Richard Russo

by Ship of Fools

  “Landing ships, supplies, all of that,” he went on. “We have people who can run the loaders and navigate the shuttles. But we’ll need access codes for the shuttles, ship’s stores, fuel allocation, launch coordinates . . .” He shook his head. “Too much we can’t do on our own.” He stopped and leaned against the charred tree trunk; a pair of violet-and-indigo butterflies rose from a scarred branch and fluttered away. Pär looked up at me. “We can’t do it without you.”

  “Why should I?”

  Pär stared at me. “Because it’s the right thing to do,” he finally said. “We all have rights, every person on this ship. Or we should. Downsiders have no rights. We should have the right to make this decision ourselves, to leave the ship or stay, as we choose. But we don’t.”

  “Why should I risk helping you?” I asked.

  He snorted then. “You mean, how would it be to your advantage?”

  “Something like that.” I didn’t like it put so crudely, but I couldn’t argue his point.

  Pär nodded; not in agreement, it seemed to me, but rather as if he’d expected as much.

  “Your captain is in trouble. If he goes down, you go down with him. And he is almost certainly going down, no matter what we find. This is your way out.”

  “How?”

  “You go with us.”

  “And if I don’t want to leave?”

  “Will you really want to stay when the captain has been deposed? The way everyone on the Planning Committee and Executive Council, in fact nearly everyone in the upper levels, despises you?”

  “Despises? Isn’t that a little harsh?”

  “Harsh?” And here Pär smiled. “Yes. But it’s accurate. You must know that. You’ll have no power, no influence, and my guess is that all access will be cut off, all authority canceled. You’ll be nothing.” He pushed off from the tree and walked away. “Think about it,” he said without turning back.

  I watched him walk deeper into the skeletal woods, watched my own breath form and dissipate over and over. Yes, I would think about his proposal. I had no choice.

  THE downsiders did all the scut work on the ship, just as Pär said. Although most of the ship’s systems were automated, and most of the machinery was self-maintaining and self-repairing, nothing was completely trouble-free, and much manual labor was needed to keep everything running. Cleaning, servicing, other kinds of maintenance. Also to run the manufacturing and fabrication equipment, the ag rooms, and countless other jobs. And more needed to be done each year as systems gradually faltered and broke down.

  Costino and his staff were in charge of production and schedules, coordinating all the downsider work crews. I’d never been interested in the details, but I knew that much of the labor was exhausting, and some of it dangerous. People were occasionally killed. But someone had to do it. I did not make judgments one way or the other.

  According to the ship’s history, as recorded by Toller and his predecessors, there had been periodic attempts by downsiders to change the way things were done. I had even heard vague stories of a massive revolt, called the Repudiation, associated with some kind of plague three or four centuries earlier. Such efforts had never been successful. I had been through one attempted insurrection myself, six years earlier. It did not last long.

  At that time, the downsiders began negotiations reasonably enough—they asked that all the work be shared equally by those on all levels. This request was of course refused. So the downsiders threatened to cease all work. In response, we (and I’m afraid I must include myself, whether or not I agreed with the actions taken; I was a part of the upper-level society, no matter how much of an outsider I was to most of them) simply cut off all the food and water conduits to the lower levels, secured the ag rooms so they could not get at our food, and shut down their recycling systems.

  They held out for six days. Arne Gronvold tried to restore all the lifelines for them, and when he was unsuccessful he tried to cut off all of ours. That, too, failed. When the insurrection was over, Arne was banished for life to the lower levels.

  So I understood why the downsiders would want to leave, and I understood why the upper levels would never agree. And Pär was asking me to risk sharing Arne Gronvold’s fate.

  He was asking too much.

  7

  AS we neared Antioch, the exploration party was formed. We numbered thirteen.

  I would go as the captain’s representative. Nikos had to stay with the ship—there was no question of that; he feared losing all authority if he were to leave, and I was the only one he trusted to provide him with an accurate report of what we would find.

  Besides me, there was a science team of three, and an armed military squad of six. A woman named Sari Mandapat was chosen to be the representative for the downsiders, and Andrew Thornton was selected to represent the upper levels after Michel Tournier backed out, claiming illness; Tournier’s real illness was fear. The ship’s crew would have no representative—they did not need one, nor did they care.

  Last, Father Veronica was to go as the Church’s representative. I did not know her well, but I had spoken with her on occasion, and had heard some of her sermons. I admired her. She was intelligent, and she was sincere. And she was a believer.

  The bishop, I was certain, did not believe. But the three priests did, and none more than Father Veronica. The strange thing, though, was that she was not a fanatic. I didn’t understand her.

  I understand hypocrites, like the bishop, and I understand fanatics, or at least I can more easily predict their behavior, which is much the same thing, as far as I am concerned. But I admit I did not know what to make of true believers like Father Veronica. Her belief, her faith, was both profound and real. Her faith disturbed me.

  I wanted to talk with her before we made landfall, so I went to the cathedral. When I entered, the cathedral was huge and empty and silent. The only light came from candles burning in clusters along both aisles flanking the main nave, and there were flickering shadows everywhere. I could barely make out the arched vaulting high above me. At the far end, behind the apse, was the enormous stained-glass window that formed a section of the outer hull. With only the darkness of space behind it, the window was lifeless and indistinct. I had never been able to make out the images in the glass, although I felt certain there was something more than abstraction in it.

