'I hope he doesn't feel differently about Susan's heroic, close to sacrificial act. Love for a total stranger.
It's curious, but do you know - I can understand just why Susan felt that way about him.'
It was what I'd been waiting to hear. I closed my eyes and started humming softly to myself, waiting for the second seconal to work.
But when it drew me down, the seconal felt like water. Something like a shrivelled face came floating up from immeasurable distances, and I remembered my own words: 'It is written that all shall arise and join - we who carry the emblem and those who have looked upon it...'
Shaft Number 247 by BASIL COPPER
The process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination.
- H. P. LOVECRAFT
Driscoll looked at the dial refiectively. The Control Room was silent except for the distant thumping of the dynamos. The dim lights gleamed reassuringly on the familiar faces of the instruments and on the curved metal of the roof, its massive nuts and bolts and girders holding back the tremendous weight of the earth above their heads. The green luminous digits of the triangular clock on the bulkhead pointed to midnight.
It was the quietest part of the Watch. Driscoll shifted to a more comfortable position in his padded swivel armchair. He was a big man, whose hair was going a little white at the edges, but his features were still hard and firm, unblurred by time, though he must have been past fifty.
He glanced across at Wainewright at the other side; he had the earphones clamped over his head and was turning one of his calibrating instruments anxiously. Driscoll smiled inwardly. But then Wainewright always had been the worrying type. He could not have been more than twenty-nine, yet he looked older than Driscoll with his lean, strained features, his straggly moustache, and the hair that was already thinning and receding.
Driscoll's gaze rested just a fraction on his colleague, drifted on to bring into focus a bank of instruments with large easy-read dials on the far bulkhead, and finally came to rest on the red-painted lettering of the alarm board situated to his front and in a commanding position. The repeater screen below contained fortyfive flickering blue images, which showed the state of the alarm boards in the farthest corners of the complex for which Driscoll, as Captain of the Watch, was responsible; All was normal. But then it always was. Driscoll shrugged and turned his attention to the desk in front of him. He filled in the log with a luminous radionic pencil. Still two hours to go. But he had to admit that he liked the night duty better than the day. The word 'enjoy' was frowned on nowadays, but the word was appropriate to Driscoll's state; he actually enjoyed this Watch. It was quiet, almost private, and that was a decreasing quality in life.
His musings were interrupted by a sharp, sibilant exclamation from Wainewright.
'Some activity in Shaft 639? he reported, swivelling to look at the Captain of the Watch with watery blue eyes.
Driscoll shook his head, a thin smile on his lips. 'It's nothing. Some water in the shaft, probably.'
Wainewright tightened his mouth. 'Perhaps... Even so, it ought to be reported.'
Driscoll stiflened on the seat and looked at the thin man; the other was the first to drop his eyes.
'You have reported it,' he said gently. 'And I say it is water in the shaft.'
He snapped on the log entries, read them off the illuminated repeater on the bulkhead.
'There have been seventeen similar reports in the past year. Water each time.'
Wainewright hunched over his instruments; his shoulders heaved as though he had difficulty in repressing his emotions. Driscoll looked at him sharply. It might be time to make a report on Wainewright. He would wait a little longer. No sense in being too precipitate.
'Shaft clear,' Wainewright mumbled presently.
He went on making a play of checking instruments, throwing switches, examining dials, avoiding Driscoll's eye.
Driscoll sat back in his chair again. He looked at the domed metal roof spreading its protective shell over them; its rivets and studs winking and throwing back the lights from the instrument dials and the shaded lamps. He mentally reviewed Wainewright's case, sifting and evaluating the facts as he knew them.
The man was beginning to show signs of psychotic disturbance. Driscoll could well understand this.
They did not know what was out there, that was the trouble. He had over forty miles of galleries and communicating tunnels alone in the section under his own command, for example. But still, that did not excuse him. They had to proceed on empirical methods. He yawned slightly, looked again at the time.
He thought of his relief without either expectation or regret; he was quite without emotion, unlike Wainewright. Unlike Wainewright again, well suited to his exacting task. He would not be Captain of the Watch otherwise. Even when he was relieved he would not seek his bunk. He would descend to the canteen for coffee and food before joining Karlson for a brief session of chess.
He frowned. He had just thought of Deems again. He thrust the image of Deems from his mind. It flickered momentarily, then disappeared. It was no good; it had been two years now, but it still came back occasionally. He remembered, too, that he had been Wainewright's particular friend; that probably explained his jumpiness lately. Nevertheless, he would need watching.
He pursed his lips and bent forward, watching the bright green )~encil of tracery on the tube in front of him. He pressed the voice button, and Hort's cavernous voice filled the Control Room.'Condition Normal, I hope!'
There was a jovial edge to his query; the pronouncement was intended to be a joke, and Driscoll permitted himself a smile of about three millimeters in width. That would satisfy Hort, who was not really a humorous man. There was no point in knocking himself out for someone so devoid of the absurd in his makeup.
'Nothing to report,' he called back in the same voice. Hort nodded. Driscoll could see his multi-imaged form flickering greenly at the corner of his vision, but he did not look directly at it. He knew that annoyed Hort, and it pleased him to make these small gestures of independence.
'I'd like to see you when you come off Watch,' Hort went on.
He had a slightly sardonic look on his thin face now. Driscoll nodded.
'I'll be there,' he said laconically.
He waved a perfunctory hand, and the vision on the tube wavered and died, a tiny rain of green sparks remaining against the blackness before dying out.
He was aware of Wainewright's troubled eyes seeking his own; he ignored the other man and concentrated instead on a printout which was just coming through. It was a routine check, he soon saw and he leaned back, his sharp eyes sweeping across the serried ranks of instruments, his ears alert for even the slightest aberration in the smooth chatter of the machinery.
He wondered idly what Hort might want with him. Probably nothing of real importance, but it was best to be prepared; he pressed the repeater valve on the desk in front of him, instantly memorizing the latest data that was being constantly fed in by a wide stream of instruments. There were only three sets of numbers of any importance; he scratched these on to his pad and kept it ready at his elbow.
There would be nothing else of note in the Watch now, short of an unforeseen emergency. He momentarily closed his eyes, leaning back in the chair, lightly resting his fingertips on the smooth polished metal of the desk. He savoured the moment, which lasted only for a few seconds. Then he opened his eyes again, refreshed and wide-awake. A faint humming vibration filled all the galleries and corridors adjacent to the Control Room. The vents were open for the moment; all was as it should be.
The rest of the Watch passed almost too quickly; Wainewright was already being relieved by Krampf, Driscoll noted. The bulkhead clock indicated nine minutes to the hour. But then Krampf always was more zealous than most of the personnel here. Driscoll really knew little about him. He glanced incuriously at the man now, dapper and self-confident, his dark hair bent over the panel opposite, listening to Wainewright's handing-over report. Then he had adjusted the headphones and was sliding into the padded seat.