"Once there were dozens of nuclear submarines," said
Baptiste. "France had them. Britain, U.S., Russia. Training, techniques, traditions, all well established. You're in no danger-these men are thoroughly trained from the original coursework rework and documents. Plus, many modem improvements!"
"No danger."
"No."
"Then what are you going to do with me?"
He shook his head, ruefully. Bells rang. It was time to eat.
Baptiste found Hesseltine and took them both to the officers'
mess. It was a nasty little place, next to the clattering, hissing racket of the galley. They sat at a solidly anchored square table on metal chairs covered in green-and-yellow vinyl. Three officers were already there, being served by a cook in an apron and crisp paper hat.
Baptiste introduced the officers as the captain-lieutenant, captain second rank, and the senior executive officer, who was actually the junior of the bunch. He gave no names and they didn't seem to miss them. Two were Europeans, Ger- mans maybe, and the third looked Russian. They all spoke
Net English.
It was clear from the beginning that this was Hesseltine's show. Laura was some kind of battle trophy Hesseltine had - won, -blond cheesecake for the camera to dwell on during slow moments in his cinema biography. She didn't have to say anything-they didn't expect it from her. The crewmen gave her strange, muddied looks compounded of regret, spec- ulation, and some kind of truly twisted superstitious dread.
They dug into their meals: foil-covered microwave trays marked
"Aero Cubana: Clase Primera." Laura picked at her tray.
Aero Cubana. She'd flown on Aero Cubana, with David at her side and the baby in her lap. David and Loretta. Oh, God ...
The officers were edgy at first, disturbed and excited by strangers. Hesseltine oozed charm, giving them a thrilling eyewitness account of their attack on the Ali Khamenei. His vocabulary was bizarre: it was all "strikes" and "impacts"
and "targeting," no mention at all of burned and lacerated human beings. Finally, his enthusiasm broke the ice, and the officers began talking more freely, in a leaden jargon consist- ing almost entirely of acronyms.
It had been an exhilarating day for these officers of the Red
Crew. After weeks, possibly months of what could only have been inhuman suffocating tedium, they had successfully stalked . and destroyed a "terrie hard target." They were going to get some kind of reward for it, apparently-it had something to do with "Hollywood baths," whatever that meant. The Yel- low Crew, now on duty, would now spend their own six-hour shift in a boring escape run across the bottom of the Indian
Ocean. As for the Blue Crew, they had missed their chance at action and were bitterly sulking.
She wondered what they were trying to escape from. The missiles-"Exocets," they called them-had flown for miles before hitting. They could have been launched from almost any large surface ship in the straits, or even from Sumatra.
No one had seen the sub.
And how would anyone suspect' its existence? A submarine was a monster from a lost era. It was useless, designed only for killing-there was no such thing as a "cargo sub" or a
"Coast Guard sub" or a "search-and-rescue sub."
Sure, there were little deep-sea research vessels, bathy- scaphes or whatever the word was- just like there were still a few manned spacecraft, both equally obscure and quaint and funny-looking. But this thing was huge. And the truth, or a dread strong enough to pass for one, was beginning to seep in.
It reminded her of something she'd heard when she was eleven or so. One of those horror folk tales that kids told each other. About the boy who accidentally swallowed a needle... . Only to have it show up, years or decades later, rusty but still whole, in his ankle or kneecap or elbow ... si-, lent steel entity sliding unknown and unknowable through his, living breathing body ... while he grew up and married and held down some unremarkable service job... till he goes to the doctor one day and says: Doc, I'm getting old, may be rheumatism but I have this strange stabbing pain in my leg... . Well, says kindly Doc, put 'er here under the scanner and we'll have a look...y word, Mr. World-Everyman, you seem to have a vicious septic needle hiding under your kneecap.... Oh yeah, gosh Doc, I kinda forgot about it but as a young boy I used to play with needles habitually, in fact most of my allowance went toward buying extremely sharp and deadly needles which I scattered lavishly in every direc- tion, but when I grew up and got a little wiser I was sure that
I'd picked up every last one... .
"You okay?" Hesseltine said.
"Excuse me?" Laura said.
"We're talking about you, Laura. About whether to put you straight in a tank, or let. you hang out a while."
"I don't understand," she said numbly. "You have tanks?
I thought you were navy people."
The officers laughed, false yo-ho-ho club-room laughter.
The Russian-looking one said something about how the world's women hadn't gotten any smarter. Hesseltine smiled at her as if it were the first thing she'd done right.
"Hell," he said, "we'll show 'em to you. That all right, Baptiste?"
"Why not?"
Hesseltine shook hands all around and made a studied exit.
He and Baptiste and Laura emerged into a dining hall where thirty neatly groomed Red Crewmen were eating, jammed elbow to elbow around collapsible tables. As Hesseltine en- tered, they set down their forks with a clatter and applauded politely.
Hesseltine offered her his elbow. Frightened by their flat, fishlike eyes,, she took his arm. He paraded her down the narrow aisle between rows of tables. The men were all close enough to grab at her, to wink or grin or hoot, but none of them did, or even looked like they wanted to. It smelled of them: their soap and shampoo, their beef stroganoff and green beans. In the corner a wide-screen TV was showing an illegal kick-boxing match, two wiry Thais silently beating each other bloody.
They were out. Laura shivered helplessly and let go of his arm, her skin crawling. "What's wrong with them?" she hissed at him. "They're so quiet and numb...."
"What's wrong with you?" he riposted. "A long face like that ... you're making everyone nervous."
They took her back to the first room she'd seen, with the elevators. They emerged on the upper deck of grating. Below them, Yellow Crewmen were at work on the drones, examin- ing stripped-down bits of machinery on cramped little blankets of tarpaulin.
Baptiste and Hesseltine stopped by one of the elaborately painted silos. The crude stars and whizzing comets ... she saw that it had a black silhouette, the nude outline of a stylized buxom babe. Long leg kicked out, hair flung back, a stripper's pose. And lettering: TANYA. "What's this?" Laura said.
"That's the tank's name," Baptiste said. A little apologetic, like a gentleman forced to bring up an off-color sub- ject. "The men did it ... high spirits... you know how it is."
High spirits. She couldn't imagine anything less likely from the men she'd seen aboard. "What is this thing?"
Hesseltine spoke up. "Well, one climbs inside there, of course, and... " He paused. "You're not lesbian, are you?"
"What? No ... "
"Too bad, I guess.... If you're not gay, the special features aren't going to do much for you... . But even without the simulations, they says it's very relaxing."
Laura backed a step away. "Are... are they all like this?"
"No," said Baptiste. "Some are drone ports, and the others launch warheads. But five of them are our recreation tanks-'Hollywood baths,' the men call them."
"And you want me to go inside there?"
"If you like," said Baptiste reluctantly. "We won't activate the machinery-nothing will touch you-you simply float within it, breathing, dreaming, in nice heated seawater."
"Keep you out of trouble a few days," Hesseltine said.