The 13.5 Lives of Captain Bluebear

by Walter Moers

  Most of the supervisors were Yetis or Wolpertingers, but even they made an apathetic impression. Their seniority didn’t appear to entitle them to any special privileges. They lent a hand when needed, performed the most strenuous chores, and were not too proud to wield a shovel from time to time. Everyone fed the furnaces, the furnaces powered the engines, the engines drove the propellers, and the propellers kept the Moloch under way. That was all there was: a ship that sailed the seas for the sake of it – the most futile form of locomotion imaginable.

  I put on muscle

  I could almost see my muscles develop. My whole body grew hard and lost every ounce of fat. I could throw a sack of coal over my shoulder like a feather pillow, shoulder a ten-foot tree trunk by myself, take the stairs from the coal bunker three at a time with a hod of briquettes on my back.

  The calluses on my paws were so thick that I could slam the red-hot furnace doors without burning myself. The heat was such that, instead of running down me, my sweat evaporated at once.

  At night I dreamed of huge, roaring fires and mountains of briquettes. I had ceased to think. Not even in my dreams did it occur to me that there could be anything more important than furnaces and coal, leaping flames and the Moloch’s progress through the waves.

  Some months went by before I saw the sky again. I had spent the whole time in the ship’s iron belly, where my only sight of the outside world was the round hole, wreathed in oily smoke, through which we tipped ashes over the side. Sometimes I stuck my head through it for a breath of fresh air, but the sky was obscured by soot and the oil-polluted sea thick with sharks that snapped at low-flying seagulls.

  One day, one of the furnaces burned out. The Wolpertingers were dismantling it, and the rest of us had to manhandle the components on deck, whence they were heaved over the rail and into the sea.

  I had just come on deck carrying one of the heavy furnace doors when a gust of wind hit the Moloch and parted the smoke to reveal a wonderful summer’s day, a clear blue sky, and, sparkling like a diamond in its midst, the sun.

  A glimpse of the sun

  For one brief moment a sunbeam slanted down on us and turned the deck into a luminous clearing. I relished that moment of warmth and stared at the sun in bewilderment, blinding myself for several minutes. Then the smoke closed over us once more and the Yetis herded us back inside. As I staggered down the stairs with a Yeti’s elbow in my back, I suddenly wondered why I was submitting to such treatment.

  The sunlight had rekindled my capacity for thought.

  After a few days I’d reached the stage of being able to forge plans. Escape was out of the question and I couldn’t expect any help from my fellow prisoners (if prisoners they were, not volunteers), so I set about making the acquaintance of whoever was next in command above the Yetis and Wolpertingers.

  The bigger the ship the greater the need for a captain, and the Moloch was the biggest ship in the world. Somewhere on board there had to be someone who steered her and could read charts, who determined her course and bore ultimate responsibility. Perhaps he was an approachable person. Perhaps he was entirely ignorant of the scandalous working conditions in the Infurno, because he never showed his face there.

  Anyone who could keep such a vessel on course must possess more brainpower than a Yeti. I need only gain access to that person and make it clear to him that I was overqualified for the Infurno. So I simply stopped work.

  That was the nub of my plan: I tossed my shovel into the furnace along with the coal, folded my arms, and waited. Instantly, a Yeti appeared beside me.

  ‘Carry on!’ he bellowed.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  The Yeti was completely flummoxed. He wasn’t used to insubordination.

  He summoned another Yeti to his assistance.

  ‘Get on with your work!’ commanded the second Yeti.

  ‘No!’ I said stubbornly.

  The two Yetis were utterly at a loss. They planted their fists on their hips and snorted with indignation.

  ‘We’d better take him to the Zamonium,’ one of them said eventually. Zamonium … It was a long time since I’d heard that word.

