World Enough (And Time)

by Edmund Jorgensen

  5

  End to the Longest Day

  Still Friday (9 days until arrival)

  As Jeremiah followed Reynolds’s directions to the cafeteria, he could hardly believe that these ugly corridors, underlit by fluorescent panels in the false ceiling and punctuated by heavy gray metal doors—these whole wings of the ship that dwarfed the guest areas—had existed all this time. During his days as a passenger Jeremiah would have deduced—had he been prompted to do so—that somewhere on board there must be laundry and cooking and plumbing taking place. But he had never been prompted, and he realized now that this omission was no accident: his entire experience as a Golden Worldlines passenger had been designed with great care to keep him from ever considering such mundane matters.

  As he passed one of the heavy doors it hissed open, releasing the powerful smell of a chemical laundry, and a middle-aged Asian woman in white hurried past. Through another door, which had been propped open with a cinder-block, the scent of baking bread escaped. Inside, three men were shouting at each other in Spanish—the first word of anything except English and butchered dinner-table French that Jeremiah had heard in almost two years.

  * * *

  The ceiling of the cafeteria was even lower and falser than the ceiling in the hallway, and Jeremiah could feel the hum of vast quantities of power moving through fat cables somewhere above—very little of which power seemed to have been diverted into the cafeteria lights. The small circular tables were arranged in a strict grid and bolted in place, as Jeremiah discovered when he bumped into one while trying to make space for a statuesque Canadian who went sprinting towards the buffet to deliver a tray of synthed ham half his size.

  So many people were talking at once, in so many different languages, that it put Jeremiah in mind of a cocktail party at the United Nations. Over here a group of Haitians seemed to be arguing about soccer players who were likely long retired back on Earth by now, pointing to the names on the jerseys they wore as supporting evidence. Four Chinese ladies were sneaking in a few hands of mahjong. Two tables of Latinos in grease-stained aprons hooted and gestured to each other across the room. And everywhere Canadians were hard at work, their maple-leaf pins on their sleeves—three bussing and wiping down tables as they were vacated, four serving at the buffet line, one mopping up the evidence of some dining misadventure. Jeremiah felt he had stepped through a magical portal and right back into Detroit.

  He made his way through the line at the back of the cafeteria. The synthed ham looked tired but the synthed chicken exhausted, so he asked the blond Canadian server for a slice of ham.

  “You’re welcome,” the Canadian said as he laid the ham gently on Jeremiah’s plate. “I’m sorry.”

  After augmenting the ham with a hunk of stony synthed bread and some synthed purée of root vegetables that smelled faintly of soap, Jeremiah emerged from the line and saw Katherine sitting and eating alone at a table in the corner. He walked over to her.

  “Hello,” he said, positioning himself discreetly beside an empty chair.

  Katherine pushed a keycard across the table.

  “It’s W24.”

  “I’m really sorry,” said Jeremiah. “If you’d let me explain—”

  “I’ll leave a blanket on the sofa.”

  “Could I sit down and chat for a minute?”

  “I prefer to eat alone,” said Katherine, and continued doing so.

  Jeremiah looked around for another place to sit. The cafeteria was filling up, but over in the opposite corner he saw a table with a few empty seats. He was about to start towards it when he realized it was a table of Canadian doctors.

  They were not only Canadian doctors in the idiomatic sense of “highly skilled and specialized individuals, such as doctors, who are rendered borderline unemployable by vice of being Canadian,” but in the literal sense of “highly skilled and specialized doctors who were rendered borderline unemployable by vice of being Canadian, complete with the mandated maple leaf pins on their white lab coats and ready apologies on their lips.”

  Jeremiah recognized one of them—the pretty blonde doctor who had treated him on his only visit to the infirmary, when he had confused a twisted ankle with imminent death. She happened to look up as he was looking over, and for a moment her attention caught on Jeremiah like a sweater drawn across a hook. But although Jeremiah considered himself highly tolerant in general, and had nothing against Canadians in particular—even having once had a friend who he suspected was a Canadian—and even though he did not particularly want to eat alone—he looked away quickly.

