“Oh,” said Jeremiah, “I wouldn’t say all that. I read the odd pamphlet here and there.”
“No, you’re absolutely right. I need to replicate the findings. You and I have to stay engaged!”
“You know,” Jeremiah said, “with the benefit of hindsight, your experiment wasn’t all that bad—”
“No, it was flawed—deeply, deeply flawed.”
“It’s just so clear that he loves you. His behavior when he came here, the harassment and threats and—”
“That’s not enough,” said Kimberly. “I don’t want to admit that the results of my experiment are worthless, but I should, so I will. The Categorical Imperative demands it, and I am a creature of reason. But I want to give myself over to love, Jeremiah. Believe me, I do.”
“I believe you,” said Jeremiah. “So why don’t you?”
“Because of the Categorical Imperative, of course,” Kimberly said, like a kindergarten teacher explaining why a kindergartner must eat his vegetables. “The same reason that I refuse to end every conversation with an apology for my ancestors’ mistakes. If I’m going to break the most important moral code in the universe—oh, am I really proposing to do this?—then at the very least I need to be sure Bradley’s love is true.” That was all she seemed inclined to say about the matter, until Jeremiah admitted he had no idea what she was talking about.
“Don’t be silly, Jeremiah,” said Kimberly. “Everyone knows Kant’s Categorical Imperative—or at least, everyone should. Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.”
“Right,” said Jeremiah. “And in this case, that means?”
“I’ve already signed a contract to come on the E4 for another cruise,” Kimberly said. “Bradley has decided to go back and practice medicine in Canada, to help those still affected by the Mistake—he has a deeply charitable soul. He wants me to break my contract and go with him, because—he says—he loves me. But what if everyone behaved like that? What would happen?”
“Canada would be flush with happy couples administering medical care to underserved populations, while the E4 would have no Canadian doctors?” guessed Jeremiah.
“I mean if no one honored their contracts and commitments. If that were the universal law, no one could trust anyone else. Nothing could get done. The world would descend into chaos. So if I cannot will the breaking of contracts to become universal law, how can I break one myself?”
“According to the Categorical Imperative, I guess you can’t.”
Kimberly smiled to see Jeremiah’s rapid advancement in moral philosophy, but when she remembered the consequences it held for her own love life, the smile faded.
“For Bradley,” she said, “I would thumb my nose at universal morality and risk this apocalyptic, lawless future—but only if I can be sure he really loves me back. You will help me, won’t you?”
“Well,” said Jeremiah.
“Just play along and say we’re engaged if Bradley asks you, which I think is so highly unlikely.”
“I’m afraid I already told him we weren’t engaged.”
“Just say you were afraid to tell him the truth,” said Kimberly.
“Is it kind—or safe, for that matter—to lie to Bradley like that? He was pretty worked up when he came by last night. I’m afraid he might even get confrontational—physically, I mean.”
“Oh,” Kimberly said, “I think that’s—”
“So highly unlikely?”
“Yes,” she chirped, and blushed as if Jeremiah had just complimented her shoes or lab coat. “Exactly. He has a very bad back, so he has to avoid exertions like that. You will help me, won’t you?”
“I would like to, but—”
“I’ll stand here and I won’t leave until you agree to help me.”
“It’s just that—”
Jeremiah heard the shower shut off in the bathroom—Katherine would be out any minute.
“I’ll stand right here until you agree that we’re engaged,” said Kimberly. “Really I will, right in this spot.”
“All right,” Jeremiah said, “if you’ll go right now, I’ll help you. If Bradley asks, I’ll tell him we’re engaged. But just for a day or two, you understand?”
“Oh, thank you Jeremiah!” said Kimberly. “You are a sweetie!”
As if to dot the i with a heart, she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.
* * *
Katherine came out of the bathroom a few minutes later and sniffed the air, upon which a whiff of “Tropical Surgeon” still wafted.
“Was someone here?” she said. “I thought I heard a woman’s voice.”
“Not that I remember,” said Jeremiah.
Katherine looked at him strangely.
