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"The morphine," reminded Garcia.
Sparrow held up an ampule.
"Thanks for everything, Skipper," said Garcia. "One favor: Will you look after Bea and the kids?"
Sparrow nodded curtly, bent, and administered the injections -- one, two, three.
They watched the morphine take effect. "Eight more blood changes left in the machine," said Ramsey.
"Give him maximum flow rate," said Sparrow. Ramsey adjusted the valve.
"Now, Johnny, I want the whole story from you," said Sparrow. He spoke without taking his gaze from
Garcia.
"Evidently, you already know it," said Ramsey.
"Not in detail. That's what I want now."
Ramsey thought: The cloak-and-dagger role is a farce. Sparrow's had me spotted for some time -- and
that's probably Garcia's doing. I've been flying blind and didn't know it. Or did I? He thought back over
his vague feelings of misgiving.
Sparrow said, "Well?"
Stalling for time to think, Ramsey said, "How much detail?"
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"Start from the beginning," said Sparrow.
Ramsey mentally crossed his fingers, thought: This is the crisis. If Sparrow's really psycho, he'll blow.
But I have to chance it. I don't know how much he's discovered. I can't pull any punches.
"You can start right now," said Sparrow. "That's an order."
Ramsey took a deep breath, began with the message from Dr. Oberhausen and the conference with
Admiral Belland in Sec. I.
"This telemetering equipment," said Sparrow. "What does it tell you about me?"
"That you're like a part of this submarine. You react like one of its instruments instead of like a human
being."
"I'm a machine?"
"If you want."
"Are you sure of your little black box?"
"The body's own juices don't lie."
"I suppose they don't. But interpretations can be mistaken. For instance, I don't think you've correctly
evaluated the adjustment we have to make to exist down here in the deeps."
"How do you mean?"
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"Do you recall the day you broke down in the shack?"
Ramsey remembered his fear, his inability to move, the reassuring influence of Sparrow. He nodded.
"What would you call that experience?"
"A temporary psychotic break."
"Temporary?"
Ramsey stared at Sparrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Would you say that all of your actions aboard the Ram have been completely sane?"
Ramsey colored, feeling the hot flush of blood in his face. "What kind of a machine are you now,
Skipper?"
"A computing machine," said Sparrow. "Now listen to me and listen carefully. Here in the subtugs, we
have adapted to about as great a mental pressure as human beings can take and still remain operative.
We have adapted. Some to a greater degree than others. Some one way and some another. But
whatever the method of adaptation, there's this fact about it which remains always the same: viewed in
the light of people who exist under lesser pressures, our adaptation is not sane."
"How do you know?"
"I've had to know," said Sparrow. "As you've observed, my particular adaptation has been
machine-like. Considered in the light of human normality, you psych people have a name for that
adaptation."
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"Schizoid."
"So I've compartmentalized my life," said Sparrow. "I have a part of me -- call it a circuit if you want --
which keeps me going down here. It believes in the hereafter because it has to --"
Ramsey caught the third-person reference to self; he tensed.
"Who's to deny me the right to be whatever I have to be down here?" asked Sparrow. He rubbed the
side of his jaw with his long-fingered hand. "I had to know what it was I was doing. So I studied me. I
analyzed me. I computed me against every background I could think of. I was completely ruthless with
me." He fell silent.
Cautiously, Ramsey said, "And?"
"I'm nuts," said Sparrow. "But I'm nuts in a way which fits me perfectly to my world. That makes my
world nuts and me normal. Not sane. Normal. Adapted."
"You're saying the world's schizoid, fragmented."
"Hasn't it always been?" asked Sparrow. "Where are there completely unbroken lines of
communication? Show me complete social integration." He shook his long head from side to side in a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]