The galley door had burst open during the night, which wasn't really much of a surprise, as the entire structure of the ship had been heaving like the rib cage of a monstrous animal, only with the added dynamic of having water inside the ship as well, pounding against the already flexing doors. I could see that once the water had broken into the room, it quickly found the worst things to get into, and almost anything of any kind of importance was sodden, spilled, diluted, or displaced. It was a mess, but I was happy to see that Onni was actually doing a fairly good job with cleaning it up and reordering it. After I'd looked around a bit, Knut and Niels called me over to show me that the grain was, in fact, genuinely ruined, both of them reaching into the bin and squishing fistfuls of the creamy mass until it oozed through their fingers. So Onni was right; we would have to depend exclusively on fish for the rest of our time at sea, which, all things considered, wasn't all that bad, it only meant that we'd have to spend more time fishing. And lucky for us, time was something we had.
Onni had finally finished cooking and called everyone in to eat. He'd used the grain for the last time, and had managed to concoct some kind of rank, slimy, fish smelling mush with it. After looking into the pot, I wished he'd just been wasteful and spared us the resourceful notion. Toivo, Aimil, and Solmund were the last to come into the galley to eat, and I noticed as soon as they entered that the strange expression Toivo had flashed before seemed to have spread to the other two as well, and I was watching them closely, suspiciously. They all stood in front of the table, waiting for someone to ask them what was wrong, which no one seemed very eager to do, so they were forced to begin on their own.
"Mikkel," Toivo spoke slowly, looking for elegant words for cumbersome news. I felt a pang of irritation that he chose to speak to Mikkel instead of myself, "uh..."
"What is it, guys?" Mikkel asked, "Come on. Let's have it."
"Uh..." he looked at me for a moment, and then at someone else, and then at the floor, "the fishing box is gone."
The room inhaled, waiting for more information. None came.
"Hmmm," Mikkel droned. He acted as if this statement were a poisonous dart that had struck him, and he leaned back slowly, his posture rigid, until he was resting against the wall, thinking toward the ceiling.
I, however, was not quite as calm. "What do you mean exactly by 'gone'? I... I don't really understand that sentence. Do you mean 'not on the ship', or 'not where it should be on the ship'? You must mean 'not where it should be on the ship', because I can't imagine the fishing box unlatching the door to the storage room, hiking up the stairs during the night, and pitching itself over the rail in a fit of desperation. Can you? Can any of you imagine that?" My eyes examined each of their faces for answers. Toivo cowered, busy with the task of surveying his feet. At least I knew who hadn't put the fishing box away when he'd been asked.
Aimil spoke softy, his words unarticulated, probably because of the pain smarting across his face, which he still hadn't complained about in the least. "I don't think it was put in the storage room before the storm. I'm pretty sure I remember seeing it on deck."
The room exhaled. My arms were crossed on the table, which made a perfect place for my forehead to land in total frustration. There was silence for quite some time, interrupted by people sighing loudly, the boat creaking. Finally, Mikkel broke the spell. "Well... let's eat," he said, bouncily, "And while we do that, why don't we throw around a few ideas of what to do." His tone was light, as if asking us to join him in thinking about what might be a suitable garnish for our next meal. I looked up at him from my arms, completely appalled; how dare he be so calm.
Mikkel dished some slop onto his plate and began to curiously pick through it with his spoon, his gestures delicate. The crew followed his lead, albeit nervously, as if they were sitting in the company of a madman who might lash out at any given moment. But we weren't sitting with a madman, and for my part, I wasn't nearly as intimidated by Mikkel's actions as I was fascinated by them. I actually couldn't wait to see how he planned on pulling this off. Did he really think he could retain this collected air of his, all while fumbling to compensate for the ever-increasing weight on the other side of our scale? I didn't think so.
