The Circle

by David Poyer

  “Thank you,” said Evlin.

  “Anyway, what did you mean?”

  “I’d rather have you tell me what you thought I meant.”

  Dan said slowly, “If I get you right—you were comparing our individual lives to the waves. Not as separate, but a—conceptual subset, like in Boolean algebra.” He paused, but Evlin kept silently impastoing bread with peanut butter. “And … so that even though each wave looks different from the rest, and it seems sometimes they die and the sea’s calm, really nothing’s created, and nothing dies … it’s just the sea, always changing, but always still the same.”

  The ops officer took a bite. “Chunky. I prefer smooth.”

  “And that our existence is like that,” Dan said. He felt silly, but at the same time very clear, as if this was what he was supposed to be talking about right now, right here, in this crowded, careening space, with this man.

  “I never said that. Nothing is like anything else. Language forces us to think in similes. It works when you’re discussing things in terms of other things. But when you’re talking about areas outside everyday experience—particle physics, for example—you can’t use words at all, not and have it mean anything corresponding to reality.”

  “But it makes sense, somehow. It’s true in terms of matter and energy. They don’t vanish. They just change forms.”

  “But are the spiritual and physical worlds separate? The medieval Christians thought all of nature was a book revealing the intent of God.”

  Dan said slowly, keeping his voice below the hum of other voices, “But what good does it do you to believe that, Al?”

  “What good. Well, how would people act if they really thought everyone else was part of himself? That his neighbor’s not only like him, the Golden Rule, but actually another, separate self, looking out through other eyes?”

  “It would make you a lot more tolerant.” He thought about it. “And maybe, kinder.”

  “And if you believed you’d be back?”

  “It would make you care more about a lot of things, stuff you just shrug about now, because you figure it’ll be somebody else’s problem.”

  “It would change the world,” Evlin said.

  Ryan gave a deep groan and rolled to her beam ends. The men grabbed the tables, letting go of food, cups, hats. The heavy steam tables shifted against their lashings, stirring above suddenly taut faces that turned to look uphill at them.

  “It would change the world. And that’s what the Master’s trying to do. That’s why I’m getting out, Dan. That’s where I belong. At his side.”

  Chief Bloch lurched out of the galley with BM1 Isaacs. The boatswain looked worried. Dan waved. They exchanged glances, then shoved their way through the men clinging to the tables.

  Bloch hadn’t shaved that day. The stubble was gray. “What you doing down here, sir? Thought you was in CIC.”

  “We’re port and starboard up there, Chief. How are the guys doing? We getting anything done?”

  “Not a damn thing, sir. Not in this shit. I had them turned to in the paint locker for a couple hours, but fumes got so bad and they got so sick, I told them to clear out. Most of ’em are in the compartment, seized down and flaked out.”

  “How about maintenance? There’s gear needs tearing down and rebuilding.”

  “All our shit’s out on deck, sir, ’cept the windlass and wildcat up in the peak.”

  “Well, how about training? Any lessons we can give them, Rights and Responsibilities, or something?”

  “I’ll see, sir,” said Bloch without enthusiasm.

  “How you doing, Ikey?” asked Evlin. Isaacs started, then looked at him with bleary, glazed eyes.

  “All right. Lieutenant, sir. I’m doing okay.”

  “What’s going on up there, sir? We heard something about a Russki sub. Then we didn’t hear nothing after that.”

  Dan wasn’t sure how to answer that. It was secret, part of it top secret, the first TS-classified stuff he’d ever seen. If you went by the regs, he didn’t see that the deck division had any need to know. But who were they going to tell, three hundred miles northeast of Iceland? In the end, he bunted. “I don’t really know, Chief. It’s so new to me, I’m not really sure what’s going on.”

  “How about you, Lieutenant? The guys ask us, we ought to have something to give out.”

  “You’re about up-to-date, Chief. We caught a Soviet submarine sneaking south, and we’re trying to hang on to him.”

  “Is that why they’re keepin’ us out here … sir? Just to hassle some poor fucking Russian?” said a voice from the next table.

