World Enough (And Time) Read online

  World Enough (And Time)

  Dedication

  1 A State of Imminent Default

  2 Now Serving Number

  3 Civil Rights, Sharp Lefts

  4 Winners and Losers and Which Are You?

  5 End to the Longest Day

  6 Bandora’s Box

  7 Strawberries, Keycards, and Rekindled Fires

  8 Doors and Windows

  9 Behind the Glass

  10 It Is What It Is

  11 El Nombre de la Diabla

  12 Showdown at the Relaxation Station

  13 Snatch and Grab

  14 Morning of the Iguana

  15 The Law of Averages

  16 The Title of Your Next Autobiography

  17 A Lot of Credit in Money

  18 So Very Unlikely

  19 Fly Me to the Moon

  20 Very, Very Engaged

  21 The Conservation of Ghosts

  22 Better Pockets

  23 Old Jeremiah, New Jeremiah

  24 Not Why But Why Now

  25 The Way of the Samurai

  26 The Belly of the Beast

  27 Without Further Ado

  28 The Glass Harp of Courage

  29 Soggy Bottoms and Loose Ends

  30 When Biscuits Bite Back

  31 Arrivals and Departures

  32 That’s What You Do

  A Word About Reviews

  Acknowledgements

  Books By Edmund Jorgensen

  About the Author

  About this Book

  Copyright

  For my dad

  1

  A State of Imminent Default

  Friday (9 days until arrival)

  “Ferrets?” said Jeremiah Brown. “I don’t remember Uncle Leo particularly liking ferrets.”

  “People change in 20 years, Mr. Brown,” said Mr. Grubel.

  “Uncle Leo hardly changed his socks. Besides, can you even maltreat a ferret?”

  Mr. Grubel pushed his lensless silver glasses further up the bridge of his nose. His hypermodern silver suit shimmered as he squared his shoulders.

  “You can maltreat anything,” he said.

  “I’m just saying, it sounds larky.”

  “There is nothing larky about your situation, Mr. Brown. Your uncle has altered his will, leaving the entirety of his estate to a home for maltreated ferrets. You are no longer in a position to honor the financial arrangements you made to purchase passage on this ship—a passage you have nearly completed. You are in a state of imminent default.”

  “Look,” said Jeremiah, “I have no intention of defaulting, imminently or otherwise. The instant we get back, I’ll go see Uncle Leo and straighten things out.”

  “That might prove difficult.”

  “Uncle Leo loves me like the son he never had—or particularly wanted. But he’s always made sure I’m provided for, and the minute he sees my face the ferrets will be out of the picture.”

  “Your Uncle Leopold has been dead for the better part of two years Earth time.”

  Jeremiah blanched.

  “Don’t play the naive, shocked nephew, Mr. Brown. Wasn’t that the point of your booking a relativistic cruise in the first place? To accelerate your inheritance?”

  “Yes, it’s just—poor old Uncle Leo. His ticker finally gave out?”

  “Mr. Brown.”

  “He wasn’t a bad man,” said Jeremiah. “He was even a good man, in his way. He looked after me the best he knew how, when no one else would do it. Did he go peacefully, at least?”

  “Mr. Brown! You can mourn your uncle on your own time. Right now you would do well to focus on the situation at hand. You are in a state of imminent default.”

  “Would you stop saying those words? As soon as we dock I’ll talk to Appleton, and he’ll get you your credit.”

  “Appleton?” said Mr. Grubel, with sudden interest. “Who is Appleton? Another relative of means I somehow missed?” He began tapping at the surface of his desk, where a recessed screen was angled away from Jeremiah’s line of sight.

  “Appleton is my lawyer.”

  “Ah, your lawyer.” Grubel’s interest faded. He continued tapping away at the screen, but with the depressive air of due diligence.

  “‘Lawyer’ only scratches the surface,” said Jeremiah, hoping to recapture some of Mr. Grubel’s enthusiasm, which seemed key to forestalling any more of this imminent default talk. “Lawyer, advisor, agent, general role model and day-saver. The Jeeves to my Bertie. Well, if Jeeves were an ex-special-forces Samoan with an ivy league law degree and arms like 100-year-old tree trunks. Oh, and gay as the day is long.”

