The research cruise. Part 1
(1/4) A sinking ship of science? What kind of a hackneyed metaphor is that?
[Navigation station: here’s Parts 2 and 3. And here’s a great big Table of Contents.]
To forestall the quite understandable impression that this story is utterly directionless, let's start with a glimpse close to the end.
Pete and three other people were locked in a truly bizarre cabin on a ship that was in the process of sinking. (There will be time to explain the bizarre cabin later.) Pete and two of the others – a befuddled journalist and a Welsh whizz kid – were in a frenzied state of panic.
“If we don't get out of here now, we're going to die!” he screamed, and the two terrified companions echoed similar sentiments.
The third was unconcerned. “On the contrary,” said this third person who, from his authoritatively confident tone and obnoxiously incongruous calm, was obviously a scientist. “This is the safest place to be.”
This was extremely difficult to believe. Although, locked in the cabin as they were, they appeared to have little choice but to wait and find out.
While they wait, let's find out how they got into this predicament.
Pete was a businessman.
Other businessmen told Pete that he was too naive and idealistic to successfully run a business, but fortunately he was too naive and idealistic to listen to them. That's why he started his solar-panel installation company back when solar panels were inefficient and expensive and unpopular, and was therefore perfectly prepared for the moment when none of that mattered, because his local government had just been taken over by radical environmentalists, with the result that he was even more perfectly prepared for the moment when solar panels became incredibly efficient and cheap and wildly popular, which would be any day now.
Like anyone who mistakes dumb luck for strategic brilliance – i.e., everyone – he had decided to up the stakes. Who do you call when you want to blow the naive idealism sky high? That's right: the scientists!
That's how Pete came to be dressed up in his freshly laundered tuxedo, seated at a sumptuous dinner table, aboard the world's foremost ocean-going research institute; indeed, one of only two ocean-going research institutes in existence, and definitely the only one housed on a luxury cruise liner. The other, notoriously, was a refurbished 17th-century pirate ship. That sounds cool, but it was far too short to house a useful linear particle accelerator, and had zero swimming pools.
The cruise ship Sabine had two outdoor swimming pools, and Pete had visited one of them shortly after his helicopter landed. It was a beautiful warm afternoon in wherever the hell they were. Possibly the Mediterranean? Maybe somewhere else entirely? He had fallen asleep in the aeroplane – he was beginning to suspect he had been drugged – so he had no idea how long the flight had been, and he was thoroughly dazed and sluggish when he changed at a nondescript airfield into the helicopter and then, astonishingly – this was why he suspected drugs – he had fallen asleep again. Having started in Houston, he could be in Europe, or the South Pacific, or the Bahamas or, really, anywhere less than 45 degrees North or South of the equator. His phone had no signal, so the only thing to do after he arrived was take a swim to clear his head.
The pool area had been busy, and the pool was full, but no-one was swimming. They were all milling about in groups, talking. Many of the people near the pool were crowded around whiteboards on wheels. There were even whiteboards in the pool; people were armed with markers that were impervious to the water, but nonetheless easy to wipe off the boards with large rectangular erasers. That wasn’t all. A lot of other people were pecking away at laptops, most of them poolside, but some, to Pete's amazement and delight, also in the pool.
Such was a cruise ship populated entirely by scientists.
Pete gave up on swimming, and instead waded slowly across the pool, hoping to attach himself to one of the chattering groups. They were all too engrossed in their highly technical and often heated conversations, and in the end, he spoke to no-one.
So far, he had spoken to no-one at the dinner, either. He arrived early and chose a table and ordered a Manhattan. Then he watched as the room became populated with surprisingly well-groomed versions of the same oddballs who had been at the swimming pool, arriving individually or in groups, and slowly filling up all of the tables except Pete's. He would have been alone if he hadn't eventually been joined by the ship's captain and some senior members of the crew.
“I'm afraid they're a bit clique-y,” explained Captain Schwizzleschtick.
“I thought they would be lining up to talk to me. I'm here to invest.”
Schwizzleschtick boggled at him. “Are you crazy? This is the most extreme concentration of idealistic monomaniacs on Earth. These people would never sell out to corporate parasites!”
“Don't they want someone to invest in their inventions?”
“What inventions? If one of these loonies ever finishes a single damn thing, I'll walk the plank. And if it's something useful I'll do it naked.”
Pete was willing to believe the captain that all of the scientists were bonkers, but it was likely that the captain was bonkers, too. The most likely reality at this point was that everyone on the ship was bonkers.
Pete tried to casually ask, “Where is this ship right now?”
Schwizzleschtick narrowed his eyes at him. “What are you? A journalist?”
“Do you not allow journalists on the ship?”
“Of course we do! Look over there!” The captain pointed at another table, where one laughing raucous man was clearly the centre of everyone else's attention. “That's Harrison Bottleneck, one of the most famous science journalists in the world.”
“Who is that group?” asked Pete.
The captain turned to one of his crew, Officer Mallet. “Are they from the contagious virus lab?”
“The what?” spat Pete.
“Don't worry,” said another crew member, Officer Wrench. “The virus lab is confined to one deck, which is sealed off from all the others.”
“And the vaccine researchers are in the decks immediately above and below,” added Mallet. “The vaccine people come to dinner, but the virus people stay on their quarantined deck. So it could be the vaccine people.”
Pete was hesitant to ask, but felt it had to be done: “Have the vaccine people succeeded in making vaccines for any of the viruses?”
“Oh no. That would be unethical.”
“Unethical?”
“And pointless. The important thing is to work on vaccines to the viruses that are developed at competing institutes. Those are the ones we have to worry about.”
Captain Schwizzleschtick slammed his hand on the table. “No! I was wrong. They're not the medical people at all. They're from that lab down by the engine room.”
“The ballistics lab?”
“That's the one!”
Pete tried his best to enjoy the meal, but all the time watched the reporter at the other table, and at the end of dinner made sure to leave at the same time.
He caught up with him in the corridor. “Mr. Bottleneck, do you know where we are?”
“Deck 8.”
“No, where the ship is. In the world.”
He seemed disinterested. “Dunno,” was all he said.
“I think I might have been drugged on the way here.”
Harrison didn't seem especially interested in that, either. “That's cool.”
“I thought you were a journalist?”
“Ha ha! I'm a science journalist.”
“You mean, dedicated to data driven reporting, highly trained in critical analysis and possessed by ever-present scepticism?”
For a moment Harrison was dazed by Pete's fancy words, but with a quick shake of his head they were gone and he recovered his chirpy equilibrium. “I get sent on luxury junkets and write puff pieces, if that's what you mean.”
“You don't investigate things?”
“I don't even read things! Mostly it's just socialising. Occasionally a little typesetting.”
Pete sighed. “Do you know how I can make my phone work?”
“Oh yeah, sure. That's easy!”
After he had talked to the “journalist”, Pete returned to his cabin. He was convinced that the entire day, and indeed the entire trip, had been a waste of time.
Then there was a knock at the door.
Gosh, what’s going to happen next? Is it a man with a gun? Or is it just room service? Find out in the next thrilling episode! It’s called “Part 2”.
Oh yeah — and don’t forget to click the heart button, and share this first tantalising episode far and wide, and make brilliant comments.
Love it! (Thanks, Larry, for the recommendation.) The names, the ballistic team next to the engine room, the vaccine scientists traveling past the infectious diseases level to get to/from dinner…brilliantly set up for so much chaos!
Hans Grober! Ha, Herr Grubar!