“Nothing important. An injection to make her sleep. We had one for you too, but poor Ota got the shot instead…”
“You can’t force me to go.
“Don’t be a fool!” the man shouted in sudden anger. “We could have left you to drown — but we surfaced to save your lives. And every moment we are exposed puts ours in danger. Stay here if you want.”
He turned and followed the others through the doorway, helping pass down the unconscious Aileen. Jan hesitated only an instant, then followed. He still was not going to commit suicide.
He blinked in the fierce red glow of the compartment, figures like ruddy devils around him. For the moment he was ignored as the hatch was sealed shut, orders shouted, the deck tilted abruptly. When they were safely below the surface, the man who had spoken to him on deck turned from the periscope and waved Jan toward the door at the end of the compartment.
“Let’s go to my cabin. Get some dry clothes for you, something warm to drink. The girl will be taken care of too, don’t worry.”
Jan sat on the edge of the neatly made bunk, glad of the warmth of the blanket about his shoulders, shivering strongly. He was handed a cup of sweet tea which he sipped at gratefully. His savior — or captor? — sat in the chair opposite lighting his pipe. A man in his fifties, gray hair and tanned skin, dressed in a worn khaki uniform with epaulets of rank on his shoulders.
“I am Captain Tachauer,” he said, blowing out a cloud of rank smoke. “Could I have your name?”
“Kulozik. Jan Kulozik. Who are you and what are you doing here? And why the attempt to knock us out?”
“It seemed a good idea at the time. No one wanted to leave you two up there to drown, though it was suggested at least once with a marked lack of enthusiasm. We are not murderers. Yet if we saved you it would reveal our presence and there could be major repercussions. Finally the sleeping shots were suggested and approved. What else could we do? But it’s obvious we’re not professionals at this sort of thing. Ota got his own needle and is now having a good snore for himself.”
“Who are you?” Jan asked again, looking at the unfamiliar uniform, at the books in a rack on the wall printed in an alphabet he had never seen before. Captain Tachauer sighed heavily.
“Israeli Navy,” he said. “Welcome aboard.”
“Thank you — and thank you as well for saving our lives. I just don’t understand why you were worried about us seeing you. If you are involved in security work for the UNO Navy, I’ll keep my mouth shut. I have a security clearance.”
“Please, Mr. Kulozik, no more.” The Captain raised his hand in a stopping motion. “You speak out of ignorance of the political situation here.”
“Ignorance! I’m no prole. My education contains two graduate degrees.”
The Captain’s eyebrows lifted in appreciation of the degrees, but he did not seem too excited by them. “I’m not referring to your technical expertise, which I am sure is considerable, but to certain gaps in your knowledge of world history produced by errors of fact that are firmly implanted in your textbooks.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, Captain Tachauer. We have no censorship in our education in Britain. In the Soviet States, perhaps, but not in ours. I have complete freedom of access to any book in our libraries, as well as computer printouts of as many as I wish to consult.”
“Very impressive,” the Captain said, not looking impressed. “I have no intention of arguing politics with you at this time of night in our present condition. I just want to tell you as an inescapable fact that the nation of Israel is not a UNO conclave? of factories and farms as you have been taught in your schools. It is a free and independent nation — almost the only one left on the face of the globe. But we can keep our independence as long as we don’t leave this area or make our position known to anyone other than the ruling powers of your world. That is the danger we faced when we rescued you. Your knowledge of our existence, particularly here in this body of water where we are not supposed to be, could cause us immense damage. It might even lead to the nuclear destruction of our country. Your rulers have never been happy with our existence. If they thought they could get away unscathed they would obliterate us tomorrow…”
The telephone buzzed and Captain Tachauer picked it up. He listened and muttered an answer.
“I’m needed,” he said, standing. “Make yourself comfortable. There’s more tea here in the thermos.”
What on earth had he been talking about? Jan sipped the strong tea, rubbing unconsciously at the black and blue bruise that was beginning to appear on his leg. The history books can’t lie. Yet this submarine was here — and acting very circumspectly — and they were obviously worried about something. He wished that he wasn’t so tired, his thoughts so clogged.
“Feeling any better?” the girl said, slipping through the curtains that covered the doorway, then sitting in the Captain’s chair. She had blond hair and green eyes and was very attractive. She wore a khaki blouse and shorts, her legs were tanned and smooth, and Jan drew his eyes away from them with an embarrassed start. She smiled. “My name is Sara and you are Jan Kulozik. Anything more I can get you?”
“No, thank you. Wait, yes, some information. Do you know what those ships were doing that ran us down? I want to report them.”
“I don’t know.”
But she added nothing else. Just sat and looked at him calmly. The silence grew until he realized that was all she was going to say.
“Aren’t you going to tell me?” he asked.
“No. It’s for your own good. If you reveal your knowledge at any time you will be put instantly on the security suspect list and watched. For the rest of your life. Your advancement, career, everything will be in jeopardy until the end of your days.”
“I’m afraid, Sara, that you know very little about my country. We have Security, yes, in fact my brother-in-law is a rather high officer. But we don’t have anything like that. For proles, perhaps, if they are known troublemakers. They must be watched. But not for someone in my position… ”
“What exactly is your position?”
“I’m an engineer, from a good family. I have the best connections.
“I see. One of the oppressors. A slave master.”
“I resent the implications of that…”
“I’m not implying anything, Jan. Just stating a fact. You have your kind of society and we have ours. A democracy. Maybe it’s a word you don’t even know. It doesn’t matter since we are probably the last democracy in the world. We rule ourselves and we are all equal. As opposed to your slaveocracy where all are born unequal, live and die that way since nothing can ever change. From your point of view I’m sure it doesn’t look so bad. Since you’re the one on the top. But don’t rock the boat. Your personal position could change very quickly if you were under suspicion. There is vertical mobility in your culture in only one direction. Down.”
Jan laughed aloud. “Nonsense.”
“Do you really believe that? All right. I’ll tell you about the ships. There is a brisk trade in drugs through the Red Sea. The traditional trade from the east. Heroin for the masses. Smuggled in through Egypt or Turkey. Where there is a need — and your proles have a great need for escape — there is always money and men who will supply it. None of these drugs goes through the areas we control, we see to that, which is another reason why we are suffered to exist. This submarine patrol is just one of the ways we make sure. As long as the smugglers stay away from us we ignore them. But your state security forces have patrols as well and one of these was after that smuggler that almost ran you down. It was the coast guard that hit you. We doubt if they saw you in the darkness. In any case, they did take care of the smuggler. We saw the light of the explosion, and we tracked the coast guard returning to port alone.”