The 2084 Precept

by Anthony D. Thompson

A low pressure belt had moved into Eastern Spain overnight and I awoke to a cloudy and rainy day. It was close to being cold out on my balcony and the ocean was reflecting the dirty grey of the clouds above. But there you go, even these latitudes are not perfect.

  It was, however, appropriate weather for the day I had. My first shipping agency meeting was at 9.30 a.m. and the last one finished at around 5 p.m. and they were all the same and they were all a dead loss. But they were interesting for me, sure enough. I had my first kindergarten lessons in how these things worked. I learned what the current tariffs were and how they were calculated, and I even had one miserable offer of a single voyage to Portugal which would have lost us a lot of money. There was nothing doing, viable contracts for ships of our small tonnage were rarities. Depressing, no two ways about it. My brilliant idea was not so brilliant after all.

  I picked up a newspaper and had a coffee on my way back to the docks. Yesterday there had been 1,565 conflict deaths, a reasonably high number which had prompted them to make a small front page summary. Syria 890, Mali 25, Turkey 41 (of which 24 Kurds), Pakistan 168 (of which 124 Shiites), Iraq 86 (of which 40 Syrians), Lebanon 27, Afghanistan 43 (of which 35 the result of a NATO attack, including 11 children), Algeria 42, Central African Republic 18, South Sudan 17, Congo 76, Mexico 43, Northern Ireland 2, Nigeria 51 (of which 29 school children, more victims of the Islamic crusade to prevent education for all), and Burma—or Myanmar if you insist—36 (all victims of a Buddhist attack on a Muslim school).

  The accompanying article pointed out that this excluded conflict deaths not yet reported. There was also a brief mention of eight deaths in yet another U.S. madman massacre yesterday morning. Intriguing numbers. More interesting on some days than others. The good old human race.

  Before returning to the hotel I watched the Gerona Sol leave the harbor in the rain on its overnight trip back to Palma. Fernando was still there—he normally took long lunch hours and worked until 8 p.m.—and he had managed to arrange three more meetings for me for tomorrow and he gave me the details for each one. When I told him about the humiliating results of my day's work, he said—politely enough—that our ships were not of the type and size which were much in demand these days. He could have said 'I would have told you that for free', but he didn't, which I appreciated. I was not in the most buoyant of moods.

  Back at the hotel, I checked my emails and my bank account. The €300,000 had arrived! This money thing was as unbelievable as the asteroids. Except that they were both real, extremely real. I would have to think about where to invest this stuff, but I would leave that until next week; after all, another €400,000 was due to arrive any day now. What to do with all the filthy lucre assuming, of course, that I didn't want to put all my eggs into that bear certificate basket? Life, as we have said before, can occasionally be tough and full of dilemmas requiring demanding decisions.

  My non-buoyant mood had become a little less waterlogged. I ate some fish in the hotel restaurant. I typed out the invoice to Obrix Consultancy, attached it to an email to Jeremy with the comment that if an original were required, I would hand it to him on my next trip to London, and clicked on 'Send'.

  I got through another two pages of Platform before I fell asleep.

  DAY 41

  My balcony inspection revealed a repeat of yesterday's weather. But the good news was that there was very little wind and if it remained that way, this fair weather sailor would be spared the embarrassment, as he had been on the Gerona Sol, of spewing a novice's vomit all over a captain's cabin.

  The first shipping agency meeting sounded more than promising. An exporter was looking for a ship of more or less our ships' capacity to contract permanently for a weekly run from Barcelona to Morocco in North Africa. It would be carrying containers loaded with anything from toothbrushes to televisions and everything else that the Moroccans had begun to be able to afford in recent decades. And the distance was adapted more or less perfectly for a weekly timetable.

  "Morocco," I said in my capacity as the world's most ignorant ship owners' representative, "that would involve export documentation and…"

  "The documentation is not a problem," the agency executive replied, "and in any case the destination ports are either Ceuta or Melilla, depending on the week, and these cities are part of Spain. Our little Gibraltars, if you will," he giggled. "And there are no special ocean-going requirements to comply with; in any case, the whole trajectory keeps you within a hundred nautical miles of the coast."

