"Oh! I didn't think that was an invitation. More like a command." He reached into the breast pocket of his dungaree shirt and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper, handing it to Pyter. "Douglas gave it to me yesterday."
USS PITTSBURGH UPON ENTERING
THE DOMAIN OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON
NOTICE AND LISTEN, YE LANDLUBBER
I ORDER AND COMMAND YOU TO APPEAR BEFORE ME AND MY ROYAL COURT ON THE MORROW TO BE INITIATED INTO THE MYSTERIES OF MY SPECIAL ROYAL DOMAIN. FAIL TO APPEAR UPON PAIN OF BEING GIVEN AS FOOD TO THE SHARKS, WHALES, SEA TURTLES, POLLYWOGS, SALTWATER FROGS, AND ALL LIVING CREATURES OF THE SEA, WHO WILL DEVOUR YOU HEAD, BODY, AND SOUL AS AN EVERLASTING WARNING TO LANDLUBBERS WHO ENTER MY DOMAIN WITHOUT WARRANT.
KNOW YE THAT YOU ARE CHARGED WITH THE FOLLOWING SERIOUS AND MOST REPREHENSIBLE OFFENSES: EXCESSIVE LIBERTY, NOT SWEARING AND CURSING LIKE A PROPER SAILOR, REPEATED SEASICKNESS, JACKING OFF IN YOUR RACK, TALKING BACK TO YOUR BETTERS, AND BEING IN GENERAL A SCROUNGY, WORTHLESS, MISERABLE WORM OF A NUB, WHO IS SO LOW THAT WHALE SHIT APPEARS TO YOU LIKE UNTO SHOOTING STARS.
THEREFORE, APPEAR AND OBEY OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES!
DAVY JONES
SECRETARY TO HIS MAJESTY
THE GOLDEN DRAGON OF THE EAST
Pyter glanced at it, smiled, and handed it back. "You know what this is all about?"
"Huh? Oh, sure. It's like crossing the equator for the first time, only this is the International Date Line. Order of the Mystic Eastern Dragon? Something like that."
" 'Something like that.' You scared?"
"Well, I'm not looking forward to it, if that's what you mean. Some of the old hands have been trying to scare those of us who haven't been through it before. I know it'll be unpleasant. Scared? No, not really."
"Doug, it's the same as your being accepted as a submariner. People have been crossing the equator and the date line for a good many centuries, now. And it's an old, old tradition to have the guys who've already been there, done that, to put the new guys through the wringer. To initiate them. It's embarrassing, sometimes painful… mostly fun if you're willing to let go and join in. And next time, it'll be you wielding the paddle.
"And by going through with it, you're symbolically joining in with sailors who've braved the high seas and storms and hardships and long separations from loved ones and all of that clear back to… hell, I don't know. I've heard some of the Shellback stuff goes clear back to the Romans."
"I never knew the Romans crossed the equator."
"Maybe they didn't. They weren't any great shakes as seamen. Not like the Phoenicians. Doesn't matter. They had ceremonies, rites of passage, all their own." He chuckled. "You know, if this stuff was easy, it wouldn't feel as good once you were in the club!"
"I guess not."
"This sort of hazing gets dropped on every nub from the moment they set foot on board their first submarine. It won't be forever, it's usually not dangerous, and at the end of it you're an accepted member of the community."
"So, what did they do to make my hair fall out?"
Pyter looked uncomfortable. "I've been trying not to say. I wouldn't want to ruin their joke."
"Chief, they've had me thinking I was going to die for two weeks now!"
"Well, let me put it this way. I have to live on this boat, too!"
"You're afraid they'll get even if they know you told me?"
"Not afraid, exactly, but it's not the sort of hassle any sane man looks forward to."
"Yeah, and you've been initiated. What'd they do to you,
Chief?"
"Oh, the usual Mickey Mouse shit. Sending me off looking for left-handed spanners and blue skyhooks. And they pulled the hair routine on me, too. I think it's routine now for just about anyone shipping out aboard a nuke or a boomer."
"So how'd they do it?"
He smiled. "A little bit of Nair, or some other woman's hair removal cream, slipped into your shampoo bottle. They start out with a little, and work it up until you're going about half-and-half Nair and shampoo. That way, you don't notice the change in the texture and the lather so much."
"I thought I was just dealing with hard water or something."
"Aboard a submarine? You've got to be kidding!"
"They just wanted to scare me?"
"And make you part of the pack. And remember. You did not hear it from me!"
"I understand, Chief. Thanks a lot."
"Anytime, son." He grinned. "You know, normally I go along with the charade. Tell the poor son of a bitch that I don't think it's rad poisoning… but maybe he should take these pills for a few days, just to make sure. Then I give him a pack of aspirin."
"God… "
"Looked to me like you'd been through enough already! Anyway, you want some advice, son?"
"Sure."
"You'll be accepted as one of the gang faster, and more completely, if you find a way to turn the tables on them."
"Huh? What do you mean? Like putting Nair in their shampoo?"
"No. I mean by going along with the gag, and maybe even by turning it back against them. Shows you're in on the spirit of the thing."
"I think I get it. Thanks, Chief." He thought hard for a moment. "Ah… hah!"
"Something?"
"Just an idea. Say, Doc, you wouldn't happen to have a straight razor here, would you?"
16
"Jesus Christ, kid, what happened to you?"
Benson gaped at O'Brien. He'd scarcely recognized the nub, whose scalp was clean-shaven and polished, gleaming brightly beneath the overhead fluorescent lights.
"The Cult of Death," O'Brien said, his sepulcher tones low and measured as he sat down at the table, his food tray before him. "We have, verily, accepted our fate and are numbered now among the dead…. "
Douglas opened his mouth as if to say something, closed it, opened it again. "The Cult of what?… "
"The God of Radiation hath decreed it," O'Brien said, his eyes rolling back in his head. "I am the dead…. "
Scobey looked nonplussed. "Well, I guess the twenty-four-dollar question is, can the dead still work?"
"Until the final parting of the veil, until the final crossing of the River of Death, verily even so long as the spirit inhabits this shell, it shall perform the duties required of it."
"Shit!" Douglas said. "I think you lost your brains when you shaved your head!"
"No!" Scobey said, laughing hard. "No! This is great!"
"Zombie torpedomen," Benson said, laughing. "Does that mean we can work 'em double watches?"
"You know, I think we might be onto something here."
"I didn't know zombies had such a healthy appetite," Douglas said, nodding toward O'Brien's tray.
"No," Boyce said, "that's how you make zombies, you know. Feed 'em orange bug juice and sliders, hot off the galley grill. Turns 'em into stone, just like that!"
Scobey pinched O'Brien's arm, hard. "He ain't stone. Just zombified."
"He must've found your secret still in the torpedo room, then, Big C," Douglas said, "and been tapping the inventory. That stuff would pickle anything."
"I told you, I ain't got no still, I don't care what the tradition is."
"The radiation hath penetrated the forward compartments, and taken the first converts. But soon, verily, there shalt be more, and the Cult of Death shall increase, and verily we shalt take over the world…. "