Veracity (29 page)

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 it 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.

A few of us threw half-hearted hands out and took a step forward, as if we were going to intervene, but no one did. Knut stopped just before him and let the built-up momentum of his body follow into a vicious kick, and Solmund shuddered against the rail. But Knut didn't stop there, he continued kicking him as hard as he could, three, four, five times, producing strange hollow sounds, the rail ringing with each blow. I remember that my heart was racing, but as much as I wanted to do something, I wouldn't have moved closer to Knut for anything. His arms were swinging wildly through the air to help him kick, his hair flapping around on top of his head. And I wasn't alone, the rest of the crew were just standing there as well, ogling at the scene with stupid expressions on their faces, some of them looking around, searching for the person who would be brave enough to stop him, waiting, waiting for that elusive 'someone' that would finally step forward and do something.

When Mikkel screamed, there was something in it that we'd never heard before, something that was threatening, dangerous; his voice was deep, breaking, and I'm confident that it would have stopped anyone doing anything. "KNUT!"

Knut stopped and turned toward Mikkel, blinking at him idiotically, his arms slowly sinking to his sides; his expression was somewhat puzzled, as if he were wondering what was actually wrong with repeatedly kicking Solmund as hard as he could. We all watched the wild expression on Mikkel's face slowly melt into something calm and composed again. And when he finally spoke, his words were incredibly quiet, almost sad. "Come here."

Knut walked obediently, if not shamefully over to him, where he stopped and stood, waiting like a child to be reprimanded. It's interesting that all of our attention was devoted to Mikkel and Knut, and that Solmund, whose safety we'd supposedly been so concerned about only seconds before, sat forgotten in a sorry heap of bruised flesh. I noticed him enough to see that he'd already grabbed onto the rail to steady himself with one hand, while his other hand had dropped from its protective position on his head, his face poking out from behind it; it seemed he was also interested to see what would happen to Knut.

But Mikkel's words would baffle everyone. "You're a good sailor, Knut," he said, and then paused for a moment, turning his head to eye the horizon and nodding at it to reaffirm what he'd just said. Then he looked back at him, "So let me ask you a serious question: What would
you
do with only one mast and no rigging?"

"Me?" Knut pointed to himself.

"Of course you. You're on this ship with the rest of us. And I happen to think it's every much a responsibility of yours as it is Solmund's. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Yeah, but... I'm not supposed to be the..."

"I don't give a shit what you're supposed to be. I asked you a question, and I want you to think about it. Do you understand that? I want you to stop and really think about it: How would you use a mast with no rigging?"

At first Knut only shrugged his shoulders. But then he looked up at the mast for a few seconds, pondering the actual problem for the very first time. He answered more readily than any of us expected. "Well, to be honest, I would just fix the sail to the mast with rope."