VIII
The submarine surfaced at dawn. Orsino had been assigned a bunk and, tohis surprise, had fallen asleep almost at once. At eight in the morning,he was shaken awake by one of the men in caps.
"Shift change," the man explained laconically.
Orsino started to say something polite and sleepy. The man grabbed hisshoulder and rolled him onto the deck, snarling: "You going to _argue_?"
Orsino's reactions were geared to hot-rod polo--doing the split-secondright thing after instinctively evaluating the roll of the ball, thericochet of bullets, the probable tactics and strategy of the opposingfour. They were not geared to a human being who behaved with the blindferocity of an inanimate object. He just gawked at him from the deck,noting that the man had one hand on a sheath knife.
"All right, buster," the man said contemptuously, apparently decidingthat Orsino would stay put. "Just don't mess with the Guard." He rolledinto the bunk and gave a good imitation of a man asleep until Orsinoworked his way through the crowded compartment and up a ladder to thedeck.
There was a heavy, gray over-cast. The submarine seemed to be planingthe water; salt spray washed the shining deck. A gun crew was forward,drilling with a five-incher. The rasp of a petty-officer singing out thenumbers mingled with the hiss and gurgle of the spray. Orsino leanedagainst the conning tower and tried to comb his thoughts out clean andstraight.
It wasn't easy.
He was Charles Orsino, very junior Syndic member, with all memoriespertaining thereto.
He was also, more dimly, Max Wyman with _his_ memories. Now, able tostand outside of Wyman, he could recall how those memories had beenimplanted--down to the last stab of the last needle. He thought somevery bitter thoughts about Lee Falcaro--and dropped them, snapping toattention as Commander Grinnel pulled himself through the hatch. "Goodmorning, sir," he said.
The cold eyes drilled him. "Rest," the commander said. "We don't play itthat way on a pigboat. I hear you had some trouble about your bunk."
Orsino shrugged uncomfortably.
"Somebody should have told you," the commander said. "The boat's full ofGuardsmen. They have a very high opinion of themselves--which iscorrect. They carried off the raid in good style. You don't mess withGuards."
"What are they?" Orsino asked.
Grinnel shrugged. "The usual elite," he said. "Loman's gang." He notedOrsino's blank look and smiled coldly. "Loman's President of NorthAmerica," he said.
"On shore," Orsino hazarded, "we used to hear about somebody named BenMiller."
"Obsolete information. Miller had the Marines behind him. Loman wasSecretary of Defense. He beached the Marines and broke them up intoguard detachments. Took away their heavy weapons. Meanwhile, he built upthe Guard, very quietly--which, with the Secretary of Information behindhim, he could do. About two years ago, he struck. The Marines who didn'tjoin the Guard were massacred. Miller had the sense to kill himself. TheVeep and the Secretary of State resigned, but it didn't save theirnecks. Loman assumed the Presidency automatically, of course, and hadthem shot. They were corrupt as hell anyway. They were owned body andsoul by the southern bloc."
Two seamen appeared with a folding cot, followed by the sub commander.He was red-eyed with lack of sleep. "Set it there," he told them, andsat heavily on the sagging canvas. "Morning, Grinnel," he said with aneffort. "Believe I'm getting too old for the pigboats. I want sun andair. Think you can use your influence at court to get me a corvette?" Hebared his teeth to show it was a joke.
Grinnel said, with a minimum smile: "If I had any influence, would Icatch the cloak-and-dagger crap they sling at me?"
The sub commander rolled back onto the cot and was instantly asleep, amuscle twitching the left side of his face every few seconds.
Grinnel drew Orsino to the lee of the conning tower. "We'll let himsleep," he said. "Go tell that gun crew Commander Grinnel says theyshould lay below."
Orsino did. The petty officer said something exasperated about thegunnery training bill and Orsino repeated his piece. They secured thegun and went below.
Grinnel said, with apparent irrelevance: "You're a rare bird, Wyman.You're capable--and you're uncommitted. Let's go below. Stick with me."
* * * * *
He followed the fat little commander into the conning tower. Grinneltold an officer of some sort: "I'll take the con, mister. Wyman herewill take the radar watch." He gave Orsino a look that choked off hisprotests. Presumably, Grinnel knew that he was ignorant of radar.
The officer, looking baffled, said: "Yes, Commander." A seaman pulledhis head out of a face-fitting box and told Wyman: "It's all yours,stranger." Wyman cautiously put his face into the box and was confrontedby meaningless blobs of green, numerals in the dark, and a couple ofarrows to make confusion complete.