  At that moment, a group of Indian men in gray jumpsuits happened to vacate a table a few steps from him, and Jeremiah sat down. He took a few bites of his ham, which tasted a bit off, tapped the igneous bread with his thumbnail, and sniffed the purée before deciding he wasn’t that hungry. Maybe he’d go find somewhere to send Appleton a wave.

  Once again he dared to approach Katherine, who had finished her food and started reading off an ancient PED in the meanwhile.

  “Sorry to bug you,” he said, “but could you tell me where I could send a wave?”

  She did not even look up.

  Jeremiah looked around for a friendlier source of information. The Canadian doctors were just as out of the question for advice as for companionship. At most other tables, conversations continued in languages he did not speak—or mostly in languages he did not speak.

  Back on the folk music circuit in Detroit, Jeremiah had spent a good amount of time loitering in bars and coffee houses before they opened and after they closed, where he had chatted with the kitchen and janitorial staff meanwhile. In the process, he had not only met his fair share of Canadians, but picked up a smattering of Spanish from the shift managers and chefs—enough, he thought modestly, to get around. He had not found many opportunities to exercise his Spanish on the Einstein IV, but he supposed it was like falling off a bike—you never really forgot how. So Jeremiah took a moment to compose himself—and his request—and then approached one of the raucous Latino tables. The moment had come for Jeremiah to employ his Spanish language skills.

  “Horses,” he said, “you tell me where it is, the hellos for the proletariats?”

  All ten men crowded around the table exploded into laughter, and Jeremiah could just make out snatches of the ensuing Spanish flood: something about the workers of the world and a revolution, some inexplicable neighing, and then something—just possibly—about someone not speaking Spanish particularly well.

  One of the men held out his hand and quieted the riot. He had dark smiling eyes set in a round open face. A deep scar ran from the left corner of his mouth across his cheek before making a sharp turn and stopping just short of his neck. This scar was only the most pronounced of several, but whatever disagreements with edged weapons the man had taken part in during his life, it did not seem to have blunted his good mood, and Jeremiah could not tell whether some of the lines in the corner of his eyes were records of brushes with knife-induced blindness or crow’s feet from 30 years of smiling as broadly as he was now.

  “Luis,” the man said, holding out his hand.

  “Jeremiah,” said Jeremiah, allowing Luis to clasp his hand as if they were about to arm wrestle.

  “My English is not good,” Luis said. “But is better than your Spanish. Tell me other time what are you looking for. In English.”

  “Somewhere employees can send a wave.”

  Luis translated and the table sprang into action, describing to Jeremiah in a stew of English, Spanish, waving arms, and lines of watery ketchup smeared across a plank of synthed ham, how to find what he was looking for.

  * * *

  Appleton,

  They broke the news about Uncle Leo today. He was a helluva guy in some ways and certainly more of a dad to me than my “real” dad and I hope he wasn’t too disappointed in me as he left this vale of tears. Also that he didn’t suffer.

  Speaking of suffering, what’s this about abject poverty? Havi
ng been impressed by the service here I now find myself impressed into it, with threats of more where that came from if I don’t measure up to some very exacting standards. Even if that somehow turns out all right there’s the minor question of how I earn a living upon my return to a planet where the marketable skills I don’t possess in the first place are 20 years out of date.

  Is the will bulletproof? Are the ferrets triumphant and unassailable? Send me some happy news, tell me you’ve been working all angles and already have a fix or two in mind.

  Also, how are you? How are Melvin and the twins, who must be—good lord—out of college by now? What do you bench these days?

  Love to all,

  Bullfrog

  P.S. Apparently you won’t get this right away, and I might not even get your reply before we get home (I still don’t really understand all that relativity stuff, even after reading this pamphlet they throw at us), but I’m sending it anyway.

