Slave Ship (11 page)

The biggest hitch in communicating from the whale-boat was that we were living a lie, and we knew it. It was all very well to dry-run the animals from the whaleboat, in communication by means of the telecom, but in actual combat we would not be so fortunate. Water bars microwaves; communication is possible, but only by sonar beam, and that presents a real challenge to a telecom.

But not one which COMCARIB refused. Early one morning the engineers were back, ripping out all our communication equipment and replacing it with something complicated and new. Semyon and I sat on the shore, playing with Josie's puppies and waiting, and the whole business was installed in an hour.

The engineer from COMCARIB mopped his brow and explained it to us. "Oof," he said, sweating. "It's a sonar-vision installation, and Flag Section thinks it ought to do for whatever kind of lashup you guys have got here."

He looked puzzledly at Josie and at Semyon and shrugged "Anyway, it'll give you a two-way picture. But not instantaneous; it's got a slow rate of scan, and you can transmit about one full image every two seconds. There's a little bell that rings when your picture is taken. The phosphors in the picture tube are—"

From there on it got deep, but I understood. Instead of radio waves, which the sea would stop, this thing beamed sound waves, which the sea carried beautifully; but because of the slow speed of sound waves, apparently, we were confined to transmitting a series of stills instead of a movie.

When I pounded it through Semyon's head, after the engineers had left, he glowered at me. "But the
essence
, Logan," he complained, "the
essence
of the vocabulary is
motion
and—"

I patted him on the head. "Back to the computers," I said, as kindly as I could.

Well, we worked it out, and if we didn't have perfect rapport with the animals, there were compensations—with practice they got almost good enough to shiphandle by themselves anyhow.

The image in the sonarvision screen wasn't terribly sharp, but by turning up the gain we got a patchy sort of vivid light-and-dark silhouette that looked awful to me, but which the dogs and apes had no trouble recognizing. The only thing was, they couldn't seem to grasp the notion that the picture of Semyon was the same as the person of Semyon; they would take orders from Semyon in person, but the semaphoring stills only puzzled them.

We ran picture recognition tests for two whole days, and Josie was the first of the dogs to begin to get the idea. I pointed to Semyon and announced his name; I pointed to the photo of Semyon the signal lab had made for us, as contrasty as the screen image, and named it, and Josie got up on her hind feet and leaped over to the photo and licked it. It was like winning the Battle of the Atlantic.

"Good girl," I said in English, because by the time we got the dogs they had already naturally acquired ten or twenty loan words, like any other reasonably intelligent mutt. And, in Dog: "Now. This one. Do."

It was a photo of a cow. Josie stared at it thoughtfully for a moment and then pronounced "Big—." Well, never mind what the Dog word for "cow" is. But she got it. I ran through a couple of dozen pictures, and she called every one; and when I came to a photo of her puppies she called each name and, barking the look-at-me symbol, rolled over on her back to display her swollen milk glands.

I took a break, scratching the back of Josie's neck and smoking a cigarette. She said the low, half-voice whine for "Bad smell" once, but only as a comment, not a reproof, and she nudged my cigarette case indulgently with her nose.

I picked it up and opened it. Elsie's picture was inside the lid, taken two years before. I started to tell Josie that this was my wife, but somehow it didn't seem right, translated into Dog, and I contented myself with showing her the picture. She looked at it a little dubiously, tongue lolling out, one paw on my knee.

I didn't think how odd that might look to anyone else until I heard Lineback's voice, scratchy with astonishment and scorn, from behind me saying: "What are you trying to do, Miller, make her jealous?"

Lineback went through
Weems
like a homing torpedo through a tube, and in that one half-hour inspection there wasn't a thing that Semyon and I had been doing that he didn't touch on. He was wearing a sardonic expression when he began, but by the time he completed his tour and watched us put the animals through a couple of simple paces his face was serious and friendly. "Lieutenant Miller, Lieutenant Timiyazev," he said, "well done. Now I've got a hard question for you. Do you think you can make this thing work in combat?"

Semyon swallowed audibly. I said quickly: "Certainly, . sir."

