The 13.5 Lives of Captain Bluebear

by Walter Moers

  B-BOOM!

  I had just broken the sound barrier. My speed continued to increase at an incredible rate. The air pressure was beginning to tear off tufts of my fur.

  B-BOOM!

  Another report rang out, just as loud.

  And a voice beside me said, ‘Hey, Bluebear!’

  It was Qwerty and his carpet. He had evidently recovered from his Carefree Catalepsy and turned back.

  ‘I’ll come alongside,’ he called. ‘Then grab me and hang on tight! Getting back is the problem. We’ll have to do a half-loop if we don’t want to fall into the dimensional hiatus.’

  He brought the carpet alongside. I got on behind him and hung on tight.

  ‘We’ll make it!’ I shouted.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ he replied. ‘I’ve never done a half-loop before.’

  He bent forward and tugged at the edge of the carpet like a bareback rider hauling on the mane of a wild horse. The carpet reared, described a graceful arc, and shot off in the opposite direction. Below us, the Moloch went thundering into the depths of the universe, presumably at the speed of light.

  ‘You see,’ I said. ‘We made it.’

  We flew south to where Atlantis used to be. This, I surmised, was where the Reptilian Rescuers had gone.

  Qwerty was only moderately surprised by the amazing coincidence that had befallen us, but creatures that have just emerged from dimensional hiatuses are hard to impress on principle.

  Qwerty’s story

  I gave him a brief summary of recent events. Then he told me his own story.

  He really had landed in his own dimension after I pushed him into the dimensional hiatus and out of the Gloomberg Mountains, but at a time just preceding his own coronation. Consequently, there were now two Qwerty Uiops in the 2364th Dimension. This led to an absurd situation in which Qwerty had witnessed his own coronation from the crowd. He had previously fetched his autobiographical carpet, rolled it up, and brought it with him. When he saw me suddenly appear at the coronation and push his second self into the dimensional hiatus, he tried to hurry to my assistance and fell into it again behind me. He managed while falling to unroll his carpet and sit on it. So now a second Qwerty Uiop was tumbling through the dimensional tunnel.

  All that remained of Atlantis was a big, circular lagoon, a crater many miles deep that had since filled up with seawater. (Some would later claim that this marked the beginning of Zamonia’s descent below the waves – that the Invisibles’ removal of Atlantis had pulled the plug on Zamonia, so to speak – but legends tend to oversimplify matters.)

  Mac came fluttering excitedly towards us. The Troglotroll had jumped off his back and disappeared into a clump of trees just after he landed. He was outraged by the creature’s vile behaviour and found the whole incident most embarrassing.

  The other Reptilian Rescuers had already landed beside the lagoon. Most of the Moloch’s former slaves had dived into its waters to wash off the stench, the soot, the oil, and every last memory of the iron ship.

  It was an exuberant occasion. Washing wasn’t customary on the Moloch, and many of the ex-slaves had seen no water – except from the deck – throughout their time on board. The Yetis and Wolpertingers were now indulging in childish water fights. I, too, took a dip and immersed myself several times. Then Mac whistled us to supper. The dinosaurs had procured fresh fruit and vegetables from the countryside around – the first decent meal many of the Moloch’s crew had enjoyed for years. Tired and hungry, we came ashore.

  I noticed, when some of the black bears from the Infurno emerged from the lagoon before me, that they had undergone a surprising change. Their fur was black no longer; it had simply been discoloured by the mingled soot and oil of which big streaks were now floating on the surface of the water. The first bear to wade out ahead of me had rust-red fur like a wild horse from Ireland. The one beside him was a glowing orange. A moss-green bear emerged from the lagoon with a blonde she-bear at his heels. Bears of every colour – yellow, green, red – were drying their fur in the sun on the shores of the lagoon. There were even a few blue ones among them.

  From the

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

  by Professor Abdullah Nightingale

  Chromobear, The. Zamonian variety of the terrestrial, thick-furred omnivores [Ursidae], powerful mammals up to six feet tall and endowed with the power of speech. Peculiar to the chromobear is its individual coloration. Each has coloured fur, but none is quite the same shade. Many chromobears are red, for example, but each displays its own variation of that colour: brick red, copper, vermilion, scarlet, mahogany, poppy, purple, carmine, bronze, pink, ruby, or flamingo red.

