Chapter No. 11 White Raiment

Incongruity: A woman--a Barbie face, long blond hair draped down her back, shapely legs, large breasts filling out a pink V-necked T-shirt--sits alone in the corner. She sips from a Coke and appears to be preoccupied with a paperback. Actually, she's just wasting time until Eric Hauptman shows up, but she doesn't bother him the instant he walks into the mess. She waits until the right time--after he settles down to a snack--to saunter over to him.

He's the only male in the mess. Conners sits near the back conversing--or is it arguing--with Dr. Altman.

"How's your work going, Dr. Hauptman?"

The object of her attention is working on a bag of potato chips and a beer, something his wife wouldn't approve of. He really doesn't like having his solitude broken, but he restrains his annoyance.

"Not so good," he said, looking up at her beaming face and nervously smiling himself. "We seem to have run into a stretch of bad weather."

She sat down beside him, moving as close as she could. "That's too bad. I'm sure it'll get better soon."

"I hope so. We're running out of time."

"Where's you wife?" she asked after gratuitously looking around.

"She's taking a shower. She prefers to go early so that she doesn't have to wait."

"When do you take your shower?"

"I usually go late. I always was a procrastinator."

Her hand flitted onto his. "I like to go late, too." She said it with a playful tilt of her head and amused twist of her mouth.

Eric's right eyebrow rose. "I thought that the women were supposed to shower before seventeen hundred."

She laughed boisterously. "Oh, I don't worry about that. The men are accommodating."

I'm sure they are.

"Maybe we'll bump into each other some time."

"Perhaps we will," said Eric, trying to force a smile.

"All right!" she said, sounding enthused but not really backing it up with her face. "I'll catch you later."

Tiffany sprang up, gave Eric a flirting smile and then sashayed out of the mess. Eric observed every pleasure filled moment of her departure, thoroughly enjoying how the nicely rounded, fully fleshed halves of her bottom bounced deliciously with each step.
Dr. Altman left soon after Tiffany, and Conners came over to the chair opposite his and sat down.

"Are you having an affair with her, Hauptman? She seems to be spending a lot of time with you."

Eric shook his head. "I don't know what her problem is. She seems to be--"

"Horny," Conners said. "The bigger the boobs, the greater the flow of hormones. I think she's flirting with every man on this vessel."

"I'm not surprised."

"Cheer up, Hauptman," Conners said with her usual sarcasm. "She's just trying to get a rise out of you, that's all. Enjoy it."

He gave her a sheepish smile. He certainly didn't mind looking at Tiffany Jones. She's beautiful and built like . . . well, built. But her sudden attention is suspicious. He decided that she needed his further study.

Yeah!

###

Margaret worked her way from the head to her stateroom. The trip consumed several minutes because the head is located on a lower deck in the aft section and her stateroom is on the top deck in the forward section. She not only had to climb up a narrow ladder through a small hatch, she had to negotiate a narrow passageway that carried most of the ship's traffic. She had no choice; the head contains the ship's only shower. But there's one caveat: moving past someone in a passageway requires squeezing sideways and making apologies for the inconvenience and unavoidable physical contact.

Not that the mostly male crew minds. There are only five females on board and running into one is the highlight of the day, especially if the female is returning from a shower wrapped in a towel.

Besides Margaret and Dr. Conners, only one other female scientist graces the Nautilus: Dr. Ruth Altman, the Shark Lady as she is more often referred to, is the youngest of the science compliment. Her exploits in the study of sharks are legendary. Her body sports several vicious scars as testimony to her heroics.

There are two females in the crew. Sally Wyeth is in her mid twenties and spends her time maintaining and calibrating the scientific instruments both on the ship and on the various deep submersibles tucked away in the docking bay. She has a typical androgynous look: short hair and a slight figure.

The same cannot be said of Tiffany Jones. Her figure is certainly at the top of the list of interest points on the Nautilus. A navigational specialist in her mid thirties, she takes Henry's navigation station on the night watch. Passing her makes a crewman's week, perhaps even his month.

Stateroom is a ludicrous way to describe where Margaret and her husband sleep. Their cabin is barely big enough for one person, let alone two. God help you if you're claustrophobic. There is precious room to turn around in, but at least it's private.

There are only six staterooms on the Sea Nautilus: Captain Stubens occupies one. Carl and Henry share the second. Dr. Conners and Dr. Altman have the third. Stevens and Wang occupy the forth, Dr. Steven Wolinsak, an ichthyologist, and Jerald Minsk, a paleontologist, are housed in the fifth, and she and Eric are in the sixth. The rest of the men sleep in the main crew quarters in the aft section of the ship. Sally uses the cabin occupied by Conners and Altman, and Tiffany sleeps in the Hauptmans' quarters during the day shift, a custom familiar to crewman on a naval submarine and known as "Hot Bunking." In this case it would be called "Warm Bunking."