Of course the food was vile, but no one could say a word to that effect. Instead, we fought to swallow it down, sometimes leaning forward over the table as we did so, gulping mouthfuls of water to wash it down. Onni was the only one who had a quiet smile on his face, as if, with the worst possible sense of timing and humour, he'd purposefully made the food disgusting, and was relishing in our having to eat it without complaint. But I doubt that was the case.
When we'd finished eating, Mikkel leaned back and put his utensil down carefully beside his plate to speak. We all stopped what we were doing and listened like leaves. "Solmund, I bet you have something figured out for us - or at least a couple ideas?" Knut, who was sitting opposite me, snickered and shook his head. Solmund tried to ignore him.
"Well," he began hesitantly, leaning in and casting one more look in Knut's direction before speaking, "I don't think that Toivo ever actually said that everything was gone, but it is. It's all gone. We have no rods, reels, hooks, lures or line." He leaned back, put his hands on the table, and looked into them as he spoke. "But as far as I can see, our biggest problem is the line. We can bend the safety pins in the first aid kit into hooks, though they won't be barbed so won't be nearly as reliable. And we can us this," he fingered some fish that he'd managed to pick out of the slop, and which he'd gathered into a neat little pile on his plate, "as bait, and we shouldn't need rods if we only jig off the side of the boat. But the line... the line, I don't really know."
This was good; in fact this was very good. With all of the nodding and murmurs of praise, I thought that Solmund might have redeemed himself in some way. Niels even patted him on the knee, smiling. These were great ideas; but as it was, we needed more than that, and we all sat looking around the room, trying to think of what we could use in place of a fishing line.
Toivo, who had spent the brainstorm narrowing his eyes and wearing his customary expression of total confusion, began slowly, "Couldn't we use strands from the torn sail."
Our eyebrows lifted, and we all turned to look at Solmund, who seemed a bit doubtful. He shrugged. "Maybe. But I already thought of that. Because one thread wouldn't be strong enough, we'd have to braid a few of the threads together, and as they're thick and white, it would make for a pretty visible line, which would probably stop the fish from biting in the first place. But who knows, it might work. And it might also be the only option."
Knut sighed a deep sigh, apparently not very satisfied with Solmund's first stint of usefulness. I shook my head at him, glared. Yet, there was nothing surprising about this; after all, the scope of pettiness, its astonishing reach, is unbounded inside the social setting of our kind. It can pry its niggling tentacles into every facet of our lives, even the most important, most crucial moments aren't sacred; nothing that we do can ever be completely exempt from its careful attention, its dissecting instruments, poking, prodding, hunting for some insignificant tissue to attach significance to. I honestly believe that pettiness is the greatest social crime, which we all, unfortunately, have the tendency to commit; and how maddening it is that this complete attention that we give to trivialities, which should be below everyone, is really above no one.
Knut was beginning to squirm under my disapproving stare, and leaned forward to speak. I thought he was going to say something about Solmund, to support his long sigh that I'd so painfully noticed, but he didn't. "Well, nobody seems to be thinking about the weight. Like always, we'll need some kind of a weight on the line to keep the bait in the water, right? Well, maybe the weight will pull the strands tight enough, and they won't be so visible." Everyone nodded, though Solmund only shrugged, and then started to pick the dirt from under one of his nails.
"Hey - this is really great stuff," said Mikkel, encouragingly, "and we'll get to work on it right away
. But... while we're all brainstorming and easily coming up with solutions, I think we should do a quick walk around the ship and address a few other problems. What do you guys think?"
There was more nodding; after all, this sounded reasonable. We all stood and followed Mikkel as he walked out of the galley and headed straight to the upper deck. He was, of course, alluding to the mainmast when he spoke about 'a few other problems', and I was already getting nervous as to how the crew was going to react. I was the last to leave the room, and we all walked in single file through the ship, myself straggling at the very end of the line. There was no real question as to who was leading things.
