On the Persistent Problem of the Pilgrim named Morgenstern

[Coliz]

Planet Baden Baden, Rastatt archipelago, Schmidt's house. November 30th, 835 AS

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The Trouble With Honest Lies

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Hermann’s house hung over the cliff with the quiet confidence of something that had already won an argument with gravity and saw no reason to revisit it.

Below, the sea struck black volcanic rock in slow, deliberate waves. Steam rose from distant vents, turning the islands into layered silhouettes, half land, half weather. The view was spectacular in the way people later described with excessive hand gestures and unnecessary adjectives.

The three men did not look at it.

They sat around the table as if they had arrived there by mistake and were waiting for someone to correct it. Plates had been served. Food had cooled. Glasses had been filled and then ignored, as though hydration were suddenly a matter of principle.

For a long moment, no one spoke.

“They think we’re liars,” Albert said finally.

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t even sound angry. He sounded confused, as if he had just been informed that gravity was optional and he had been doing things the hard way out of habit.

Hans stared at the table. “I know. I heard them. I just… didn’t expect it to hurt this much.”

Schmidt leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “They don’t think we’re hiding a crime,” he said. “They think we’re selling a story.”

Albert let out a short, humorless laugh. “That’s the part that’s killing me. Of all the things we’ve actually hidden.”

Hans shook his head slowly. “We lied,” he said. “Yes. Absolutely. Repeatedly. Professionally.” He looked up, eyes sharp. “But not about that. Not about von Tanner. Not about the ship.”

“No,” Hermann said quietly. “That part was real.”

The words hung there, heavy and awkward, like something that had never expected to be questioned.

Hans pushed his plate away. “We spent months sanitizing that story. Cutting out the parts that would get people killed. Filing down the edges so it could exist in public without setting off alarms.” His voice cracked, just slightly. “And now they think we invented it.”

Albert rubbed his face with both hands. “We finally had a version of the truth we could live with. Not the whole thing. Not the blood. But something that meant something.”

“And now,” Hans said, “it’s going to vanish under the label of fraud.”

Schmidt closed his eyes.

“That’s the beffa,” Albert went on, bitterness creeping in now. “The joke on top of the joke. We tell the truth—carefully, responsibly—and get punished for lying about it.”

Hans laughed once, sharp and brittle. “I would have preferred they accused us of murder. At least that would have been… honest.”

Schmidt opened his eyes. “Careful.”

“I mean it,” Hans insisted. “A crime can be hidden. A fraud gets erased. Declared void. Unworthy of discussion.” He gestured vaguely at the room, the planet, the absurd beauty outside. “They don’t prosecute frauds like this. They dismiss them.”

Albert stared into his glass. “They don’t just take the ship away,” he said. “They take the story. It becomes an embarrassment. Something no one wants to touch.”

“And von Tanner disappears again,” Hans said softly. “This time officially.”

The sea crashed below them, indifferent and impeccably timed.

Schmidt straightened. “We are not victims here,” he said. “Let’s be clear about that.”

“No,” Albert said. “But we are about to be punished for the wrong sin.”

Hans looked at him. “We lied so the truth could survive.”

“And now,” Albert replied, “the truth is going to be buried under the accusation of fiction.”

Silence again. Thicker this time.

“So,” Hans said eventually, “what do we do?”

Schmidt hesitated—then broke the silence properly.

“Listen to me,” he said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it had acquired that particular density it only took on when he had stopped thinking aloud and started deciding. “We’re framing this wrong. We keep talking about how to defend the story. That’s not the fight we’re in.”

Hans frowned. “Then what fight is it?”

“A cheaper one,” Schmidt said. “From their point of view.”

Albert shook his head. “They already think it’s cheap. A fraud. A fabrication that happens to be very well researched.”

“No,” Schmidt replied. “They think it’s economical. That’s different.”

He stood and walked toward the glass wall, looking out over the dark sea and the glowing scars of the islands below.

“A fraud has a logic,” he continued. “It has intent. It has efficiency. Someone builds it to work.” He paused. “The Morgenstern doesn’t work. It survives.”

Hans swallowed. “You’re saying—”

“I’m saying we stop helping,” Schmidt said. “Completely.”

Albert sat up straighter. “Helping how?”

“By explaining. By smoothing. By contextualizing.” Hermann turned back to them. “Every time we do that, we make it look designed. Curated. Like someone wanted it to look this way.”

Hans shook his head slowly. “But if we don’t explain—”

“—then the ship explains,” Hermann cut in. “Badly. Inconsistently. Expensively.”

Albert stared at him. “You want to let it be ugly.”

“Yes.”

“You want to let it contradict itself.”

“Yes.”

“You want to let them walk into spaces that make no sense and tell them we don’t know why.”

“Yes,” Schmidt said again, softer now. “Because no one committing fraud leaves this much unanswered. No one spends this much effort to gain nothing.”

Hans let out a quiet, bitter laugh. “You realize this means trusting a hundred-year-old wreck with our reputations.”

Schmidt nodded. “I trust it more than any explanation we could invent.”

Another pause—different from the earlier ones. Still heavy, but steadier now.

“So,” Albert said at last, “we go aboard tomorrow knowing they expect theater.”

“And we give them logistics,” Schmidt replied.

Hans straightened. “And if that still isn’t enough?”

Schmidt hesitated, just for a fraction of a second.

“Then at least,” he said, “we won’t be the ones who buried von Tanner a second time.”

They began clearing the table without comment, movements automatic, practiced. Outside, the lights along the islands dimmed as Baden Baden settled into its version of night—volcanic, humid, and entirely unconcerned with tomorrow.

When they finally stepped out onto the terrace, the Morgenstern was just a distant glimmer in the sky, barely visible against the stars.

Tomorrow, they would walk her decks with witnesses.

Tonight, all they could do was stand there, listening to the sea, and accept that whatever happened next would happen in full view—ugly, incomplete, and impossible to rehearse.

Hermann was the last to turn in.

“Get some rest,” he said. “We’re going to need it.”

And for once, no one argued.