  From the

  ‘Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs’

  by Professor Abdullah Nightingale

  Zamonium. Legendary element reputed to be capable of thought. The alchemists of Zamonia endeavoured for centuries to create something they referred to as ‘the Philosopher’s Stone’ or ‘Zamonium’, a mineral from which they hoped to obtain nothing less than the elixir of life and the answers to all unsolved questions. During the eighth century of Zamonia’s existence the legendary alchemist Zoltan Zaan succeeded in producing a stone that could actually think, but did not, unfortunately, surpass the intellectual capacity of a sheep. Legend has it that Zoltan Zaan was so annoyed at having squandered several tons of gold on the manufacture of Zamonium that he threw the stone into the quicksands of Nairland.

  The Yetis hustled me along the interminable, rusty passages in the bowels of Moloch until we came to an iron door guarded by another three Yetis. Armed to the teeth, they wore black troll-hide uniforms and heavy iron helmets and were at least a head taller than the ones who had dragged me there.

  ‘We must see the Zamonium,’ said one of my captors, gripping me by the shoulder. ‘This bear is refusing to work in the Infurno.’

  ‘Unheard-of,’ said one of the Yeti sentries.

  ‘Unprecedented,’ said another.

  ‘It’s never happened before,’ said the third.

  It took their combined strength to open the iron door, which resembled that of a strongroom. They thrust me into a big, rusty chamber but remained outside themselves. Then they pushed the door shut behind me.

  ‘You refused to work?’ said someone.

  I meet the Zamonium

  I had heard that voice twice before: once many years ago, when the Moloch was steaming past my raft; and again more recently on the waterfront, just before the sack was pulled over my head. How did the voice know I’d refused to work? No one had said anything, least of all me.

  ‘I know everything,’ said the voice.

  I looked around the room. It was empty save for a small central pillar with a glass bell jar on it. Under the glass was something that appeared to be a clod of earth shaped like a tiny brain. Was someone trying to intimidate me? What was this clod of earth? Where had the voice come from?

  ‘Just for calling me a clod of earth I could have you keelhauled five times over, but I’ll exercise my immeasurable clemency and make allowances for your ignorance. I’m not a clod of earth, I’m Zamonium – the Zamonium!’

  ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Bluebear.’

  I had caught on at last. That little clod of earth under the glass was the rare element known as Zamonium. It could actually think and make its voice heard inside my head. Being accustomed to voices in the head, I was only moderately impressed.

  ‘Let’s get to the point. From what I hear – and I hear every thought that occurs to anyone aboard my ship – you stopped work without being instructed to do so. What’s the idea?’

  ‘Well, first I’d like to point out that I’m not here of my own free will. I was –’

  ‘So what? You think you’re an exception? Nobody’s on board this ship of his own free will. Nobody apart from me!’

  So I was right. The Moloch was a slave ship.

  ‘Exactly. And you’re just another insignificant component of this slave ship! You’re worth no more than a tiny cog in the works, a dab of anticorrosive paint. You’ve become a part of the Moloch, and that’s the way you’ve got to function.

  ‘Now pin your ears back, my boy. Just so you know what’s what around here, I’m going to tell you a little story, the story of how the Moloch came into being. Listen closely, it’s very instructive …’

  I’ve always enjoyed a good story.

  The Zamonium’s tale

  ‘One day I fell into the sea. The
circumstances that led up to it are irrelevant; what matters is that I sank to the bottom of the Zamonian Sea. So there I lay on the seabed, thinking. Thinking is all I can do, but on the highest level!

  ‘My first thought was, this is no place for the only thinking element in the world, so I concentrated on the creatures surrounding me, to wit, a clam, a jellyfish, and a sponge. I ordered the jellyfish to place me on the sponge. Then I ordered the clam to cut the sponge adrift with its sharp shell and join me aboard it. That done, I commanded the jellyfish to carry us to the surface. Once on the surface the sponge dried in the sunlight, enabling us to drift across the sea. It was a very rudimentary form of ship, but at least it was a start.

  ‘A female seagull flew up and alighted on the sponge. She was about to eat the clam when I ordered her instead to fly off, collect some twigs, and stick them in the sponge. In that way she built a nest around us. Our vessel was growing bigger. Then I allowed the female seagull to eat the clam. Now comes the romantic part. The nest encouraged a male seagull to move in with us, and before long the nest was full of seagull’s eggs. They, in their turn, attracted a Zamonian fisherman. He proposed to steal them, but I ordered him to take me on board. I was now the owner of a fishing boat.