  Too good to be true, except that it wasn't. The offer he quoted was too low. I knew what the costs for the crew and the fuel and the other standard items were, but if I added in a rough estimate for the depreciation and short and long-term maintenance expense, it would be a break-even job at best. I explained this to him and made him a counter-offer which was about 30% higher, but he just sadly shook his head.

  My second meeting of the morning went the same way as yesterday's meetings. And the last meeting in the early afternoon produced an offer to transport salt here, there and everywhere at a price which wouldn't even have paid for the salt corrosion prevention work which such a cargo entails. And it was not, in any case, a use to which a fine, albeit small, container ship should be put; that was not a way to treat an excellent vessel.

  The rain had stopped and as it was only just after three o'clock, I decided to walk back in the direction of our offices. I dropped into a café for some tapas and a coffee. I was learning that this was a tough business to be in, no doubt about it. My brilliant idea would have to join those large numbers of non-viable miracle solutions to be found discarded in the dusty files of many a company foolish enough to have contracted an exorbitantly expensive third-party business review.

  But if Fernando managed to fix up another meeting or two, I would be back to complete the work before abandoning the whole concept. As the old saying goes: If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again. And as the modern continuation has it: And then give up. There’s no point in being a bloody fool about it.

  Jeremy's phone rang and I walked out into the street and lit up a cigarette.

  "Good afternoon, Peter. And how is sunny Spain today?"

  "Meteorologically downcast, Jeremy."

  "You mean overcast, ha ha."

  "Yes, anyone would think that a meteorite had landed nearby."

  "Ah hah, you liked that did you?"

  "I was suitably impressed, Jeremy."

  "Well, that's why I'm calling you. To give you an update on the second summit meeting in Geneva today. Monday's event obviously worked. It amazed and convinced them all. Two summit meetings in one week, that has to be a record."

  "Probably, Jeremy," I said, "but I thought you weren't going to that meeting?"

  "Quite right, Peter. I wasn't. And I didn't. But I seem to have become important enough to be kept fully in the picture. The deputy prime minister has just called to inform me of the day's proceedings."

  "And what exactly did he have to say?"

  "Probably just as you expect, Peter. They are scared. They are scared of me. They are scared of my 'powers'. Half of them have me classified as dangerous. They want to have me incarcerated, which they wouldn't be able to achieve of course. And the other half have taken my recommendation seriously and wish to start organizing its implementation, aliens or no aliens. A peaceful world is what they want; they believe in the desirability of that and they are calling for 'the most significant initiative in the history of the human race'. But as a whole, there is only one item on which they are unanimous."

  "And that would be?"

  "That I am mad. A lunatic with severe brain damage, but with hypnotic or advanced telepathic powers and with extremely advanced astronomy knowledge. That more or less coincides with what you still think, Peter."

  "I am not so certain nowadays," I said, "but one thing is for sure, Jeremy, your money is real enough. I would like to thank you again very much for your most recent transfer. You can imagine how greatly I
appreciate that."

  "All as agreed, Peter, no need to mention it, my pleasure."

  "And what else did the deputy prime minister have to say?"

  "Well…he summed up by saying that the summit meeting did not in fact achieve any agreement, but that there were great hopes that continued negotiation would result in a workable consensus. And he said that everyone would like to meet with me again. I told him no, Peter. Thanks in great part to your assistance I have been able to complete what I set out to do. My work is finished. I sincerely hope it results in a happy ending. Anything else would have unnecessary and very sad consequences, but at least we will have tried. He tried to pressure me into at least agreeing to one more meeting with the prime minister on his own. And again, I said no."

  "Aren't you at all concerned about them keeping you under surveillance, perhaps capturing you even?"

