“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 Crecy.”
“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 comer of Fifth and Pacific. I didn’t find out about it till they’d been here three days. That’s right around the comer 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. Komgold, 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. Komgold, 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 Komgold 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. ‘Tve 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.”