'How far did she get?'
'She got all over, I believe,' he said. 'She did the eastern states from Florida to Maine and went right into New York Harbor, right on up the Hudson till she tangled with the wreck of the George Washington Bridge. She went to New London and to Halifax and to St. John's, and then she crossed the Atlantic and went up the English Channel and into the London River, but she couldn't get far up that. Then she took a look at Brest and at Lisbon, and by that time she was running out of stores and her crew were in pretty bad shape, so she went back to Rio.' He paused. 'I haven't heard yet how many days she was submerged-I'd like to know. She certainly set a new record, anyway.'
'Did she find anyone alive, Dwight?'
'I don't think so. We'd certainly have heard about it if she did.'
She stared down the narrow alleyway outside the curtain forming the cabin wall, the running maze of pipes and electric cables. 'Can you visualize it, Dwight?'
'Visualize what?'
'All those cities, all those fields and farms, with nobody, and nothing left alive. Just nothing there. I simply can't take it in.'
'I can't, either,' he said. 'I don't know that I want to try. I'd rather think of them the way they were.'
'I never saw them, of course,' she observed. 'I've never been outside Australia, and now I'll never go. Not that I want to, now. I only know all those places from the movies and the books-that's as they were. I don't suppose there'll ever be a movie made of them as they are now.'
He shook his head. 'It wouldn't be possible. A cameraman couldn't live, as far as I can see. I guess nobody will ever know what the Northern Hemisphere looks like now, excepting God.' He paused. 'I think that's a good thing. You don't want to remember how a person looked when he was dead-you want to remember how he was when he was alive. That's the way I like to think about New York.'
'It's too big,' she repeated. 'I can't take it in.'
'It's too big for me, too,' he replied. 'I can't really believe in it, just can't get used to the idea. I suppose it's lack of imagination. I don't want to have any more imagination. They're all alive to me, those places in the States, just like they were. I'd like them to stay that way till next September.'
She said softly, 'Of course.'
He stirred. 'Have another cup of tea?'
'No, thanks.'
He took her out on deck again; she paused on the bridge rubbing a bruised shin, breathing the sea air gratefully. 'It must be the hell of a thing to be submerged in her for any length of time,' she said. 'How long will you be underwater for this cruise?'
'Not long,' he said. 'Six or seven days, maybe.'
'It must be terribly unhealthy.'
'Not physically,' he said. 'You do suffer from a lack of sunlight. We've got a couple of sunray lamps, but they're not the same as being out on deck. It's the psychological effect that's worst. Some men-good men in every other way-they just can't take it. Everybody gets kind of on edge after a while. You need a steady kind of temperament. Kind of placid, I'd say.'
She nodded, thinking that it fitted in with his own character. 'Are all of you like that?'
'I'd say we might be. Most of us.'
'Keep an eye on John Osborne,' she remarked. 'I don't believe he is.'
He glanced at her in surprise. He had not thought of that, and the scientist had survived the trial trip quite well. But now that she had mentioned it, he wondered. 'Why-I'll do that,' he said. 'Thanks for the suggestion.'
They went up the gangway into Sydney. In the hangar of the aircraft carrier there were still aircraft parked with folded wings; the ship seemed dead and silent. She paused for a moment. 'None of these will ever fly again, will they?'
'I wouldn't think so.'
'Do any aeroplanes fly now, at all?'
'I haven't heard one in the air for quite a while,' he said. 'I know they're short of aviation gas.'
She walked quietly with him to the cabin, unusually subdued. As she got out of the boiler suit and into her own clothes her spirits revived. These morbid bloody ships, these morbid bloody realities! She was urgent to get away from them, to drink, hear music, and to dance. Before the mirror, before the pictures of his wife and children, she made her lips redder, her cheeks brighter, her eyes sparkling. Snap out if it! Get right outside these riveted steel walls, and get out quick. This was no place for her. Into the world of romance, of make-believe and double brandies! Snap out of it, and get back to the world where she belonged!
From the photograph frames Sharon looked at her with understanding and approval.
In the wardroom he came forward to meet her. 'Say,' he exclaimed in admiration, 'you look swell!'
She smiled quickly. 'I'm feeling lousy,' she said. 'Let's get out of it and into the fresh air. Let's go to that hotel and have a drink, and then go up and find somewhere to dance.'
'Anything you say.'
He left her with John Osborne while he went to change into civilian clothes. 'Take me up on to the flight deck, John,' she said. 'I'll throw a screaming fit if I stay in these ships one minute longer.'
'I'm not sure that I know the way up to the roof,' he remarked. 'I'm a new boy here.' They found a steep ladder that led up to a gun turret, came down again, wandered along a steel corridor, asked a rating, and finally got up into the island and out on to the deck. On the wide, unencumbered flight deck the sun was warm, the sea blue, and the wind fresh. 'Thank God I'm out of that,' she said.
'I take it that you aren't enamoured of the navy,' he observed.
'Well, are you having fun?'
He considered the matter. 'Yes, I think I am. It's going to be rather interesting.'
'Looking at dead people through a periscope. I can think of funnier sorts of fun.'
They walked a step or two in silence. 'It's all knowledge,' he said at last. 'One has to try and find out what has happened. It could be that it's all quite different to what we think. The radioactive elements may be getting absorbed by something. Something may have happened to the half-life that we don't know about. Even if we don't discover anything that's good, it's still discovering things. I don't think we shall discover anything that's good, or very hopeful. But even so, it's fun just finding out.'
'You call finding out the bad things fun?'
'Yes, I do,' he said firmly. 'Some games are fun even when you lose. Even when you know you're going to lose before you start. It's fun just playing them.'
'You've got a pretty queer idea of fun and games.'
'Your trouble is you won't face up to things,' he told her. 'All this has happened, and is happening, but you won't accept it. You've got to face the facts of life someday.'
'All right,' she said angrily, 'I’ve got to face them. Next September, if what all you people say is right. That's time enough for me.'
'Have it your own way.' He glanced at her, grinning. 'I wouldn't bank too much upon September,' he remarked. 'It's September plus or minus about three months. We may be going to cop it in June for all that anybody knows. Or, then again, I might be buying you a Christmas present.'
She said furiously, 'Don't you know?'
'No, I don't,' he replied. 'Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of the world before.' He paused, and then he added whimsically, 'If it had, we wouldn't be here talking about it.'
'If you say one word more I'm going to push you over the edge of that deck.'
Commander Towers came out of the island and walked across to them, neat in a double-breasted blue suit. 'I wondered where you'd got to,' he remarked.
The girl said, 'Sorry, Dwight. We should have left a message. I wanted some fresh air.'
John Osborne said, 'You'd better watch out, sir. She's in a pretty bad temper. I'd stand away from her head, if I were you, in case she bites.'
'He's been teasing me,' she said. 'Like Albert and the lion. Let's go, Dwight.'
'See you tomorrow, sir,' the scientist said. 'I'll be staying on board over the week-end.'