  Dan turned, and found himself face-to-face with Lassard’s flat, empty eyes, his detached smile. How long had the seaman been eavesdropping? “We’re out here because those’re our orders, Seaman Lassard.”

  Lassard got up. Into a little silence that had precipitated around them, he said loudly, “We got no business out here, Ensign. Loo-tenant. Listen to that, you guys! This fuckin’ rust bucket ain’t gonna take this forever. We hit a piece of ice, one wave too many, we’re gonna feed the fish, all of us.”

  Dan had thought about how to handle Lassard, and through him the other kinnicks. Since everyone expected it of him, the seaman had no choice but to act the rebel, the devil. And since he was a born leader, that made him more than just a pain in the ass. What you expected, they’d told him at the Academy, was what you got. If he treated Lassard like an adult, maybe he could reach him. Thinking this, he said with firm reasonableness, “The old man’s been at sea a lot longer than we have. What do you say we leave that up to him.”

  “Hey, this is everybody’s problem, Ensign. Look at these poor fuckers.” Lassard gestured around, at the pale faces, apathetic a moment before, interested now. “They don’t get off on hassling Russians. They’re probably as sick and scared as we are, down there. What’s the point, anyway?”

  “I like that you’re starting to care about your shipmates, Slick. But if the Soviets can get past us now, that means they can do it anytime it’s rough. And if they know that, there’s nothing stopping them from doing it for real.”

  “Come off it! It’s just another Navy mind job. You think these guys care about that World War Three bullshit?” His wave included the listening men. “Hey, you raggedy-ass seasick motherfuckers, any you give a drizzly shit about that? Fuck, no! They just want to get home alive for Christmas.”

  “You done eating, Slick?” said Bloch. “Then quit shooting your mouth off. You talk more and work less than any sad sack of shit I ever seen. Get off your soapbox, there’s guys waitin’ in the mess line for a place to sit.”

  “They want to see their kids again, too. You don’t care about that, why worry about the mess line?”

  “Slick—”

  But instead of leaving, Lassard leaned in close. His pale eyes, the blue of a jay’s wing, fixed on Dan’s. “I’m tellin’ you: Things are changing. The Man don’t take care of us, people gonna take care of theirselves. Going to take things into their own hands, people who know how to—”

  Bloch jumped to his feet. “Shut your fucking mouth!” he shouted. “Go forward, or you’re on report.”

  The seaman shrugged. He gave Dan an innocent smile. “Right. You’re the boss, man. We just got to turn around, bend over, and let you drive. The fuckin’ brass knows best for everybody. Even if they don’t got the sense to puke to leeward.”

  “Lassard!”

  “Let’s go,” he said. When he left three or four others got up with him.

  Bloch looked after him, fists closed. “You can’t reason with that son of a whore, sir. That’s the wrong approach. He’ll just take advantage of you.”

  “Maybe so, Chief. Maybe you’re right.”

  Bloch and Isaacs nodded and moved off, Isaacs settling at the edge of a knot of senior petty officers, Bloch headed forward toward the chiefs’ quarters. Just before the doorway, he turned back. “By the way, sir, the senior chief boilerbugger and me been talking. We’re t
aking on a lot of ice. If the Skipper wants to find us a safe course, we can get some steam lines topside, blast some of it off.”

  “Thanks, Chief. Good idea. I’ll pass it on.”

  Bloch left. Dan thought about that for a minute. Then he thought about taking a tour of his spaces before he went back on watch. Actually, he should have done that with the chief. But he’d better get something to eat while he could.

  He was biting into white bread and processed cheese when the buzz of talking, eating men trailed off. He glanced up to see Commander Bryce by the serving line, tapping a pack of Camels against the back of his hand. His frown played over the ranked heads, coming at last to rest on the two officers. The frown deepened.

  The men drew their legs out of his way quickly as the exec came toward them.

  “Afternoon, XO,” said Evlin.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” said Dan.

  “Hello, boys. Taking it easy?”

  “Having a sandwich before we go back on in CIC, sir,” said the ops officer. Dan noticed that he spoke differently to Bryce than he did to others. Formally, almost pendantically. The way he’d seemed to Dan at first: courteous, remote, intellectual.

