Monday morning, while they were having breakfast, Jim’s phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and said, “Yeah?”
“Mr. Woodruff, we have a collect call for you from Mrs. Morrison, will you accept?”
“Yeah, put her on.” He covered the phone with his hand. “It’s Debbie.”
“Dad?” said the voice in his ear.
“Hello, sweetie.”
“Are you all right? We’ve been so worried.”
“Yeah, we’re okay. How are the kids, how’s Ted?”
“We’re all fine, but what about you? We heard there was this terrible epidemic, and we’ve been trying to call you for days.”
“Yeah, well, we tried to call you too, Sunday, but the lines were all jammed.” Emily was gesturing at him. “Your mother wants to talk to you. ”
Emily took the phone gingerly and held it half an inch from her ear. “Hello, Debbie?”
“Yes, Mom. I was just telling Dad, we’ve been so worried.” Debbie was their younger daughter; she was thirty-five, married to a systems analyst in Boston. “Where are you, in your room now?”
“No, we’re in a restaurant, having breakfast, dear. How are Robbie and Michael?”
“They’re fine. Michael had the New Flu, he was out of school for two weeks, but he’s okay now. Mom, don’t you think you should eat in your room?”
“It’s so small,” Emily said.
“What?”
“The room is so small.” She couldn’t bear it for more than an hour or two at a time, except at night when she was asleep, because it seemed to get even smaller, as if the walls were thickening and growing inward, as thick as mossy stone, and the doors growing into the walls. “Is Michael all right now? Why didn’t you tell us he was sick?”
“Well, we didn’t want to worry you and spoil your vacation. When do they think they’ll cure the epidemic?”
“I don’t know, dear. Is Ted all right?” Ted Morrison was a pale, silent man who could not seem to stand Emily’s company; on the few occasions when they had met, he had hardly said a word.
“Yes, he’s fine. He’s thinking of starting his own company.”
“Isn’t that nice!”
“Yes, and if you and Dad wanted to buy some shares, it would really be a great investment. He’s going to send you a fax about it.”
“That’s nice, dear.”
“Well, I really wish you’d stay in your room more.”
“It’s so small,” Emily said.
“I’m glad you’re okay, anyway. Let me say good-bye to Dad. You be careful, Mom.”
“Yes, I will. You too.” She handed the phone to Jim. He listened, spoke a few words, and put the phone away.
“Some cockamamie scheme,” he said. “Every time they call up, it’s money. Eat your eggs, Em, they’re getting cold.”
19
The messages flowed from Sea Venture’s communications center through the antenna on the superstructure to the com-sat overhead and back again:
“. . . at fifteen and put it into Police Industries . . . tell Mother I’m perfectly all right, not to worry at all . . . and if we have to cancel, there’s going to be big bucks going down the tube, so why don’t you . . . Larry, I want this favor. I want it. Do you understand what I’m telling you? . . . Conditions here are absolutely outrageous . . . not even a real doctor, just some kind of G.P., and this guy Bliss is . . . dying and she needs you ... if he thinks he can get away with this just because I’m out of touch . . . talked to Jim Farbam on the Hill today, and he says ... be sure to take your pills. ...”
And the newspapers, faxed in every day, were full of excited headlines: CV RAVAGED BY DISEASE ... PLAGUE MAY FORCE CANCELATION OF CONCERT . . . DOOMED PASSENGERS RIOT IN PANIC . . . FARBARN URGES PROBE OF CV. . . .
Eddie Greaves was saying to his agent in New York, “If we have to cancel Tokyo I’m going to be in deep shit, Marty.”
“I know that, Eddie. I’m working on it, believe me.”
“You talk to Byers yet?”
“Yes, and he’s going to take it to the White House as soon as the President gets back from Monterey. I think we have a good shot.”
“Good shot isn’t good enough. I’m talking deep shit, Marty.”
“I know that, Eddie.”
“All right, who else can we get? You talk to Greg?”
“He’s in Vegas.”
“So talk to him in Vegas.”
“He’s either on, or he’s at the crap table, or he’s rolling some broad, Eddie. You know how Greg is. The minute he heads back for Hollywood, I’ll have him on the phone, I give you my solemn promise. Meanwhile, look, aren’t there some folks with clout on CV? They’re probably just as antsy to get off as you are. Go talk to them, Eddie, tell them what we’re doing, find out what they can do. If we start putting pressure on from six different directions—”
“Okay. Good idea. Okay.”
“And keep your ass sweet, kid.”
The waiter approached the nice young couple with his carafe. “More coffee?”
“Yes, please,” the man said. The waiter poured hers first, then the man’s. As he turned away, something about the woman’s expression remained in his mind, and he slipped out across the cold fuzzy void in the slow motion of that place toward the starflake pattern that was hers, and as he slipped in again, the colors and scents crashed against her more strongly than ever, and she raised her head, seeing the waiter’s body sprawled on the floor, the carafe rolling, coffee in a long steaming splatter almost to the next table. People were standing up to look. Her husband leaned toward her.
“Are you all right?” she said.
“Yes, are you?”
“Yes.” But she knew better. In spite of the shock, she had realized instantly what had happened, and had known what she must do.
“Thank heaven,” said Malcolm. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I want to go to the ladies’ room first.” She got up and walked out. Her perceptions were blurred; she felt choked inside with sorrow for herself, for Malcolm, for the relationship they had had together. She was thinking that it was probably the second or third time in their married life that she had told him an untruth; also that it was a good thing that she had been able to turn away quickly so that he could not see the expression on her face.
She took the first elevator going down and rode it to E Deck, where she had never been before. She was interested to notice that the corridors were narrower here, the walls and carpets plainer. The people she saw were wearing clothing which she recognized as ready-made, and they were a little younger than the passengers on the upper levels; the restaurants had plain white tablecloths, and there were snack bars with plastic chairs. It was all part of the monetary system, apparently; the people here had paid less for their passage, and therefore the furnishings were less expensive; the people were younger because younger people had less money. Was it because they were younger that they also appeared less cheerful?
She came to a movie theater, paid and went in without noticing what the film was, but the observer inside her was able to read part of the sign over the entrance: . . . IDE OF THE ROOKIES, LANCE MAHONEY. She had never seen a film in a theater before, although she had experienced many on the television screens in passengers’ rooms, and deeply appreciated them as an art form as well as a wonderful source of information.
It was interesting that people would go to a theater to see films when they could see them as well in the privacy of their rooms: that was their contradictory gregariousness; they valued privacy so much that they were willing to pay high prices for the rooms whose smallness they complained of, and yet at every opportunity they sought the company of their own kind.