“Mark IV Atomic Blaster‑and look at the size of them! This must be the ship's main battery.” He turned around and saw that Eager was holding his arm up so that his wrist watch pointed at the guns and was pressing on the crown with the index finger of his other hand.
“What are you doing?” Bill asked.
“Gee‑just seeing what time it was.” “How can you tell what time it is when you have the inside of your wrist toward your face and the watch is on the outside?” Footsteps echoed far down the long gun deck, and they remembered the sign on the outside of the door. In an instant they had slipped back through it, and Bill pressed it quietly shut. When he turned around Eager Beager had gone so that he had to make his way back to their quarters by himself. Eager had returned first and was busy shining boots for his buddies and didn't look up when Bill came in.
But what had he been doing with his watch?
Chapter 4
This question kept bugging Bill all the time during the days of their training as they painfully learned the drill of fuse tending. It was an exacting, technical job that demanded all their attention, but in spare moments Bill worried. He worried when they stood in line for chow, and he worried during the few moments every night between the time the lights were turned off and sleep descended heavily upon his fatiguedrugged body. He worried whenever he had the time to do it, and he lost weight.
He lost weight not because he was worrying, but for the same reason everyone else lost weight. The shipboard rations. They were designed to sustain life, and that they did, but no mention was made of what kind of life it was to be.
It was a dreary, underweight, hungry one. Yet Bill took no notice of this.
He had a bigger problem, and he needed help: After Sunday drill at the end of their second week, he stayed to talk to First Class Spleen instead of joining the others in their tottering run toward the mess hall.
“I have a problem, sir…” “You ain't the only one, but one shot cures it and you ain't a man until you've had it.” “It's not that kind of a problem. I'd like to… see the…
chaplain…” Spleen turned white and sank back against the bulkhead. “Now I heard everything,” he said weakly. “Get down to chow, and if you don't tell anyone about this I won't either.” Bill blushed. “I'm sorry about this, First Class Spleen, but I can't help it.
It's not my fault I have to see, him, it could have happened to anyone…” His voice trailed away, and he looked down at his feet, rubbing one boot against another. The silence stretched out until Spleen finally spoke, but all the comradeliness was gone from his voice.
“All right, trooper‑if that's the way you want it. But I hope none of the rest of the boys hear about it. Skip chow and get up there now‑here's a pass.” He scrawled on a scrap of paper then threw it contemptuously to the floor, turning and walking away as Bill bent humbly to pick it up.
Bill went down dropchutes, along corridors, through passageways, and up ladders. In the ship's directory the chaplain was listed as being in compartment 362‑B on the 89th deck, and Bill finally found this, a plain metal door set with rivets. He raised his hand to knock, while sweat stood out in great beads from his face and his throat was dry. His knuckles boomed hollowly on the panel, and after an endlcss period a muffled voice sounded from the other side.
“Yeah, yeah‑c'mon in‑it's open.” Bill stepped through and snapped to attention when he saw the officer behind the single desk that almost filled the tiny room. The officer, a fourth lieutenant, though still young was balding rapidly. There were black circles under his eyes, and he needed a shave. His tie was knotted crookedly and badly crumpled. He continued to scratch among the stacks of paper that littered the desk, picking them up, changing piles with them, scrawling notes on some and throwing others into an overflowing wastebasket. When he moved one of the stacks Bill saw a sign on the desk that read LAUNDRY OFFICER.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but I am in the wrong office. I was looking for the chaplain.” “This is the chaplain's office but he's not on duty until 2300 hours, which is; as someone even as stupid‑looking as you can tell, is in fifteen minutes more.” “Thank you, sir, I'll come back…” Bill slid toward the door.
“You'll stay and work.” The officer raised bloodshot eyeballs and cackled evilly. “I got you. You can sort the hanky reports. I've lost six hundred jockstraps, and they may be in there. You think it's easy to be a laundry officer?” He sniveled with self‑pity and pushed a tottering stack of papers over to Bill, who began to sort through them. Long before he was finished the buzzer sounded that ended the watch.