  ‘A big sailing ship came by, and I told the fisherman to take me aboard it. Next, I instructed the skipper of the sailing ship and his crew to capture other, bigger vessels, which they continued to do until I had assembled a whole fleet.

  ‘Then I gave orders to anchor off an island and construct one big ship out of all the others. That was the real beginning of the Moloch. We set sail in her and incorporated every vessel that came our way. The Moloch became bigger and bigger. Imagine, we even have our own shipyards on board! That’s what I call true greatness!’

  The Zamonium panted excitedly inside my head.

  ‘And so I circle the globe in search of more slaves and more ships that’ll help me to make the Moloch bigger still. One day, all the ships in the world will be merely components of the Moloch, and then … then …’

  The Zamonium hesitated.

  ‘Yes, then … Well, I’ll have to think of what to do then, won’t I? Anyway, it’s absolutely no business of yours. Now where was I?’

  ‘You were probably going to add a moral of some kind,’ I hazarded.

  ‘Precisely! That was it! What I really meant to say was, on this ship only one person does things of his own free will, and that’s me!’

  I got the picture: the Zamonium was totally insane.

  ‘Who’s insane? I’ll show you who’s insane! Obey me! Obey me!’

  The hell I would!

  ‘Obey … Obey …’

  My head was going all mushy. I felt as if my brain was being simmered over a low flame like the cheese in a fondue. It was a far from unpleasant sensation, to be honest.

  On the contrary, I found it more and more agreeable. Before long I didn’t know how I’d got along without that sensation. The Zamonium was my friend, that was official, so why not obey the element if that was its heart’s desire? Why not become its utterly submissive slave – one that would obey its most ludicrous orders, faithful unto death?

  I had just decided to submit to the Zamonium, at once and without reservation, when another familiar voice made itself heard in my head.

  ‘Leave the youngster alone!’

  It was the encyclopedia.

  No, it was Professor Nightingale in person.

  Nightingale steps in

  ‘Nightingale? Is that you?’ A sudden note of alarm had crept into the Zamonium’s voice.

  ‘You bet it is! So I’ve found you at last, Bluebear. Where are you, my boy? I can’t see a thing, I’m afraid.’

  ‘On board the Moloch. We must be somewhere north of Atlantis.’

  ‘Shut your trap!’ commanded the Zamonium.

  ‘Well, well, Zamonium, I’d never have guessed you’d be hiding aboard the Moloch. It was obvious, really. Still nursing your old dreams of world domination?’

  ‘I’m not dreaming, Nightingale, I’m thinking! And I’m not hiding the way you do in your labyrinth of caves. I’m the Zamonium! Don’t dare come near me, Nightingale, I’d be compelled to destroy you!’

  ‘You’ve no idea how near you I am.’

  ‘I’ve got the world’s biggest, most powerful, most heavily armed means of locomotion at my disposal, manned by an army of submissive slaves. What have you got to set against that?’

  ‘You’ll find out!’

  ‘You wouldn’t dare to cross me again.’

  ‘Oh yes, I would!’

  ‘Oh no, you wouldn’t!’

  ‘Oh yes, I would!’

  ‘Oh no, you wouldn’t!’

  ‘Oh yes, I –’

  ‘Stop it!’ I cried. ‘Two voices arguing inside my head? It’s enough to drive a bear insane! Would someone be kind enough to explain what this is all about?’

  ‘Of course, my boy, so sorry!’ said Nightingale. ‘Where to begin … Well, to start with, the encyclopedia in your head functions as a direct receiver of my thoughts and a transmitter of your thoughts to me. Wireless telepathy, the business of the future! I didn’t want to make use of it except in a dire emergency. I mean, it’s a gross invasion of privacy, isn’t it? But this counts as an emergency, I suppose.’

  ‘Get lost, Nightingale! The youngster’s mine!’