  "Not really, Peter. As you know, I can take care of myself on that front. I am already being watched day and night by what seems to be an army of secret service personnel. But it doesn't worry me, they are not causing any disruptions to my life and they are not interfering in my affairs."

  "So what are you going to do now?"

  "I am just going to carry on completing the research for my dissertation, Peter. It might take me a few more days or a few more weeks or even a few more months, and then I'll be gone."

  "And what will happen to Jeremy Parker?" I asked. A very clever question indeed. What have his fantasies got worked out for that?

  "I am sorry to say that poor Jeremy will suffer a relapse and they will waste no time in returning him to a secure room in a high-security asylum for the mentally deranged."

  This was becoming weirder and weirder. How could he know that he was going to have a relapse?

  "But they will still think he is you," I said, continuing to play his game. "They will subject him to all kinds of pressure and harassment. Perhaps even torture. They will never stop trying to find out about his 'powers'. And poor Jeremy won't be able to do a single thing about it."

  "That is true, Peter. But Jeremy will not have to suffer in the way that a normal person such as yourself might. Jeremy was, and will again, be truly deranged and partially incapable of perceiving or experiencing or understanding what is going on around him, or what is happening to him, or why. And I really don't expect them to stoop to torturing a poor creature who is clearly and certifiably insane. A dangerous psychopath. I really don't."

  And maybe he was right about that. And that was the end of our conversation. We said goodbye and Jeremy said he would be contacting me at the weekend. He assumed that by then he would have news of the General Committee's decisions regarding our planet. And once more I had to admit to considerable admiration for him, the guy was playing out his fantasy world in all of its intricate madness right down to the finishing line.

  Back in the real world, I realized I had to pick up my suitcase at the hotel and make it back to the port before the Mahon Star sailed. I paid my bill, lit up a cigarette, fast-walked the whole route and made it about ten minutes before departure time. I gave Fernando the sorry news that today's visits had been as lacking in success as yesterday's had been. I thanked him, said goodbye and told him I would let him know in advance when I would fly over again so that he could pre-arrange some final agency meetings for me.

  Agustín welcomed me on board and we sailed out of the harbor under a grey sky and into relatively calm seas.

  Two global meetings. And it took an insane man to achieve them. But nothing would ever come of it. Great hopes, continued negotiation, workable consensus. Oh yes, that was my species alright. Represented by its birdbrains. Flap, flap, flap, flap, and flap again. Which was a pity, a very great pity. I stared out at the flat grey ocean, at the mini-waves sloshing against the ship rather like the Naviera problems washing around inside my skull.

  We must have been less than two hours under way and dusk was upon us, when the seamen began rolling out long lines off the back of the ship. I asked Agustín what they were doing. Ah, he said, at this time in the evening, the tuna come up close to the surface and if the weather is on our side, not too heavy a swell, we like to try and catch one or two. One of our sailors' perks, he added, they sell the catch to restaurants when we reach port.

  Nothing much happened for about twenty minutes. And then a cry went up, there was a lot of shouting, and the ship heeled over, violently changed course by about 90˚ and increased its velocity to what I assumed was full speed. We are tracking the catch, said Agustin, these fish are very strong and can swim at up to 50 kilometers per hour. There followed some zigzagging which would have done credit to a warship being hunted by a U-boat, and after a while the seamen began gradually hauling in the lines.

  They had caught two tuna. They were very large ones, one of them can't have been far off three meters long. The seamen had their work cut out to haul them on board and then they began the unpleasant task of killing them. Not a pleasant spectacle. Unlike most fish, tuna have pink-colored flesh and together with the large quantities of blood being produced by the stabbing, the deck took on the appearance of what a murder scene in the 'Red Lips' nightclub might have looked like.

  As we know, human beings are especially proficient in slaughtering things and eventually it was all over and finished with, and the ship was heading back towards its original course for Palma. I was invited to dinner in the crew dining room and although the red wine could not be described, under the most benevolent of criteria, as refined, the ship's cook was certainly able to prove that he knew how to cook. Dinner was fun, there were plenty of jokes including some excellent filthy ones, and they wrapped up a chunk of tuna for me to take home with me when we reached Palma.

