The Last Ship (45 page)

The communications officer paused and we sat a moment in somber comprehension of this litany of facts and suggestions and what their meaning might be.

“The exactness of the repeated message?” I said.

“Yes, sir. Of course we’ve been using perforated tape or computer generated message transmission for quite a while now. Where someone wanted to repeat something. The only possible area of variability is the timing of the messages, and even this can be done by a computer—in fact, is done that way in submarines.”

“But as to the Bosworth signal specifically, Mr. Bainbridge?” I said, a bit impatiently.

“Sir, the invariability in pulse rhythm makes it almost certainly an automated transmission. No change whatsoever we can detect, one transmission from another—not even the minute, unavoidable alterations that manual transmission of the same message would reflect. An opinion fortified by the exactness of the hourly transmission times.”

He hesitated, looked at me, and said, almost as if to make certain I had not forgot it:

“The one thing we do know, there is no doubt as to the geographical source.”

His voice carried the suggestion of a bias in favor of the sender, of a willingness to believe. I looked at him carefully.

“Yes, I know, Mr. Bainbridge. And the sender himself, the agent?” My voice suddenly sounding hard to my ear, inquisitorial, cross-examining. “His identity? Nationality? Any hints in those directions?”

“None we have discovered, Captain. Other than what he claims to be. Fortified of course, as I noted, by his possession of Trinity Security Procedures.”

He looked back expectantly at me, just waiting.

“As to TSP,” I said. “By now, anybody could have come into possession of it.”

“I suppose so,” Bainbridge said rather distantly; again just waited.

“It could be a trap,” I said, a little impatiently, wanting him to say more.

“Yes, sir. It could be. I’ve even wondered if it could somehow be connected with the Russian submarine.”

“We’ve been getting regular reports from them,” I said, astonished.

“I know. The idea is ridiculous, isn’t it? It only shows . . .” He hesitated, as though floundering, sighed heavily. “It could be almost anything.”

And stopped. I looked at him. It was just that, nothing more; one felt annoyed at these generalities, hence a bit annoyed at Bainbridge himself. But in truth there seemed nothing more to be said: thoughts, all analysis, run up against—so far, at least—an unyielding, impenetrable wall. It needed surely still to be continually tested since even such barriers can with persistence and resolve, with ingenuity, be breached—we had done so before; of course, an officer like Bainbridge, who possessed all of these qualities, would not stop doing that; he didn’t need to be told. And yet, seeming an instance above all to be probed relentlessly, one felt a hesitancy in the face of this one, a smell of danger even in the trying, as if it meant us harm—a sense activating itself subconsciously, viscerally, beginning with the withholding of the ship’s latitude-longitude position and of our precise identity I had ordered . . . A feeling somehow that utmost peril lay an inch behind that wall, that message. A message sticking a splinter of doubt into the conclusion on which all our actions hereto had been based and upon which, as above noted, I had decided finally to act, set our course. Selmon’s African findings having been conveyed to the officers and, coming on top of the reports furnished by the Russian submarine commander, with the possible exception of Lieutenant Commander Chatham seeming at last to convince any waverers that such was substantially the fate as well of the place we had called home. Myself ready to announce my decision to the crew. And now this remote new element, possibly altering everything, and yet surely ephemeral, insubstantive, just because the sound bore all the aspects of a recording, a tape, as opposed to that from a being with life still in him. It was true that a mystery remained, embodied in a single question: What force then had activated it? A question one knew to a certainty now thrust itself into each soul present. It was not odd that the inability to answer this question should not act to convince us of its opposite: a living human being somehow behind that transmitting device. We had lived too long with mysteries, by the dozen, by the score, to be much impressed by them; less, fooled. Enigmas, never solved, had become a part of our lives, routine. To this was added a pragmatic vein: We had too much experience with what preset lifeless computers could do.

