Even on his antiquated maps, Geneva was clearly marked as being a long way from the sea. Not from water, but from the sea. All in all, it would be foolish to risk trying to reach him there. Vanderdecker pressed the little lever, but no change came cascading down into the tray marked Returned Coins. There would be nothing for it, he said to himself, but to put out to sea for a while until the good professor came back.
For above the seven thousandth time, Vanderdecker assured himself that the alchemist would be as keen to see him as he was to see the alchemist. If Montalban was even remotely concerned with the same field of research as he had been in the reign of His Most Catholic Majesty Philip II, it stood to reason that he would welcome a chance to examine his very first human guinea pigs. His reading of scientific journals had taught him a lot about the way scientists think. They like to have plenty of data. Vanderdecker had a ship full of data; noisome, foul-smelling data, it was true, but…
At this point, a thought entered into Vanderdecker’s mind. During the short time it stayed there, it made its presence felt in more or less the same way a hand grenade would assert itself in a glassworks.
If Montalban had drunk exactly the same stuff as he had, presumably Montalban had been subject to exactly the same side-effects. Yet here the alchemist apparently was, spending a week here, a fortnight there, completely surrounded by human beings. It was by no means unlikely that he had gone to Geneva in an aeroplane, and that while there he would stay in a hotel. If he was able to do these things, it necessarily followed that he didn’t smell. How was this?
In Caithness, many of the postmen still ride bicycles. If without any warning they get downwind of a member of the crew of the sailing ship
While he had been away, the crew had passed the time by going for a swim in the sea. Complete immersion in seawater did nothing to impede the communication of the smell, but it did make you feel better. Now the water around Dounreay has been declared completely safe by NIREX, which may be taken to mean that it’s about as safe as a gavotte in a minefield; but from the point of view of Vanderdecker’s crew, this was a point in its favour. They could bathe in it with a clean conscience if it was polluted already.
By some strange accident of chance, it was Antonius, the first mate, who noticed it first; and this in spite of the fact that the odds against Antonius noticing anything at any given time are so astronomical as to be beyond calculation. The next person to notice it was Sebastian van Dooming. He only noticed it because after his ninth attempt to drown himself he was so short of breath that he was inhaling air like a vacuum-pump. Then Pieter and Dirk Pretorius noticed it, and they pointed it out to Jan Christian Duysberg. He in turn mentioned it to Wilhelm Triegaart, who told him that he was imagining things. In short, by the time Vanderdecker returned, everyone was aware of it. They all decided to tell their captain at the same time.
“Hold on, will you?” Vanderdecker said. There was a brief but total silence, and then everyone started talking again.
“Quiet!” A man who has just spent five minutes talking into a British Telecom payphone is not afraid to raise his voice. “Sebastian,” he said, choosing someone at random, “can you please tell me what’s going on?”
“It’s the smell, captain,” replied the spokesman. “It’s gone.”
Vanderdecker stared. Then he sniffed so violently that he almost dislocated his windpipe.
“When did this happen?” he asked quietly.
“Must have been when we were all swimming in the water, captain,” Sebastian said.
“You don’t say.” Vanderdecker closed his eyes, buried his nose in Antonius’s doublet and concentrated. There was still a whiff of it there, but it was very faint. “This water here?”
“That’s right,” several voices assured him. Others urged him to try it for himself. They didn’t want to be rude, they said, but he smelt awful.
Vanderdecker needed no second invitation. He pulled off his shirt and trousers and jumped into the sea.
“I do believe you’re right,” he said, a quarter of an hour later. They were back on board ship again by this stage. The ship itself was as bad as ever, but what could you expect? “It’s definitely still there, but it’s faded a hell of a lot.”
“What d’you think’s happened?” asked the first mate anxiously. “What’s going on?”
