The 13.5 Lives of Captain Bluebear

by Walter Moers

Something almost indescribable happened to my own brain as Nightingale and the Zamonium pitted themselves against each other right inside my head. From the crackling and flashing between my ears, my brain might have been plugged into a high-tension cable. The pain was unbearable.

  Phonzotar Huxo must have experienced a similar sensation when he stuck his head through the wall of the tornado – the feeling a rope must get at the spot where it almost snaps during a tug-of-war.

  ‘Stop it!’ I yelled.

  The pain eased at once, the crackling ceased.

  ‘Sorry, my boy, I completely forgot about you. Hm, this isn’t working, I must think of something else. Grin and bear it, my son. I, er … I must put on my thinking caps for a while, that’s all. Don’t give up hope!’

  Then Nightingale’s voice disappeared.

  ‘That’s what happens to anyone who dares to take me on!’ shouted the Zamonium. ‘Goodbye and good riddance, Nightingale!’ Then, to me: ‘That’s the last you’ll hear of him!’

  It was more than probable. This wasn’t the first time Nightingale had abandoned me in a dangerous situation.

  Thereafter the Zamonium left me in peace, at least. It gave up trying to bend me to its will for fear, no doubt, of another confrontation with Nightingale. However simple it might be to hypnotize a Yeti or a shellfish, the same could not be said of someone who carried the Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms, and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs in his head. To that extent, I owed Professor Nightingale a debt of gratitude.

  The Zamonium ordered the Yetis to place me under arrest. It needed to think, it said.

  A superfluous piece of information, somehow. What else could it do?

  A reunion

  There was no more shovelling coal. I was taken to one of the ship’s prison wings, a passage lined with single cells occupied by those who had resisted the Zamonium. The inmates numbered precisely four, counting me. One of them was a Wolpertinger named Nalla Hotep, who had an iron plate in his head that shielded him from the Zamonium’s telepathic commands.

  The others were Knio and Weeny.

  Thoughts bounced off Knio’s thick skull as a matter of course, and they didn’t progress far through Weeny’s brain because they promptly fell into the Sea of Oblivion. The pair of them were as proof against the Zamonium as I myself.

  We talked across the passage through the feeding-flaps in our cell doors.

  ‘Volzotan Smyke held us responsible for your escape,’ said Weeny.

  ‘Thanks a lot, Bluebear.’

  ‘If I could get out of here,’ Knio amplified, ‘I’d wring your neck!’ ‘What does Smyke have to do with the Moloch?’

  ‘It’s one of his numerous business connections. The Zamonium maintains agents like Smyke on every continent. They keep the Moloch supplied with slaves. You’d be surprised how many of our shipmates are former congladiators.’ Weeny gave a silly laugh.

  I informed them that Smyke and all the other inhabitants of Atlantis were on their way to the Planet of the Invisibles and gave them as graphic a description of the airborne city as I could.

  Weeny clapped his little hands. ‘Great story, Bluebear. Ten points on the applause meter. Pity we aren’t in the Megathon any more.’

  They didn’t believe me – the story of my lives.

  I noticed a bunch of keys hanging on the wall of the passage.

  ‘We thought of that too,’ said Weeny, who had intercepted my glance. ‘Forget it. Where would you go if you did get out of your cell? It makes no odds where we’re imprisoned, inside or outside. At least the air’s not bad in here, and we don’t have to shovel any coal.’

  ‘I’ll think of something. I could sneak up on the Zamonium and throw it into the sea.’

  ‘The ship’s swarming with Yetis. You wouldn’t get two yards.’

  Another reunion

  A key rattled in the lock of the passage door. The door opened, and the Troglotroll ambled in. He strolled along the passage, rapping each cell door in turn with his knuckles.

  ‘Don’t be deceived by my vague resemblance to a Troglotroll,’ he said casually. ‘I’m really a prison warder.’

  ‘Lord Olgort!’ cried Knio. ‘My old pal!’

  ‘Give me those keys,’ I said. ‘You owe me one.’

  The Troglotroll stared at me in surprise. He levelled a finger at the bunch of keys.

  ‘You mean that bunch of keys there? That necklacelike collection of metallic unlocking devices? Why should I do that?’