Lineback looked at me thoughtfully. "You're pretty salty," he said, and I couldn't tell whether it was approbation or not. "Well, you may get the chance. You'll have orders tomorrow." He reached over to pat Sammy, our wirehair. Sammy glanced at Semyon, who told him:

"Boss. All right here."

Sammy whined. You could translate it as, "Well, if you say so"—and suffered Lineback to pat him. Lineback shook his head. "That business with your hands and the growl—you were talking to the pup?"

"That is correct, Commander," said Semyon proudly. "I translate it like so—"

"Never mind," said Lineback. "I don't know, it seems to me things were simpler before this thing got started." Sammy was acting ill at ease, so Lineback let him go. "Dogs usually like me," he said. "Been getting along with animals all my life. I suppose once they get in the habit of conversation with humans, it changes their attitudes a little."

"That is so," Semyon said eagerly. "One picks up a little of culture from the other; it is a phenomenon well known. You will find it in the papers of my mother, who worked with Pavlov."

"No doubt," said Lineback drily, and got up to look for his hat. I got up with him; he had left the hat at A-Hatch and—

"Sammy!" I yelled. The terrier, surprised in the act, looked around at me and whined, and reluctantly lowered his leg. I rescued the commander's hat, just in the nick of time.

Commander Lineback, I will say for him, rose to the occasion. He looked at me for a speculative moment, then smiled slightly. "I see," he said impassively. "Well, you won't have to translate that for me. Good day, gentlemen."

And he left, leaving Semyon and me staring at each other in horror and relief.

XI

SO WE FOUND ourselves on orders. It wasn't Lineback who handed us the orders. It was a special courier-officer from a higher command, and it wasn't even COMCARIB that wrote them, though it had COMCARIB's humble and instant endorsement. But the orders were signed "By command of COMINCH" himself, and the. courier was a full commander of the Line.

Semyon was awed. "It is big, Logan," he said portentously. "Did you observe? He shares your tastes in hats."

"I observed," I said. The commander had worn the aluminum skullcap under his regulation dress cap, a style which was becoming fashionable. We broke the seal on our orders, and read them hurriedly. They explained very little, only that we were detached from Project Mako as of 0800 the next morning, and were to proceed without delay to a port on the Florida Gulf coast for assignment. That was all my orders said. Semyon's had one extra paragraph—directing him to bring with him certain "experimental animals covered by References COMINCH KT-41-611-MAKO and COMINCH KJA-41-1845-MAKO, specifically one (1) bitch, two (2) dogs, two (2) apes, small, female, and one (1) seal.

The orders were headed MOST SECRET, and consequently it was inevitable that everyone we saw on Project Mako stopped us to say good-by. We reported in to Commander Lineback, who made the most sensible suggestion of the day. "Go out," he said, "and get drunk. It may be a long wait for the next time."

So we headed off base and wound up in the Passion Pit—but not, this time, without shots of our own. When the waiter finally made it to our table, Semyon ordered ginger ale and I ordered chicken broth setups, and we got set to enjoy the floor show.

The stripper went through the whole act without interruption, and I must say it was worth it. She was a lovely woman, golden-hatred, blue-eyed, tall and shapely; she had a figure that no woman deserved; and it was incontrovertibly natural, she went to some trouble to prove it. Because Semyon made a point of those things, we were seated at ringside, and he invited her to our table when she paused right in front of us near the end of her number. I was surprised she didn't have us thrown out. I was even more surprised when, five minutes after she made her last bow, she showed up at our table.

"Lovely," said Semyon sentimentally, looking at her costume. It was civilian clothing, rare enough on a young girl; you could see the fall-away zippers and clippers that marked it as part of her professional wardrobe. "I have not seen many such dresses in your country. May we offer you a drink?" He reached for his flask as I reached for my case; we both held them out at the same time.

"Thanks," she said with a warm smile. "I'll pop, please?" Semyon shook his head in sad resignation.

"Mad," he said. "However—waiter!"

The waiter came over and took our orders—the same setups for Semyon and myself, beef bouillon for the girl. "My name," she said, "is—"

"Caresse O'Nuit," said Semyon promptly. "I have seen the billboards."

"But my
name
," she said, "is Nina Merriam, Ensign, USWNR."