“I knew it!” the officer sobbed hopelessly, “this job will never end; instead it gets worse and worse. And you think you got problems!” He reached out an unsteady finger and flipped the sign on his desk over. It read CHAPLAIN on the other side. Then he grabbed the end of his necktie and pulled it back hard over his right shoulder. The necktie was fastened to his collar and the collar was set into ball bearings that rolled smoothly in a track fixed to his shirt. There was a slight whirring sound as the collar rotated; then the necktie was hanging out of sight down his back and his collar was now on backward, showing white and smooth and cool to thefront.
The chaplain steepled his fingers before him, lowered his eyes, and smiled sweetly. “How may I help you, my son?” “I thought you were the laundry officer,” Bill said, taken aback.
“I am, my son, but that is just one of the burdens that must fall upon my shoulders. There is little call for a chaplain in these troubled times, but much call for a laundry officer. I do my best to serve.” He bent his head humbly.
“But‑which are you? A chaplain who is a part‑time laundry officer, or a laundry officer who is a part‑time chaplain?” “That is a mystery, my son. There are some things that it is best not to know. But I see you arc troubled. May I ask if you are of the faith?” “Which faith?” “That's what I'm asking you!” the chaplain snapped, and for a moment the Old Laundry Officer peeped through. “How can I help you if I do not know what your religion is?” “Fundamentalist Zoroastrian.” The chaplain took a plastic‑covered sheet from a drawer and ran his finger down it. “Z… Z… Zen… Zodomite… Zoroastrian, Reformed Fundamentalist, is that the one?” “Yes, sir.” “Well, should be no trouble with this, my son… 21–52–05…” He quickly dialed the number on a control plate set into the desk; then, with a grand gesture and an evangelistic gleam in his eye, he swept all the laundry papers to the floor. Hidden machinery hummed briefly, a portion of the desk top dropped away and reappeared a moment later bearing a black plastic‑box decorated with golden bulls, rampant. “Be with you in a second,” the chaplain said, opening the box.
First he unrolled a length of white cloth sewn with more golden bulls and draped this around his neck. He placed a thick, leather‑bound book next to the box, then on the closed lid set two metal bulls with hollowed‑out backs.
Into one of them he poured distilled water from a plastic flask and into the other sweet oil, which he ignited. Bill watched these familiar arrangements with growing happiness.
“It's very lucky,” Bill said, “that you are a Zoroastrian. It makes it easier to talk to you.” “No luck involved, my son, just intelligent planning.” The chaplain dropped some powdered Haoma into the flame, and Bill's nose twitched as the drugged incense filled the room. “By the grace of Ahura Mazdah I am an anointed priest of Zoroaster. By Allah's will a faithful muezzin of Islam, through Yahweh's intercession a circumcised rabbi, and so forth.” His benign face broke into a savage snarl. “And also because of an officer shortage I am the damned laundry officer.” His face cleared. “But now, you must tell me your problem…” “Well, it's not easy. It may be just foolish suspicion on my part, but I'm worried about one of my buddies. There is something strange about him. I'm not sure how to tell it…” “Have confidence, my boy, and reveal your innermost feelings to me, and do not fear. What I hear shall never leave this room, for I am bound to secrecy by the oath of my calling. Unburden yourself.” “That's very nice of you, and I do feel better already. You see, this buddy of mine has always been a little funny, he shines the boots for all of us and volunteered for latrine orderly and doesn't like girls.” The chaplain nodded beatifically and fanned some of the incense toward his nose. “I see little here to worry you, he sounds a decent lad. For is it not written in the Vendidad that we should aid our fellow man and seek to shoulder his burdens and pursue not the harlots of the streets?” Bill pouted. “That's all right for Sunday school, but it's no way to act in the troopers! Anyway, we just thought he was out of his mind, and he might have been‑but that's not all. I was with him on the gun deck, and he pointed his watch at the guns and pressed the stem, and I heard it click! It could be a camera. I… I think he is a Chinger spy!” Bill sat back, breathing deeply and sweating. The fatal words had been spoken.