Read Ship of the Damned Online
Authors: James F. David
Ship of the Damned (16 page)
S
hamita finished dissolving the integration while the others looked after the dreamers. Wes was at Elizabeth’s side, worry etched into his face. Monica stood between Margi and Anita, alternating her attention between the two. Len attended to Wanda, who was the first to wake.
hamita finished dissolving the integration while the others looked after the dreamers. Wes was at Elizabeth’s side, worry etched into his face. Monica stood between Margi and Anita, alternating her attention between the two. Len attended to Wanda, who was the first to wake.
“Where’s my cigarettes?” Wanda said, reaching for the pocket in her sweater.
In a flash, she had a Lucky Strike in her mouth and the Bic lighter in her hand. When she struck the lighter Len blew out the flame.
“Smartass,” she said, then struck the lighter.
Len blew out the flame again. Staring him straight in the eye, Wanda thumbed the little wheel that adjusted the flame size. Then, with another spark, a three-inch flame shot from the top of the lighter. Wanda held it still, daring Len to blow it out.
“Ha! Smartass!”
She lit the cigarette and blew the smoke in Len’s face.
“You know this means war, don’t you, Wanda?” Len said.
“Don’t pick a fight you can’t win,” Wanda replied.
“Never underestimate your enemy.”
“I wouldn’t think it would be possible to underestimate you,” Wanda
said, then finished with another “Ha!” and a laugh that ended in a wracking cough.
said, then finished with another “Ha!” and a laugh that ended in a wracking cough.
Anita woke at the same time as Elizabeth, the two of them sitting up and reaching out for each other. Then Elizabeth remembered the dream.
“I saw Ralph,” Elizabeth said. “He was on the ship.”
Confused, Wes looked from Elizabeth to Shamita, who shrugged her shoulders.
“You must have added him to the dream, Elizabeth,” Wes said.
“Not with their cortex parameters,” Shamita said. “Elizabeth was receiving only, not transmitting.”
“There was a monster,” Anita said.
“It wasn’t a monster, Anita. It was a man who had scars on his face. I’m sure you’ve seen people like that before.”
Anita shook her head.
“Not like him. The dream’s worse, not better.”
“I know it seems that way, Anita, but we learned something. We have a number for the ship.”
“Will that help?” Anita asked.
“It might,” Elizabeth told her.
“Wes, you better take a look at Margi,” Monica interrupted.
Margi was sitting up, but she was dazed, her eyes unfocused, her head lolling from side to side. Wes checked her pupillary response with a flashlight. It was sluggish. Len returned to his monitor and reported depressed vital signs, but nothing critical. Wes signalled Elizabeth to get Anita out of the room.
“Let’s go see your mother,” Elizabeth suggested, lifting her off the cot.
“Let me walk her out,” Wanda said, glaring at Wes. “I gotta find myself a place where I can smoke in peace anyway.”
When they were gone, the team gathered around Margi. She was still groggy, but responsive. Suddenly her eyes teared.
“I dreamed I was doing the dishes.”
“On the ship?” Wes said.
Margi was crying for joy.
“No, at home with my mother. I was drying while she washed. It didn’t last long, but it felt so good.”
“It’s possible,” Len said. “When we began to dissolve the integration there was a brief period of individual sleep. The others slipped into delta wave sleep, but Margi was showing alpha. She might have dreamed normally for a few minutes.”
“Can you do it again?” Margi asked. “Make me dream of my mother?”
Wes was about to explain that they didn’t know how it happened, when Elizabeth rescued him.
“We won’t give up, Margi. We’ll all keep trying.”
“Thank you. You don’t know how much that meant to me,” Margi said, her face and voice animated. “My mother and I did the dishes every night when I was little. I hated it then, because I wanted to go out and play with my friends. Now I know how special that time was. We talked like two grown-ups. I would tell her about school, and she would tell me about her day. Sometimes we would argue, sometimes we would laugh over silly things.”
Margi’s smile suddenly faded, and her speech took on the raspy sound of exhaustion.
“And I was there with her … in my dream.”
Elizabeth helped Margi to her feet, then walked her to the door, making sure of her balance before letting her go.
“She’s exhausted,” Wes said when she was gone. “We can’t use her again.”
“That little bit of normal dreaming did more harm than good,” Shamita said. “She had forgotten what she was missing until we reminded her.”
“What was that about Ralph?” Wes asked.
“He was on the ship, and there were others,” Elizabeth told them. “We were in the head when four people came in. There were three men and a woman. She was a black woman and her clothes and hair were right out of the sixties.”
The others looked at each other, wondering about the oddness of the black woman on a Navy ship.
“They called me Roger, and asked me if I ‘had someone?’ Then the man whom Anita called a monster came in. He had terrible scars and wore silver coveralls. He had a gun but didn’t use it. He didn’t need to. He had psychokinetic power. There was another man dressed the same way, and then Ralph. I’m sure it was him. Then the scarred man knocked me down and everything went black.”
