Jasper Fforde_Thursday Next_05 (37 page)

“Turn about. Reduce power and stand by to pick up survivors.”

“Aye-aye, Cap’n,” said Baldwin, spinning the wheel as Fitzwilliam rung up “slow ahead” on the engine-room telegraph. I walked out onto the starboard wing and watched despondently as the turmoil developed into a WordStorm. Within the twenty minutes it took to intercept the lifeboat, the whirling mass of narrative distortion lifted off, taking part of the description of the ocean with it. There was a ragged dark hole for an instant, and then the sea washed in to fill the anomaly, and in a few moments everything was back to normal. Perhaps I should have left the lifeboat. After all, the Long Now and the classics were more important than several fictional castaways. Mind you, if I’d been on that lifeboat, I know what I would have wanted.

“Captain!”

It was Dr. Glister.

“I don’t want to know about your arguments with the Langdons,” I told him.

“No, no,” he replied in something of a panic, “you
cannot
pick up these castaways!”

“Why not?”

“They have Squurd’s disease.”

“They have
what
?”

We walked into the wheel house and out again onto the port wing, where Fitzwilliam was directing the rescue operation. The lifeboat was still ahead of us at least a hundred yards. The ship was moving forward slowly, a cling net had been thrown over the side, and several burly sailors were making ready to pick up the castaways.

“Look carefully at the survivors,” urged Dr. Glister, and I trained my binoculars on the small group. Now that they were closer, I could see that their faces were covered with unsightly green pustules. I lowered the binoculars and looked at Dr. Glister. “What’s the prognosis?”

“A hundred percent fatal, and highly contagious. Bring them on board and we’ll be looking at a minimum of twenty percent casualties. We don’t reach port for six months, and these poor wretches will already have died in agony long before we could get any help to them.”

I rubbed my temples. “You’re completely sure of this?”

He nodded. I took a deep breath.

“Fitzwilliam?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Break off the rescue.”

“What?”

“You heard me. These people have a contagious fatal illness, and I won’t risk my passengers’ lives saving castaways who will die no matter what we do.”

“But, Captain!” he protested. “We
never
leave a man in the water!”

“We’re doing it today, Fitzwilliam. Do you understand?”

He glared at me menacingly, then leaned over the rail and repeated my order, making sure the men knew who had made it. After that, he went into the wheel house, rang up “full ahead,” and the vessel shuddered as we made extra speed and steamed on.

“Come inside,” said Dr. Glister.

“No,” I said. “I’m staying here. I won’t hide from the men I’ve condemned to death.”

And I stood there and watched as the lifeboat and the men drifted astern of the ship and were soon lost to view in the seas. It was with a heavy heart that I walked back into the wheel-house and sat in the captain’s chair. Baldwin was silent, gazing straight ahead.

“It was the right thing to do,” I muttered, to no one in particular. “And what’s more, I could have used the WordStorm to escape after all.”

“Things happen here,” muttered Baldwin. “
Difficult
things.”

I suddenly had a thought, but hoped upon hope I was wrong. “What’s the name of this ship?”

“The ship?” replied Baldwin cheerily. “It’s the steamship
Moral Dilemma,
Cap’n.”

I covered my face with my hands and groaned. Anne Wirthlass-Schitt and her obnoxious husband had not been kidding when they said they’d chosen this place especially for me. My nerves were already badly frayed, and I felt the heavy hand of guilt pressing upon me. I’d only been here an hour—what would I be like in a week, or a month? Truly, I was trapped in an unenviable place: adrift on the Hypothetical Ocean, in command of the
Moral Dilemma
.

“Captain?”

It was the cook this time. He was unshaven and wearing a white uniform that had so many food stains on it that it was hard to say where stain ended and uniform began.

“Yes?” I said, somewhat wearily.

“Begging your pardon, but there’s been a gross underestimation on the provisions.”

“And?”

“We don’t get into port for another six months,” the cook continued, referring to a grubby sheet of calculations he had on him, “and we only have enough to feed the crew and passengers on strict rations for two-thirds of that time.”

“What are you saying?”