  “So, you made any progress on your investigation, Dan? I believe I asked for a report?”

  He felt his toes curl inside his boondockers. “Uh, no, sir. I mean, yes, you did, but I … I had my interviews complete yesterday, I mean day before yesterday. But I didn’t get any leads. Then we went to Condition One.…”

  “So bottom line is, you still don’t know who belongs to that marijuana.”

  “No, sir.”

  “That’s not the kind of performance I expected. In fact, it’s pretty piss-poor. Still, maybe that’s the best you could do.… is it the best you could do?”

  “Well, sir—” He struggled with that. “No sir, I could have dug deeper. Maybe I could have found out who put it there. But there just hasn’t been time.”

  Bryce looked past them at the crew. They were eating and talking again, but eyes kept sideslipping their way. “Well, maybe if there was less shooting the shit on the mess decks, there might be time to carry out orders, eh? If having the men use drugs really bothered you. But if you don’t think it’s important, we’ll leave it at that.”

  “It bothers me, sir.” Dan swallowed bitterness. “I’ll get right on it, sir.”

  When Bryce left, Lenson stared at his bread and cheese without speaking. “Don’t take it so hard,” said Evlin. “Don’t let him get to you.”

  “Just another wave, huh?”

  “Something like that. And not such a big one, when you get it in perspective.” Evlin looked at his watch, tossed off his juice, and got up, all at once official again. “Got to check the traffic. See you in CIC.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dan decided that he stank, and that he’d better do something about it.

  The bunkroom was so hot he broke into instant sweat. Freezing cold outside, cooking within. As his eyes adapted, he made out Silver in his rack, arm over his eyes. Someone had thrown the shoes and pubs on the floor into the shitcan and wedged it under the sink. He stripped off khakis and skivvies, pawed his locker for soap, and closed the door softly.

  The washroom was dark, too, and just as hot. He flipped on the light and stepped into the stall. A Navy shower, a quart to wet down, soap yourself, then a quart to rinse off. Even that would be nice. He twisted the knob. Nothing. He was so tired, he didn’t even curse.

  “All-officer meeting in the wardroom. That is, all officers not actually on watch, meet in the wardroom.”

  * * *

  HE took a standing-room space by the sideboard, buttoning his last clean shirt over dirt and sweat. The chairs were still lashed down, so everyone else was standing, too, except for a few early birds on the sofa. Bryce gave him a look from the head of the table.

  “Attention on deck.”

  “At ease,” said Packer before anyone had a chance to come to attention. He stayed by the door, one hand braced against the sideboard, the other in his pocket. Dan, four feet away, saw the beard on his jaw and the veins in his eyes. There was a burn or callus, some kind of spot, on his lip, where he held the pipe. He didn’t have it with him now, though. The captain said, a little hoarsely, “Is ‘Fredo here? I could use some coffee.”

  “Mr. Cummings,” said Bryce. No one else moved.

  “Okay. Thought I’d get you all together and tell you what’s going on. I guess everybody knows we’re holding close contact on a Soviet boomer. We lost him for a while, got him again, lost him again half an hour ago. He’s running silent, and he’s pretty canny. But we’ve got a P-three with us now, working barrier ops under my direction, and I think we’ll snag him again, no matter how smart he is.

  “Al, how about that last message.”

  Evlin cleared his throat. He pulled a paper from his shirt pocket and adjusted his glasses.

  “This is from JCS via CINCLANT. It came in Flash precedence half an hour ago. I’ll summarize. The Joint Chiefs say that the Soviets have been in touch with them. This sub we got, track B forty-one, apparently has sortied on its own. It’s a second flight Yankee boat, like our new Poseidons, with a full patrol loadout of SS-N-six mod threes.”

  Evlin stopped for a moment to let that sink in, then went on. “The Soviets say the boat’s CO is a hot runner, one of the best they’ve got, but a hard-liner, a real old-style Communist. He was talking preventive war. This got the higher-ups nervous, apparently, and they sent the KGB in to shut him down.

  “Unfortunately, they tried to relieve him aboard his ship, and that didn’t go over too well with him. The Russians say he went over the edge. Told his crew that it was now or never for victory over the West, and got enough of them to go along to get under way. He evaded a Northern Fleet cruiser that tried to stop them, but sustained damage in the action.