We crowded around the mainmast with sceptical looks. The elements had been ruthless. We could see that, at first, the massive metal pole hadn't broken; instead it had buckled at one third of its height and collapsed, hinging the upper two-thirds of the mainmast into the water. When it fell, it smashed into the side of the ship, doing quite a bit of damage, and then had scraped back and forth along the gunwale for another little while, scarcely being held by thin strands of lacerated metal that were holding the two pieces together like stubborn ligaments. But at some point throughout the storm, after being pounded relentlessly, the twisting strands and fibres finally gave way, and the top two-thirds of the mast slipped into the water, dragging with it the main sail, and all of the rigging, stays, cables and yards attached to it. The lower third of the mast that was left was nothing but a frayed end, which pointed its clawing fingers accusatively at the water, as if trying to indicate exactly who was responsible for stealing away its counterpart.
Mikkel stood with his hands on his hips, looking up at what had once been a towering citadel, but was now only a pathetic post that ended in a bit of twisted shrapnel. When he spoke, there wasn't a lot of expectation in his voice. "Any ideas?" he said, turning to look at Solmund. We followed his eyes and Solmund looked on either side of himself, as if Mikkel was speaking to someone else, and when he realized that it was him that was being asked, he began to shrivel up under hunched shoulders.
"Are you serious?" he asked, and then paused long enough to realize that, yes, in fact, Mikkel was serious. "Then: no. Of course I don't have any ideas. Do you know what we would need to do anything with this mast? We would need a mountain of manpower; we would need enormous machining tools, moulds, kilns, raw metals, alloys. I mean - just forget about the mainmast; and while you're at it, forget about the rigging on the foremast as well. Anything on this ship that was metal and happened to break, stays broken. Period. Are you guys too stupid to understand that? I mean - we should really stop wasting time talking to me about the masts when we should be talking to Joshua about the engine."
"I already talked to Joshua about the engine," Mikkel retorted, without missing a beat, "It'll only take us one day out of a several day journey. It's not enough. We'll all need to pull together to find a way of using these masts. That's all there is to it. So let's just stop here for a second... and think about it again."
But we weren't thinking about it. We were watching Solmund, who didn't look too happy about this news of the engine. In fact, he looked terrified. "If the... oh, man... if the engine will only... oh shit..." He was sputtering his words, escalating into alarm.
Mikkel tried to stop him before it spread, but it was too late. "Solmund. Please..."
"No! If the engine... oh man..." He scuttled gawkily to the rail and squatted to the ground, facing us, apparently at his wits end. He blurted out one final, ill-advised remark, "Well then... then we might as well just face it: we're finished. Can't you see that? Oh man... oh man, we're dead... Dead." As soon as he fell silent, you could almost see the frenzy rippling through the crew.
Mikkel bowed his head to his hand and cleaned the sleep from his eyes in annoyance; he'd wrongly judged our engineer to be levelheaded enough to take the news. And Solmund hadn't only failed, he'd reacted to it in the worst possible way anyone could. Eyes were darting everywhere, looking for reassurance. Surely someone would have a plan, even a far-fetched idea would do now - anything. Some people looked at the masts again, someone scurried to get a few charts, maybe wondering if we could use the engine to get us into a current that was heading toward land, but Niels, curse him, decided to grasp at some distant hope in the story that the Elders had fed everyone.
He stepped forward, looking at me, and spoke in a voice as desperate as I'm sure we all felt. "The island," he said, and my stomach dropped. I already knew where he was going with this, but what I didn't know was how to stop him. I could only think to shake my head, which didn't deter him in the least. "We can call the island. We can ask the Elders to come and help... with that thing you brought - that machine in the big grey cases in your room. I mean - we can use it now, can't we? This is an emergency, an exception to the rules. At least we could... we could talk to them and tell them what happened. And if they can't come and help us, then, maybe they'll have an idea of what we could do."
I stood there, squinting, thinking about the best way to answer. Should I have gone into my room, made some strange mechanical sound effects, and then told them that the device didn't work, that it had also been ruined by the water? How likely would they have believed that? And even if they did, wouldn't they have wanted to see this strange, broken instrument before I threw it overboard; and, more importantly, wouldn't that have rendered the entire expedition useless in their minds? I swallowed. I was at a complete loss for words.