When Margaret reached her quarters, she opened the door without knocking. Usually, Tiffany is off mingling with the crew, but to Margaret's surprise (and chagrin), she found her talking to her husband. The principal object of ship's gossip was wearing a white T-shirt and pink shorts that more than adequately advertised her physical attributes.

Eric looked at his wife with a hint of embarrassment in his eyes. "Well, Love, how was your shower?"

"Sufficiently wet. But I wish they could make the water hotter."

"The Nautilus is not much for amenities," Tiffany said. "We're lucky this bucket has a shower."

"Don't you go on station soon?" Margaret asked her with a subtly annoyed tone.

"Yes. I had better get moving. I'll catch you later." She quickly took her leave after giving the Hauptmans a brief, almost imperceptible smile.

"That woman should wear a bra," Margaret said with an appropriate frown. "She flops around here like a cow."

"I hadn't noticed."

"The hell you haven't! I see the way you men ogle her. You should be ashamed of yourselves."

Her admonishment gave Eric a dose of humiliation, but didn't deter his wit. "I guess she figures that since she has it she may as well flaunt it."

"But there are limits, especially in a situation like this."

"I wouldn't be so judgmental, Love. Whether you realize it or not, you're entertaining the crew by walking around wrapped in a towel."

Her eyes--her entire face--expressed indignity. "I'm not some young babe with a set of knockers like Tiffany Jones. Besides, I'm married."

"That doesn't matter to a bunch of men cut off from normal female association."

"I don't care. If they get a rise out me, then so be it. I'm not going to act like a cloistered nun."

Eric waved his hand as if trying to make her sit down. "Don't get your dander up. I'm not complaining. I'm just making a comment. Besides, she wears a bra most of the time."

"For a guy who doesn't notice, you sure know a lot about her,"

"I'm not blind . . . yet." He was flustered, but he calmed down. "Besides, I wasn't talking to her so that I could ogle her. I was trying to find out why she was in here at this time of the day."

"She has as much right to this cabin as we do."

"That's true, but I think she's going through our stuff."

"What stuff?"

Eric's moved over to a small writing desk--a platform that flips down from the wall--and pointed at a notebook. "I think she's reading our journals."

"Why in the hell would she do that? She's not a scientist."

Eric rubbed the side of his beard. "That's a good question. I don't know."

"You're just being paranoid."

"Maybe so. But in light of what's happened to us, I think we had better be careful."

"Ok. If you really think she's up to something, I'll keep an eye on her."

Eric gave her a sheepish grin. "I don't know, Love. I think I'd prefer that job."

"I'm sure you would, but you would be so distracted she could get away with murder."

"You're just saying that because it's true."

"Very funny, dear."

###

The control room is dark, except for small lamps playing on the navigation station. The main view screen displays an infrared image of the sea directly in front of the Nautilus. Hordes of amber shadows meander onto the screen, occasionally darting away at eye blinking speed when a larger shadow make an appearance. Smaller monitors display various parameters of the reactor and other ship systems. Another group of monitors exhibit various areas of the Nautilus that are considered critical to ship safety. They can be switched to display nearly every deck and compartment.

A pair of nervous eyes glances at a scene of the deck directly below the control room. The eyes' owner's long slender fingers deftly remove pins holding down a cover on the front of the navigational station. Once inside, she uses a chip-puller to remove an oscillator circuit and replace it with another. She returns the cover and secures it.
Her fingers dance over the communications keypad. Soon, low frequency signals move out through the water on their way to transponders buried under the sea. She smiles, but her smile fades when she sees someone climbing the ladder to the control room.
The 'someone' opened the hatch.

Tiffany flashed her usual teasing smile. "What brings you up here, Miller?"

Miller aimed a toothy grin at her. He had a young muscular body but his bony face exhibited signs of too much sun and sea. Curly blond locks spilled out from under a well-worn ball cap.

"Captain complained about loose bulkhead mountings. Figured I'd fix 'em before the first watch."

"Good idea. Do you know where they are?"

"Yeah. They're right above you."

Tiffany jumped up, moved to one side, and gestured to the navigational station. "Here. Don't let me keep you from your appointed task."

Miller tried to smile, but it was more of a salacious grin.

"Let me ask you something, Miss Jones. What do you do up here in the control room by yourself all night?"

"I sure as hell don't get any fun and games. This place is like a tomb."

He grinned again. "Maybe, I could remedy that."

"What? Right here in the control room?"

"Why not?"

"They'd fire both our asses if they caught us doing it while on duty."

"It'd be worth it." His eyes--and his grin--gleamed at her.

She flicked her head back, allowing her long blond locks to swing out of her face. "You'd risk your job just for a piece of ass?"

His eyes moved down her body for an instant but returned to her eyes. "For a piece of ass like yours, I would die."

She laughed--a mocking laugh. "You're full of it, Miller. You had better get your job done and get out of here before Stubens makes one of his nightly appearances."

Miller didn't laugh. His face turned somber. He gave her one last hopeful look before he went to work.