Cryptonomicon

All of this information has been provided to Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse within the last few days, via the totally secure one-time pad channel. Bletchley is telling him this stuff because it raises a question of information theory, which is hisdepartment and hisproblem. The question is: how quickly can we replace our busted merchant shipping codes without tipping the Germans off to the fact that we have broken Shark?

Waterhouse does not have to think about this one for very long before he concludes that it is far too tricky to play games with. The only way to handle the situation is to concoct an incident of some sort that will explain to the Germans why we have totally lost faith in our own merchant shipping codes and are changing them. He writes up a message to this effect, and begins to encrypt it using the one-time pad that he shares with Chattan.

"Is everything quite all right?"

Waterhouse stands and whirls around, heart thrashing.

It is Margaret, standing there veiled in the steam of her own breath, a grey wool overcoat thrown over her maid's uniform, supporting a tray of tea and scones with grey wool mittens. The only parts of her not encased in wool are her ankles and her face. The former are well turned; Margaret is not above wearing heels. The latter has never been exposed to the direct rays of the sun and brings to mind rose petals strewn over Devonshire clotted cream.

"Oh! Let me take it!" Waterhouse blurts, and lunges forward with a jerkiness born of passion blended with hypothermia. While taking the tray from her hands, he inadvertently pulls off one of her mittens, which falls to the floor. "Sorry!" he says, realizing he has never seen her hands before. She has red polish on the nails of the offended hand, which she cups over her mouth and blows on. Her large green eyes are looking at him, full of placid expectation.

"Beg pardon?" Waterhouse says.

"Is everything quite all right?" she repeats.

"Yes! Why shouldn't it be?"

"The antenna," Margaret says. "It hasn't moved in over an hour."

Waterhouse is so flummoxed he can barely remain standing.

Margaret is still breathing through her lacquered fingertips, so that Waterhouse can only see her green eyes, which now angle and twinkle mischievously. She glances towards his hammock. "Been napping on the job, have we?"

Waterhouse's first impulse is to deny it and to explain the truth, which is that he was thinking about sex and crypto and forgot to move the antenna. But then he realizes that Margaret has supplied him with a better excuse. "Guilty as charged," he says. "Was up late last night."

"That tea will keep you alert," Margaret says. Then her eyes return to the hammock. She pulls her mitten back on. "What is it like?"

"What is what like?"

"Sleeping in one of those. Is it comfortable?"

"Very comfortable."

"Can I just see what it's like?"

"Ah. Well, it's very difficult to get in--at that height."

"You manage it, though, don't you?" she says chidingly. Waterhouse feels himself blushing. Margaret walks over to the hammock and kicks off her heels. Waterhouse winces to see her bare feet on the stone floor, which has not been warm since the Barbary Corsairs burned the place down. Her toenails are also painted red. "I don't mind it," Margaret says, "I'm a farmer's daughter. Come on, give me a leg up!"

Waterhouse has completely lost whatever control he might ever have had over the situation and himself. His tongue seems to be made of erectile tissue. So he lumbers over, bends down, and makes a stirrup of his hands. She puts her foot into it and launches herself into the hammock, disappearing with a whoop and a giggle into his bulky nest of grey wool blankets. The hammock swings back and forth across the center of the chapel, like a censer dispersing a faint lavender scent. It swings once, twice. It swings five times, ten times, twenty. Margaret is silent and motionless. Waterhouse stands as if his feet were planted in mortar. For the first time in weeks he does not know exactly what is going to happen next, and the loss of control leaves him stunned and helpless.

"It's dreamy," she says. Dreamily. Then, finally, she shifts. Waterhouse sees her little face peeking out over the edge, shrouded in the grey cowl of a blanket. "Ooh!" she screams, and flips flat on her back again. The sudden movement puts an eccentric jiggle into the rhythmic motion of the hammock.

"What's wrong?" Waterhouse says hopelessly.

"I'm afraid of heights!" she exclaims. "I'm so sorry, Lawrence, I should have warned you. Is it all right if I call you Lawrence?" She sounds as if she would be terribly hurt if he said no. And how can Lawrence wound the feelings of a pretty, barefoot, acrophobic girl, helpless in a hammock?

"Please. By all means," he says. But he knows perfectly well that the ball is still in his court. "Can I be of any assistance?"

"I should be so obliged," Margaret says.

"Well, would you like to climb down onto my shoulders, or some thing?" Waterhouse essays.