  “I’m sorry?” said Mr. Grubel, looking up.

  “What?”

  “What did you say about long days?”

  “As gay as the day is long?”

  “Mr. Brown, your sexual preferences have no bearing here.”

  “No, I’m saying that my lawyer, Appleton—”

  “Threatening me with some frivolous discrimination suit will get you nowhere. This matter concerns a contract, pure and simple—a contract in which you agree to compensate Golden Worldlines for the passage you have enjoyed for the last two years. A contract which spells out consequences for your imminent default.”

  “I’m just saying I’ll wave my lawyer to ask about contesting the will, and maybe we can postpone all this talk about ‘imminent default’ for 24 hours or so.”

  “By all means, you should wave him immediately—the Quantum Caterpillar field is weak enough now that waves can be sent and received. But you won’t have a reply within 24 hours.”

  “Even with the time dilation?”

  “We are at roughly five percent of the speed of light and slowing rapidly, Mr. Brown. The time dilation is negligible. Have you received a copy of the pamphlet?”

  Before Jeremiah could respond, Mr. Grubel took a pamphlet from a drawer and set it on his desk in front of Jeremiah. It was perhaps the 100th copy of “Golden Worldlines, Special Relativity, and You” that Jeremiah had seen over the last two years. Every member of the staff carried a few copies at all times, and they had been trained—and trained well—to whip one out the moment a passenger betrayed the slightest doubt about the subtleties of relativistic travel. Jeremiah had not opened one of these pamphlets once in two years, and even in such dire straits as he found himself he did not intend to start now.

  “I guess I’d better get moving and wave Appleton as soon as possible,” said Jeremiah. It did not seem strictly necessary to clarify that by as soon as possible Jeremiah meant immediately after breakfast, which he had been on his way to enjoy when Grubel called him over the PA to the Financial Office. “If there’s nothing else?”

  “It says in your file that you earned a living by playing the banjo?”

  “Not always a full, complete, entire living. Uncle Leo did subsidize my musical career a bit here and there.”

  Mr. Grubel established eye contact.

  “Well, pretty substantially at times,” Jeremiah added after a few seconds.

  Mr. Grubel maintained eye contact.

  “Look,” said Jeremiah, “basically he paid for everything, all right? Is that what you want to hear? Food, housing, clothes. Everything.”

  Mr. Grubel looked down and resumed typing.

  “What about your education?” he asked.

  “He paid for that too.”

  “I don’t care who paid for it. Your file lists your degree as ‘demomusicology.’ Is that something related to medicine? The medical staff is always underwater, particularly this late in the cruise.”

  “Not exactly,” said Jeremiah. “It’s the study of folk music. My dissertation was entitled Through the Hobo Jungle: Freighthopping as Sel
f-…”

  “Computer skills?”

  “…Discovery.’ No, computers and I don’t really get along. But Mr. Grubel, why are we wasting time with my personal history when I could be waving Appleton right now?”

  Mr. Grubel stopped tapping at the recessed screen and looked up again.

  “In other words, Mr. Brown, you have no relevant experience or training whatsoever.”

  “Well, that’s a matter of opinion, isn’t it? I mean—relevant to what is really the question.”

  “To the day-to-day operations of the Einstein IV.”

  “Ah,” said Jeremiah. “Then—no.”

  “I’m assigning you to the Department of Guest Services, Event Planning, and General Clerical. You’ll report to Alfred Reynolds.”

  Grubel picked up a microphone from behind his desk and switched it on.

  “Reynolds to the Financial Office,” he said. The words echoed in the hall outside.

  “What do you mean ‘report to’ Alfred Reynolds?” said Jeremiah. “What exactly will I be reporting to him?”

  “It’s spelled out quite clearly in your contract, Mr. Brown.”

  Mr. Grubel gestured vaguely behind him, and in response glowing letters appeared on the wall there: a contract, with Jeremiah’s electronic signature highlighted.

