Full Vessels (12 page)

Hess studied his plate. “You're spending a
lot of time with San.”

“I'm still keeping my promise from Iteration
five. What is your plan to escape the island?”

“We're stealing a steamship.”

“Sounds promising.”

Hess sighed. “It's low on coal. I'm not sure
if it will be able to get up to operating temperature, let alone
make it out of harbor.”

“And you can't get more coal?”

“There's an island-wide shortage. What's left
is under guard. We could get it, but transporting it to the ship
unnoticed would be a challenge. We're using wood as our fuel.”

Elza turned to him. “You should make rocket
candy. This island has a saltpeter factory and the kitchen seems to
have plenty of sugar on hand. Be careful not to add too much at a
time. Excessive heat will make your boiler explode. And even if you
avoid that problem, you still have to worry about your firebox
melting. Speaking of fireboxes, copper or steel?”

“Cast iron,” Hess said.

“What gauge?”

“Thick.”

“Hmm. Should work. I'll let you know if I
think of anything else.”

“Thanks.” Hess looked down at his empty
plate. “She's going to think I like the food if I go back for
seconds.”

“If you must have something to complain
about, try the dark drink.”

He returned from filling his plate and
grabbing a drink just as San began her formal presentation. “Feel
free to keep eating while I talk. The food is in no way related to
anything I'm about to say, by the way. I worked quite hard on this
meal. My speech, on the other hand, is unlikely to impress.”

San rubbed her hands together. “My
contribution to the discussion is boredom. I have been bored since
the first world. Some of you seem content to live the same day
through eternity, but I can't do it. I yearn for novelty or,
lacking that, oblivion.

“I suspect that the Creator is as bored as
me. Maybe that's the reason to make universes. You do your
creation-thing, then you stop existing until your Observers come
back, then you get to ponder over the new data for a millisecond or
two. Rinse and repeat. Sounds boring to me, but then again,
everything
sounds boring to me.

“That's it, the grand total of my reflections
on existence. To riff off of Greg's presentation, there should be
more diversity.” San turned and presented her palm to him. “High
five?”

Greg folded his arms. “Just two minutes?”

“In my defense, I spent twelve hours
preparing this meal. So I put in more time than anyone, just in a
different way. Enjoy the food.”

Another world. Another thousand years or so
watching people do the things people do. This latest world seemed
to be all islands. A shame, as he'd never cared for sea food.

At least he was a man this time. He hadn't
been the rugged sex since the first world. Iteration two was a fine
world to be a woman, but three had treated anyone lacking a penis
as a frail blossom in need of constant protection. San didn't do
delicate very well. He liked to go where he pleased and do his job
without interference from the quaint notions of the people.

Maybe one of these worlds would do some
interesting role reversals. He would like to see women lording it
over men for once. Of course, that was hardly a stable social
order. Men were, on average, larger, stronger, and more aggressive.
So far the Creator had not deviated in matters of basic biology
between worlds, but he could still hope.

San settled into life on one of the larger
islands, watching the people do the usual song and dance. They ate
and shat and procreated and accumulated possessions and gossiped
incessantly. Little things changed, but the core of human life
never did. People were depressingly simple subjects. They hardly
merited eleven Observers. Maybe Natalia has the right idea studying
animals. Of course, if you listen to Griff, Natalia beds down with
the beasts she studies.

But San could not believe his purpose was
anything other than the study of people. Which meant that he spent
several years in Iteration four cataloging the myriad details of
life on an island. The locals obsessed over fish, eating it with
every meal. Indeed, their word for meal meant fish. They ate big
fish cooked whole so that their scales had to be flaked off between
bites. They ate little fish grilled over coals. They ate sea
creatures with shells. They ate water snakes. They ate insects
found beneath the water. They ate gelatinous sea animals. And for
side dishes of vegetables or grains, they used garum as their
primary seasoning.

Garum: fermented fish guts. As in the organs
removed from a freshly killed fish and placed into a barrel with
salt to rot, whereupon the potent, thick liquid was placed in jars
to be relished by deranged villagers.

Garum: a substance capable of spoiling a bowl
of grilled squash with just a drop. An unpalatable addition to
every dish the people made. The only condiment provided in public
eateries. The secret ingredient in every specialty dish ever
offered to him by one of the locals.

Garum: the bane of San's existence.

He had endured horrible foods before. The
tubers used as a famine food in Iteration three had been one – the
unpleasantness of their blandness exceeded only by their horrible
mushy texture. Another had been the bitter plants used as a
medicinal supplement in Iteration two and consumed every spring by
entire villages. The meat of the bobcat his tribe had killed in
Iteration one. Each time he had dutifully chewed and swallowed the
offered fare to avoid attracting any undesired attention.

Not in this world. Not with garum. The
substance offended him on every level. He hated the thought that
the stuff came from rotten offal. He despised the taste of it. He
objected to its undeserved popularity.

As a consequence of his unique opinion, San
made most of his own food. He avoided the street vendors popular
among the people of this Iteration and ate a monotonous diet of
grains, vegetables, fruits, and birds – until the day he realized
that he had become a recluse.

A ten-day without human interaction sparked
this realization. Gardening, hunting, preserving, and cooking were
all time-consuming activities, which placed them in conflict with
his mission. So San took action. He abandoned his hut, moved into
town, got a job heaving nets on a boat, and committed to partaking
in local customs.

His first meal was breakfast on the street.
He dutifully bought a bowl of egg-white soup that reeked of garum.
By slurping quickly, he minimized the horror of the experience.

His second meal was a light lunch provided on
the ship. It consisted of flat bread, pickled fish, and a small
sweet onion. He forced it down with a hearty dose of self-pity.