“You must have contaminated the dream,” Wes said. “None of the other dreamers know who Ralph is, and the psychokinetic man—well, that comes from your past experience.”
Shamita shook her head. “Unless we’re getting faulty readings, Elizabeth wasn’t sending.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that hardwarfe,” Len said defensively.
“But then how do you explain it?” Wes asked.
Elizabeth’s face was blank, her eyes seeing something far away.
“I know one of the men. He’s the one in Dr. Birnbaum’s sketch. He’s the man that kidnapped Ralph. Wes, this isn’t a dream. It’s a place, and it’s a real place where they’ve taken Ralph.”
“I don’t know, Elizabeth, it’s too coincidental. Ralph is kidnapped and a few days later he shows up in your dream with the man you saw a sketch of.”
“What about the black woman?” Elizabeth asked. “I’d never seen her before.”
“You said she was wearing clothes from the sixties?” Wes asked.
“Bell-bottoms, and she had her hair in an afro.”
“Isn’t that just the kind of odd detail a dream would have? Think about it Elizabeth—why would someone kidnap Ralph and take him to a ship where there are sailors and a woman dressed like one of Charlie’s Angels?”
“It is strange, but we need to follow up on what we have. The ship’s number is CA137. We can check naval records.”
Wes was skeptical, but knew from experience that Elizabeth’s hunches were often right. He also knew that her hunches could get a person killed.
E
lizabeth was on the ship again, walking quickly, feeling as though she were being rushed, pushed along by an irresistible force. The ship’s compartments connected endlessly—big compartments with giant boilers that powered the steam turbines, smaller compartments with diesel motors attached to sixty-kilowatt generators serving as backup power for the ship’s guns and water pumps. She had never been on such a ship, but she knew what the machinery was for. That knowledge was part of her dream. The largest open space was in the stern where the hangar was located. There were no airplanes stowed there now, but two were mounted on their catapults, ready for action. In the hangar she felt more fear than anywhere else on the ship.
lizabeth was on the ship again, walking quickly, feeling as though she were being rushed, pushed along by an irresistible force. The ship’s compartments connected endlessly—big compartments with giant boilers that powered the steam turbines, smaller compartments with diesel motors attached to sixty-kilowatt generators serving as backup power for the ship’s guns and water pumps. She had never been on such a ship, but she knew what the machinery was for. That knowledge was part of her dream. The largest open space was in the stern where the hangar was located. There were no airplanes stowed there now, but two were mounted on their catapults, ready for action. In the hangar she felt more fear than anywhere else on the ship.
She had memories too, flashbacks of fires on a ship—not this one—caused by enemy shelling, and of sailors with hoses, fighting the fires. She was one of those men, she knew, holding a nozzle, feeling the heat from fires that refused to go out. Then the ship suddenly rocked from another hit—a fourteen-inch round, she knew somehow. Then the memory was gone and she was trudging through the ship again.
The compartments went on and on, all painted navy gray, all connected in an incomprehensible, endless loop. A few compartments were empty,
some had hammocks slung from the walls, most were filled with machinery. The monotony should have bored Elizabeth, put her to sleep, but there was no sleep in this dream and no rest either. She walked the ship all night, helplessly dreaming someone else’s dream.
some had hammocks slung from the walls, most were filled with machinery. The monotony should have bored Elizabeth, put her to sleep, but there was no sleep in this dream and no rest either. She walked the ship all night, helplessly dreaming someone else’s dream.
Elizabeth woke as tired as when she lay down. She checked her clock radio to make sure it was morning. She vaguely remembered hitting the snooze bar, and noticing the clock showed six-thirty. She had risen at this hour six days a week for the last four years, but today she felt hung over. Her head felt pressurized, as if the pressure inside was now slightly greater than outside. She felt generally uncomfortable and fuzzy.
Elizabeth thought of Margi and Anita, and the way they were suffering—sleeping, but never resting. Now she understood their longing to sleep, and especially to dream normally again. She had a powerful need to dream herself, and this was only her first day with the dream.
The phone rang and she reached out, taking two tries before she grasped the receiver. Her lips were thick and her voice sluggish when she spoke.
“Did I wake you?” Monica asked.
“No, I was up,” Elizabeth said.
“I had an idea last night about how we might find out what ship the CA137 is.”
There was a few seconds’ lag as Elizabeth’s mind cut through the fog and remembered that they had seen the number when she was in the dream.
“Yes, the CA137. I remember. How … where … what is your idea?”
“Why not call Doctor Birnbaum? He knows all kinds of odd things.”
“I suppose I could,” Elizabeth said, not sure how she felt about calling him. “He will want to know about Ralph anyway.”
“It’s just an idea,” Monica said.
“It’s a good one. Thanks for calling.”
