Finally, the patient, at the end of his tether, would leap to his feet.
“Well, in the name of God, Doctor, the least you can do is let me have some tranquillizers!”
But the doctor, as it turned out, was not one given to prescribing drugs promiscuously.
“Escape into drugs?” he would ask, wagging his head slowly. “Mask our fears in an artificial fog?” And there was always a trace of sadness in his smile, as he continued, “No, I’m afraid the trouble is in ourselves, you see.” Then he would settle back expansively and speak with benign countenance. “Running away from problems is scarcely the solution to them. I believe you’ll thank me in years to come.” And at last he would lean forward in quiet confidence. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about your ... your early childhood?”
** ***
When Captain Klaus next appeared on the screen, he looked as though he had been sleeping in two feet of water. Completely disheveled, his ribbons dangling in unsightly strands, his open coat flapping, his unknotted tie strung loosely around his collar, he seemed somewhat drunk as well. With a rude wave of his hand he dismissed bridge personnel and lurched toward the video screen, actually crashing into it, and remaining so close that his image was all distorted.
“We’ll get the old tub through!” he was shouting at deafening volume, and at that moment he was attacked from behind by a ruffian type who was carrying a huge hypodermic and appeared to overpower the Captain and inject something into the top of his head, then to seize the wheel, wrenching it violently, before the screen went black.
Also, it was learned about this time that because of fantastic miscalculation on the part of the ship’s-stores officer, the only food left aboard now was potatoes.
Thus did the Christian roar over the sea, through fair weather and foul.
Guy Grand was aboard of course, as a passenger, complaining bitterly, and in fact kept leading assault parties in an effort to find out, as he put it, “What the devil’s going on on the bridge!”