  ‘Keep quiet, you! Listen, my boy, I’ve a confession to make. Zamonium didn’t come into being just like that. I … how shall I put it? I, er, invented the stuff.’

  ‘That’s right!’ crowed the Zamonium. ‘I can confirm that – for once.’

  ‘Zamonium really belongs under lock and key in the Chamber of Unperfected Patents, but … I’d better begin from the beginning …’

  ‘Get lost, Nightingale! Push off!’

  The Philosopher’s Stone

  ‘It’s every inventor’s dream to discover an element capable of thought. In the days when I embarked on my research, inventors and scientists were still called alchemists, and inventing an element capable of thought was known as creating the Philosopher’s Stone. That element, that stone, was supposed to deliver us from all evil and answer all unsolved questions on our behalf. What is the meaning of life? How do you turn lead into gold? How do you become immortal? How do you square the circle? How do you construct a perpetual motion machine? How do you install a fountain of youth? We expected Zamonium to answer all those unsolved questions for us.’

  ‘How wrong you were!’ crowed the Zamonium.

  ‘True, and the mistake was mine. I must first point out, however, that I constituted the Zamonium with the utmost care.

  ‘I began by salvaging the Protozamonium which Zoltan Zaan had thrown into the quicksands of Nairland, an operation for which I designed the quicksand hose. It didn’t take me long to locate the Protozamonium with the aid of that equipment and the friendly assistance of the Cogitating Quicksand. But then, as bad luck would have it, the quicksand hose broke down and … well, you know the story.’

  I remembered it. Mac the Reptilian Rescuer had rescued him in the nick of time.

  ‘Protozamonium really wasn’t very bright, but that was no reason to throw it into the quicksand. It could think, and that was a start.’

  ‘A good story,’ giggled the Zamonium. ‘I always enjoy hearing it myself.’

  ‘You only have to add the right ingredients. Well, I’m sure I’m not betraying any secrets when I say that gold dust was one of them. Alchemists considered it chic to add gold to everything in those days, even though it had no alchemical effect whatever. Things glittered a bit more, but that was all … Oh yes, and duck spittle – that was equally indispensable! Nobody talks about duck spittle nowadays, but then it was the thing!

  Vital ingredients

  ‘Increasing the power of thought was far more important. That I achieved with the aid of, among other things, molten Cogitating Quicksand from Nairland. I also infused a little of my own cerebral fluid, of course, together w
ith caffeine concentrate extracted from century-old coffee, nicotine from the umbels of the Phorinth flower, split mercury atoms, glucose, whitewash, snail slime from the time-snails found only on the edges of dimensional hiatuses, a grated violin string, formic acid, gum arabic, vitamin C, liquid amber, garlic, talcum powder, Gloomberg moss, glycerine, pure alcohol, Spanish fly, and frozen gas from the Graveyard Marshes of Dull.

  ‘Well, it was while I was adding the last ingredient that a will-o’-the-wisp fell into the mixture by accident, a graveyard moth that had recently been struck by lightning. That ruined the whole thing. Though close to perfection, the Zamonium was mentally deranged.’

  ‘Nonsense! That moth was just the ticket. It made me what I am: the most powerful element in the universe! You wanted a docile little stone that would do your housework for you. Instead, you created the new Lord of Creation!’

  ‘Be quiet, you pathetic element! The demented Zamonium kept trying to hypnotize me into building it a vehicle in which to conquer the world. It became too much for me in the end, so I threw it into the sea. I thought I’d finished it off. Obviously, I was mistaken.’

  ‘Are you through?’

  ‘With you? Far from it! I’ve only just begun.’

  ‘Huh, now you’re really scaring me! What do you propose to do? I possess the biggest ship in the world, a war machine manned by an army of submissive slaves. I can subjugate whole continents by will-power alone. What can you do to counter that?’

  ‘You seem to forget I invented you. You’re just a chain of atoms put together by me – a chain I can tear apart at any moment!’

  Nightingale’s tone was coldly disdainful.

  ‘Oh yeah! Then show me what you can do, Nightingale! Show me what your poor old brains are still capable of!’