  “The Soviets have asked if we can help. They don’t want the submarine sunk, but they very much want him stopped. So do we.

  “The Russians have also notified NATO that they’re sending eight to ten of their nuclear submarines into the Gap after him.

  “Okay, that’s basically what the message says, only it adds that there’s a lot of VLF traffic out of the Northern Fleet, primarily to Soviet ballistic missile boats. Or maybe to this boat, the one we’re holding down. We don’t know.” Evlin paused. “Captain?”

  “Okay, that’s the picture. Any questions?”

  “That’s the real story?” Bryce said. They all looked at him. The XO wasn’t smiling now. “What if it’s a trick, to get their fleet out to sea, before we can get the cork in? That way, they get a great excuse to start a war—‘They sank one of our boomers’—at the same time they get their subs into the chicken coop. That could end up lettin’ them win.”

  “I don’t know, Ben. It’s also possible that they’re lying about what this guy’s trying to do, that he’s really trying to escape, or defect.”

  “But if he was trying to escape, wouldn’t he surface and give up, when he ran into us?” asked Norden.

  “Maybe he doesn’t trust us.”

  “Sir,” said Dan. “What about the directive—what about our orders to shoot, if we hear him getting ready to fire?”

  “That’s pretty clear, I think,” said Packer. He closed his eyes for a second, was about to speak when the pantry slider opened and a cup of coffee appeared. He took it and waited till the door closed again.

  “It’s a Yankee-class, flight two. Those are the Soviets’ first-line ballistic missile boats. Some of those missiles probably have multiple warheads. The range is great enough that, if he makes it past us, gets another couple hundred miles south, he can hit New York. As it is, he can hit London, Paris, anyplace in Europe. JCS asked the Russians if he had codes, if he could fire. They didn’t answer that one. So the assumption on this side is that he does.

  “Now, Ryan’s the only Allied unit in the area, the only ship available to stop this guy. Nobody else patrols up here
in the winter. So CINCLANT’s leaving it to us. We have to hold contact for”—he paused, looking at the clock—“roughly thirty-six more hours. Then we’ll have four U.S. and British nukes here. They’ll either hold this guy till the situation clarifies or else destroy him.”

  “How long will the other Red boats take to get here?” said Bryce. “Seems like we ought to finish up before then.”

  “Finish up?”

  “I mean kill him. Next time we get a solid contact, blow him out of the water.”

  Faintly, Dan heard the keen of the gale outside. Packer straightened. “I’ve been thinking about that. Any other questions?”

  Dan looked around. Norden and the others were examining the table, absorbed in their thoughts. “Captain—”

  “Mr. Lenson?”

  “About the ice topside, sir—”

  “Yeah, I meant to say something about that. This storm will pass between us and Iceland in the next twenty-four hours. It’s not going to be comfortable out here. Fleet Weather’s giving us forty-foot sea, ninety-knot wind predictions now. I’ll look for an opportunity to get people topside. Wanted to today but the courses we were on just wouldn’t permit it.

  “If we can’t, and the weather gets worse—”

  Packer didn’t finish, as if he hadn’t yet thought it through. “Anyway, whatever we think, we have our orders. And I’m going to execute them. Ben, Al, let’s get together in my sea cabin for a few minutes. Thank you, gentlemen. Let’s go about our business.”

  Dan came to attention automatically, though no one called it. He was trying to imagine forty-foot seas. Hurricane-force winds. How could they get men out to deice in that? And if they didn’t, how would Ryan live?

  When he looked at the clock, it was time to go back on watch.

  14

  “TIME, eighteen thirty-one. Standby—shift,” said Pedersen, swinging the rule clear. The officers stepped back, bracing themselves against repeaters and vertical plots as Matt and Lipson rolled the old plot up and off the table. The chief radarman stepped in with fresh paper. Dan swallowed hard, grabbed the edges, held it flat for taping. As their hands lifted, the plotting and evaluation team leaned forward again, Packer with them, part of the huddle around the smooth white field on which they were locked in the long game.