Unique among features of the Christian was its video communication system from the bridge to other parts of the ship. Above the fireplace in each cabin was a small TV screen and this provided direct visual communication with the Captain at the wheel and with whatever other activity was going on there, giving as it did a view of almost the entire bridge. These sets could be switched on or off, but the first day they were left on before the passengers arrived, in order to spare anyone the embarrassment of not knowing what the new gimmick was. So that when passengers entered their cabins now they saw at once, there on the screen above the fireplace: the Captain at the wheel. Captain Klaus. And for this person, Guy Grand had engaged a professional actor, a distinguished silver-haired man whose every gesture inspired the deepest confidence. He wore a double row of service ribbons on his dark breast and deported himself in a manner both authoritative and pleasingly genial—as the passengers saw when he turned to face the screen, and this he did just as soon as they were all settled and under way.
He was filling his pipe when he turned to camera, but he paused from this to smile and touch his cap in easy salute.
“Cap’n Klaus,” he said, introducing himself with warm informality, though certainly at no sacrifice to his considerable bearing. “Glad to have you aboard.”
He casually picked up a pointer stick and indicated a chart on the nearby wall.
“Here’s our course,” he said, “nor’ by nor’east, forty-seven degrees.”
Then he went on to explain the mechanics and layout of the bridge, the weather and tide conditions at present, their prospects, and so on, using just enough technical jargon throughout all this to show that he knew what he was about. He said that the automatic-pilot would be used from time to time, but that he personally preferred handling the wheel himself, adding good-humoredly that in his opinion “a ship favored men to machines.”
“It may be an old-fashioned notion,” he said, with a wise twinkle, “... but to me, a ship is a woman.”
At last he gave a final welcome-salute, saying again: “Glad to have you aboard,” and turned back to his great wheel.
This contact with the bridge and the fatherly Captain seemed to give the passengers an added sense of participation and security; and, indeed, things couldn’t have gone more smoothly for the first few hours.
It was in the very early morning that something untoward occurred, at about three A.M.—and of course almost everyone was asleep. They had watched their screens for a while: the Captain in the cozy bridge house, standing alone, pipe glowing, his strong eyes sweeping the black water ahead—then they had switched off their sets. There were a few people though who were still up and who had their sets on; and, of these few, there were perhaps three who happened to be watching the screen at a certain moment—when in the corner of the bridge house, near the door, there was a shadow, an odd movement ... then suddenly the appearance of a sinister-looking person, who crept up behind the Captain, hit him on the head, and seized the wheel as the screen blacked out.