Commander Cutlott walked briskly down the dock, wearing a smile which became fixed as he came closer to the battered, unpainted yawl. By the time he boarded the Alice he was not smiling. After a round of saluting he got down to business. "Well, Mr. Rate," he snapped, "did you find what we were looking for?"
Joe hadn"t expected Commander Cutlott to sound off in front of everyone about the looting problem. He was still fumbling for an answer when he noticed the strange captain"s face go through an astonishing transforma- tion. Odd, Joe thought, I"ve never really seen a face turn purple before.
"You!" the captain roared. "Gallivanting around in a restricted area, interfering with maneuvers-"
Joe remembered Commander Cutlott"s warning: Gor- son and Cookie had been using the ship for drunken ladyfests. He remembered how naked blondes had poured out on deck to watch the destroyers sheer off and several things were suddenly clear.
The admiral was giving him a long, hard look. "Tell me, young man," he asked, "how do you put up that many women on a ship of this size?
"What I"d like to know," the captain added, "is how you pulled that razzle dazzle on our radar? There wasn"t a blip two seconds before I spotted you. I spent four hours looking for survivors!"
Commander Cutlott glared unbelievingly at his pro- tege. "I speak more in sorrow than in anger," he said.
"Where are they?"
"Who, sir?" Joe asked.
"The women, d.a.m.n it! Up with that hatch!"
"Hatch, sir?"
"The one you"re standing on."
"Would you like to inspect the galley, sir?"
"No, I would not like to inspect the galley, sir. Now, up with the hatch!"
Resignedly, Joe stood aside. Freedy and Commander Cutlott"s yeoman stooped to lift the hatch.
Seaman Villegas, Ma Trimble and Ruth sat on two immense foot lockers and blinked into the sudden sun.
Villegas still wore the tattered dungarees which had lasted him throughout the Alice"s peregrinations. Though his smooth face scarcely required shaving, his overlength hair sufficed to give the Mexican a faintly piratical aspect.
Ruth wore the ill-fitting remnant of one of Raquel"s dresses. She had ripped the skirt off at mid thigh.
Whenever she sat it hiked considerably higher. But the
inspecting party"s attention focused on Ma Trimble"s quivering bulk. "h.e.l.lo, boys," she said brightly.
The rear admiral looked at Joe.
"Shipwrecked," Joe began. "We had to-"
"Oh, stow it!" the admiral growled. "Which one of you has the Oedipus complex?"
A navy vehicle parked at the dock end and a sailor in whites walked toward the Alice. "This where I"m supposed to pick up somebody with a dose of clap?" he yelled.
XIII.
THE SUN sank in the west. Gorson stretched and de- cided they"d done enough painting for one day. He went below to see how Joe was making out with the ship"s accounts. "It could be worse, sir," he said com- fortingly.
"How?" Joe wondered. The G.o.d shouter"s infirmity had gotten him off to the naval hospital. Jack Lapham and Dr. Krom had stood on their const.i.tutional rights as civilians and stalked angrily ash.o.r.e. Ma Trimble and her sole remaining blonde were off somewhere being questioned. Joe could guess what would happen. They"d deport the blonde to Tijuana and the Mexicans would deport her right back when it turned out she couldn"t speak Spanish either. And wouldn"t they have a great time making sense out of whatever story Ma Trimble told them!
The rest of the Alice"s crew was restricted, pending
investigation. There might be no liberty for a long time, providing no one believed Ma Trimble"s story. And if someone did, I"affaire Alice would be stamped TOP SECRET and their restriction might be even longer.
I won"t think-but he couldn"t stop thinking of Raquel.
Why did romantic novels always harp about heart and soul? It was the abdomen which felt the pangs of un- requited love. Already the empty feeling was changing into that nervous churning which would soon mean ul- cer. "How could things be worse?" he repeated.
The bos"n grinned around his first cigar in two thou- sand years. "Well," he said, "at least they didn"t open the foot lockers."
Joe slapped a hand to his forehead. "Over the side, quick!"
"Come see what"s in them."
Joe followed the bos"n aft to the lazarette and watched while he opened one. Neatly wrapped in water- proof paper lay a disa.s.sembled machine gun. The s.p.a.ce around it was taken up with two tommy guns, a dozen carbines, and Neptune knew how many pistols. Joe gasped. "You guys planning a revolution?" he asked.
Gorson shook his head. "No, but we know an In- donesian capitalist who is."
"What"s in the other box?"
"Ammo."
Joe released an explosive breath. "You"ve convinced me," he said. "It could have been worse!" His eye strayed about the dimly lit dock as Gorson slammed the foot locker and locked it. He eyed the mountain of groceries still waiting to be loaded aboard the Baleen.
Careless of them. Nor was there any use telling his own people to leave them alone; they"d lived too long on rye bread. Besides, the Alice"s inventory had to be balanced somehow.
A suit of sails in clean new bags lay jumbled with the mountain of groceries. G.o.ds, how he could have
used some canvas for the Alice! He wondered how much tr.i.m.m.i.n.g it would take to make them fit. Oh well-if only we could plan things and make them work out according to plan ... He wondered if Raquel were alive somewhere. Maybe she"d landed back in her own time or even, remembering how Howie had landed back aboard the Alice, could she have gravitated back aboard the Iceland-bound knarr whence he had rescued her?
The moon broke through clouds and balanced itself atop the Cortez Hotel"s lighted elevator shaft. It re- minded him of their last night on the nameless volcanic island. Could he recognize its altered outline after two thousand years? Big deal! As if the navy"d ever send him to the Aegean again.
As a history professor- He saw himself taking a sabbatical thirty years from now, doddering about Greece on a budget tour, wondering if the cheese would agree with his ulcer. Another pang shot through his insides.
He sat a silent moment, remembering Raquel and those wasted moments in the chain locker. Anger boiled over and threatened to leak around his eyes. If only he could do it over again-only do it right this time!
Abruptly, a new thought seeped into his hindsighted reverie. He looked up and saw the chief still standing.
Gorson studied him with a most peculiar expression on his broad face.
"Chief," Joe said," do you still have that bell jar and still hidden somewhere?"
Gorson looked around the newly painted Alice. His eyes took in the Baleens mountain of yearlong supplies, then rested for a moment on the foot locker loaded with guns and ammunition. He grinned. "I was wondering how long it"d take you to think of that," he said.