The 2084 Precept (63 page)

I put on my swimming shorts and went down to
the rocks and into the sea. Life was good, Céline was slowly moving
further and further into the nebulous depths of the painful memory
compartment; and as I floated up and down on the gentle
Mediterranean waves, I lazily began to consider which of the
blinking red lights I might attempt to activate, a holiday in one
of Mallorca's élite hotels was bait of the finest quality. But not
just yet of course. I had a lot of work to do first, I had to find
out whether there were any solutions to the problems of Naviera
Pujol, and I had to do it—as always—fast. Therefore, a few more
days of celibacy were called for, keep the priorities right.

I had dinner on the hotel terrace, a
pleasant piece of fish and a pleasant half-bottle of dry white.
There were some great-looking women at some of the tables but no
single ones as far as I could see, only the ones who live their
luxury lives on the monetary backs of their male counterparts. I
don't blame them, the men supply the money and they supply…well,
they supply something else. A fair barter, nobody forced into
anything. Just as well in any case, my energies needed to remain
focused on the shipping world for the time being.

I was at the coffee, cognac and cigarette
stage when Jeremy's phone rang.

"Peter," he said, "how are you, how is life
treating you?"

"Hello there yourself, Jeremy," I replied.
"Hard work, you know how it is."

"Yes, I have no doubt. You presumably heard
the news about the asteroid?"

"No."

"Well, needless to say, it hit as planned. A
sizeable one, it made another big dent in Mars' surface."

"I don't know where you get the knowledge
about these events, Jeremy. I have to say that you have my full
admiration. You must be making yourself pretty famous in our
scientific circles, would be my guess."

"Yes…well…same as before, Peter. The event
was not pre-ordained. We made it happen and my colleagues really
enjoyed themselves this time."

"They did?" I asked, although I wasn't
particularly interested in the delusion's details.

"Yes, they did. Apart from calculating the
usual things, such as how many meters diameter, the space-time
algorithms to get the timing right, the trajectory, the
computations to preclude total pre-impact disintegration, and all
the rest of it, they had to take care not to damage any of your
property. And this involved them in some very interesting
mathematical intricacies."

"Our property?"

"Yes. Apart from the many defunct mechanisms
you have lying around up there—you failed to mention in our meeting
that you are already polluting
other
planets
with
your junk—you currently have five functioning Mars spacecraft,
three in orbit and two on the surface."

"We do?"

"Yes, and of course we needed to avoid them
if it were possible to do so. And it
was
possible. My guys
really enjoyed it. No unnecessary damage caused."

I didn't know what to say and so I didn't
say anything. But I had to marvel at his inexhaustible capacity for
detailed back-up, this obsession with his entangled and complex
fantasy world. I wouldn't bother to check up on our spacecraft. I
am sure he was talking fact, he would have checked it all out
himself.

"Anyway, you will no doubt read about it
tomorrow," he said. "But the main point is, a summit conference is
confirmed for Wednesday in Geneva. I have agreed to attend and I
will be providing them with some assistance regarding certain
investigations in the biological field which they would do well to
undertake. And you will be pleased to learn that your presence is
not required, Peter, I can handle it on my own."

"Biological investigations?"

"Yes. Many of your scientists have completed
a significant amount of research during the past few decades into
the causes of human aggressiveness, and an extensive number of
lengthy theses have been produced, including ones with titles such
as 'Eliminating the Causes of War'. But most of these specialists
have now virtually given up. There has been nothing even
approaching a conclusion, I'm afraid, which is not surprising given
the rudimentary levels of biology scholarship on your planet, and
your unfortunate inability to agree with each other on anything in
any case. I intend to give it a big push forward, but of course
they will have to pursue it themselves. That is to say, they will
have to
agree
to pursue it; and it will need funding, and I
would really like to see them do that."

"Can you explain to me something about this
connection between human aggressiveness and biology, Jeremy?"

