After S. notices that only 15 sailors remain of the original 19, he climbs up the quarter deck to have a word with Maelstrom. After a while, Maelstrom acknowledges him and says, “Ye’ve got questions. ‘m I right?” S. asks, “How did you find me?” Maelstrom replies, “Y’swam righ’ up to us.” S., still unsatisfied, asks, “But why were you there? How did you know to be exactly there? For that matter, how is it that this ship still exists?”

S. doesn’t seem to be able to identify the force driving his fate. While he is certainly there for a reason (the circumstances are too bizarre to assume otherwise) he doesn’t have the slightest clue about what that might be. By trying to decipher it all he is essentially rejecting this fate and attempting to exhibit free will, but it seems that up until now his efforts have been ultimately fruitless.

In a pencil note, Eric suggests that the number of sailors on the ship (originally 19) could symbolize his 19 novels and that he could be referring to a kind of artistic morality In the first round of notes, Jen replies to this note with a suggestion that, possibly, the crew represents members of the S, not Straka’s books. She refers to this note in her second round of notes by writing, What if there were a lot more writers involved than we even know? What if the S was (is?) much bigger, and this ship just represented VMS’s wing of it?

Jen seems pretty intent on this matter, and we would not be surprised to see her research help uncover the truth behind the mysterious S organization.

During the first round of notes, Jen and Eric also touch on the Wechsler subject again:

Been thinking about the ch. 3 code + HW vanishing after dublin. Turns out an “H. Wechsler” entered the Netherlands (Rotterdam) in June 1940.

Which was during the occupation.

Exactly. So many people trying to get out, and he goes right in. No record of him leaving or dying there.

Is it possible that Wechsler could have been Straka?