And yet, I say, a doubt had been inserted into our equations of high probabilities . . . of certainties as most of us by now held them to be. Fragile as a thread, this particular doubt, considering its geographical source, the first from there, wove itself sinisterly, tantalizingly, into our thoughts, our consciousnesses, our beings, where one from another part of the globe might on such suspect evidence have been dropped with alacrity, dismissed out of hand. And slowly but unmistakably from around the table I could feel it growing as a cell splits and multiplies. Leaving us finally with one last question to eat into our souls: Was that thread’s name that one unmeasurable force, half mythic, half intensely real, which never ceased at once both to threaten us and to keep us going—was its name only hope? Of wanting to believe the presence of substance, of anything; when so much experience, so much intelligence subjected to the most rigorous analysis by men formidably gifted at such tasks, had taught us only emptiness was there? Surely we had by now become too—immunized, hardened?—for such luxuries. Nonetheless, this troubled palpable feeling of uncertainty, however hesitant, had infiltrated the souls present, the very air of the wardroom itself. Yes, myself. Adulterated with that inexplicable fear—one could reach out and touch this. Without knowing why, I could feel that the transmission, even the pursuit of its perplexity, its secret, represented, as I have suggested, a danger of a high magnitude; a devil’s temptation; it was as though each time we replied the danger came nearer, that this was the very intent of the hourly incoming signal, that each exchange of transmissions brought that uncertain force, perhaps was intended to, zeroing in on us, and with hostile intent . . .

One felt a certain anger at these speculations; an anger at one’s own fears; a feeling that our isolation had acted to make for fear’s inbreeding; a danger of making cowards of us all, starting with the ship’s captain; seeming an excessive timidity at best, where perhaps a tempered audacity was the quality called for. We were the last thing from being helpless; armed still, a 704-H ship, with a strength so vast as to give pause to any possible foe who might contemplate inflicting injury on us . . . The train of thought fed back on itself, collapsing in frustration, in irresolution, in something like dismay; the threat suggested in the transmission remaining. I turned back to Bainbridge—his seeming the one most inclined to push into it, the pointed reminder of where it came from, this advocacy itself mildly disturbing: due to the fact that he had been foremost of the “formidably gifted” men whose probings with his impressive array of devices, along with Selmon’s interpretations both of them and of the two Russian-Frenchman reports, had helped teach us the actual conditions surely obtaining there. He spoke:

“Could we not at least give our identity, sir? If we were more forthcoming, perhaps . . .”

I interrupted that. “I would say where ‘forthcoming’ is concerned, it is up to them to set an example.”

I looked directly at the communications officer, and some sudden doubt having to do with him flashed through me. We waited in the silence. I gazed idly out the port on a slightly arousing sea through which we moved on our slow speed. Then Bainbridge simply dropped the place-name softly into the hush.

“Bosworth, Missouri.”

As said, it reverberated almost reverentially, as something iconlike; the words falling as into a stilled pool of water, rippling out in circles around the table, a quality almost hypnotic in it. I turned sharply to him.

“Mr. Bainbridge?”

“I don’t know, sir. The evidence runs against it—the mechanical nature of the transmissions. But somebody had to put the tape in place . . . Aaron here . . . ,” indicating Selmon, “mentioned the possibility of pockets which might get away free.” He turned to the radiation officer, in his voice almost a pleading tone.

The astonishment at this was that Bainbridge’s casting of doubt was at variance with his own previous opinions, an officer who had been as certain as any that nothing remained since his own beloved and almost godlike devices had raised nothing; coming from one whose opinions, judgments, in anything involving communications were, as stated, given the most special attention, this present reaction constituted a considerable breach. Finally Selmon answered, his dry tone at least forever unchanged; not a scrap of emotion there.

“That I did,” he said. “Pockets. I wouldn’t have picked the Global Communications Center at Bosworth for one of them that the Russians would leave in place. Obviously a bit of it left. I’d wager that everything that breathed in Bosworth went.”

“The message then?” Bainbridge said.
“Someone’s
breathing. And trying to tell us—tell anyone else that’s left—something. Maybe trying to bring the remaining ones into touch with one another. Tell us where others are, where the safe places are . . .”

Hearing Bainbridge, a solid, calm officer, seemingly invulnerable to fancy, one realized how close beneath the surface it lay; a captain’s alarm rising: With how many others might the case be the same? Selmon was unmoved.