His third meal was a buffet inside a
pay-to-enter food tent. With an almost perverse pleasure, San
consumed an array of disgusting food choices. Smoked fish. Crabs.
Squid. Bitter greens. Raw egg-yolk over fried insects. Every
garum-laden bite affirmed his low opinion of the local food.

The following day, he broke his fast with raw
porpoise blubber. After the standard fare of his ship-lunch, he
dined that night on offal pie. Inside the shell of the pie was a
wild menagerie of undesirable leftover fish organs: liver, tongue,
skin, bladder, heart, and roe. Plus garum. Lots of garum. San
emptied his stomach after his first bite.

Day after day, San sought out the most
horrific culinary disasters. He grew inured to the sense of
disgust. After his first month, he had gained a reputation among
the people as someone with an iron stomach and a defective tongue.
He continued his meal-time adventures partly in perversely ironic
protest of their food traditions, but also because – more and more
as time passed – he enjoyed the intensity of his reactions.

Over several thousand years of life, he had
learned what he liked and disliked. The inevitable consequence had
been that his diet in previous Iterations had consisted largely of
figs, almonds, grains, and land animals. Foods, even his favorites,
had become bland. In the midst of his current disgust, he had
discovered an odd pleasure in novelty.

One day, several months after his change in
diet, he found himself at a buffet lacking any suitably
entertaining options. San contemplated the open table for several
minutes, despairing at the thought of eating food that no longer
excited him in some way. Then he resolved to remedy the
situation.

San dipped fried finger-fish into a bowl of
garum to intensify their flavor. When that failed to provide the
desired reaction, he began to concoct a more provocative
combination. He used an edible flatfish scale plate as the base,
placed bitter greens on top, then added pickled beets, onions, and
a ridiculous amount of garum.

San eyed his hideous creation with pride. It
should be simultaneously too fishy, too salty, too sour, too
bitter, and horribly textured. In short, he had designed the most
revolting food item he had ever encountered. San took several
moments to appreciate what he had done – and also to steel his
stomach for the upcoming ordeal.

He folded the fish scale over on itself and
took a bite. Scales crunched, juices squirted, beets smooshed. A
riot of intense flavors struck him. San chewed, swallowed, licked
garum from his lips, and studied the thing in his hands. It was
every bit as powerful as he had imagined. But it was
not
unpleasant.

San took another bite and chewed
thoughtfully. It wasn't unpleasant at all. Another bite. It was
actually quite good. Excellent, even. He swallowed the last of his
invention and returned to the buffet table. The next one he made
had more of everything, but especially more garum. This food called
for lots and lots of garum.

When the meal concluded, Jerome tapped the
side of his glass with a fork. “This shared meal makes a convenient
segue to what I want to talk about.” He paused before continuing.
“A long time ago, during the first Iteration, I decided that I
would fulfill my purpose best by remaining unknown to the rest of
you.

“I based that decision upon what I witnessed
among the tribes. The people did horrible things to one another,
had such vicious vendettas. I witnessed a woman jealous that her
child died while another's lived convince an entire tribe that her
nemesis was cheating on her man. The end result was another dead
child. Such spite seemed endemic, so I resolved to hide myself.

“By the time I thought to question my
reasoning, it was too late. The eleven of you were a cohesive
group. Showing up at that point, no matter how much I might wish
to, would have been awkward at best. I resolved to live with the
consequences of my decision, and that is what I did.

“Until Iteration one forty three. While
conducting research on what I believed to be fascinating world
leaders from history, I discovered rumors that the unusual couple
had survived gruesome assassination attempts in miraculous fashion.
You can imagine my initial horror at the idea that Observers had
conquered over half the known world.

“Then I learned that after their
disappearance, the remains of several palace guards were discovered
– each bearing the signs of horrific, yet undeniably creative,
deaths. By this point, I suspected something untoward had happened.
I broke my cover to contact Ingrid by letter, posing as San. The
response indicated that the guilty party would be entombed in
darkness until the sky opened. So I immediately opened the sky.

“One forty four had the internet. I watched
the online forums as Elza sent out message after increasingly
frantic message. When no response came, I went to find Hess in
person. He was working in a gas station, broken. I moved closer to
watch over him.

“And then the unthinkable happened. Hess
became newsworthy. Knowing that Ingrid was out of circulation in a
backwater nation, I posed as her and reached out to the other
Observers, some of whom were already on their way. I made
arrangements for everyone to meet on my property, hoping that Hess
would come to his senses and flee while I delayed the manhunt.

“He did not. Instead, he walked right into
the inept trap set for him. I freed him. He came back the next day
to surrender himself. Unable to resolve the situation, I opened the
sky once more after revealing myself to Hess and Elza.

“The greatest irony in all of this was how
much I enjoyed being part of the team. Even faking another's
identity every moment, even while sabotaging the goals of the
group. I loved interacting with my own kind. It was the community
denied to me my entire existence.

“During one forty five, I was tasked with
conducting the vote. In the process, I joined a team to liberate
Ingrid and Erik, an experience that I unhesitatingly rank as the
most meaningful of my life. After, Hess chaperoned me on my
travels.

“The great lesson of my life is that no one
can exist in a vacuum. Human connection is the most important thing
any of us can ever have. We need community. And I regret with all
my heart that I waited so long to join mine.”

“Fuck you,
Twelve
. You're not welcome
in my community.”

“Hey,” Griff said, “you realize none of us
actually like each other, right?”

“I have no illusions. Every encounter seems
to fizzle out due to lack of interest. I sincerely doubt you could
understand the value of what you have without having experienced
its absence as I did.”

Drake chortled a bitter laugh. “What do you
think you got now that you didn't before? Not friends. None of us
much care for you, Jerome. Guess you could say the same about any
of the rest of us, but at least we got history. You crashed this
party.”