He heard Grinnel say to the helmsman: "Get me a mug of joe, sailor. I'lltake the wheel."
"I'll pass the word, sir."
"Nuts you'll pass the word, sailor. Go get the coffee--and I want it nowand not when some steward's mate decides he's ready to bring it."
"Aye, aye, sir." Orsino heard him clatter down the ladder. Then his armwas gripped and Grinnel's voice muttered in his ear: "When you hear mebitch about the coffee, sing out: 'Aircraft 265, DX 3,000'. Good andloud. No, don't stop looking. Repeat it."
Orsino said, his eyes crossing on double images of the meaningless,luminous blobs: "Aircraft 265, DX 3,000. Good and loud. When you bitchabout the coffee."
"Right. Don't forget it."
He heard the feet on the ladder again. "Coffee, sir."
"Thanks, sailor." A long sip and then another. "I always said thepigboats drink the lousiest joe in the Navy."
"Aircraft 265, DX 3,000!" Orsino yelled.
A thunderous alarm began to sound. "Take her down!" yelled CommanderGrinnel.
"Take her down, sir!" the helmsman echoed. "But sir, the skipper--"
Orsino remembered him too then, dead asleep in his cot on the deck, themuscle twitching the left side of his face every few seconds.
"God-damn it, those were aircraft! _Take her down!_"
The luminous blobs and numbers and arrows swirled before Orsino's eyesas the trim of the ship changed, hatches clanged to and water thunderedinto the ballast tanks. He staggered and caught himself as the deckangled sharply underfoot.
He knew what Grinnel had meant by saying he was uncommitted, and he knewnow that it was no longer true.
He thought for a moment that he might be sick into the face-fitting box,but it passed.
Minutes later, Grinnel was on the mike, his voice sounding metallicallythrough the ship: "To all hands. To all hands. This is CommanderGrinnel. We lost the skipper in that emergency dive--but you and I knowthat that's the way he would have wanted it. As senior line officeraboard, I'm assuming command for the rest of the voyage. We will remainsubmerged until dark. Division officers report to the wardroom. That'sall."
He tapped Orsino on the shoulder. "Take off," he said. Orsino realizedthat the green blobs--clouds, were they?--no longer showed, and recalledthat radar didn't work through water.
He wasn't in on the wardroom meeting, and wandered rather forlornlythrough the ship, incredibly jammed as it was with sleeping men,coffee-drinking men and booty. Half a dozen times he had to turn awayclose questioning about his radar experience and the appearance of theaircraft on the radar scope. Each time he managed it, with the feelingthat one more question would have cooked his goose.
The men weren't sentimental about the skipper they had lost. Mostly theywondered how much of a cut Grinnel would allot them from the booty ofCape Cod.
At last the word passed for "Wyman" to report to the captain's cabin. Hedid, sweating after a fifteen-minute chat with a radar technician.
Grinnel closed the door of the minute cabin and smirked at him. "Youhave trouble, Wyman?" he asked.
"Yes."
"You'd have worse trouble if they found out for sure that you don't knowradar. I'd be in the clear.
I could tell them you claimed to be aqualified radar man. That would make me out to be pretty gullible, butit would make you out to be a murderer. Who's backing you, Wyman? Whotold you to get rid of the skipper?"
"Quite right, sir," Orsino said. "You've really got me there."
"Glad you realize it, Wyman. I've got you and I can use you. It was agreat bit of luck, the skipper corking off on deck. But I've always hada talent for improvisation. If you're determined to be a leader, Wyman,nothing is more valuable. Do you know, I can relax with you? It's a rarefeeling. For once I can be certain that the man I'm talking to isn't oneof Loman's stooges, or one of Clinch's N.A.B.I. ferrets or anything elsebut what he says he is--
"But that's beside the point. I have something else to tell you. Thereare two sides to working for me, Wyman. One of them's punishment if youget off the track. That's been made clear to you. The other is reward ifyou stay on. I have plans, Wyman, that are large-scale. They simplyeclipse the wildest hopes of Loman, Clinch, Baggot and the rest. Andyet, they're not wild. How'd you like to be on the inside when the NorthAmerican Government returns to the mainland?"
Orsino uttered an authentic gasp and Commander Grinnel looked satisfied.
The Syndic Page 8