“Then why don’t they tell it, Commander?”

“I don’t know,” Bainbridge said, his voice seeming to collapse, half in frustration, half in anger—at what one could not say.

From up above I could hear the first swelling of the wind, reaching into us through the opened ports, see out them the commencement of long rolling waves on the revealed seascape, the first whitecaps blossoming on the blackening waters, the wind setting the sea into a cross-swell, the ship into a mild rolling motion. I had interpreted it as emotion. And yet: It seemed something more. It was as though Bainbridge sensed something in the transmissions that he was unable or unwilling to convey—perhaps his own fresh doubts had not coalesced into actual conclusion; that he felt onto something, at present elusive as a ghost, was still reaching out to grasp it, extract its secret; each time its escaping him just as he held it in his hands. He was simply too sound an officer, too profoundly knowledgeable in his field, for any captain to dismiss this as foolish wish. We waited in the heavy, brooding silence which seemed to rest in the most murky, darksome of waters, visibility nonexistent. It was time to open it up.

“Well, then?” Deliberately I turned first to the CSO. I had come to a determination: I would not permit that recent confrontation in the night by the lifeline to prejudice me against his opinions. He was no fool. Nobody could become combat systems officer on a DDG and be that. I should listen to him. Aside from these judicious and somewhat pious reasons, there was another motive, devious as could be, full of cunning: If matters fell that way, and I had in the end to move against him, I wanted him to have the minimum of excuses for his actions. I wanted this: that he had had his say and that not just I, but the other officers as well, had rejected it; I wanted to isolate him; make him without allies. It was a perilous game for any ship’s captain to play. The CSO might in the process pick up allies himself. I felt it worth the risks; felt in any event that I had no choice.

“Mr. Chatham?” I said.

He shrugged. One knew at once: his position fixed, much strengthened now by that immense signal, whatever else you might say about it; his voice clipped, surer than ever, something of smugness in it.

“If we were wrong about Bosworth—not a soul here expected it—we could be wrong about a great deal else back there.”

He let that opening settle for a moment, then came on.

“Earlier we haven’t heard; ergo, nothing exists. Conveniently forgetting electromagnetic pulses knocking out all communications, any certain way of knowing. Simply no word: interpretation, nothing there. That has been the drill. Well, now we
have
heard.” He marched steadily on, putting one in mind of a prosecuting attorney in a courtroom, and a decidedly clever one. “If the conclusions based on those first deductions were correct—with respect, sir, I never believed they were—this changes everything. That signal from Bosworth changes everything. I favor this ship doing what I’ve always favored this ship doing. After that signal, I don’t see how anyone can come down on any other course. The fact it’s as cryptic as could be makes no difference. There has to be some reason for that. We’re never going to find it rattling around the Mediterranean. It has to be telling us something urgent, of the first importance. It’s an NCA, for God’s sake.”

I listened quietly, attentively, pressing everything back. The wind freshening, reaching into us like a lamentation, a distinct pitch now added to the ship’s roll. I could begin to hear the random tinkling of the spoons on the sides of coffee cups. Waiting a moment, in consideration of what had just been said, I then turned slightly in my chair.

“Mr. Selmon?”

“Well, sir, I suppose you could have the President of the United States—or at least the Chief of Naval Operations—or maybe a radioman third sitting there at Bosworth beeping out that signal. Come there, crawled there, God knows how, from God knows where. Whoever, if anybody, it is, not much in the way of brains left. Simply to keep repeating it. In fact that may explain it, be the clue. I’m thinking of those poor souls on the beaches. Maybe whoever it is in Bosworth has arrived at that condition. Sending out that mindless tape—no one who had the slightest power of reason remaining would do a thing like that. Maybe just telling us he’s alive. That would be a thing he would do. Well, that’s nice to hear.”

What some might have seen as cold-bloodedness I believed was an immovable dedication to the evidence; almost a revulsion at what he considered dangerous fantasies. I looked out a port: skies blackening with clouds to match the changing color of the sea below. I heard Selmon go on.