“Katherine,” he said, “about last night—”
“Anyway, shower’s all yours.”
* * *
Jeremiah spent the morning facing the door of the office, his hands folded on the desk, awaiting with as much philosophy as he could muster the inevitable moment when Mrs. Mayflower would arrive to demand her bandora—which at that moment was clamped and drying back in Katherine’s suite in the desperate hope that Barnaby’s glue for wood would prove better than its cousin product and as good as its guarantee.
But as nine o’clock became ten, and ten bled into eleven, and eleven inched closer to twelve, no one came through the doors of the office—Mrs. Mayflower very much included. Finally Jeremiah grew tired of sitting with folded hands and philosophic spirit. He spent the last half hour before lunch flipping through the playbook, continuing his vain search for the proper procedure to procure some kind of stage for the talent show, now only three days away. At the exact toll of noon he locked the office door and fled as fast as dignity would allow him, heading for the cafeteria.
* * *
“Jeremiah!” Luis called, as Jeremiah looked for a place to eat his quiche Lorraine. To Jeremiah’s pleasant surprise Luis waved him over, and the table smiled and played musical chairs to open up a space—it appeared that his mysterious transgression had been just as mysteriously forgiven.
“We want to ask you something. That woman you see—that ‘Mrs. Mayflower’—what she look like?”
Jesús crossed himself and muttered at her name, but more out of duty this time, it seemed, than terror.
“She’s old,” said Jeremiah, “short, kind of stout.”
“What is ‘kind of stout’?”
“Well, a bit thick in the body.”
“You mean gordita? Fat?”
“I don’t know if I’d say ‘fat’. Perhaps a little wide for her height?”
“Fat,” Luis said with great sureness. “Gorda,” he translated for the rest of the table, who nodded. “She looks like this?”
Holding his palm downward and his hand towards Heriberto, Luis made a brushing motion with his four fingers, and Heriberto handed him a PED. It was an old model—it would have been well out of date before the Einstein IV even departed—and the case and screen were badly scratched. Luis mashed a button on the screen repeatedly until a wave flickered to life.
The camera added a good ten pounds to her stoutness, and it was not always easy to catch her face as she glanced up and down the stretch of hallway she occupied, but the woman in the wave was unquestionably Mrs. Mayflower. She was wearing a smart cream vest and an olive blouse with tapered sleeves. About fifteen seconds into the action, presumably having convinced herself that she was alone in her stretch of hallway, she performed some quick tracing motions against a panel of the wall, waited while it slid open, and vanished into a secret passage just before the panel slid closed behind her.
“That’s Mrs. Mayflower,” said Jeremiah.
The table exploded in laughter. Even Jesús laughed as he crossed himself.
“Why is that funny?” Jeremiah asked Luis.
“That’s not Mrs. Mayflower. Mrs. Mayflower is ghost. A fantasma. Or maybe a devil,” Luis added thoughtfully. “But
the real Mrs. Mayflower don’t need no secret doors to pass through walls. This just some woman pretexting to be Mrs. Mayflower.”
At so many mentions of her name, Jesús’ crossing went into a gear Jeremiah had not seen before, though he remained good-natured about it.
“Como un episódio de Scooby Doo,” said Heriberto, and the table nodded in solemn agreement.
“Anyway,” Luis said, “we want you know that we’re not molested with you. We thought you were trying to scare us, but really someone is trying to scare you.”
“They’re doing a good job of it, too,” said Jeremiah.
The table stood up and began to say their goodbyes.
“Wait, Luis,” said Jeremiah, “could you stay behind for a second? Do you have any experience with revolutions?”
“What you mean?” said Luis suspiciously.
“Here,” Jeremiah said, handing him Mrs. Chapin’s necklace, which, despite its weight, he had been carrying in his pocket, unable to find a safer place for it. “If I gave you this, would you be able to start a revolution with it? Preferably something bloodless?”
Luis ran his finger along the scar that crossed his cheek, as if reminding himself of lessons learned the hard way.
