CV Read online

  Table of Contents

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  Copyright

  Dedication

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  CV

  Damon Knight

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  CV

  Copyright © 1985 by Damon Knight

  A shorter version of this novel appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, copyright © 1984, 1985 by Mercury Press, Inc.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  First printing: May 1985

  First mass market printing: March 1986

  A TOR Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates

  49 West 24 Street

  New York. N.Y. 10010

  Cover art by Tony Roberts

  ISBN: 0-812-54333-5

  CAN. ED.: 0-812-54334-3

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 85-185571

  Printed in the United States

  For TED and VIRGINIA THOMAS

  1

  When Emily Woodruff first saw Sea Venture on a blue November day, her heart jumped, and she said, “It’s so big!” Her husband Jim, who misunderstood her or perhaps understood her in a different way, said reverently, “Nothing but the best,” as if he were talking about a new car or a motor home. But none of the brochures had prepared her for this: Sea Venture was incredibly, impossibly big, looming there beyond the heads of the people like some fantastic cloud castle against the sky. The white wall curved up and back; above it were other curves, and beyond them she could see pennants snapping in the sun, and a tall white cylinder, with gulls soaring over it.

  Jim was sixty-five, a pink-faced man with white hair brushed smoothly back against his skull. They had been married thirty-five years, good years, on the whole. Their children were grown, and they had grandchildren. Last August Jim had sold his dealerships for a sum that took Emily’s breath away, and he said, “Let’s have a real vacation. Let’s run over to Honolulu for a couple of weeks and then take a cruise on Sea Venture.”

  Now, looking at the height she had to ascend, she said, “Jim, I don’t think I can go up there.”

  “Yes, you by God can,” he said in his other voice. Then two white-uniformed young women, one more beautiful than the other, were helping them onto the moving ramp, and up they went into the sky, like children on a Ferris wheel. When they reached the top, two other young women ushered them into a carpeted lobby, perfumed, echoing with voices. They got into a line that ended at a desk where a uniformed man took their tickets and turned them over to another man, brown-skinned and white-jacketed, who smiled and said, “Please follow me, Mr. and Mrs. Woodruff.” They went down a softly lit blue corridor to an elevator that bore them up smoothly, and paused, and sighed into stillness. Then down another blue corridor that led them to a paneled door; the brown man opened it, bowed them in, and handed Jim the keys. “Welcome to Sea Venture,” he said. “Your luggage will be up shortly. I hope you will have a very pleasant voyage.”

  Emily turned slowly. The room was smaller somehow than the pictures had led her to expect. The walls were papered in a blue-and-cream floral pattern; the carpet was royal blue. There were twin beds with quilted covers, and a window through which she could see the boarding area and the brown-hazed skyline of Waikiki beyond it. At the far end of the room there was a desk with a computer terminal and a wall screen.

  Jim Woodruff was moving nervously around the room, hands in his pockets. “Why don’t you take a little nap?” he said. “I’m going to go down and see what’s what.”

  He paused at the door. “Is that all right?”

  “Of course, Jim,” she said.

  When he was gone, Emily stood without moving for a moment, then roused herself to look into the closet. There was a little refrigerator, and there were plenty of hangers, including some nice padded ones. She hung up her jacket, then inspected the bathroom: tub, shower, toilet, and a curious thing that she supposed must be a bidet—she had never seen one. Towels neatly folded.

  She went back into the room and sat experimentally on one of the beds. On the wall beside her was a panel with push buttons marked STEWARD, MAID, TV, MUSIC, AIR CONDITIONING, WINDOW. Did the window open? She pushed the button, and the window went black, as if a weightless curtain had descended over it instantly and silently. She was frightened, and pushed the button again; the blue sky reappeared. Then she realized how foolish she had been. The “window” was only a cleverly recessed 3-D television screen. She remembered the great, curving, unbroken white wall they had seen from the boarding ramp: there were no windows in Sea Venture.

  Emily looked at the blue carpet between her feet. It was really very nice, she told herself, this little room in which she was to spend the next three months of her life.

  2

  At his desk in the Control Center of Sea Venture, the Chief of Operations, Stanley Bliss, was watching the embarkation in a bank of television screens. Bliss was a Cunard veteran, fifty-three years old, a portly man with pale blue eyes. He had been lured away by Sea Venture, somewhat against his better judgment, by a large advance in salary and a stupendous retirement plan. Part of the understanding was that he would become an American citizen; he didn’t mind that, and he didn’t mind the more or less permanent separation from his wife in Liverpool. What he did mind was the sheer infuriating complexity of the job he had taken on. On Sea Venture he wasn’t called “Captain,” and he wasn’t a captain; he was the chief executive of an operation involving anywhere from nine hundred to fifteen hundred employees at any given moment. In theory and in fact he was responsible for the safety of the vessel (which was safe as houses), but also he was indirectly in charge of the chefs, the bakers, the electronics crew, the maintenance department, the stewards, the publicity office and the newspaper, the entertainment staff; and as if that were not enough, he was ex officio a member of the Executive Council which more or less ran Sea Venture, or tried to run it, with its all-day monthly meetings and the endless committees in between, and the Stockholders’ Meetings, and the Work Sessions, and the Planning Sessions, and, my God, the Initiatives and Referendums…

