“Okay, we’ve got a problem,” I said, turning back to the Rover only to find Dr. Wirthlass standing in the doorway-holding a pistol and smiling.
“Ballocks,” I muttered, which was about as succinct as I could be, given the sudden change of circumstance.
“Ballocks indeed,” replied Dr. Wirthlass. “We’ve waited over fifteen years for this moment.”
“Before now I’d always thought patience was a virtue,” I murmured, “not the secret weapon of the vengeful.”
She shook her head and smiled again. “You’re exactly how he described you. An ardent moralist, a Goody Two-shoes, pathologically eager to do what’s best and what’s right.” She looked around at the ship, which heeled in the swell. “So this place is particularly apt-and the perfect place for you to spend the rest of your pitifully short life.”
“What do you want?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. With you trapped here, we have everything I want. We’ll be off to the Hesperus now, Ms. Next-to find that recipe.”
“You know about the unscrambled eggs?” I asked, shocked at the sudden turn of events.
“We’re Goliath,” she said simply, “and information is power. With the End of Time due tomorrow evening, it will be something of a challenge, but listen: I like a challenge, and I have the knowledge of your defeat to freshen my mind and make the task that much more enjoyable.”
“You’ll never find it,” I said. “Longfellow is at the other end of the BookWorld, and Poetry is the place you’ll discover-”
I checked myself. I wasn’t helping these people, no matter how acute the perils.
“Discover what?” asked Wirthlass with a frown.
“Never mind.”
“We’ll be fine,” she replied. “We just needed your expertise to make the initial jump. We’re not quite so stupid as you think.”
I couldn’t believe that I’d been hoodwinked by Goliath again. I had to hand it to them-this plan had been hatched and executed beautifully.
“How long have you known about the recipe?”
“That’s just the weirdest thing of it.” Dr. Wirthlass smiled. “On the one hand, only a day, but on the other…over fifteen years.”
“Retrospective investment,” I whispered, suddenly understanding. In their desperation, the ChronoGuard was breaking every single rule they’d ever made.
“Right! The Star Chamber lost confidence in your son’s ability to secure the future, so they called Lavoisier out of retirement to see if there weren’t other avenues to explore. He approached John Henry yesterday at breakfast time to ask him if the long-abandoned Book Project could be brought up to speed. Since it couldn’t, Lavoisier suggested that they restart the project fifteen years ago so it could be ready for the End of Time tomorrow evening. John Henry agreed with certain conditions, and I must say we only just made it.”
“This is something of a mindf**k,” I replied, with no possibility of understatement. “What does Goliath get out of it?”
“How do you think we survived being taken over by the Toast Marketing Board? Two days ago Goliath was just a bad memory, with John Henry in debtors’ prison and me working for International Pencils. When you have friends in the time industry, anything is possible. The ChronoGuard will be willing to offer us almost untold patronage for the recipe to unscramble eggs and, with it, the secret to travel in time. And in return? A corporation allowed to speculate freely in time. Finally we will be able to bring our ‘big plan’ to fruition.”
“And that plan is…?”
“To own…everything.”
“In a world with a Short Now?”
“Of course! With a compliant population only interested in the self and instant gratification, we can flog all manner of worthless crap as the ‘latest thing to have.’ There’ll be big profits, Next-and by subtly choosing from whom the Now is mined, the Long Now Überclass can sit back and enjoy the benefits that will be theirs and theirs alone.”
I stared at Wirthlass, wondering if I could rush her. It seemed doubtful, since I was at least ten feet away, and the two technicians still on board the Rover also looked as if they had weapons.
“Okay,” said the doctor, “we’re all about done here. Enjoy your imprisonment. You’ll know what it was like for my husband. Two years in “The Raven,” Next-two years. He still has nightmares, even today.”
“You’re Jack Schitt’s wife?”
She smiled again. “Now you’re getting it. My full name is Dr. Anne Wirthlass-Schitt, but if you’d known, it might have been a bit of a giveaway, hmm? Bye-bye now.”
The door swung shut, the bell rang twice, there was a low hiss and the Austen Rover lifted off. They hovered for a moment and then slowly rotated, expertly missed the crane derrick, rose above the height of the funnel and then became long and drawn out like a piece of elastic before vanishing with a faint pop. I was left standing on the deck, biting my lip in frustration and anger. I took a deep breath and calmed myself. The reality book show of The Bennets wasn’t due to start until tomorrow morning, so there was always hope. I looked around. The steamer rolled gently in the swell, the smoke drifted across the stern past the fluttering red ensign, and the beat of the engine echoed up through the steel deck. I knew I wasn’t in Dark and Stormy Night, because the ship wasn’t a rusty old tub held together by paint, but I was certainly somewhere, and somewhere was better than nowhere. It was only when I arrived there and was out of ideas, time and essential metabolic functions that I was going to give up.
I trotted up the companionway, ducked into the galley and made my way up the ladder to the bridge, where a boy not much older than Friday was holding the ship’s wheel.
“Who’s in command?” I asked, a bit breathless.
“Why, you, of course,” replied the lad.
“I’m not.”
“Then why are you a-wearin’ the cap?”
I put up my hands to check, and strangely enough, I was wearing the captain’s cap. I took it off and stared at it stupidly.
“What book is this?”
“No book I knows of, Cap’n. What be your orders?”
I looked out of the wheel house ahead but could see nothing except a gray sea meeting a gray sky. The light was soft and directionless, and for the first time I felt a shiver of dread. Something about this place was undeniably creepy, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I went to the navigation desk and looked at the chart. There was nothing on it but the pale blueness of open ocean, and a cursory look in the drawers of the desk told me that every chart was the same. What ever this place was, this was all there was of it. I had to assume I was somewhere in the Maritime genre, but a quick glance at my mobilefootnoterphone and the absence of any signal told me that I was several thousand volumes beyond our repeater station in the Hornblower series, and if that was the case, I was right on the periphery of the genre-as good as lost. I tapped my finger on the desk and thought hard. Panic was the mind killer, and I still had several hours to figure this out. If I was no further on in ten hours’ time-then I could panic.
“What are your orders, Cap’n?” asked the lad at the wheel again.
“What’s your name?”
“Baldwin.”
“I’m Thursday. Thursday Next.”
“Good to know you, Cap’n Next.”