  “Section 14.2.1.1, ‘Remedies and Recourse for Imminent Default.’” The contract scrolled to the aforementioned section and stopped. “You’re welcome to review it at your convenience, but I’ll summarize: if you can’t pay, you work.”

  “But that’s crazy! It’s not like doing dishes to work off a meal in a restaurant. We’re talking tens of millions of credits. In my whole life I couldn’t work that off!”

  “Don’t I know it, Mr. Brown. Unfortunately—”

  Mr. Grubel reclined in his chair and waved the contract away.

  “—and I cannot express to you how much this frosts my muffin—the terms of your contract only allow me to impress duties upon you for the remainder of your passage.”

  “Oh,” said Jeremiah, “so that means—nine days?”

  “Ten days, Mr. Brown, including the day we dock at the space elevator.”

  That would be a full week and three days longer than any other job Jeremiah had ever held, but given the gravity of the situation, he considered that he had gotten off rather lightly.

  “And lest you think you’ve gotten off lightly,” said Mr. Grubel, whose talents apparently extended to telepathy, “your contract provides for the passengers of this ship to review your performance at the cruise’s end. If you do not score an average of at least ‘Satisfied’ on those reviews—or if you receive even a single score of ‘Highly Dissatisfied’—then we’ll be seeing each other again.”

  “In court?” Jeremiah had never thought he’d imbue those two words with such hope.

  “No, Mr. Brown: here. Right back here on the Einstein IV, where you will be obligated to work additional 2/20 tours until you achieve reviews of sufficient quality.”

  “Oh,” said Jeremiah, “so instead of ten days that would mean at least—”

  “Two years. Two years ship time, that is, and 20 Earth time. And believe me, I will personally make sure those are the longest two years of your life.”

  “I believe you,” Jeremiah said.

  “I know you don’t like me, Mr. Brown.”

  “Oh,” said Jeremiah, “well—”

  “No doubt you think I’m just a pencil pusher. But pencils don’t push themselves. Someone needs to maintain order. On this ship, I am that someone, and if you attempt to get around the rules—or me—you will fail, and you will regret it. Believe me, you will regret it. Reynolds,” Mr. Grubel said, before Jeremiah could profess his continued belief, “there you are. I’m sure you know Jeremiah.”

  Jeremiah turned around. Standing in the doorway was a man, perhaps 65 years of age, with white hair and an impressive white mustache. Unlike Grubel’s, his glasses had thick lenses, and he was wearing two pairs—one on his nose, and one propped upon his head. Only his turquoise blue sweater fought against the impression that he was responding not to Grubel’s summons but to a casting call seeking the definitive Geppetto for the 24th Century. With a toss of his head, a wiggle of his nose, and impressively little involvement from his hands, Reynolds transposed the two pairs of glasses and studied Jeremiah through the second. Jeremiah had the impression he had seen the man here and there around the ship, but he could not place him. Evidently the feeling was mutual.

  “I can’t place him,” said Reynolds. “Stowaway?”

  “An imminent defaulter,” said Grubel. “He’ll be assisting you for the duration of the cruise. Jeremiah, you will take direction from Reynolds. That’s all.”

  “Pleased to be working with you, Jeremiah,” Reynolds said, extending his hand. He had long, beautiful fingers, like a watchmaker’s, and a firm handshake. “The office opens at nine, so we’d best get a move on.” In preparation for which travel he did the trick shot with his glasses again.

  Jeremiah looked at Grubel, who had already started tapping away at other matters on his desk, and for a moment he considered not going quietly. He could protest that he wouldn’t sit still for such treatment, and even stand up and move around a bit, to underscore the point about not sitting still. He could demand names of managers and their managers above them, and threaten to write a strongly worded wave to every name on that list. What would Grubel do then? After all, he wasn’t going to wrangle Jeremiah to the ground.

  No, Jeremiah realized in a flash—what Grubel would do then was call over to the Security Office and outsource the wrangling to The Specimen. Jeremiah had seen the look in The Specimen’s eyes as he stood in the corner, providing nominal security at dances and other social events, and it was not the look of a man who enjoyed hearing all sides of a story or giving the little guy a fair shake or even a head start.

