Dead Sea

    I braced myself for the expected outcry, but surprisingly there was none. A few people looked unhappy about it, a few more looked queasy, but nobody objected out loud. This was a new world with new laws. You did what you had to in order to stay alive. All of them had survived this long-they knew what it took. To remain human, you had to give up a little bit of your humanity. I'd done stuff I wasn't proud of-shooting Alan, for example. But something else was bothering me, too. If the guy had been bitten but was still alive when they threw him overboard, what happened after he drowned? Did he still turn into a zombie? Hamelin's Revenge was already in his bloodstream. Did he wake up on the bottom of the ocean and start attacking the fish? I wondered again if the disease could transfer to marine life.

    "So there are twenty of us," Chief Maxey said once more. "That should give me a better idea of how long the ship's stores will last. Not that we really have any. But we'll get to that in a minute. First, let me tell you about myself and about your new home. If you didn't hear me before, my name is.SMC Wade Maxey, United States Coast Guard, retired. Specifically, I was a signalman. SMC stands for Signalman Chief. I actually served onboard the Spratling in the eighties, and when she was finally decommissioned in 1987 and turned into a historic attraction, I was hired by the Maritime Museum to serve as a curator and tour guide. Believe me when I tell you that nobody knows this ship better than me. I'm a part of her and she's a part of me, and I'm glad they saved her from the scrap yard. Usually, when they're no longer seaworthy, those old ships are cut up and sold for scrap by their owners before they become completely worthless. Only a few of the really old ones have survived. Most of the time, that's because of dumb luck. And sometimes, they escape the scrap yards because of their historical significance, as was the case with the Spratling. The coast guard felt it was an important vessel."

    As Maxey talked, I wondered how much of his speech was from his normal tour recital and how much was for our benefit. I had to give him credit. Despite his warning about putting us to sleep, he held everybody, including the kids, spellbound.

    "The USCGC Spratling," he continued proudly, "is significant because she is one of the last of the fleet's high endurance cutters. With the exception of our polar ice breakers, these are-or were-the largest class of vessel in the coast guard's fleet. The Spratling is just under four hundred feet long, has a beam of forty-five feet, and weighs a little over three thousand, two hundred and fifty tons. She was a sister vessel to the USCGC Taney, the only ship that was left' floating during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As you might remember, the Taney was also docked at the Inner Harbor until a year ago, when she was sent to the shipyards in Norfolk for major refitting and preservation work. The Spmtling became the sole military vessel attraction after that. The Spratling was named for former Secretary of State William B. Spratling, who was a former college roommate of President Jeffrey Tyler. Please do not hold that against her."

    The crowd laughed politely, and Joan applauded.

    "She is one of the last three treasury-class coast guard cutters still left afloat. The Spratling and her various crews have served our country proudly for over sixty years. During that time, she's been through a lot. She saw combat in both World War Two and Vietnam, and was also called upon to assist civilians during Hurricane Agnes in the seventies and more recently, along the Gulf Coast after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. During my, service aboard the Spratling, she was a vital asset in drug interdiction, search and rescue operations, border enforcement, and fisheries protection. While these may sound mundane to you, they are anything but. They can be-and were- very dangerous operations. She also participated in the search for John E Kennedy, Jr. after his plane crashed. She's seen a lot of history, and I'm proud to serve aboard her. I hope that you're all proud to be here, as well. Now, if you look forward, you'll notice that big dome on top of the pilot house. While we're doing that, everybody wave to Turn."

    We did, and behind the pilot house window, Turn waved back. He looked embarrassed.

    "That dome," Chief Maxey explained, "is a special storm-tracking antenna. In addition to its other duties, the Spratling also helped track storms for many years, until the use of more sophisticated storm-tracking satellites and radars became common. The antenna was reinstalled for posterity when she became a museum. Sadly, it is not active."

    I stared at the dome. A seagull was perched on top of it, watching us with interest.