  ‘So I don’t knock your block off if I ever get out of here.’

  ‘I doubt it – not that you wouldn’t be capable of cold-bloodedly sending me to kingdom come, I mean. No, I simply doubt you’ll ever get out again.’

  He gave my door an experimental tap.

  ‘Hm. Three layers of solid Zamonian cast iron alloyed with brass to guard against corrosion. Four-tongued high security lock vapour-blasted with platinum. It’s impregnable.’

  ‘Let us out and we’ll call it quits. You can do the right thing, you proved that with the Sewer Dragon. Or are you under the Zamonium’s influence?’

  ‘No. It made a brief attempt to insinuate itself into my brain, but I don’t think it liked what it found there. Since then it’s left me in peace. I can roam the Moloch as I please, ak-ak-ak!’

  The Troglotroll sauntered up and down the passage.

  ‘Just think. What would I gain from letting you out? A broken neck?’

  ‘I won’t touch you, I promise.’

  ‘Anyone can make a promise. I do it all the time, and do I keep my word? Of course not.’

  The Troglotroll removed the bunch of keys from its hook.

  ‘But let’s run through the procedure, purely in theory … Just suppose I took this collection of Zamonian unlocking gadgets from the wall …’

  He ambled over to my cell.

  ‘And suppose – purely hypothetically, mind you! – I inserted one of these steel escape aids in the lock …’

  He inserted the key in the lock.

  ‘And finally – to repeat, this is a purely conjectural speculation! – suppose I turned the key …’

  He turned the key, and – click! – released the lock.

  ‘But no,’ the Troglotroll exclaimed, turning the key – click! – in the opposite direction. ‘That would be aiding and abetting mutiny! I’m sure the penalties prescribed for such a crime on board this ship are draconian.’

  The cell door was locked again. Even Knio and Weeny groaned at this display of malevolence.

  The Troglotroll continued to theorize. ‘Alternatively, I could throw the bunch of keys out of this porthole.’

  He dangled the keys out of a porthole.

  ‘You’d simply rot away in here. You wouldn’t believe how many forgotten prison wings there are in this ship – and how many skeletons are still imprisoned in their cells.’

  The Troglotroll shuddered visibly.

  ‘No! No!’ chorused Knio and Weeny. ‘Don’t do it!’

  ‘On the other hand …’ The Troglotroll put a finger to his brow and pondered awhile. ‘What do the Moloch’s regulations matter to me? I’m a Troglotroll. As such, I’ve a duty to break regulations.’

  He came over and unlocked my door again. Leaving the key in the lock, he walked to the door at the end of the passage.

  ‘Yes, us Troglotrolls are simply like that – different from other people!’

  And he slunk out.

  Still somewhat disconcerted, I pushed my cell door open, then took the keys and released Knio, Weeny, and the Wolpertinger.

  ‘Let’s go and throw the Zamonium into the sea,’ I suggested. ‘Then we’ll take over the ship. I know all about navigation.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said the Wolpertinger.

  ‘Agreed,’ said Knio and Weeny. Nobody contradicted a Wolpertinger, not even a Barbaric Hog.

  I was still sufficiently soot-stained to pass for an Infurno stoker, and Nalla the Wolpertinger looked like a member of the security staff. K
nio and Weeny grabbed a couple of buckets and brooms and disguised themselves as a fatigue party. Thus equipped, we trekked through the bowels of the Moloch in search of the Zamonium. I did, after all, know the approximate location of its command centre.

  It was only on the way there that I grasped the vessel’s true size. The Moloch was a regular iron metropolis with its own urban districts, streets, and means of transportation.

  The crew travelled by rickshaw and steam-driven truck. They even used tethered balloons to get from deck to deck. Many districts were spick and span and humming with life, others completely ruined and deserted.

  We wandered for hours through a derelict section of the ship inhabited exclusively by yellow jellyfish mutations that appeared to live on a diet of rust. We even passed one of the prisons of which the Troglotroll had told us. There, bleached Yeti skeletons mouldering behind rusty bars rattled in time to the engines. We walked on quickly.