“That all forty of us will starve long before we reach port.”

I beckoned Fitzwilliam over. “There wouldn’t be another port closer than that, would there?”

“No, Captain,” he answered. “Port Conjecture is the only port there is.”

“I thought so. And no fish either?”

“Not in these waters.”

“Other ships?”

“None.”

I got it now. These were the “difficult things” Baldwin had spoken of, and they were mine and mine alone to deal with. The ship, the sea and the people on it might be hypothetical—but they could suffer and die the same as anyone.

“Thank you, Cook,” I said. “I’ll let you know of my decision.”

He gave a lazy salute and was gone.

“Well, Fitzwilliam,” I said, doing some simple math on a piece of paper, “there’s enough food for twenty-six people to survive until we reach port. Do you think we could find fourteen volunteers to throw themselves over the side to ensure the survival of the rest?”

“I doubt it.”

“Then I have something of a problem. Is my primary sense of duty as captain to see to it that as many people as possible survive on my ship, or is it my moral obligation not to conduct or condone murder?”

“The men in the lifeboat just now wouldn’t see you as anything but a murderer.”

“Perhaps so, but this one’s harder; it’s not a case of
inaction
to bring about a circumstance, but
action
. This is what I’m going to do. Anyone under eighteen is excluded, as are six essential crew to keep the ship going. All the rest will choose straws—thirteen will go over the side.”

“If they don’t want to go?”

“Then I will throw them over.”

“You’ll hang for it.”

“I won’t. I’ll be the fourteenth.”

“Very…
selfless,
” murmured Fitzwilliam, “but even after your crew and age exclusions, thirty-one passengers are still under eighteen. You will still have to select seven of them. Will you be able to throw
them
overboard, the children, the innocents?”

“But I save the rest, right?”

“It’s not for me to say,” said Fitzwilliam quietly. “I am not the captain.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, my heart thumping and a cold panic roiling inside me. I had to do terrible things in order to save others, and I’m not sure I could even do it—and thus imperil everyone’s life. I stopped for a moment and thought. The dilemmas had been getting progressively worse since I arrived. Perhaps this place—wherever it was—was quirkily responsive to my decisions. I decided to try something.

“No,” I said. “I’m not going to kill anyone simply because an abstract ethical situation demands it. We’re going to sail on as we are and trust to providence that we meet another ship. If we don’t, then we may die, but we will have at least done the right thing by one another.”

There was a distant rumble of thunder in the distance, and the boat heeled over. I wondered what would be next.

“Begging your pardon, Captain, but I bring bad news.” It was a steward whom I hadn’t seen before.

“And…?”

“We have a gentleman in the wardroom who claims there is a bomb on board the ship—and it’s set to go off in ten minutes.”

I allowed myself a wry smile. The rapidly changing scenarios seemed to have a clumsy intelligence to them. It was possible this was something in the oral tradition, but I couldn’t be sure. If this small world were somehow sentient, though, it could be beaten. To vanquish it, I needed to find its weakness, and it had just supplied one:
impatience
. It didn’t want a long, drawn-out starvation for the passengers; it wanted me to commit a hands-on murder for the greater good—and soon.

“Show me.”

I followed the steward down into the wardroom, where a man was sitting in a chair in the middle of the room. He looked sallow and had fine, wispy blond hair and small eyes that stared intently at me as I walked in. A burly sailor named McTavish, who was tattoo and Scotsman in a three-to-four ratio, was standing guard over him. There was no one else in the room—there didn’t need to be. It was a hypothetical situation.

“Your name, sir?”

“Jebediah Salford. And I have hidden a bomb—”

“I heard. And naturally you won’t tell me where it is?”

“Naturally.”

“This bomb,” I went on, “will sink the ship, potentially leading to many deaths?”

“Indeed, I hope so,” replied Jebediah cheerily.

“Your own included?”

“I fear no death.”

I paused for thought. It was a classic and overused ethical dilemma. Would I, as an essentially good person, reduce myself to torturing someone for the greater good? It was a puzzle that had been discussed for many years, generally by those to whom it has no chance of becoming real. But the way in which the scenarios came on thick and fast suggested that whoever was running this show had a prurient interest in seeing just how far a decent person could be pushed before doing bad things. I could almost feel the architect of the dilemma gloating over me from afar. I would have to stall him if I could.