  P.P.S. If I get out of this alive I’ve decided to call my autobiography A Business of Ferrets. Like the term of venery—get it?

  * * *

  After bidding a sad farewell to his home of the last two years, Jeremiah rolled his trunk, both suitcases stacked on top, along the drab hallways of the service quarters until he found his way to W24. He passed his keycard, the door hissed open, and Jeremiah entered Katherine’s—and now his—suite.

  Suite was more a marketer’s description than an architect’s. The nominal living room better resembled a small foyer where a displaced friend was stashing a pygmy sofa and a miniature end table, which had been field promoted to a de facto coffee table when it could not fit at either end of the sofa and had to go in front of it. Only two doors opened off the “living room”—one, which was open, led to the bathroom. Jeremiah presumed that the other was Katherine’s bedroom—which was closed. There was no kitchen, kitchenette, dining room, family room, sunroom, breakfast nook, or any of those other rooms Jeremiah associated with the word suite.

  On the walls Katherine had hung posters for three 21st century waves, two of which (Wanderlust and Nowhere Fast) Jeremiah recognized, and one of which (The Truth about Ruth) he did not. It made his chest ache a little both to discover that she might share his passion for early cinema, and that they were not currently on good enough terms that he could ask her where she had found such excellent reproductions.

  Katherine was already holed up in her bedroom, from whence Jeremiah could hear muffled music playing. He tiptoed up to her door—which was of the old-fashioned swinging type, doorknob and all—and put his ear against it. The music was late 20th or early 21st century, with a strong backbeat and hook, but he didn’t recognize the song. Jeremiah could still hear the music as he changed into his pajamas and stretched out on the scratchy sofa with the playbook. Around 9:30 the music stopped, but Katherine never came out.

  Which was a shame, because Jeremiah would have enjoyed the opportunity to hear about her day and tell her about his, which—he realized—had been the longest, most infuriating, and most eventful of his life.

  Sometime after midnight, Jeremiah dropped off to sleep under the gaze of the titular Ruth, the lights still burning and the playbook splayed open on his chest to the Event Planning section, while visions of A/V requisitions and room permits danced in his head.

  6

  Bandora’s Box

  Saturday (8 days until arrival)

  Jeremiah felt he had only just dozed off when the sound of the bedroom door closing snapped him fully awake again. There stood Katherine in a white bathrobe, a pink towel draped over her shoulder and a bundle of folded clothes beneath her arm.

  “I’m going first,” she said.

  “You mean to the shower?” he asked. Katherine did not answer. “What time is it?” said Jeremiah.

  She walked into the bathroom and closed the door. Jeremiah could not help but notice that, counting last night’s query about where to send a wave, that made three questions running that Katherine had refused even to acknowledge, let alone answer. Either she had some strongly held beliefs about the importance of self-education, or she was still upset with him. The shower started to run.

  While he waited for Katherine to finish, Jeremiah picked out his clothes for the day. He had just finished assembling a passably professional outfit of grey pants and white button-down shirt when Katherine came out of the bathroom, now fully dressed in her uniform, her hair still wet and latched up behind her head.

  “Do you think this outfit will be all right?” he asked her, holding it up.

  “Stay in your pajamas for all I care,” she said. “Shower’s all yours. Staff breakfast starts in 10.”

  Jeremiah felt that her finally answering one of his questions—even with open hostility—was a sign that their relationship was improving. As he went to take his own shower, he almost felt like whistling.

  * * *

  Katherine was gone by the time Jeremiah finished showering, so he walked to the cafeteria by himself. From the buffet line he chose an omelet (prepared by a Canadian with “désolé” tattooed on his chest) that seemed to contain the same batch of synthed ham he had dined on the previous evening, and a slice of toast that needed to be screened for melanoma ASAP. Jeremiah saw Katherine at her usual table in the corner, but it seemed unwise to try his luck again so soon. He was about to sit down at an empty table to eat alone when he heard a piercing whistle and his name being called from across the room. It was Luis.

