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Even with the headphones, the engine room was loud. It was also bright and humid, and smelled of machine oil and hot metal. They stood on a catwalk overlooking the prime mover, a monstrosity of mass, pipes, cables, gauges, switches and valves. A humming whine filled the space, vibrating the catwalk. Several sailors crept about the two-story space or stood staring at one of the gauges, all wearing orange headphones and orange boots, and all intent on their work. A pot of coffee and several battered mugs kept warm on a manifold. “Bob,” crackled a voice in their headphones, “cycle that valve again, will you?”
Stephen started as a buzzer blared out. He looked questioningly at Jack, who gave it a dismissive wave of his hand then gestured to the side wall, where several windows showed the presence of a control booth. Then he gestured Stephen back out again and they returned to the vestibule. Once the inner hatch was closed and latched, and the light turned green, he replaced his headphones in the charging rack and indicated that Stephen could do the same.
“Well,” said Jack, “that is the prime mover. It’s much bigger than we need - Mister Humphries says he ran the numbers and it was one of the turbines from the old Ark Royal, the reactor is, too - that’s at the back, you probably didn’t notice it. So, plenty of power, though at idle the coolers do have their work cut out for them. We go down again.
“That buzzer, by the way, is the paging system - with all of the electrical fields and wiring and such there are a lot of radio dead spots, so they use the buzzer to call each other’s attention. Each man has his own number, see, and each location does, too, so by counting the buzzes they know who is needed where.”
“Is that so,” said Stephen, aware that he had missed much of Jack’s explanation. Drowsiness was welling up again, in spite of his earlier rest. Surely the tour must be nearly over - they were now at the lowest level of the staircase, and they had started near its top.
But no, Jack was leading them forward, into a wide, low room lined with bunk beds and steel cabinetry. The beds were all neatly made and unoccupied, and Jack gestured to the showers and a hatch he called the head. Stephen made a quick count of the bunks: perhaps 50. There had been about a dozen cabins in the wardroom, say 60 or 65 people in all. And he responsible for them all. “Do I have an assistant?” he asked Jack. “For the more delicate operations?” he added.
“Assistant?" said Jack, who had been describing how the crew’s mess tables retracted into the ceiling between meals. “Well, not a dedicated assistant, but there is generally a clever hand or two among the men and of course Mister Lorre for the amputations, not that we’re likely to have many of those, as a transport."
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