“Jeremiah, I don’t know nothing about no revolutions, except that I don’t want to know nothing.”
“How about organizing a strike? I didn’t have much luck talking her down to that before, but maybe if I had something more concrete to show for it—”
“I don’t want no trouble,” said Luis, “and I don’t want no necklace. I have work to do.” He tried to hand the jewelry back to Jeremiah.
“Why don’t you just keep it? You’d be doing me a big favor.”
Luis stiffened, his chest puffing out.
“I don’t need no caridad,” he said. “I work for my credit.”
“Yes,” said Jeremiah, brightening with inspiration, “and you’re a carpenter, right?”
“Yes,” Luis said, cautiously.
“Could you build a stage for the talent show?”
“Of course I can build a stage. But this—this is worth too much credits for a stage.”
“Well that’s all I’ve got—so you’ll just have to make it a really, really nice stage. You can include a curtain and a nice ramp for Mr. Withers and his wheelchair.”
Luis considered for a moment, clicking his tongue along the roof of his mouth as if testing the boundaries of his principles—this was payment, after all, not charity—and who was to say that a customer could not pay what he wished? Was that not the very foundation of the free market?
“OK, I do it. Then with the credit I open up a garage back on Earth and hire Manny, Carlos, Carlos, Héctor, Adelfo, Humberto, Carlos, and Jesús.”
“What about Heriberto?” said Jeremiah.
“No, Heriberto want to stay on the Einstein IV. Like I tell you, he is loco. You pay me one half now, one half when I finish.”
“I can’t do that,” said Jeremiah.
“Is how I work.”
“But I can’t give you half of the necklace. Look, just take the whole thing now.”
Luis thought for a moment. He clicked his tongue once more—this time at the very base of his teeth—but did not seem to like the sound.
“No,” he said, “you give me the necklace when I finish. Work, then credit—not credit, then work.”
“But just—”
“No,” said Luis again, dropping the necklace on the table. “I work for my credit, Jeremiah. And punto.”
19
Fly Me to the Moon
Still Wednesday (4 days until arrival)
As Jeremiah approached the office, he heard a phone ringing from behind the door. In the hopes that it was Reynolds, who had been AWOL since giving him the day off three days ago, Jeremiah quickened his pace and pulled the key from his pocket. He cursed as he fumbled with the key, but the phone kept ringing. Ten rings. Eleven—thank goodness the caller was persistent. Jeremiah finally got the door open.
He sprinted to the desk and reached out to answer the phone, but froze before picking up—for there on the retro period screen, in bright yellow letters, the caller id read: “Wendstrom, B.” Fourteen rings. Fifteen.
In a flash Jeremiah put it all together. He had been so caught up with Mrs. Mayflower’s bandora and Katherine making time with The Specimen and the myriad other disasters that he had completely forgotten to run his regular Domenican prioritization exercise, and a deadline had snuck up on him. Today was tomorrow, and it was after lunch. The caller was so persistent because the caller was Mr. Wendstrom wanting to know why his iguana hadn’t been delivered by the time limit he’d set. Seventeen. Eighteen.
First things first: Jeremiah glanced about the office in utter panic, just in case Carolus had decided to turn himself in. Nineteen. He had not. Twenty. A heated debate began in Jeremiah’s mind: should he pick up the phone or find an alternative course of action, such as disconnecting the phone and blockading the door, or sprinting and hiding, or abandoning ship?
But somewhere around ring 35—Jeremiah had lost count—acceptance set in. There was nothing to do but face the music, throw himself on Mr. Wendstrom’s mercy, and beg for an extension. Running from the problem would only guarantee that Grubel heard about Mr. Wendstrom’s dissatisfaction that much quicker.
Taking a deep breath, Jeremiah lifted the phone to his ear, fully prepared to say “Hello, Mr. Wendstrom,” in a calm but serious tone. Instead, he screamed and dropped the receiver, clutching at his ear, which felt as if it had just spent some time on the wrong end of a jackhammer.