  Another deck was undergoing redevelopment. Hundreds of oil-stained Yetis were constructing new furnaces. An additional Infurno was evidently in the making. Wolpertingers were patrolling everywhere, but none of them thought to check on us. We passed shipyards where captured vessels were being sawn up and dismembered. Blazing in the gloom were huge blast furnaces in which the iron from a whole freighter was being melted down – just enough metal from which to cast one spare blade for the Moloch’s propeller. An army of Wolpertingers was hammering a red-hot bow plate into shape in time to the beat of drums. Little Midgard Serpents were hauling carts laden with scrap metal along the passages, barrels of oil being loaded on to ramps, walls torn down and rebuilt, layers of rust removed, stairways painted, ropes spliced, decks scrubbed, and portholes burnished. Everyone aboard the Moloch had a job, even if it only entailed supervising the activities of others.

  At last we came to the door that led to the passage in which the Zamonium’s cabin lay.

  We conferred briefly. The cabin door would be guarded by three Yetis, I knew, but the Wolpertinger thought he could handle them with ease. Besides, Knio could lend him some active assistance, a prospect that caused him to grunt with delight.

  Knio and Weeny went on ahead to distract the Yetis while the Wolpertinger and I followed.

  We waited a moment, then Weeny looked back round the door. ‘No sign of any Yetis,’ he said.

  It was true: the door of the Zamonium’s cabin was not only unguarded but ajar.

  ‘Pity,’ said Knio.

  Weeny peered inside.

  ‘Nothing there but a lump of muck in a glass case,’ he reported.

  We stole into the holy of holies. Since the Zamonium had ceased to worry about the four of us, or so it seemed, there was little to prevent us from overpowering the demented stone with ease. The only remaining problem was how to get it up on deck. It would be bound to alert the whole ship as soon as it realized what was afoot, but that was a risk we had to take.

  Very cautiously, I tiptoed over to the glass case. Simply grab it and run, that was the plan. The Wolpertinger would run ahead to quell any opposition while I followed with the Zamonium and Knio and Weeny covered our rear.

  I took hold of the glass bell jar and drew a deep breath.

  Just then, something fastened on my neck and gave it a painful squeeze. It was the Wolpertinger’s huge paw.

  ‘Good work, Nalla Hotep,’ said the Zamonium in my head.

  The Wolpertinger emitted a respectful grunt.

  ‘I’ve been thinking it over,’ said the Zamonium, when the cabin had filled up with grinning Yetis, ‘and I’ve decided to submit you to a test. Could you serve me loyally without being under my direct control? That’s the question, and that’s why I staged this little charade with the friendly assistance of Nalla Hotep and the Troglotroll.’

  The Troglotroll came in.

  ‘Don’t let your eyes deceive you!’ he said. ‘At first glance I may look like a common Troglotroll, but I’m really an out-and-out traitor, ak-ak-ak!’

  ‘No, you could never be loyal subjects of mine,’ the Zamonium went on. ‘On the contrary, you’d stab me in the back at the first opportunity. Lucky I don’t possess one. A back, I mean.’

  The Yetis laughed mechanically. The Zamonium had probably given them a telepathic order for collective laughter, because they sounded very unamused and didn’t know when to stop.

  ‘That’s enough!’ hissed the Zamonium. The Yetis stopped laughing. ‘That alone would be enough to earn you the supreme penalty: a dip with the sharks.’

  Knio bared his teeth at me. ‘What did I tell you?’ he said to the others. ‘This fool of a bluebear’s nothing but trouble.’

  ‘But …’

  We pricked up our ears.

  ‘Buuuuuuuut … In my infinite kindness, which defies comparison with traditional ideas of clemency, I’ve decided to give you one last chance.’

  Who could object to that?

  ‘I’d like to know how good Nightingale’s education really is, so here’s a proposition for you: if you answer seven – seven! – of my questions you can go free. We’ll give you a little boat and release you.’

  Knio and Weeny gazed at me hopefully.

  ‘If the bluebear fails to answer my questions, you’ll be thrown to the sharks. With musical accompaniment.’

  What choice did I have? Besides, the odds could have been worse. Not only was I no fool; I was a graduate of the Nocturnal Academy and carried the encyclopedia in my head. I couldn’t conceive of a question I would be unable to answer.

  ‘It’s a deal,’ I said.