Elizabeth hung up and lay back on her pillow. It would be nine-thirty in Columbus, so she could call anytime. It took her fifteen minutes to shake off her lethargy and pick up the phone again. Dr. Birnbaum answered on the second ring.
“It’s Elizabeth, Dr. Birnbaum.”
“Do you have news about Ralph?” he asked, clearly concerned.
“Not exactly,” Elizabeth said, then explained about the mind integration and what she had seen during the dream.
“Ralph was there with the man who kidnapped him?” Birnbaum said.
“Yes. I’m sure it was them.”
“That’s odd,” he said.
“There’s something else. We have a number for the ship. It’s the CA137, but according to the records we checked, the ship was planned but never built. You don’t happen to know the ship, do you?”
“It does sound familiar, but I can’t place it.”
“Wes is going to call the Navy today.”
“Let me work on it. I’ll call you back in a couple of hours.”
“Call me at the university,” Elizabeth said, then hung up and lay back, eyes closing. She couldn’t sleep. After twenty minutes she forced herself out of bed and dressed.
R
obert Daly sat at his desk in the Kellum Foundation headquarters. A grant application was spread out in front of him. His glass-topped desk had no drawer to store pencils, pens, erasers, and paper clips, no place to hold files or stickies, no hiding place for his scissors, calculator, or stapler. All of those were tucked away in the credenza behind him. Just last week he had owned a real desk with drawers; a great mahogany desk with the surface area of a small aircraft carrier. Even with his computer, pencil holder, phone, desk calendar, Rolodex, and stacks of folders, there was still room to work. Now that desk was gone, broken into pieces to get it through his door. He was sad to see his old friend go, and dismayed when he saw his new desk.
obert Daly sat at his desk in the Kellum Foundation headquarters. A grant application was spread out in front of him. His glass-topped desk had no drawer to store pencils, pens, erasers, and paper clips, no place to hold files or stickies, no hiding place for his scissors, calculator, or stapler. All of those were tucked away in the credenza behind him. Just last week he had owned a real desk with drawers; a great mahogany desk with the surface area of a small aircraft carrier. Even with his computer, pencil holder, phone, desk calendar, Rolodex, and stacks of folders, there was still room to work. Now that desk was gone, broken into pieces to get it through his door. He was sad to see his old friend go, and dismayed when he saw his new desk.
The replacement desk was more than just a desk; it was a work of art designed and built by his son the artist. It was the only commission his son had received last year, given to him by his mother. Smiling graciously, Daly had accepted the gift and tolerated the parade of potential customers his wife had ushered through his office. There were no new commissions. Daly was in a position of power and was used to obsequious supplicants fawning over him, but no one was so desperate for Daly’s favor as to buy one of his son’s ugly, nonfunctional desks. Knowing that family harmony depended
on his response, he praised the desk. To his horror, his wife believed him and soon commissioned matching office furniture.
on his response, he praised the desk. To his horror, his wife believed him and soon commissioned matching office furniture.
The grant application on his desk was typical of what the Kellum Foundation funded. The applicant had been working at a major university on grant money, but his grant had not been renewed. The researcher had been experimenting with a new approach to producing nuclear fusion. To produce fusion, two hydrogen atoms need to be combined, creating one helium atom and releasing the excess energy. Instead of using particle accelerators to reach the energy level necessary for the fusion to occur, the researcher had been experimenting with polarized electric fields to compress matter to the densities necessary for fusion. He had never achieved fusion, but had stumbled across an anomaly he thought more interesting. He found that electrons fired near the compressed mass arrived before they had been released. Professional colleagues called the result spurious, but he was convinced that the electrons were travelling back in time.
With his grant running out, the researcher was desperately seeking alternative funding. Daly would send the application to the staff for scientific evaluation, but it was likely to be funded. It fit with the foundation’s overall goal—in fact, almost everything did.
Daly’s phone buzzed and he reflexively reached across his desk. There was no phone there. Anything on the desk “detracted from what the piece was trying to say,” his son had insisted. Turning to the phone behind him, he punched his secretary’s line.
“Mr. Daly, we’re getting Internet hits on the web sites you were interested in.”
“From Doctor Birnbaum?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” Daly said, hanging up. Shifting to his computer he accessed the Internet and opened his search engine. He had the sites marked and found Dr. Birnbaum’s inquiry on the second bulletin board he checked. He had spent an hour carefully wording his reply, knowing that Dr. Birnbaum would pass it on to Dr. Martin. He decided not to mention the disappearance of the Nimitz. Dr. Martin and his people didn’t need to know about the Nimitz, since they weren’t ready yet to make the connection with the ship dream.
After reading Dr. Birnbaum’s message, Daly found that his preworded reply needed only slight modifications. Then Daly clicked on “send” and sat back. Dr. Martin and Ms. Foxworth were close to where he wanted them to be, and the information he had just sent should get them even closer.
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