The Dragon in the Sea

"There are going to be some changes made," said Ramsey.

"Johnny, do me a favor," said Sparrow.

"Name it."

Sparrow looked away, swallowed. "It sounds like you're going to be a VIP and --" He hesitated. "Will you do what you can to cushion things for Joe's wife?"

"Anything I can do," said Ramsey. "I promise." He took a deep breath. "Who's going to get the dirty job of telling her?"

"I will," said Sparrow. "I'll break it to her as gently as I can."

A sudden chill swept over Ramsey's body. Break it gently! He cleared his throat. "Skipper, that reminds me. I heard Les say something about breaking a bit of news to me. What?"

Sparrow wet his lips with his tongue, looked across at Bonnett working with the controls.

"Break what gently?" repeated Ramsey.

"Joe's death."

"But --"

"Each time we tried to bring you out of shock, you --"

"Each time?"

"We tried four or five times. Each time you raved for Joe to come back. We guessed it was delirium, but --"

Silence fell between them.

"The unconscious senses many things," said Ramsey. He felt a deep emptiness and suddenly recalled his nightmare. Garcia's voice: " I regret that I cannot thank you in person."

For what?

Ramsey said, "We had a lot in common. Joe understood me. He saw right through my act . . . said so. I guess I resented it. Joe was better at my game than I was."

"He admired you," said Sparrow.

Ramsey's eyes burned and smarted.

"He was awake at the end," said Sparrow. "Worried about you. He said he'd given you a raw deal by feeding our suspicions. Joe thought you had the makings of a top submariner."

Ramsey turned away.

"Will you do what you can for his wife?" asked Sparrow.

Ramsey nodded, unable to speak.

"We're approaching the mole," said Bonnett, his voice oddly casual. "Bottom-marker number two coming up." He indicated the screen above him.

Through a green haze of water, two high-piercement lights keyed to their IFF circuits winked at them.

"Are we set for the automatic pickup?" asked Sparrow.

"All set," said Bonnett.

"We've brought home the bacon," said Ramsey.

Bonnett's voice took on an unconscious mimicry of Garcia's bantering accent: "We're a bunch of bloody heroes!"

***

It was peaceful in Dr. Oberhausen's Charleston office. The wizened BuPsych chief sat behind a desk like all other BuPsych office desks, leaning back with his hands steepled beneath his goatee. His bat-eye radar box, disconnected from its shoulder harness, rested on the patterned wood of the desk top. Dr. Oberhausen's sightless ball-bearing eyes seemed to be staring at Ramsey, who sat across the desk from him.

Ramsey rubbed a hand over his head, feeling the stubble of returning hair. "That's pretty much the story," he said. "Most of it was in my notes. You've had those, even though the medics wouldn't let you talk to me."

Dr. Oberhausen nodded silently.

Ramsey leaned back in his chair. It creaked and Ramsey suddenly realized that Dr. Oberhausen purposely surrounded himself with creaking chairs -- reassuring signals for a blind man.

"A close thing with you, Johnny. Radiation sickness is a peculiar thing." He passed a hand across his own radiation-blinded eyes. "It is fortunate that BuPsych agents are virtually indestructible."

"Does this check with my notes and the telemeter tapes?" asked Ramsey.

Dr. Oberhausen nodded. "Yes, it checks. Sparrow became almost literally a part of his boat, sensitive to everything about it -- including his crew. An odd mating of the right mentality and the right experiences has made him a master psychologist. I'm going to see about taking him into the department."

"What about my recommendation for preventing those psychotic breaks?"

Dr. Oberhausen pursed his lips, tugged at his goatee. "The old Napoleonic fancy-uniform therapy: fanfare coming and going." He nodded. "Security will kick and scream that it will prevent secrecy of departures, but they've already made one concession."

"What?"

"They've announced officially that we're pirating oil from the EPs."

"That was a senseless secret anyway."

"They were reluctant."

"We'd be better off without Security," muttered Ramsey. "We should be working to get rid of it. Security stifles communication. It's creating social schizophrenia."

Dr. Oberhausen gave a negative shake of his head. "No, Johnny, we shouldn't get rid of Security. That's an old fallacy. Use Captain Sparrow's analogy: In an insane society, a crazy man is normal. Security has the kind of insanity that's normal for wartime. Normal and needed."

"But after the war, Obe! You know they're going to keep right on!"

"They'll try, Johnny. But by that time we'll have Security under the control of BuPsych. We'll be able to nullify them quite effectively."

Ramsey stared at him, then chuckled. "So that's why you've been moving in on Belland."

"Not just Belland, Johnny."

"You scare me sometimes, Obe."

Dr. Oberhausen's goatee twitched. "Good. That means my pose of omnipotence is effective even with those who know better." He smiled.

Ramsey grinned, stirred in his chair, "If that's all, Obe, I'd like to get away. They wouldn't let Janet and the kids anywhere near me while I was in the hospital, and now that --"

"I waited, too, Johnny. BuMed's little dictatorship halted even the great BuPsych. There's an area of autonomy in radiation medicine that --" He shook his head slowly.

"Well?" asked Ramsey.

"The impatience of youth," said Dr. Oberhausen. "There are just a few more points to be cleared up. Why do you believe we never saw the need for this fancy-uniform therapy?"

"Partly Security," said Ramsey. "But it really wasn't obvious. Wrong symptoms. Napoleon was looking to build up enlistments and stop his gunners from going over the hill. We've never had that trouble. In fact, our submariners seemed eager to return to duty. That's the paradox: they found threat in both spheres -- ashore and at sea. When they were ashore they seemed to forget about the menace of the sea because the subconscious masked it. The boat spelled enveloping safety, a return to the womb. But when the men came ashore, that was birth: exposure. The sky's a hideous thing to men who want to hide from it."

Dr. Oberhausen cleared his throat. His voice took on a crisp, business-like tone. "Now, I'd like to go back to your notes for just a moment. You say BuPsych should emphasize religious training. Explain your reasoning."

Ramsey leaned forward and the telltale chair creaked. "Because it's sanity, Obe. That's the --"

"It smacks of a panacea, Johnny. A nostrum."