  DAY 42

  The remainder of the voyage was similar to the outward journey on the Gerona Sol, hundreds of dots on the radar screen, although on this ship there was not so much television watching on the bridge. Thus reassured, I was actually able to sleep for a couple of hours in Agustin's cabin.

  We docked in Palma shortly before six o'clock. There was not a cloud in the sky. It was going to be a hot day, the rainy interlude had gone to wherever rainy interludes go. I lit up a cigarette—yes, we smokers believe what we are told, that it is even worse to smoke in the early morning or late at night, but such trivialities are not permitted to confuse and cloud our neurons. And in any case we are all going to give it up well before we develop cancer.

  I smoked away on the quay while Agustín sorted out some unloading matters with some of his guys. And then we went together to the café for some coffee, brandy-laced as usual in Agustín's case.

  And it was while he was peaceably flipping through one of the local newspapers that my neurons suddenly unleashed one of their vicious war-cries. 'Are you an idiot?' they asked me. 'Are you an imbecile? Don't you need us anymore?'

  "Agustín," I said.

  "Hmmm?"

  "That is the reason, isn't it?"

  "Reason? What reason?"

  "The reason why our fuel costs sometimes shoot sky-high."

  He thought for a while. Or at least he made it look as if he was thinking. "You mean the tuna?" he asked.

  "Yes," I said. "I mean the tuna. It must require a lot of fuel to go full-speed. And on top of that, chasing the tuna and then getting back on course must add quite a few sea-miles to the journey."

  He chewed this over for a moment. "Yes," he said without any rancor, "it does. But it's one of the crew's perks."

  I told him that I didn't want to eliminate any of the crew's perks, but that we had to reach an agreement to limit this activity and arrive at a budgeted monthly amount for fuel consumption. You and Antonio both, I said. And he said yes, he saw the need for it, he understood, he would talk with Antonio and he would appear in my office next Tuesday with a budget proposal. Which would no doubt have to be compared to the boss's proposal, he added with a smile. That, I also replied with a smile, is the way it is, Agustín.

  We went back to the
dock and I went into the office. Pedro was already there, working away—if he carried on like this, he was going to reap some nice benefits while I was the boss—and I said good morning and made myself some coffee and went into Alfonso's maritime museum and began checking through the last few days' invoices which had been placed in a neat pile on my desk.

  There was nothing out of the ordinary among the invoices. My email messages, however, contained five messages forwarded by Pedro: three quotes for the crane repair and two for the Mahon Star's deck. I called him into my office.

  "Pedro," I asked, "how on earth did you manage to get these quotes in so quickly?"

  "Well," he replied, "it wasn't that difficult. One of the crane quotes is from the Balearics representative of the manufacturer of the crane and the other two are from local companies we have previously used for crane maintenance work. I know the guys there. I told them it was very urgent, twenty-four hours would be a good idea. And as the work required is clearly defined and so are the parts requirements, there was nothing complicated for them to do. And given the situation of the economy nowadays, they would both like to be given a nice contract such as this one. So they rushed it."

  "Hmm…well done, Pedro. And the quotes for the ship?"

  "Two Mallorca companies which specialize in this kind of work. This is obviously a nice fat order for them and they were both here on Tuesday to inspect the ship. I had one of them come in the morning and the other in the afternoon. Each of their inspections took around three hours during which they both spent considerable time discussing exactly what was needed with Agustín and his on-board engineer. I also told these companies that twenty-four hours would be a good idea. But I must admit I didn't expect the quotes for another two or three days. Both must have decided it was worth a bit of overtime."

  "Great, Pedro," I said. "Fantastic. I appreciate your efforts. Many thanks. I would be grateful if you would review the quotes and give me your recommendations as to which ones we should accept."