  There are shades of yellow ranging from lemon to egg yolk and deep orange. A distinction may be drawn between straw-coloured, warm yellow, cobalt yellow, cadmium yellow, pale blond, peroxide blond, auburn, honey-coloured, banana yellow, butter yellow, gold, amber, sulphur yellow, corn-coloured, raw sienna, flaxen, canary yellow, quince yellow, Norselander yellow, lemon-grass yellow, Venetian yellow, pale yellow, dark yellow, and – of course – plain yellow.

  The fur of green chromobears ranges in colour from emerald and olive to jade, mignonette, and spinach green. Chromobears may also be yellowish green, blue green, moss green, pine-needle green, grass green, seaweed green, sea green, bottle green, mildew green, grey green, arsenical green, palm-leaf green, pea green, ivy green, and several thousand other shades of green.

  Blue chromobears probably display the greatest number of shades: indigo, azure, sapphire blue, cyanine, cobalt, ultramarine, royal blue, pale blue, cerulean blue, submarine blue, billow blue, ice blue, violet, forget-me-not blue, cornflower blue, gentian blue, lavender blue, turquoise, steel blue, plum, dove blue, midnight blue, alga blue, eye blue, blueberry blue, marine blue, china blue, blue-black, and manganese blue.

  This brings us to the mixed colours. There are, of course, countless combinations of the above colours which themselves produce new hybrid shades: violet, mauve, heliotrope, lilac, mallow, amethyst, Parma violet, cinnamon, chocolate, minium, chrome orange, salmon, apricot, Florinthian copper, pale lilac, ivory, pearl white, smoke grey, cinnabar, and grey brown. Chromobear fur exists in jewel colours: aquamarine, cyanite, gold beryl, citrine, euclase, chrysoberyl, chrysolite, demantoid, dioptase, moldavite, lapis lazuli, topaz, zircon, axinite, hyacinth, titanite, spinel, azurite, malachite, coral, carnelian, and meerschaum. Finally, there are colours that exist only in Zamonia: neoline, cyromian, zamonite, elf white, goblin yellow, zant, opalite, ghoul green, chromolinth, pherm, voltigork, melphine, harbazinth, and Nightingale black. When mixed with traditional pigments, these produce so-called Zamonian duocolours such as neolite green, neolite yellow, neolite red, cyromian blue, opalite green, pherm yellow, voltigork red, and, of course their hybrid intermediate shades. Chromobears can thus be absolutely any colour. Their sudden extinction – or complete disappearance from Zamonia, whichever – remains a mystery. Although thousands of them formerly inhabited the →Great Forest, they vanished overnight.

  A festive banquet ensued.

  Meanwhile, most of the Moloch’s former slaves were getting their memory back. The chromobears among them recalled how their parents had told them that their ancestors used to live in the Great Forest many years ago.

  There they had led a peaceful life devoted mainly to bee-keeping. At some stage, however, the peace of the forest was disturbed. It was invaded by a gigantic spider whose unpleasant predatory habits drove the bears out. They retreated to the outskirts of the forest, gave up keeping bees, and took up fishing instead. The land-dwelling bears became seabears. They soon learned how to construct ships of wood, weave nets, and get their food from the sea. Then the Zamonium turned up in the Moloch and enslaved them.

  Some of the bluebears remembered a young bluebear couple, an ultramarine male and an indigo female, who had thrown their new-born cub over the side to preserve it from a living death aboard the Mo
loch. There is no proof of this, of course, but they may have been my parents, who possibly sacrificed their own lives for the sake of my freedom.

  That, at least, would explain my curious obsession with the Moloch: I had probably been born on board that monstrous vessel. Only the Zamonium could have supplied precise information on the subject, but it was currently being digested in the intestines of a cloud of darkness.

