They turned and began to walk around the pool. “Do you think we’re going to make it?” Julie asked conversationally.
“The human race? I would say that depends on whether we deserve to survive.”
“That’s pretty cynical.”
“No, it is very idealistic. There is a way in which someone here on Sea Venture can save humanity very simply, if he chooses; the only question is, will he do it?”
“And what might that be?”
“There are occasions when someone knows he is the carrier of the parasite, because no one else is near enough to the last victim. At that moment, that one person has the option of saying, ‘Please clear a path for me to the passenger entrance and open the door.’ ”
“I see. And step out? Very simple.”
“Yes, very simple.”
“Would you do it yourself?”
He shrugged. “If I answered yes, it would be braggadocio. Since I have already had the disease, I am not likely to be called upon. Nor are you. So we can theorize in perfect safety, and turn our backs on the problem like everybody else. Shall we go now and have some dinner?”
45
At twelve hundred hours the next day, when Bliss was just sitting down to a solitary lunch, his phone buzzed.
“Yes?”
It was his secretary’s voice. “Mr. Bliss, we have an incoming video call from the President.”
“Oh, God,” said Bliss. He got up and went to the desk phone, turned it on. The image of an earnest crop-haired young man appeared on the screen.
“Ah, Captain Bliss? Will you hold, please, for the President of the United States?”
“I will, yes.”
Several minutes passed; then the famous features appeared on the screen.
“Captain Bliss, as you know, I’ve been hearing a great many expressions of concern about your situation, and I want you to know that I’m ordering the aircraft carrier Bluefields to leave station and rendezvous with you sometime tomorrow. They will be searching for your missing lifeboat, and they’ll be carrying a group of Navy doctors and nurses as well as a detachment of Marines to keep order in Sea Venture, and you’ll get every aid and assistance we can possibly give you.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“And, Captain Bliss, the Bluefields will also have orders to take off as many passengers as they can who are not affected by the disease. We’ll send you a list of those passengers later today, and this is a tentative list, and you can add to it from those passengers who want to go, up to the limit of what the Bluefields can carry.”
“Mr. President, may I ask what will be done with the passengers?”
“Yes’, you certainly may, and I was coming to that. They will be kept in quarantine on the Bluefields, of course, until our medical people are sure everything is all right, and then they’ll be taken to Guam.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
“That’s all right, Captain Bliss, and if there’s anything else we can do for you, I want you to call my office, night or day, at any time. Now I’m going to let you get back to your duties, Captain, and I want you to know that our prayers are going out to you.”
“More trouble on the stricken Sea Venture.” said the anchorperson, looking gravely at the camera. “While a helicopter carrier steams to the rescue, a famous passenger, Paul Newland, mysteriously disappears. We’ll have these and other stories after this message.”
That evening over dinner with Hartman, Bliss said, “I’m at my wit’s end, frankly. We’ve tried everything on earth, and it’s all been a disaster. Now the thing’s got off the lifeboat. That couldn’t have happened, but it did. And the worst of it is that it’s got McNulty, and Jacobs too. Jacobs was going to build us a gadget, to spray the thing with radio frequencies and so on while it’s between victims.”
“Do you think it took Jacobs to keep him from making the gadget?”
“Or to make us think that was the reason. Well, mustn't be depressing. Try this claret.”
Hartman took a sip, tried not to let his opinion show on his face. “Very nice.”
“It’s all up to me, you know,” Bliss said. “I wish it had been anybody else.”
“It is a bit of a quandary, isn’t it?” said Hartman. “You can’t let anybody off Sea Venture until you’ve got rid of the parasite, but on the other hand you can’t keep them here forever.”
“My masters have instructed me to let a carrier take off certain selected passengers. I can’t do it. If the thing once gets onto a ship that carries helicopters, there’ll be no holding it.”
“No, I see that. I suppose in the end it’s going to come down to heroic measures. Nelson at Copenhagen, that sort of thing.”
“There's the rub. I’m not a hero.”
“No, well, none of us are until it comes to the point, are we?"
46
At oh-two-hundred that night his bedside phone brrred. More or less awake, Bliss picked it up. “Yes?”
“Chief, sorry to disturb you, but it’s collect from your wife.”
“On video?”
“No.”
“All right, put her on.”
“Stanley?”
“Yes, dear.”
“We’ve been so worried about you, are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Well, dear, I wouldn’t have called at this hour, but I couldn't get through before—they kept saying all the circuits were busy.”
“Yes, they probably were. Is anything wrong?”
“Well, it’s nothing really, but Tommy is in a little trouble. He borrowed some money from a man at work, and then, you know, he lost the job and so of course he couldn’t pay it back.”
“How much money?”
“Well, they say it’s three thousand pounds, and you know with the new furnace last year, and the rise in the rates, it’s left us very short indeed.”
“How much has he got left?”
“Well, only a few pounds, you see he lent most of it to another man, I’m afraid it’s a complicated story. But this man, the one he borrowed from, is being very nasty, calling day and night, and we really are at our wit’s end, dear. I just wanted to know if there’s anything you can do.”
“I’ll wire the money,” said Bliss.
“Thank you, dear, you are an angel. What about your epidemic, is there anything new?”
“No, it’s the same.”
“Well, I know you’ll come through it all right, dear. Oh, by the way, old Mrs. Frye particularly wanted to be remembered to you. She prays for you every night, and of course we do too.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, dear, this is costing the earth. I’ll ring off now. Sleep well.”
“Yes, you too.”
“And I’ll give your love to Tommy, shall I?”
“Yes. Good night.”
At oh-eight-hundred the next morning, Bliss entered the Control Center as was his custom; Deputy Ferguson had just come on shift. Stuart was at the communications console.
“Mr. Ferguson and Ms. Stuart, I regret to tell you that I have been ordered to do something that in my judgment would be extremely dangerous.”
“Yes, Chief?” said Stuart.
“A U.S. aircraft carrier is steaming towards us from Guam and will arrive at approximately oh-nine-hundred.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The carrier is to take off a number of our passengers and keep them in quarantine. I don’t think they realize the impossibility of doing so on a carrier, but naturally I have no choice but to comply.”