?” Hartman inquired.

“Six. They’ll take us out about seventy miles, until we can catch the southbound current; then we’re on our own. Tugs brought her all the way across the Pacific two years ago from the Kure Yards where she was built. The hull, that is; the fittings and interior work are all American.”

“You’re proud of her really, aren’t you? 1 should be.”

“Oh, well, you know,” said Bliss. He was watching a screen on the console in front of him, the one that displayed a view of the reception lobby. Following his gaze, Hartman saw a passenger, an alert-looking young man with short dark hair, turn as he moved toward the desk and look directly into the camera.

His real name was Sverdrupp; he was born in Stockholm, educated in France, Germany, and England, trained in Israel and Central America. At the moment he had an American passport. For the past ten years he had been employed by a certain international organization which gave him occasional jobs to do and paid him very well. Two months ago he had been summoned to a meeting in Rome, in the course of which it appeared that he was being lent to another organization, not named then or ever, which required his services for this occasion only. His body was deceptively slender; his clothes were new and expensive. He had a boyish, open face, useful to him in his profession.

John Stevens, as he called himself now, gazed around with calm interest while the moving ramp carried him up into Sea Venture. He did not see the man he was looking for, but he did see several other celebrities: the video star Eddie Greaves, a former U.S. senator, a beer baron, the widow of a Greek shipping magnate. There were also several very pretty girls.

Stevens knew that his quarry had reserved a suite on the Signal Deck at the top of Sea Venture; he himself had booked a single cabin on the deck below, in a section which gave him privileges at the restaurant used by more exalted passengers. He rode decorously up into the reception lounge, presented his ticket, and followed a Filipino steward to his cabin. He investigated every comer of the room almost without thinking about it, sniffed the air, put his hand on the sweating side of the ice-water carafe, then sat down before the computer console at the far wall.

In the printer tray beside it was a little news sheet, the CV Journal. “WELCOME TO THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF SEA VENTURE!” it began, and went on, “If you would like to know some fascinating facts about Sea Venture, press the ‘CV’ button on your personal computer terminal.” He did so, and found to his satisfaction that there was a program for deck plans.

On the wall screen a skeletal outline of the vessel appeared in 3-D. It rotated gently at his command, and he saw that the view he had had from the island, huge as it was, had given him a misleading impression. Seen from above, Sea Venture was an oval shape more than three-quarters as wide as it was long, wider than eight ordinary ships lying side by side.

He gave the computer another command, and saw a red dot with the legend YOU ARE HERE. He summoned up other dots for the Liberty Restaurant, the Signal Deck Lounge, the card room, the casino, the theater; the computer obligingly drew yellow lines from his cabin to each one. He blanked the screen, well satisfied. Then he turned on a commercial channel and sprawled in comfort against the headboard of the bed to watch “Wild Annie and Bill.”