"I can, Peter, but I don't have the time
right now. Perhaps on our next call, let's say after the meeting on
Wednesday."

"O.K., Jeremy, then thank you for calling.
And good luck on Wednesday."

"Well, we'll see what happens on Wednesday.
They still don't believe me. The prime minister told me that they
want to meet 'my bosses', they want to see a bunch of aliens, more
proof is what they're after. But they won't get that. They can't
even envisage why 'proof' in a physical form is not possible
anyway. And in any case, Peter, as I told your prime minister, they
should totally forget about whether there are any aliens or not.
Your species will find out soon enough what will happen to it if it
doesn't take steps to change itself. You will not, believe me, be
allowed to continue being as you are and doing what you are doing
until such time as you eventually discover how to make your way out
into the universe."

"Yes, so you indicated previously."

"And I told them that this meeting in Geneva
would be my first and also my last attendance. After that, they—or
I should say you, since you are one of them—will be on your
own."

"What about our interviews?" I asked.

"I should learn about the subjects for those
within the next few days," he replied. "In the meantime, the good
news for you is that unless the Geneva meeting is abruptly
cancelled, I shall be transferring the remaining extra €300,000 we
agreed upon to your account on Thursday morning. Without your
cooperation up front, this meeting would not be taking place and,
as you say, a deal is a deal."

I went back upstairs, sank into my balcony
chair and smoked a cigarette. I was an extremely happy and relaxed
member of my species. All of that money for doing next to nothing!
And a whole lot more after a few more interviews!

And the interviews were definitively going
to be the end of my involvement. Whatever happened to Jeremy,
whatever happened to his fantasy world and whatever the politicians
decided to do or decided not to do, all of that would be of no
interest to me whatsoever. My near-term future would consist
entirely of the Naviera in Palma, Clark's in Slough, Monika and Mr.
Brown in Okriftel, and whichever available blinking red light
turned out to be the most exciting. Or erotic. Or even romantic,
why not?

I got up at six o'clock and was down in the
port by seven thirty. The captain of the
Mahon Star
was
sitting in the bar opposite the entrance to the docks, as Pedro had
told me he would be. He was drinking a
carejillo
and reading
the newspaper, as Pedro had also told me he would be.

I introduced myself. Yes, he said, Pedro had
told him I would be wanting a chat with him. His name was Agustín
and he was from Galicia. He was of medium height, I guess around
fifty years of age, not much hair left but very strongly built, he
had arms as thick as my thighs and could probably murder people
such as myself any time he felt like doing it and with very little
effort. But he was not of the kind who would feel like doing it. He
gave me the impression of being a placid and companionable sort of
fellow, one of those gentle and tranquil giants.

The daytime was a quiet time for him while
the ship was being unloaded and then re-loaded with the return
freight. He also slept in his cabin for a couple of hours during
the afternoon, he said, to add to the few hours' sleep he got
during the night with one of his crew on the watch. I had only one
question for him, and that was: did he have any problems and/or did
he have any suggestions for improvement? Oh yes, he said straight
away. He was a captain who would put to sea in any weather, there
weren't too many like him in ships of this size and tonnage; but he
wouldn't do it with the top deck container fixtures in the state
they were in on his ship. What needs doing, I asked. The fixtures
themselves are rusted through and need replacing and some
professional welding is required, he said. The cost would be over
€100,000. But cheap at the price, he continued, just think of the
revenues from the additional sailings. And that is what I did, but
not for long, there was no need for a cost/benefit analysis on this
one. So why haven't we fixed it, I asked. No money, he said.

I thanked him, paid for his brandy-laced
coffee, purchased my IHT at the kiosk on the corner, and headed for
the office. I said good morning to Pedro who was recording the
unloading operation and contacting the various customers and
haulage firms, and to three other staff members who were already at
work. I poured myself a coffee and read the paper for a few
minutes.