“Fitzwilliam? Have all passengers go on deck, close all watertight doors, and have every crew member and able-bodied passenger look for the bomb.”

“Captain,” he said, “that’s a waste of time. There
is
a bomb, but you can’t find it. The decision has to be made here and now, in this wardroom.”

Damn. Outmaneuvered.

“How many lifeboats do we have?” I asked, getting increasingly desperate.

“Only one left, ma’am—with room for ten.”

“Shit. How long do we have left before this bomb goes off?”

“Seven minutes.”

If this were the real world and in a situation as black and white as this, there wasn’t a decision to make. I would use all force necessary to get the information. But, most important, submit myself to scrutiny afterward. If you permit or conduct torture, you must be personally responsible for your actions—it’s the kind of decision where it’s best to have the threat of prison looming behind you. But the thing was, on board this ship here and now, it didn’t look as though torturing him would actually achieve anything at all. He would eventually tell me, the bomb would be found—and the next dilemma would begin. And they would carry on, again and again, worse and worse, until I had done everything I would never have done and the passengers of this vessel were drowned, eaten or murdered. It was hell for me, but it would be hell for them, too. I sat down heavily on a nearby chair, put my head in hands and stared at the floor.

“Captain,” said Fitzwilliam, “we only have five minutes. You
must
torture this person.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled incoherently, “I know.”

“We will all die,” he continued. “
Again.
”

I looked up into his eyes. I’d never noticed how incredibly blue they were.

“You all die in the end, don’t you?” I said miserably. “No matter what I do. It’s just one increasingly bad dilemma after another until everyone’s dead, right?”

“Four minutes, Captain.”

“Am I right?”

Fitzwilliam looked away.

“I asked you a question, Number One.”

He looked up at me, and he seemed to have tears in his eyes. “We have all been drowned,” he said in a quiet voice, “over a thousand times each. We have been eaten, blown up and suffered fatal illnesses. The drownings are the worst. Each time I can feel the smothering effect of water, the blind panic as I suffocate—”

“Fitzwilliam,” I demanded, “where is this damnable place?”

He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. “We’re oral tradition, but we’re not in a story—we’re an
ethics seminar
.”

“You mean you’re all hypothetical characters during a lecture?”

Fitzwilliam nodded miserably. The steward somewhat chillingly handed me a pair of pliers, while reminding me in an urgent whisper that there were only three minutes left. I looked down at the pliers in an absent sort of way, at Jebediah, then back to Fitzwilliam, who was staring at the floor. So much suffering on board this ship, and for so long. Perhaps there
was
another way out. The thing was, to take such radical action in the oral tradition risked the life of the lecturer giving the talk. But what was more important? The well-being of one real-life ethics professor or the relentless torture of his subjects, who had to undergo his sadistic and relentless hypothetical dilemmas for two-hour sessions three times a week? When you tell a tragic story, someone dies for real in the BookWorld. I was in the oral tradition. Potentially the best storytelling there was—and the most destructive.

“McTavish, prepare the lifeboat for launching. I’m leaving.”

McTavish looked at Fitzwilliam, who shrugged, and the large Scotsman and his tattoos departed.

“That isn’t one of the options,” said Fitzwilliam. “You can’t do it.”

“I have experience of the oral tradition,” I told him. “All these scenarios are taking place only because I am here to preside in judgment upon them. This whole thing goes just one way: in a downward spiral of increasingly impossible moral dilemmas that will leave everyone dead except myself and one other, whom I will be forced to kill and eat or something. If I take myself out of the equation, you are free to sail across the sea unhampered, unimpeded—and safe.”

“But that might…that might—”

“Harm the lecturer, even kill him? Possibly. If the bomb goes off, you’ll know I’ve failed and he’s okay. If it doesn’t, you’ll all be safe.”

“And you?” he asked. “What about you?”

I patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about me. I think you’ve all suffered enough on account of the Outland.”