  Seven questions

  ‘Very well. First question, subject Nightingalism: What is a Gloomberg Cloud?’

  Aha, I used to know that. Never mind: Encyclopedia, please! Encyclopedia?

  Encyclopedia?!

  No answer.

  No answer at this of all moments, but let’s be honest: when had it ever answered at the crucial moment?

  It seemed I would have to take the matter in hand myself. After all, I’d learnt it all once upon a time. Let’s see if I could still remember it:

  ‘A Gloomberg Cloud is generated by the hydrospectrographic concentration of cosmic darkness from outlying areas of the universe in which there are no constellations. Measuring 89,688,999,453,345,784,002.347 nightingales on the inside and 45,367,205,778,659,010.644 nightingales on the periphery, it is the most powerful form of energy in the known universe and can be controlled only by the correct use of a Nightingalator.’

  Phew! Only just made it.

  ‘Hmm … Not bad, discounting that nonsense about the most powerful form of energy in the universe. That’s me, understand? Second question, subject Zamonian philosophy: What is Bluddumite Yobbism?’

  Encyclopedia?

  Encyclopedia? Bluddumite Yobbism, please?

  Still nothing. I recalled that Fredda and Qwerty had argued about this branch of philosophy, but it was a long time ago.

  ‘Er … It’s a school of philosophy which assumes that no single object implies the existence of any other if viewed with due insensibility. The founder of Bluddumite Yobbism was Professor Yobbo G. Yobb, whose maxim “I ignore you, so ignore me in return” not only constitutes the title of his magnum opus but has rapidly consigned him to oblivion.

  ‘While delivering a lecture on Yobbism at the Cultural Museum in Atlantis, the professor deliberately jostled some members of his audience and was clubbed to death by an infuriated Bluddum.’

  Wow! Quite a feat without the encyclopedia.

  ‘Well, well, not bad … Third question, subject Zamonian poetry: How does The Ballad of the Mountain Maggot go?’

  That was a trick question, but simple nonetheless. The Zamonium was counting on my having been inattentive in class, like any Zamonian schoolboy, when this boring poem cropped up. He didn’t know that I had personally trekked through the Gloombergs with the Mountain Maggot and been compelled to listen to the encyclopedia reciting the poem again and again. I would know it by heart till the day I died.


  Give way it must, that iron wall,

  and let me through it climb.

  I cannot stop to eat it all,

  I never have the time.

  I bore holes with my fiery breath,

  digest the iron with ease

  and chew it with my stainless teeth

  as if it were but cheese.

  I shall skip seventy-four verses rather than alienate the handful of readers who have stayed with me this far, but for the Zamonium’s benefit I recited the whole poem perfectly, down to the last quatrain:

  The wall of metal melts, and there

  a hole comes into sight.

  I feel a gentle breath of air

  and through the gap streams light.

  ‘Rather monotonously delivered,’ the Zamonium said sternly, ‘but faultless otherwise. Next question, subject Grailsundian demonology: What are Nether Zamonian Diabolic Elves, and how many would fit on a pinhead?’

  Not bad. That had for centuries been Grailsundian demonology’s pivotal question – the raison d’être of that intellectual discipline, in fact. For one thing, the very existence of Diabolic Elves was disputed. For another, they were so infinitely small that, even if they did exist, they defied computation.

  Or so the Zamonium thought when it asked me that question. What it did not know (so it certainly didn’t know everything) was that Qwerty Uiop and I had debated the matter at length in our spare time at the Nocturnal Academy. One of Nightingale’s so-called unperfected patents was the Diabolic Elf microscope, so we borrowed it for use in our demonological field research. The surprising result of our investigations was that Diabolic Elves did indeed exist, almost everywhere and in astronomical numbers. They occupied every crevice in the Gloomberg Mountains, proliferated in Fredda’s hair, and were particularly fond of populating pinheads. Thanks to the microscope’s complex arrangement of lenses, we were able to study their living habits and make a trailblazing discovery, namely, that they … But that’s irrelevant here.

  We eventually took the trouble to count how many there were on a pinhead. This was anything but easy because they kept milling around, but Qwerty worked out a computational formula based on their physical density and the number of square micromillimetres covered by a pinhead.