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Perdition! They can't be so very much different from us. They have wives,
kids, sweethearts, hopes, fears. I know as certainly as I know I'm here now
that there are people over there who feel the same way about this stupid war
as we do." His voice rose. "Anything! Just to get this damnable thing over
with! It's like a pain that's way inside your chest and it won't stop. It goes
on and on and on and --"
"Easy, Joe."
Garcia relaxed. "Okay."
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"That's battle pressure," said Ramsey. "I was thinking of something else." He
hesitated. "No, maybe you were talking about the same thing."
"Such as?"
"It has to do with death instincts, Joe."
"Oh, and it's too deep for the likes of me."
"I didn't say that."
"You implied it, Johnny. Some more of your esoteric nonsense. I've had a
normal amount of psych study. I've read the old masters and the new: Freud,
Jung, Adler, Freeman, Losi, Komisaya. I went looking for answers and found
double-talk. I can speak the jargon."
"So you know what a death instinct is."
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"Sure, Johnny. The EPs and us -- we're moving blindly toward our mutual
destruction. Is that what you want me to say?"
"I guess not. I had something else in mind. Maybe I'm wrong."
"Or maybe I like to be blind, too."
"Yes. We were on another track earlier, Joe. You didn't answer. Are you ready
to tell me if the EPs have ever approached you to do their dirty work?"
Garcia looked at him coldly. "I hope to see you in hell," he said, enunciating
the words precisely.
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Ramsey got to his feet. "You've been a big help, Joe. But you're really
supposed to be resting." He pulled a light blanket from a wall hanger, threw
it over Garcia, turned away and went to the door.
Garcia said, "Do you think I'm a sleeper?"
Without turning, Ramsey said, "Would a sleeper have taken an overdose of
radiation to keep us hidden from the EPs?"
"Maybe," said Garcia. "If he didn't like his job and was as tired of this war
as I am."
And that, thought Ramsey, is precisely the answer I was afraid of. He said,
"Get some rest."
"Bit players hamming up their parts," said Garcia. Ramsey stepped out into the
companionway and it was a cold gray corridor suddenly -- leading nowhere in
either direction. He thought: My world's gone completely schizoid. Security!
Its job is to make us even more schizoid -- to break down as many lines of
communication as possible. He turned and looked back at Garcia on the cot. The
engineering officer had turned on his side, facing the bulkhead. That's why
it's so important to belong to Savvy Sparrow's group. That's the scratch of
sanity.
And he remembered Heppner, the electronics officer who had gone mad. If you
can't belong and you can't leave; What then?
The shape and substance of things began to reform in Ramsey's mind. He turned
up the companionway, went to the control deck. The room seemed to greet him as
he stepped through the door: warmth, flashing of red and green lights, a
sibilant whispering of power, a fault smell of ozone and oil riding on the
background of living stink which no filters could completely eliminate.
Sparrow stood at the helm, an almost emaciated figure with rumpled clothes
hanging loosely upon him.
Ramsey was suddenly startled by the realization that Sparrow had lost weight
when there didn't seem to be any place from which he could lose it.
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"How's Joe?" Sparrow spoke without turning.
Saw my reflection in the dive-board glass, thought Ramsey. Nothing escapes
him.
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"He's going to be all right," said Ramsey. "His vein-counter shows negative
absorption. He may lose a little hair, be nauseated for a while undoubtedly."
"We ought to set him into Charleston," said Sparrow. "The vein-counter doesn't
tell you what's happening in the bone marrow. Not until it's too late."
"All the signs are good," said Ramsey. "Calcium leaching out and being
replaced by non-hot. Sulphate's negative. He's going to be okay."
"Sure, Johnny. It's just that I've sailed with him for a long time. I'd hate
to lose him."
"He knows it, Skipper."
Sparrow turned, smiled, a strangely plaintive gesture. "I guess he does at
that."
And Ramsey thought: You can't tell a man you love him -- not if you're a man.
That's a problem, too.
We don't have the right word -- the one that leaves out sex.
"He said, "Where's Les?"
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