The Heirs of Babylon Read Free Page A

his eyes.

    "It's like I'll wake up any minute and find myself at
    home." Kapp nervously prodded his food with his fork.
    "Uh ... about me and Frieda ..."

    Kurt swallowed, said, "She's your problem, not mine.
    You got troubles, settle them with her. She's a big girl
    now." He hoped Otto would understand that he was
    undismayed by the new deepness of Frieda's commitment.

    Apparently, Otto did comprehend. The tension faded
    from his face. He smiled weakly. "Think we'll catch that pirate galleon this time?"

    Kurt grinned broadly as he remembered raft-borne pi-
    rate chases on the ponds of the silted-up Kiel Canal. That
    had been his game, imagined into being after reading old
    books. Then as now. Otto had gone along because Kurt
    was his friend. Which thought killed Kurt's pleasure at the question. He should not have talked Otto into coming.
    Frieda was right in being angry with him.

    "What we catch," said Hans Wiedermann, assuming the seat beside Otto (which, Kurt saw by looking around, was
    the only one available), "may be a Tartar, like Hood
    catching Bismarck."

    Kapp displayed puzzlement. Hans would not expand his
    cryptic comment, apparently feeling ignorance was inex-
    cusable. Otto looked to Ranke. "Old-time battleships,"
    Kurt said. "An ancient war. Hood and Prince of Wales

    were after Bismarck. Hood went down almost as soon as

    the shooting started."

    "History," Kapp snorted. "You two live in the past.

    What good is it? Reading books about old times won't put
    food in your stomach." He launched a set speech long
    familiar to Kurt, who suspected Otto's feelings were based
    in envy. He, like many Littoral children, had received only the rudiments of an education. He could read numbers
    and puzzle his way through the simplest primer, but all
    else was beyond him, which had to rankle when conversa-
    tions went beyond his scope. And, if he were working with
    some machine and needed to know how to operate or
    repair it, he had to do so by trial and error or knowledge

    passed orally by someone more experienced.

    Yet, despite no knowledge of theory. Otto was a first-
    rate mechanic. Often, when not on watch, he worked in
    one of the gunmounts, deftly maintaining hydraulics and
    electrical servos whose physics he comprehended not at

    all.

    The whole of modern technology, Kurt supposed, was

    mirrored in Otto Kapp. Very few people knew why things
    worked any more, nor did they care. To bang on or fiddle

    with a machine until it worked was enough.

    It had to collapse. To maintain a technological culture

    on hand-me-down skills was impractical ... it had col-
    lapsed already, he decided. Jdger was an anomaly, one
    of the few functional machines left to the Littoral. The
    culture as a whole there operated at the level of the

    sixteenth or seventeenth century.

    Kurt grew aware that Hans and Otto were engaged in a

    spirited argument over the value of studying history. Otto
    maintained that the past was dead and useless while Hans
    reiterated ancient notions of learning from others' mis-
    takes. Said Otto, "Avoid past mistakes? Hans, that's stupid. If it's true, why're we here? This mistakes's already
    two centuries old." Otto was, probably, the most openly anti-War person Kurt knew—with the understandable exceptions of Karen and Frieda. "You think people're sensible. That's the silliest idea ..."

    Kapp stopped in mid-career. Kurt had kicked him

    beneath the table. Beck had appeared. For reasons un-
    known, he was eating at crew's mess rather than in the
    wardroom. The mess decks were silent as scores of
    breaths were held. Everyone waited for Beck to choose a
    seat. The groans at Kurt's table were inaudible, but very
    real within, when the Political Officer selected the open

    place next to Kurt.

18
    "Good evening, men," he said as he deposited his tray on the table, his voice sounding somehow distant and
    hollow. "Don't let me interrupt." He hazarded a smile which was more a grimace. Elsewhere, sailors