  As Jeremiah approached, the ten men sitting around the table designed for eight managed, with a lot of shouting and gesturing, to make an eleventh space and drag another chair over for him.

  “Thanks,” said Jeremiah as he sat down next to Luis. “Gracias,” he added to the table at large, which replied with laughter and a flurry of Spanish that was directed at Luis but clearly concerned with Jeremiah.

  “They want to know,” said Luis, “why they never see you before last night. You hitch-hiker on spaceship looking for job?” Luis stuck out his thumb, prompting another wave of laughter.

  Jeremiah did his best to explain his situation, Luis did his best to translate it, and the rest of the table did their best to understand, but Jeremiah would not have staked much credit on the accuracy of the story they came away with after this game of bilingual operator—especially since Luis had to ask him four times what a “ferret” was, and, when conveying Jeremiah’s answer to the rest of the table, had pantomimed swimming motions.

  When Jeremiah had finished eating and was excusing himself, Luis clasped his hand and said, “This is Manny, Carlos, Carlos, Héctor, Adelfo, Humberto, Heriberto, Carlos, and Jesús.” He looked at Jeremiah to make sure he had absorbed the roll call, and Jeremiah smiled dazedly and nodded—he was 80 percent sure he’d gotten the names, but 100 percent sure that, if in doubt, he would guess “Carlos,” and be right 30 percent of the time.

  “From now you sit with us,” Luis said, “OK? You one of us now.”

  Which touched Jeremiah to a surprising degree.

  * * *

  After the public humiliation of yesterday’s lunch, Jeremiah was not eager to revisit the passenger dining room. As he walked, he considered how he would request quiet from the guests in the dining room, rejecting the fork on water glass (what was he, the best man?) in favor of a throaty “Ladies and gentlemen, if I might interrupt your breakfast for a moment.” But it turned out there was no need to beg attention: his mere return to the dining room silenced all conversation. Awareness of his presence spread like a disease, communicated from table to table by discreet nudges and subtly tossed heads. No one seemed sure whether to acknowledge their fallen fellow or not, except for the Chapins, who waved heartily—though Jeremiah thought he detected some perturbation behind Mrs. Chapin’s friendly manner, as if she had just been thinking about him and would have found it easier to stop doing so if he had not suddenly shown up at breakfast.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Jeremiah, louder than was strictly needed now that all talking had alre
ady ceased, “on behalf of the Office of Guest Services, Event Planning, and General Clerical, I’m happy to announce that the First Ever—as far as we know—Golden Worldlines Talent Show will take place on the last full day of our cruise—that is, just one week from today—right here in the dining room. If you have a talent to share with your fellow passengers—and I know you do”—even Jeremiah winced as he said this, which had, in his head, sounded much less like someone organizing a talent show—“signups will be this morning, immediately following breakfast. And now, I leave you to your eggs Benedict.”

  He smiled at the crowd, most of whom still couldn’t meet his eyes. The mood was deteriorating from awkward to anguished. Several guests stood up and excused themselves, and Jeremiah left the dining room to a smattering of bemused applause.

  * * *

  Jeremiah went straight to the office, pausing only to use the restroom, but by the time he arrived, four of the guests who had excused themselves from breakfast were already there, milling around the door without acknowledging each other, as if a group of friends had all, by incredible chance, happened to find themselves in the waiting room for the same doctor with a certain specialty that made eye contact unthinkable. A fifth arrived before Jeremiah could open the door.

  “Please,” said Jeremiah to the gathering crowd, “come in. Take a number and have a seat.” He held the door as the guests shuffled past.

  Two more arrived before he could let the door close.

  * * *

  “And what’s your talent, Mrs. Biltmore?” asked Jeremiah.

  “Glass harp,” she said.

  “Do you need any special materials or preparation?”