  Many tears were shed that night – tears of joy and sorrow. Some of the Moloch’s slaves cursed the Zamonium for having robbed them of so much of their lives. Others boisterously celebrated their new-found freedom. The Reptilian Rescuers stood around, rather at a loss because they found emotional outbursts embarrassing.

  We swapped experiences until the small hours. I described my deadly race with the Spiderwitch, which prompted some of the chromobears to consider returning to the Great Forest. I also told of the Invisibles, of events beneath Atlantis and the city’s ascent into space. Fortunately, Mac could confirm my account.

  It was very late when we all fell into a deep sleep under the watchful gaze of the Reptilian Rescuers.

  Back to the Great Forest

  In the morning, I and a number of bears decided to return to the Great Forest. The Spiderwitch being dead, we planned to fill the forest with life again.

  Others proposed to set off in all directions, and quite a few resolved to settle down beside the lagoon and found a new city there.

  Knio and Weeny were keen to make for Baysville and take ship from there. They wanted to get to know other continents – ‘to broaden our horizons,’ as Weeny phrased it. Qwerty decided to join us in the forest for the time being. He had spent so long in a dimensional hiatus that he wanted to take a breather and work on his autobiographical carpet before falling down another.

  The Reptilian Rescuers preferred to transport our Great Forest party across the continent themselves rather than be compelled to save us if we got into another fix.

  We crossed Zamonia in a westerly direction via the gap in the Humongous Mountains, which were Bollogg-free once more, and flew over the Demerara Desert. There, from Mac’s back, I espied Tornado City whirling along and made out a group of very, very tiny figures on the move: my old friends the Muggs.

  We neared our destination a couple of days later. The huge peaks of the Gloomberg Mountains came into view in the distance, and within a few hours we had landed on the edge of the Great Forest. Mac said goodbye without fuss as usual, probably convinced that he would soon have to extricate me from some new predicament or other. Having urged me yet again to adopt a vegetarian diet, he took off. His glasses were so misted up, he nearly flew into a tree.

  WE SET TO work to make the forest habitable again, felling trees, creating sizeable clearings, building log cabins.

  We imported some deer and squirrels, for what is a forest without squirrels and deer? We also swept up leaves – masses of leaves. Under my instructions, the cobwebs were removed with the aid of plenty of water. We even found the dead Spiderwitch and burnt it together with its traps. The smoke gave us hallucinations for days aferwards.

  I gradually got to know the other bears. There were several thousand of them, so this took some time. In the process I made the acquaintance of some bears who may or may not have been the brothers and sisters of my late parents and, consequently, my uncles and aunts.

  At first we lived in communal buildings of a temporary nature, but as time went by most bear couples built their own little log cabins. Personally, I preferred communal life. After all, what use was a cabin to a lone bear like me?

  We erected a small school in which I taught Zamonian dialects, apiculture, Grailsundian demonology, Nightingalism, higher mathematics, and thirty other subjects. Qwerty Uiop also took a teaching post there. In addition to dimensionology, his special field of study, he taught carpet-weaving, biology, Zamonian geography, and philosophy. Whenever he wasn’t teaching he liked to climb aboard his carpet and cruise over the forest in solitary state, dreaming of the 2364th Dimension.

  One day I had the idea of writing down the Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs. Unfortunately, my memories of it proved very patchy. I thumped my brow with the flat of my forepaws, tried to recall all kinds of subjects, and cursed Professor Nightingale, but nothing happened. ‘What’s missing,’ I thought to myself, ‘are some instructions on how to use the confounded reference book.’

  Instructions for use

  At that moment there was a crackle of electricity between my ears and some writing flared up in my mind’s eye:

  How to use the

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

  1. Ensure that the encyclopedia is correctly plugged into your synapses.

  2. Should general problems of recall arise [illegibility, mirror-image print, etc.], this may be attributable to circulatory disturbances in your brain. If so, kindly consult your general practitioner.

  3. If, instead of information from the encyclopedia, you receive instructions from another dimension, signals from outer space, or the voice of your late lamented grandfather, consult a doctor at once.

  4. To access an article in the ‘Marvels’ section, kindly grasp your right ear lobe with your left hand and spell out the requisite headword, loudly and correctly.