Even with the receiver on the desk, the music was so loud Jeremiah could hear the steady beat and the blat of a trombone cranked up to jet-engine-like decibels. Someone was trying to shout above the music and in the process, occasionally and with great effort, just barely managing to shout alongside it. After experimenting with a few different distances from his ear, Jeremiah managed to extract the following words from the shouting: Wendstrom, room, here, now, room, emergency, now, now.
It could not have been clearer what was going on: Mr. Wendstrom’s PED was malfunctioning dangerously, putting his auditory health at risk—and that was the perfect opportunity for Jeremiah to buy some goodwill and patience in the matter of Carolus the Bold.
“Mr. Wendstrom,” Jeremiah shouted into the mouthpiece, “I’m on my way.” He bolted from the office, returning at a sprint a moment later to take the playbook with him.
* * *
A good 30 seconds before he arrived at Mr. Wendstrom’s door, Jeremiah could hear faint music. About 20 seconds before arriving he could feel the beat in the floor, just slightly more pronounced than the general thrumming of the ship. Ten seconds before he arrived, Jeremiah could identify the song: “Fly Me to the Moon.” In passing, he applauded Mr. Wendstrom’s taste. When Jeremiah arrived at Mr. Wendstrom’s quarters, the volume of the music through the steel door was just about right for a party where people would rather dance and drink than hear each other. Jeremiah didn’t even bother with the tinkling little bell: he began to knock.
First he knocked with one fist, then—putting down the playbook—he knocked with two. He shouted. He shouted and knocked. He picked up the playbook and swung it at the door. Absolutely nothing happened, except that at some point during the “knocking with two-fists” era the song looped without any pause. Finally Jeremiah flattened himself against the wall opposing the door, got a running start, and hurled himself against it bodily, spreading himself out as if performing an upright bellyflop. After the fourth such bellyflop, just as Jeremiah was considering stopping and seeking Canadian medical attention, a slip of paper slid out from the mail slot. Jeremiah picked it up.
“Are you alone?” it read. “Circle one: YES NO”
“I don’t have a pen,” shouted Jeremiah. He shouted it again, pounding the door with each word. “I. Don’t. Have. A. Pen.” Another slip of paper came sliding out.
“Do you have a pe
n? Circle one: YES NO”
“No!” Jeremiah screamed. “No! NOOOOOO!”
Nothing happened. Finally Jeremiah picked up the playbook, preparing to return to the office and encode a keycard for Wendstrom’s room. He had just turned around when the door opened, which he could tell because the music hit him across the back of the head like a bat.
“Jeremiah,” shouted Mr. Wendstrom, “get in here now!”
He reached into the hall and pulled Jeremiah inside so hard that Jeremiah felt something in his shoulder pop.
Inside, with the door closed, the effect of the music was like nothing Jeremiah had ever experienced. Involuntarily he had dropped the playbook on the floor and put his hands over his ears, but even so every crash of the drums or flourish from the horns caused him actual physical pain. Mr. Wendstrom was shouting something at him—Jeremiah could tell because he could see that Mr. Wendstrom’s mouth was opening and closing—but he could not make out the slightest syllable.
“Where’s the PED?” Jeremiah shouted back.
Mr. Wendstrom’s mouth kept moving. Jeremiah cupped his hands over Mr. Wendstrom’s ears and, fighting through the agony in his own unprotected ears meanwhile, screamed his question again.
“Where’s? The P? E? D?”
Mr. Wendstrom looked confused but motioned to his desk. Jeremiah put his hands back over his ears and ran to look.
The screen was functioning at least, displaying the indisputable facts that the current song was “Fly Me to the Moon,” that the room’s speakers were live, and that the current volume level was 110%. So the malfunction, Jeremiah reasoned, must be with the controls. To test his hypothesis, he risked dropping his hands from his ears again and pressed the stop button. The music stopped. Jeremiah nearly collapsed—partially in relief that the fix had been so simple, and partially because he had been leaning into the music like a stiff wind.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” shouted Mr. Wendstrom. He kept his hands over his ears.
World Enough (And Time) Page 20