  The passengers he was seeing today were the usual lot, some of them San Francisco people reboarding after the layover in Honolulu, others boarding here for the first time, burnt red or brown, with flowered shirts and leis—a little more geriatric perhaps than the old Queen; the largest number were couples in their fifties and sixties, with a scattering up to eighty—blue-haired women tottering on canes, heaven knew why they wanted to go on a cruise, they never left their cabins except for meals, and two or three never came out at all; then t
here was a sizable group in their forties, taking up most of the seats in the bars; then the “younger crowd,” twenties and thirties, who flocked together and were visible out of all proportion on the dance floor, the tennis courts and so on; then a forlorn sprinkling of teenagers glumly following their parents about. It was impossible to know how they had been attracted to Sea Venture in the first place; once you had got them, you had to keep them busy, entertained; give them the illusion, at least, that they were having a marvelous time.

  In another bank of screens he could see the permanent residents boarding at the stern, nine hundred feet away. Their ramp went up to the loading area on the Sports Deck; it was an insult to the integrity of the hull to have the passenger entrance so low, but that was not the only compromise the designers had made.

  He turned to the guest beside him. “Well, what do you think of us so far?”

  Captain Hartman smiled noncommittally around his pipe. He was another ex-Cunard man, retired now, traveling on a courtesy pass. “Impressive,” he said.

  “The size, you mean. She is the largest passenger vessel ever built, let alone the biggest submersible vessel—or ever likely to be built, if you ask me.”

  “You don’t think they’ll go on with the programme? You’re meant to be a prototype, aren’t you? Isn’t that what the P in POSH is for?”

  Bliss grimaced slightly. “Prototype Open Sea Habitat, yes, somebody must have thought that was funny once, but not anymore. We call her Sea Venture, or CV for short. What she is is a bloody raft.”

  “Boarding completed, Chief,” said the First Deputy, a handsome young Midwesterner named Ferguson.

  “All right. Signal the tugs.”

  “How many tugs?” Hartman inquired.

  “Six. They’ll take us out about seventy miles, until we can catch the southbound current; then we’re on our own. Tugs brought her all the way across the Pacific two years ago from the Kure Yards where she was built. The hull, that is; the fittings and interior work are all American.”

  “You’re proud of her really, aren’t you? I should be.”

  “Oh, well, you know,” said Bliss. He was watching a screen on the console in front of him, the one that displayed a view of the reception lobby. Following his gaze, Hartman saw a passenger, an alert-looking young man with short dark hair, turn as he moved toward the desk and look directly into the camera.

  His real name was Sverdrupp; he was born in Stockholm, educated in France, Germany, and England, trained in Israel and Central America. At the moment he had an American passport. For the past ten years he had been employed by a certain international organization which gave him occasional jobs to do and paid him very well. Two months ago he had been summoned to a meeting in Rome, in the course of which it appeared that he was being lent to another organization, not named then or ever, which required his services for this occasion only. His body was deceptively slender; his clothes were new and expensive. He had a boyish, open face, useful to him in his profession.

  John Stevens, as he called himself now, gazed around with calm interest while the moving ramp carried him up into Sea Venture. He did not see the man he was looking for, but he did see several other celebrities: the video star Eddie Greaves, a former U.S. senator, a beer baron, the widow of a Greek shipping magnate. There were also several very pretty girls.

  Stevens knew that his quarry had reserved a suite on the Signal Deck at the top of Sea Venture; he himself had booked a single cabin on the deck below, in a section which gave him privileges at the restaurant used by more exalted passengers. He rode decorously up into the reception lounge, presented his ticket, and followed a Filipino steward to his cabin. He investigated every corner of the room almost without thinking about it, sniffed the air, put his hand on the sweating side of the ice-water carafe, then sat down before the computer console at the far wall.

  In the printer tray beside it was a little news sheet, the CV Journal. “WELCOME TO THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF SEA VENTURE!” it began, and went on, “If you would like to know some fascinating facts about Sea Venture, press the ‘CV’ button on your personal computer terminal.” He did so, and found to his satisfaction that there was a program for deck plans.