But as it turned out, Mikkel would answer for me, and he would do so without saying a single thing. Suddenly, after watching Niels and I stare at each other for what must have been a little too long for him, he gave a callous, satirical snicker and looked out at the sea, shaking his head, and drawing everyone's attention to himself as he did so. My stomach sunk even lower, and I twisted to glare at the back of his head. I'm sure he knew I was looking at him - that we were all looking at him - but he just kept staring at the water, answering a million questions with his silence, or at least inducing people to ask them.
Long seconds passed. And before we could find our way back to the more pressing issue at hand, Knut had something to add, seemingly under the guise of 'reassuring' Niels, who was standing in the middle of everyone, trying to understand what had just happened. Knut's voice sounded tired when he spoke, "That's right. Those cases are only filled with chemicals and lab equipment," he said to Niels, then turned to aim his words at me, "which are probably a cure of some kind, I'm sure," he said, and turned back to Niels, "So... I'm afraid: no. There's no special instrument. No one can hear us. And no one is ever coming to help."
Everyone turned to look me over apprehensively. And all I could do was stand there, dumbstruck, until eventually, I had to drop my eyes to the ground.
So. Here it was. They finally knew that they'd been lied to, deceived. I could almost hear the questions swirling through their heads: For what reason would they have been told an untrue story? Was it because they would have been reluctant to come if they'd known the truth? And if so, what exactly was this truth that was so precarious that their whole world, and everyone they trusted in it, would conspire to hide it from them? What exactly were they doing on this unlucky ship, if not to help save the world? Were there other things around them that weren't quite what they seemed? And if so, what - who?
I had no idea how Knut had known about what was in the cases. I was sure they were secure, that no one in the crew had access to them. Though, I'd fancied myself sure of a lot of things until that moment. Knut had implied that he was aware, or at least suspected that we didn't have a cure, which was almost the biggest slap in the face for me, as it revealed that I wasn't the only one who spent time trying to probe deeper into the world around me. Who knew? Maybe it was natural for everyone to do, and I'd only imagined myself to be the clever exception, which, of course, would make me the greatest fool of all.
* * *
22
The drab sky began to drizzle, and I watched the floor around my feet as i
t speckled with tiny drops of rain.
Eventually, I decided to look up to see if everyone was still staring at me, and when I did, I looked straight to Knut. He was fuming. It wasn't exactly clear where this rage was coming from or whom it would be directed at when it finally emerged, but it seemed likely that it would be at me, the liar, the mysterious conspirator. I took a step back, looking around to see if I was the only one who had noticed him. I wasn't. And I must admit that, when he started to speak, and I realized that, in fact, it wasn't me who was going to get the brunt of his anger, but Solmund, there was an ignoble part of me that was quite relieved.
"So... why," he began, giving Solmund a sidelong glance, "I mean - can you tell me - why did we bring you along then? Weren't you supposed to be this genius that could make anything, fix anything, figure out anything? Isn't that the reason we've been putting up with your shit every day, all day long - because we thought you'd come in useful at some point? And now that we finally need you to fix something, what do you tell us, what great enlightenment do you give us? That we're finished. We're dead." He shook his head, his voice quickly heightening in tone and volume, "Is that all you're here for - you little snivelling shit! To tell us when we're dead! Like we couldn't handle that on our own?" He started to hop on his toes as if he were about to run, and squared his shoulders to Solmund who was still cowering near the rail; and shrinking more by the second. Then, seeming to know better than anyone else what was going to come next, Solmund let out a sorry whimpering sound and covered his head. "Do you know what I should do to you!" Knut pressed his lips together, shaking his head madly now, "I should just..." Finally, he snapped, and broke into a dash toward Solmund, who had managed to instantly shrivel himself into a tiny ball of flesh.
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