Cruise Doctor. Kerry Mitchell

Faulkner crossed his legs. For the first time Bedloe spoke.

      “But you can dance with the ladies,” he said, and smiled.

      Grady glanced down at him. He saw a medium-sized man in a well-cut uniform, with a sharp, good-looking face. Grady noted those things automatically. His attention was on that smile. The feeling was vague, undefined; but he began to think he might not like Bedloe.

      Bedloe was still looking at him. “Extracurricular duties, eh?” Grady murmured, his expression neutral. “It shouldn’t be hard to take.” He glanced at Faulkner. “I’d like to take a look at the sickbay, sir.”

      “Do that,” Faulkner nodded, “you’ll find it well supplied. I’d like it to be that way when we get back here.” At Grady’s frown of puzzlement the captain went on:

      “You might as well know it right off, Grady. I’m a company man. And the company wants to make money. I don’t like waste of any of the ship’s supplies. So where a pink pill will do, don’t use penicillin. You’re with me?”

      Once again Grady reserved judgment. Again he was telling himself that his experience of ship commanders was meager, that Faulkner could be wholly within his rights in this anti-waste campaign. His reference to pink pills and penicillin had been facetious. Hadn’t it?

      “Yes, sir,” he said, “I’ll watch it.”

      “Fine.” Faulkner nodded, and with the gesture dismissed him. His expression as Grady turned to leave was genial.

      It was that expression which was exercising Grady’s mind as he climbed slowly down the ladder to the boat deck. In the main Faulkner’s manner had been pleasant enough. And there was no doubt about the geniality in his face at the end. There was only one slight hitch—Faulkner’s geniality had not quite reached his eyes.

      But then what in hell did he expect? Grady deprecated his analysis. Faulkner was in charge of this floating Waldorf and its two hundred guests, responsible for their safety over thousands of miles of ocean. He had to fling his arms round the neck of the newest, greenest recruit to his seasoned team? Had to crinkle his eyes with his smile, make like the jovial uncle? Still, Grady thought as he headed for the seaman at the gangway, those were definitely cold eyes.

      He came up to the gangway and the seaman saw him coming and with a movement he tried to make casual turned his back on him, staring intently at nothing on the pier. Grady was not deceived, but his tone was affable.

      “Sorry to bother you again, but I’d like you to show me the sickbay.”

      “Yes, sir,” the seaman answered, just failing to keep the resignation from his voice. “This way.”

      He headed again toward the bridge, but this time turned in through a wide doorway. Following him, Grady stepped into the main lounge. In a quick study he noted a plenitude of tables, chairs, settees, and at the forward end a long bar which reached right across the room. There were a dozen or so people in the place.

      At the head of a companionway leading down, Grady asked:

      “These people are passengers?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      They moved down the broad staircase. “Bit early, isn’t it? We don’t sail till tomorrow.”

      “Our passengers come from all over the States,” the seaman informed over his shoulder, “arrivin’ tomorrow cuts it a bit fine.”

      His voice was resigned; a father answering a dopey son who’d asked if there were animals in the zoo. Yet Grady said pleasantly:

      “I see. Should have realized that.”

      The answer, the tone, took the wind out of the seaman’s superior sails; as Grady had intended it should. Elementary psychology. At the foot of the companionway, the seaman halted and grinned with friendliness.

      “There’s another reason,” he told his pupil, “it gives ’em the chance to throw a farewell party on board. You sleep well, Doc?” he asked suddenly.

      “Reasonably well. Why?”

      “Could be you’ll need one of your own pills if you don’t. She’ll be a rip-roaring old night tonight, that you believe!”

      They moved along a passage, Grady fixing identification points in his memory. “Course a lot of the passengers are a bit old for that sort of thing,” the seaman chatted on, “but they have one hell of a lot of friends ashore.” He halted, his hand on the knob of a white-painted door. “And there are the passengers like the one who came up the gangway just ahead of you. Some peachie, huh?”

      “Yes,” Grady answered, a trifle curtly. The owner of a pair of cold eyes might not favor this discussion between officer and seaman. “This is the sickbay?”

      “Sure is. And, sir . . . ?”

      “What is it?”

      “Think you could find your own way about now? They’ll be pourin’ on board any minute and I gotta be up there.”

      “Of course,” Grady said, “I’ll get by. Thanks for your help.”

      “Any time,” the seaman lied automatically, and hurried off. Grady opened the door.

      Once again he was impressed initially by size. His knowledge of sickbays was confined to brief sojourns in warships on active service, where only emergency surgery was performed; a couple of bunks, a narrow operating table which could be bolted to the deck.

      Here there were at least a dozen bunks, ranged in tiers of three, supported at each end by strong steel stanchions, swinging in gimbals so that the ship would roll round them, leaving the patient comparatively stable. He closed the door quietly behind him, and stared.

      Astonished, then pleased, he took in the accouterments of a compartment which any small-town hospital would envy: sterilizers, anesthetic machine secured to a bulkhead, cupboards fully equipped—one of them boasting a coldly gleaming array of surgical instruments—carpet on the deck, individual lights for each bunk, curtains on the portholes, and—damn it, it was!—in one corner a small X-ray machine.

      “Good God!” he said, involuntarily and aloud.

      As if in answer to this claim on the Deity a woman appeared in a doorway at the end of the room. She saw him, and frowned. Then understanding cleared her face and she came toward him.

      “Dr. Grady?”

      “Yes,” he acknowledged, smiling, his eyes examining. She was a middle-aged, plump and matronly woman in nurse’s uniform; her hair gray, her face lined and friendly. Carried on board more for handling fractious children than a pair of forceps, Grady judged, quite without irritation—it was unlikely there would be any operative procedures, let alone major surgery.

      “I’m your nurse, Dorothy Talbot. Welcome aboard, Doctor.”

      Suddenly, after the superiority of Faulkner and Bedloe, he found it pleasant to be called by his title, and in his own inviolate domain—his bridge. Grady owned a warm smile, and now it sparkled at her.

      “Nice to see I’ve got help, Miss Talbot.” His hand moved in a small embracing arc. “But this . . .”

      She matched his smile. “Don’t worry, Doctor, you won’t be using it.”

      “Then why . . . ?”

      She shrugged. “No reason, except that it helps them to know it’s here. This is no ordinary vessel, Doctor,” she pronounced in a sepulchral voice, and Grady’s eyes squinted at her. It could not be, of course, a good imitation, but there was another difference—Miss Talbot’s smile was glinting in her eyes. “No ordinary vessel, at all, Doctor, and its appointments must match the wallets of those who sail in it. Ah . . .” she broke off. “You have seen, the captain?”

      “Twice.” Grady laughed. This feeling was clearly defined—he was going to like Miss Talbot.

      “Swell,”