"Of course," Semyon said humbly. "I am sorry, Nina. It is a much more lovely name."

"Which is?"

"Nina Merriam is."

"Is it?" She thought about it. "No, I think you're wrong," she decided. "But it's my real name, so let's use it, shall we?"

Semyon said: "I would use any name that would bring you to me."

She looked at him. "Down, boy," said Nina Merriam.

"Chicken broth," said the waiter, arriving. "Ginger ale. And here's your beef bouillon, Nina. Better take it easy; the old man's out back."

"Don't worry about me," said Nina, and looked at me expectantly. I took out the case again and offered her her choice. She hesitated, then picked a flat green one.

"They're doubles," I warned her.

"So we'll live a little." She popped the pastille into her mouth and swallowed it expertly, dry. She sat for a moment before she took the first spoonful of the chaser. "Good stuff," she said.

I was feeling my first one by then; but, after all, as Commander Lineback had said it might be a long time before we had another chance to hoist a few. I took a double too—but unlike sweet, blonde, young Nina Merriam, I had to wash it down with half the chicken broth.

They say that you don't really get any physical kick out of popping for at least half an hour—it takes that long for the build-up. But I swear I get a tingle as soon as it slides down my throat. Call it psychological and maybe it is; but I can feel my temperature go up, I can see things begin to take on that lovely, fuzzy, dreamy look, I can feel that funny hot tingle go through my body.

Semyon, of course, disapproves. He sat glumly sipping his Scotch and ginger ale and watched us. "Filthy custom," he grumbled. "Thank heaven is not found in Russia."

"They used to say the same thing about alcohol," I said dreamily. "'S just a poison, alcohol. Why would anybody want to poison himself?"

"Be easy on him, Lieutenant," Nina broke in, pushing away the balance of her chaser. "I kind of wish I could get as big a charge out of liquor as I do out of bios. I'm getting fat as a pig on the chasers."

"Oh, no, no," said Semyon at once, dropping the whole discussion. "I have seen many pigs, Nina Merriam. Truly, there was none of them who was not much, much fatter than you."

"Thanks."

"You are welcome," said Semyon proudly. "You have in no respect a figure like a pig's. Observe that in hog, the middle section bulges out like watermelon. Your middle section is slim—two-hands slim, I estimate. Utterly unlike pig. I have covered waist; now I proceed upward. Pig—"

"No you don't," said the girl. "Forget about the pigs."

"Of course," said Semyon. "But pig—"

"I think pigs are dirty animals," said the girl definitively.

Semyon giggled and slopped more Scotch into his glass. "So you say of pig," he observed. "And pig says of you—" And he told her, in Pig, what pigs called humans. It was the same term as they used for portions of their swill; it sounded like a hay fever patient blowing his nose.

The girl looked suddenly interested. "I didn't know you were a farmer," she said.

"Farmer? Timiyazev is no farmer! Logan here and I we—"

"Semyon! Shut up!" I had been half asleep in my chair, dreamily listening to them, thinking how far away and curious everything was; but Semyon brought me to with a bang.

He said angrily, "Do not shut me up, Logan! I was not going to speak of Project Mako!"

"You better not," I told him, and went back to examining my own sensations. I was beginning to see things through a haze. I looked down at the floor, where a cigarette was smoldering far, far away; it reminded me to take a drag on my own cigarette, and when I raised my fingers to my lips there was no cigarette in them. It posed an interesting problem. Cigarettes appeared from nowhere on the floor, cigarettes disappeared from my hands; it was all incomprehensible and suspicious. Was it possible that the Caodais were up to tricks with my cigarettes? I thought it over, and rejected the possibility. The pacifists, yes; that might be it. But it couldn't be the Caodais, because they were too far away. It had to be pacifists. However, I had a plan to outwit them; it involved bending over and picking up the cigarette on the floor. It took a little thinking, but it was workable: It would restore the balance.

While I was working out the details, Nina Merriam said, "How about another round?" The waiter appeared and disappeared, and new setups were on the table.

"Logan," Semyon was saying insistently. "Logan, why don't you answer me?"

"What is it that you would like an answer to?" I asked him carefully.

"I asked you if I might tell Nina about Josie's puppies."