The boat drill took place at three-thirty. A few people were drunk in their staterooms, or elsewhere, and did not attend. There were other problems, too: the manager of the Promenade Theater had not received word, or had forgotten, and had failed to turn off his screen. Thirty people had to be rounded up from the theater, but by that time it didn’t matter: the parasite had been found.
From his seat in the middle of Lifeboat Thirty-one, the fat man watched with interest as the steward called the roll. He remembered being in a lifeboat before, but he had not been paying much attention then. The lifeboat, evidently, was a small vessel which could be released from the bigger one in an emergency. Was there any possibility that an emergency would occur while he was aboard it?
“Mt. Eller?”
“Here,” he answered.
The passengers opposite him were mostly prosperous-looking middle-aged Americans. There was one younger couple, holding hands, and farther down in the row there was a still younger man, unusually dressed.
The steward was explaining the features of the lifeboat and what would happen in the event of an emergency. The fat man was not looking in that direction, and could not see the control panel; hoping for a better view, he slipped out, across the fuzzy space, and in again so deftly now that she felt almost no disorientation as the fat man’s weight slumped against her and then rolled to the floor.
People were standing up to look. The steward, aided by a man with a white armband, rolled the fat man over and loosened his collar. Then the steward returned to the front of the boat. “Please take your seats, ladies and gentlemen!” he called.
The lifeboat door opened and a rope flew through the opening. The steward picked it up, pulled on it; a bed on wheels came rolling in. “May I have some assistance?” he asked. Two men came forward; with the steward and the security guard, they lifted the man’s body and got it onto the bed. They wheeled the bed up to the front. The steward spoke on the phone again; the door opened, the steward threw out the rope. Presently the wheeled bed, with the fat man on it, rolled through the doorway and disappeared.
The steward turned. “Ladies and gentlemen, I can now inform you that this boat drill has been held for a special purpose. The purpose is to isolate the carrier of the epidemic, in order to allow the other passengers to resume their normal activities. As you know, the disease is quite harmless—”
“Wait a minute,” called a white-haired woman. “Are you saying that we’re all quarantined on this boat?”
“That is unfortunately the case. However, this merely means that each of us, including myself, will be here until they become ill, and then we will spend ten days in the hospital receiving the best of care.”
There were other voices, but she hardly heard them. It was clear now that she had made an unforgivable mistake: she had underestimated her opponents.
Was it possible that they were now prepared to let one of their number die in order to be rid of her? If so, her destiny had turned, all in that single unsuspecting moment when she had walked into the lifeboat; the game was lost, her death certain, her children unborn.
38
The steward spoke on the phone again, then turned and faced the passengers.
“Mrs. Claiborne?”
“Here,” said the young woman opposite.
The steward came and bent over her. “May I see your ID, please?” He took the cards she handed him, examined them carefully. “Will you please come with me?”
“I’m sorry, what is this for?”
“You are being released, because you have already had the disease. You will be taken to quarantine in another lifeboat, and then when we are sure that the disease carrier is still here, you will be free to go.”
She looked at her husband. “Malcolm, I don’t want to leave you here alone.”
“No, you must go,” he said, pressing her hand. “There’s no point in both of us being cooped up; don’t turn martyr on me again, will you?”
She smiled. “All right, I’ll try not to. See you soon.”
The steward led her to the front of the boat. The door opened and a gray-haired man walked in. At the steward’s nod, Mrs. Claiborne walked out. The door closed.
“Steward, may I ask what is happening?” an old woman demanded.
“Yes, madam. Mrs. Claiborne has been released because she has already had the disease. This gentleman is a volunteer, to replace the gentleman who became ill. Each of us who becomes ill will be replaced in this way, and so you see, we will all be able to leave the lifeboat very shortly.”
Now their strategy was clear, and she admired it for the ingenious way it circumvented their taboo against killing. It was evident, moreover, from the lengths they had gone to, that they were not willing to sacrifice one of their number. Therefore her response must be to show that their strategy could not succeed. When they realized that, they would have to release her along with the rest of the passengers. But what if they did not?
The steward was passing, and she slipped out and across and in, so smoothly that he did not notice until he heard the woman’s body fall to the floor. He knelt and straightened her out, pulled down her skirt. Her pulse was steady and slow. It was interesting, the steward thought, how stupid and ugly people invariably looked when they were unconscious.
Yeager had to get out, and he thought he knew a way to do it. If he fell over, seemed to collapse, and if he didn’t move, not for anything, they would take him out on a litter. Then he could “recover” when he got to the infirmary, and once he was out, there would be no reason to put him back in again. And he would find her sitting in a restaurant, or in a deck chair by the pool, and he would say, smiling, “May I join you?”
He closed his eyes, let his body go limp. He was careful to twist a little as he went down, so that he struck the floor on his shoulder and rolled over onto his back. He lay there, schooling himself to breathe slowly, and listened to the voices around him.
The steward hurried back down the aisle. His curiosity was aroused: there was something odd about the appearance of the young man on the floor—he did not look ill, or even unconscious; he looked like someone pretending to be asleep. In the act of kneeling, he slipped out once more and in again, and when he heard the body fall beside him, he was so startled that he almost opened his eyes.
After a long time he felt himself lifted and placed on a litter. He was being rolled up the aisle; then there was a wait. The door opened. “Two of them this time,” said a voice a little distance away.
“Yes.”
“Well, it’s going faster, anyhow.”
The litter moved again, swung around, halted. He heard another door opening. He concentrated on being limp, not giving in to the temptation to look through his eyelashes. Now they were going into an elevator; the door closed, the elevator was moving. Now he was being wheeled down a long hall. Another door. “Two this time!” said a female voice. “Oh, Dr. McNulty!”
Another presence was bending over him. “Get the tube into that one, will you, Terri?” said the voice. “Something funny about this one—”
And he slipped out through the fuzzy space and in again, and as he bent over the patient he could see that he had been mistaken; the young man was in a typical stupor, eyes halfclosed, breathing almost imperceptibly. He must be cracking up, thought Dr. McNulty.