  On the wall screen a skeletal outline of the vessel appeared in 3-D. It rotated gently at his command, and he saw that the view he had had from the island, huge as it was, had given him a misleading impression. Seen from above, Sea Venture was an oval shape more than three-quarters as wide as it was long, wider than eight ordinary ships lying side by side.

  He gave the computer another command, and saw a red dot with the legend YOU ARE HERE. He summoned up other dots for the Liberty Restaurant, the Signal Deck Lounge, the card room, the casino, the theater; the computer obligingly drew yellow lines from his cabin to each one. He blanked the screen, well satisfied. Then he turned on a commercial channel and sprawled in comfort against the headboard of the bed to watch “Wild Annie and Bill.”

  3

  A powered wheelchair approached the moving ramp at the stern of Sea Venture, under the sign that read, PERMANENT RESIDENTS ONLY. In the chair was a very small gray-haired man; behind it was a large young man with an expressionless corn-fed face. As they entered the ramp, a young woman in a yellow pantsuit ran up beside them. “Professor Newland, I’m Ann Bonano of the Toronto Star.”

  “No interviews,” barked the large young man.

  “No, that’s all right, Hal,” Newland said in a surprisingly resonant voice. “I know Ms. Bonano—we met at the convention in Los Angeles, what was it, four years ago?”

  “I didn’t think you’d remember,” she said, smiling. “Professor Newland, it’s funny to find you here, and even funnier to find you going into the permanent resident section. Surely this doesn’t mean—”

  “No, no,” said Newland, “just trying to make your job harder. Sneaking aboard, to put it bluntly. How did you know I was here?”

  “I was having lunch with a friend and forgot the time, and then I was in such a hurry that I got out at the wrong gate—and I looked up and saw you. One of the breaks.” She took a notebook from her yellow bag. “As long as I’ve trapped you, why are you here? Have you changed your opinion about Sea Venture and the ocean habitat program?”

  “No, not exactly, but I thought it would be educational. You know.”

  She hesitated. “Professor Newland, let me put it another way. Our people in Washington tell us the space colony bill is going to be voted down again this year by a substantial margin. Does that mean you think it’s time to give up? Do you see the ocean habitats as a viable alternative to L-Five?”

  “I wouldn’t put it that way,” Newland said easily. “You know, this year or next year, it doesn’t matter, we’ve got to go into space. The L-Five colonies are going to be built, there’s no doubt about that; the only question is when.”

  She scribbled a note. “But in the meantime,” she said, “if Congress continues to fund the ocean habitat program, don’t you think that will make them less and less inclined to give you any money for L-Five?”

  “We’ll have to wait and see. I think Congress usually does the right thing, sooner or later. I know you’ve followed my lectures, and I don’t have to tell you what the reasons are. By going into space we’ll be opening up brand-new territory, not just using up more of what we’ve already got. And not only that, we’ll be gaining vast new sources of energy. That’s vital. We’ve got to have the energy, for six billion people. And you can’t get that energy from the ocean.”

  “Some people are talking about thermal plants along the habitat lanes.”

  “Well, that’s what I like to call a deep-blue-sea project.”

  She made another note. “Professor Newland, there have been rumors for over a year now of some kind of split between you and the rest of the L-Five leadership. Is there anything to those rumors?”

  “We’ve had our disagreements, over the years. That’s not surprising.”

  She paused. “You said you thought this
trip on Sea Venture would be educational. What do you hope to learn?”

  “Who knows? I’m always ready to learn something new. Talk to me again after Guam, and maybe I’ll tell you.”

  “You’re getting off at Guam, then, and flying back?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are your plans then?”

  “No plans. I’ll do whatever needs doing.”

  She put her notebook away; they were almost at the top of the ramp. “Thank you very much, Professor Newland. I hope you have a pleasant voyage.”

  The open-decked boarding area was crowded with people greeting each other, exchanging packages, running back and forth. There seemed to be a good deal of hugging and kissing. A smiling Chinese steward came toward them through the hubbub. “Follow me, please, Professor Newland, and we’ll get you into the passenger section without any trouble.”

  They had gone only a yard or two when a large brown man put his hand on the arm of the wheelchair. “Professor Newland, I couldn’t help overhearing, on the ramp. It’s an honor to have you with us. I’m Ben Higpen, the mayor. Here’s my phone number. Give me a call any time and I’ll be glad to show you around.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Higpen.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Only a few people stayed to watch Sea Venture slip away from her moorings, fussed at by four little tugs that churned the deep-blue, almost purple, water of the harbor. There was no band playing, and no one waving from the decks—no place to wave from. When Sea Venture was far enough away from the dock, two more tugs joined her amidships. The vessel slowly rotated, revealing her true size for the first time. Two tall white cylinders, only one of which had been visible before, towered against the sky. Slowly and steadily the vessel moved away from the island, out toward the bright horizon and the horror that awaited her.