  Jeremiah stood up to go with Reynolds.

  “Jeremiah?” said Grubel, his eyes still down on his desk.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t forget your pamphlet.” He pointed to it on the desk.

  Jeremiah picked up the pamphlet.

  “And Jeremiah? I will be watching you.”

  2

  Now Serving Number

  Still Friday (9 days until arrival)

  “Not much to the job, really,” said Reynolds as he led Jeremiah back through the unfamiliar service corridors. They followed a more efficient path than the one Jeremiah had picked out by trial and error while looking for the Financial Office. “Follow the three rules and you’ll be fine. Rule one: every guest takes a ticket. Rule two: start every interaction with ‘Hello Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so, how may I help you today?’ Never call the guests by their first names. Rule 3: end every interaction with ‘Thank you for visiting the Guest Services Desk, have a Golden Worldlines day.’”

  “That all seems pretty straightforward,” said Jeremiah. A door hissed open and they were back in the passenger section of the ship, the bare metallic walls of the service corridor giving way to holo-portals on which played morning reels of misty forests and sunrises over white beaches.

  “Extremely straightforward. Oh, and make sure you keep the dish of mints on the desk full. Some of the guests go crazy for those mints. There are whole bags of them in the cabinet.”

  “Mints in the cabinet, all right.”

  “That’s about it,” said Mr. Reynolds. “Here we are.”

  The door in front of them was, like the door to the Financial Office, one of the old-fashioned wooden doors that the designers of the Einstein IV had sprinkled throughout the ship to add a romantic, if inconsistent, 21st-century touch. Jeremiah must have walked by this door a hundred times in the last two years, coming from the library or heading to the pool room, and yet he had never registered the tasteful gilded letters above that spelled out “Guest Services and Event Planning (9–12 and 1–5, 7 days)”—presumably because in his days as a guest he had never itched to plan an event
or felt the lack of any services beyond the plethora already being provided to him.

  “I’ll be back to look in on you at lunchtime,” said Mr. Reynolds, handing Jeremiah the key.

  “Aren’t you coming in?”

  “Oh, no. I have some important business to attend to.”

  “But I don’t know what I’m doing,” said Jeremiah.

  “Event planning is the hard part. Now that the Valentine’s Day Dance is over, and there are no more events to plan, it’s just guest services. Manning the desk is a one-man job.”

  “But what if the one man doesn’t know how to do it?”

  “You remember the three rules, don’t you?” Reynolds asked. “All guests take a?”

  “Ticket?” said Jeremiah.

  “Good! And you start each interaction with?”

  “Hello Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. So-and-so, how may I help you today?”

  “Very nice. And what kind of day do you wish them when you’re done?”

  “A good day?” said Jeremiah. “Great? Amazing? Larky?”

  “A Golden…”

  “Worldlines Day!” Jeremiah said, unaccountably pleased with himself.

  “You’re a natural. Follow the three rules and keep the mints stocked, and you’ll do fine. Any last minute questions?” He tugged at one end of his mustache, as if grave and urgent responsibilities were pulling from the other end, and this counterbalance was necessary to forestall his departure.

  “Just one,” said Jeremiah. “What do I do between asking the guests how I can help them and telling them to have a Golden Worldlines day?”

  “Oh, that’s the easy part: follow the playbook. That’s the three-ring binder in the top drawer of the desk. You look up the problem and you find the solution and you follow the steps that will be very clearly laid out for you. Nothing could be simpler. Ah, look—here’s the day’s first customer—a chance for you to dive right in. Good morning, Mr. Porter.”

  Damon Porter had arrived in his usual dress, meaning he could have been confused for James Bond headed to the senior prom. He had also arrived in his usual state, meaning he was twitching and frowning and looking over his shoulder, as if he had come into accidental possession of state secrets, did not know who he could trust, and had just left a café where he had tried to drown these anxieties in twelve to fifteen double espressos. Unusually for him, on the other hand, he was carrying something wrapped up in a towel, the edges of which fluttered in the air at the same rate as his essential caffeinated tremor.