The Mars story was front-page news, and two
or three related articles were churning out facts and hypotheses
such as what kind of asteroid risk existed for the planet Earth. On
another tack, there had been 422 conflict fatalities yesterday, a
disastrous day including for eight U.N. soldiers who had been blown
up defending their countries' interests. Or what their birdbrain
bosses had defined as their countries' interests. Their
elected
birdbrains, let us not forget, elected in order to
implement the electorate's wishes, haha. And who, if required to
personally
participate in the implementation of their
decisions, might possibly have defined their countries' interests
in a slightly different way. No, not possibly. Nor probably.
Definitely.

The remainder of the staff was in by nine
o'clock except for María del Carmen who arrived at twenty past, and
Alfonso who ambled in at twenty to ten. Not good at all. This has
to be prevented, I'll have words with both of them later on in the
day.

At ten o'clock Sr. Pujol arrived and
closeted himself with Alfonso in his office.

María came into my office and handed me more
of the information I had requested on my list. I thanked her for
the fast work and told her that, starting today, I would like to
receive each day's supplier invoices and that nothing, absolutely
nothing, was to be processed for payment unless the invoice had my
approval signature on it. This was to apply even if I was ill for a
few days or away on business in Barcelona; everything would simply
have to wait until I got back. Unless there was something of
unavoidable urgency, in which case my approval could be obtained by
telephone and I would sign retroactively upon my return.

May I ask you, Sr. O'Donoghue, she said, why
you wish to involve yourself in such detailed administrative work?
Yes, I said, this is the best and easiest way for me to learn in
detail about
all
of the company's costs and within a very
short timeframe, just a few few months. I can only do it in
companies with low invoice volumes such as this one, and it only
takes me between five and ten minutes each day, so I will not be
causing any undesirable delays. And of course, María, if there
happen to be any unnecessary or overpriced costs, I shall be
eliminating them. But perhaps there aren't any, I said with my own
home-made version of a reptilian grin, and she scuttled off back to
the outer office, an unhappy lady, somebody was introducing some
controls here.

I flipped through her documentation and
studied the details of two of the very large cost items. The ships'
fuel was of course one of them. But I was puzzled about the large
up and down swings in the fuel consumption from month to month.
What could be the cause of that? No idea. The second item was the
dockworker costs. Between Barcelona and Palma we were paying twenty
nine dockworkers every day, six days a week. And a quick piece of
mental arithmetic told me that this must represent over €1 million
per year, and a check with last year's P&L number confirmed
this number. Crazily overstaffed dock operations, now what to do
about that? I had no idea on that one either.

Shortly before twelve, Sr. Pujol came into
my office and sat down.

"I have fired Sr. Orfila," he said. "He has
already left the premises and taken his personal possessions with
him."

I looked at him, said nothing.

"I do not tolerate theft in any form," he
said.

I kept looking at him and I kept saying
nothing. But I was thinking. I was thinking, shit, the guy with all
the knowledge of this industry was no longer there, and that was
going to cause me a lot of headaches.

"And I have taken the decision to ask you if
you would care to take over his position as general manager and
ship-owner's representative. For a period of twelve months
initially."

Well, well, well. Life's ocean is back to
its habit of tossing you up high when it wants to, very high on
this occasion, onto the crests of some pretty risky and mountainous
waves, no doubt about it. And my neurons needed a few seconds to
react, to chew things over. But only a few seconds, because the
only thing I needed to do was make sure it would pay me handsomely.
A simple psychological ploy might do the trick.

"I am grateful, Sr. Pujol," I said, "and
honored by your offer. But I regret that I cannot accept it. It's
not possible."

"May I ask why?" he said.

"Of course you may. There are two reasons
mainly. The first is that I have neither the knowledge nor the
experience to be able to take on the responsibility of running a
shipping company. And the second one is that I am already
performing a difficult, full-time consultancy assignment for you.
If I find out how to turn this company around, I will have to stay
on and do it. And that will not be easy. It will involve a lot of
blood, sweat and tears. And it is extremely urgent as well; you are
bleeding a lot of cash every single day."