“Easy the starboard oars,” said Salter; “handsomely the port oars. Up oars. Chaplain, the boat hook.” He had brought them to a steel
ladder; Mrs. Graves gasped at the red rust thick on it. Salter tied the painter to a corroded brass ring. “Come along,” he said, and began to climb.
When the four of them stood on the iron-plated dock Pemberton, naturally, prayed. Mrs. Graves followed the prayer with half her attention or less; the rest she could not divert from the shocking slovenliness of the prospect—rust, dust, litter, neglect. What went on in the mind of Jewel Flyte her calm face did not betray. And the c&p-tain scanned those black windows a hundred yards inboard—no; inland!—and waited and wondered.
They began to walk to them at last, Salter leading. The sensation underfoot was strange and dead, tiring to the arches and the thighs.
The huge red dice were not as insane close up as they had appeared from a distance. They were thousand-foot cubes of brick, the stuff that lined ovens. They were set back within squares of green, cracked surfacing which Jewel Flyte named “cement” or “concrete” from some queer corner of her erudition.
There was an entrance, and written over it: THE HERBERT BROWNELL JR. MEMORIAL HOUSES. A bronze plaque shot a pang of guilt through them all as they thought of The Compact, but its words were different and ignoble.
NOTICE TO ALL TENANTS
A project Apartment is a Privilege and not a Right. Daily Inspection is the Cornerstone of the Project. Attendance at Least Once a Week at the Church or Synagogue of your Choice is Required for Families wishing to remain in Good Standing; Proof of Attendance must be presented on Demand. Possession of Tobacco or Alcohol will be considered Prima Facie Evidence of Undesirability. Excessive Water Use, Excessive Energy Use and Food Waste will be Grounds for Desirability Review. The speaking of Languages other than American by persons over the Age of Six will be considered Prima Facie Evidence of Nonassimilability, though this shall not be construed to prohibit Religious Ritual in Languages other than American.
Below it stood another plaque in paler bronze, an afterthought:
None of the foregoing shall be construed to condone the Practice of Depravity under the Guise of Religion by Whatever Name, and all Tenants are warned that any Failure to report the
Practice of Depravity will result in summary Eviction and Denunciation.
Around this later plaque some hand had painted with crude strokes of a tar brush a sort of anatomical frame at which they stared in wondering disgust.
At last Pemberton said: “They were a devout people.” Nobody noticed the past tense, it sounded so right.
“Very sensible,” said Mrs. Graves. “No nonsense about them.”
Captain Salter privately disagreed. A ship run with such dour coercion would founder in a month; could land people be that much different?
Jewel Flyte said nothing, but her eyes were wet. Perhaps she was thinking of scared little human rats dodging and twisting through the inhuman maze of great fears and minute rewards.
“After all,” said Mrs. Graves, “it’s nothing but a Cabin Tier. We have cabins and so had they. Captain, might we have a look?”
“This is a reconnaissance,” Salter shrugged. They went into a littered lobby and easily recognized an elevator which had long ago ceased to operate; there were many hand-run dumbwaiters at sea.
A gust of air flapped a sheet of printed paper across the chaplain’s ankles; he stooped to pick it up with a kind of instinctive outrage-leaving paper unsecured, perhaps to blow overboard and be lost forever to the ship’s economy! Then he flushed at his silliness. “So much to unlearn,” he said, and spread the paper to look at it. A moment later he crumpled it in a ball and hurled it from him as hard and as far as he could, and wiped his hands with loathing on his jacket. His face was utterly shocked.
The others stared. It was Mrs. Graves who went for the paper.
“Don’t look at it,” said the chaplain.
“I think she’d better,” Salter said.
The maintenancewoman spread the paper, studied it and said: “Just some nonsense. Captain, what do you make of it?”