  5. To access an article in the ‘Life Forms’ section, grasp your left ear lobe with your right hand and spell out the requisite headword.

  6. To access an article in the ‘Phenomena’ section, cross your hands, grasp both ear lobes, and spell out the requisite headword in reverse.

  7. In the event of malfunctions or unpleasant side effects, kindly contact Professor Abdullah Nightingale, c/o The Nocturnal Academy, Gloomberg Mountains, West Zamonia.

  So there were some instructions – I had simply neglected to ask for them!

  I devoted nearly all my time in the next few months to writing down my mental encyclopedia. Then I made my pupils copy it out too, and it became compulsory reading at the chromobears’ school.

  I often undertook solitary excursions into the forest to survey it and identify its flora. During these walks I also pondered the constitution I proposed to draft for the chromobear colony. Certain things simply had to be legally laid down, for instance an outright ban on spiders in the Great Forest, the erection of danger signs beside dimensional hiatuses, and a fair division of labour where leaf clearance, bee-keeping and log cabin maintenance were concerned.

  I revisit the forest glade

  On one of my walks I came to the spot where my adventure with the Spiderwitch had begun. The clearing was still there, and I shuddered at the recollection although the scene was bathed in warm evening sunlight, just as it had been then. I suddenly thought of something I’d been trying to formulate for ages: the first article of our new constitution: ‘All chromobears are created unequal,’ it ran. ‘They can be yellow and red, green and blue, violet, zamonite and opalite …’

  At that moment I heard a delightful voice humming a tune that sounded familiar – yes, and I knew the voice as well. Seated in the tall grass of the clearing was one of the young she-bears who roamed the woods in search of mushrooms and wild honey. I had never seen her before, yet I knew her better than any other member of the chromobear community.

  She looked exactly like the girl in my dream.

  What’s more, she was reading Professor Abdullah Nightingale’s Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs.

  Avriel

  I shall draw a veil over the rest. The half-life I spent in the Great Forest with the chromobears and the girl bear – whose name, by the way, was Avriel – is something I prefer to keep to myself. Suffice it to say that I built a log cabin for Avriel and me just like the one in my dream. Avriel planted a little flower and vegetable garden, and we dug a little fish pond and installed a beehive. I also made sure there were always a few fresh dumplings on the kitchen sto
ve in a sauce I reconstituted from memory. It may have been a trifle superstitious of me, but I felt sure fortune would continue to smile on us for as long as our saucepan contained a few dumplings.

  Traders from all over Zamonia came to the Great Forest to barter with us. Some of them settled down and formed small village communities. One group of chromobears founded a colony outside the forest, right beside the sea. There they devoted themselves to fishing and boat-building.

  The Great Forest soon resumed its status as one of Zamonia’s leading tourist attractions. It was popular on account of its romantic country inns, which were frequented by the creatures of the forest and run by chromobears who cooked like a dream. At the school, in addition to my regular classes, I gave cookery lessons in which I passed on the tips I’d acquired from Nabab Yeo. No hotel menu was complete without my ‘Pizza Sandwich à la Bluebear’.

  The honey trade

  Visitors also enjoyed visiting the bee farms, where they could buy the most delicious honey in the world. The Great Forest yielded vast quantities of honey because no insects had ventured into it for so long that the flowers were brimming with the finest nectar. No more industrious or amiable bees could be found anywhere in Zamonia. ‘Avriel’s Vintage’ was one of the most popular brands, closely followed by ‘Spider Goo’, a blended honey particularly favoured by children because of its rather spooky name.

  One evening, Avriel and I went walking on the edge of the forest near the sea, where the Moloch had long ago put in to enslave the chromobears.

  Although an icy breeze was blowing, the sea was calm and the sky so cloudless that one could look deep into space. Glittering out there was a star that differed from all the rest. It was not only new; it turned up in a different place every night, which meant it was in motion. But it didn’t move in a straight line like a comet or some other familiar celestial body; it seemed to be steering a zigzag course. The star sparkled with every imaginable colour, like a big city at night. It was Atlantis, soaring through space!