  I’d never spent much time in the cathedral. I had attended a few sermons, services on holy days as required, the occasional wedding, funeral Masses, but at those times all I did was sit on a pew and struggle to stay awake. I registered little of my surroundings, and never paid them much attention. But that day, with the cathedral so empty, I was curious.

  I walked slowly along the right aisle. The vaulting, while still quite high, was lower than that looming above the central section of the cathedral. There was a series of stained-glass windows, each illuminated by some diffuse source embedded in the interior walls behind them. Between the windows were tiny alcoves; in each alcove was a kneeling pad and a cluster of candles. The candles, few of which were alight, were in small colored-glass containers, the flames glowing softly within them. The mood created was a strange combination of serenity and disquiet.

  I stopped and looked up at one astonishing stained-glass window. It depicted an enormous two-headed monster ripping itself out of the belly of a man, one of the heads in the process of devouring a child with its massive jaws and teeth. I was amazed at how detailed and gruesome it was. The monster’s body was that of a muscular scaled reptile with short, thick legs, taloned feet, and a long and powerful tail. The two heads had doglike features and blazing red eyes. Although the monster was ripping its way out of the man, it was more than twice the man’s size. The one head held the child in its teeth, and the other stared out and down—with the bright red eyes glowering at me, it looked disturbingly alive.

  I was still staring at the images, trying to make sense of them, when a voice broke my concentration.

  “Horrifying, isn’
t it?”

  Startled, I turned to see Father Veronica standing at the end of one of the pews. She was looking at me, then turned to gaze up at the stained-glass window.

  She was not what I would call a beautiful woman, but I would use the word “handsome.” Nearly as tall as I, with dark ash-brown hair that hung halfway down her back, she was wearing a black cassock with white collar, and her hands were hidden within the dark folds of material.

  “Yes,” I said. “What is it supposed to represent?”

  “I can give you the official Church version, or I can give you my own.”

  “How about both?”

  She smiled then, a smile that cut my breath short for a moment, and nodded. “All right.” She walked toward me and stood at my side, and we both looked up at the window.

  “If you were to ask the bishop,” she began, “or the other priests, they would tell you that the two-headed monster represents Satan, the Fallen Angel, cast out of Heaven for defying God. Satan, the manifestation of Evil, will do anything to work his way into the souls and hearts of men and women, only to destroy them from within, as represented by this picture, for no other reason than because we are God’s children, and this is Satan’s way of seeking his revenge upon God.”

  “And if I were to ask you?”

  She shrugged. “It is heresy, perhaps, but I do not believe in Satan as a real being, an external force or manifestation.” She held her hand out toward the images above us. “That monster is coming from within. I believe that creature is nothing more than the dark and terrible aspect of our own souls.” She paused, gazing steadily at the stained glass. “We all have the potential to be good, to do good, and that potential is nearly limitless.” She smiled gently. “That potential is rarely fulfilled, but most of us do well enough.” Then the smile was gone. “We also have a similar potential for evil, to deliberately do harm to ourselves and others. If we give in to that aspect of our souls, if we let evil rule our minds and our hearts, it will not only destroy us, as it is doing here, it will destroy the innocents around us as well—the child being devoured by the creature’s second head.”

  “You believe that potential is in all of us?” I asked.

  “For both good and evil, yes.”

  “Even in you?”

  She nodded. “Yes, even in me. I am no less human than you are.”

  We were silent for a while, and I continued to gaze at the stained glass. Father Veronica’s interpretation of the images resonated far more with me than did the Church’s. Eventually I turned to face her.

  “We’ll be making landfall together,” I said.

  “Yes, and I’m looking forward to it. So many years . . .” Her gaze became unfocused . . . or focused on something distant and unseen. “Open skies, a visible horizon in the distance, the sun or moons or clouds hanging above, maybe a wind blowing through the trees. Free-flowing water, rain pouring from the sky, the black night shattered by electrical discharges . . . I miss all that.”

  “You can experience rain or snow right here on the ship,” I told her. “In the gardens, in the ag fields.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not the same.”

  “No,” I agreed.

  “Of course, the last time we made landfall was something of a debacle. I never did completely understand what went wrong, though regrettably the bishop had something to do with it.”

  I was surprised she was so forthcoming about the role her superior played in that fiasco.

  “The language difficulties were part of the problem,” she continued. “So strange. We spoke the same language as those people, that was clear, and yet our individual versions of it had diverged so greatly over time that often it was like two different languages.” She paused, lost in her thoughts. “As I said, the bishop must bear some of the responsibility for the trouble.” She paused again, and I wondered if she now regretted admitting her feelings about the bishop. But she went on. “He does not seem to understand that you cannot force belief. You cannot create faith in others through force of will.”

  “We’re not likely to have a repeat of what happened there,” I said. “Not this time, anyway.”

  “No. From what I understand, it isn’t likely that we will find anyone, is it?”

  “I suppose not. No one alive.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “We are too isolated. For a few years at a time, it may be harmless. But we need contact with other people—people who do not live on the Argonos, people with different ways of life, different ideas, different ways of looking at the world.”

  “Different beliefs?”

  “Yes, different beliefs, too. But we don’t have contact with other people. We go far too many years without seeing anyone other than ourselves. In fact, I do not think it is a good thing that we spend our entire lives on this ship.”

  “Why not?” I was amazed at how open she was with me, and I wanted to encourage her to keep talking.

  “We stagnate, and we have no history.”

  “We create our own history.”

  “But we don’t, actually. Most people know little or nothing about what occurred on this ship before they were born. And what little they know has no context.”

  She may be right, I thought. It was something I would have to think about.

  “We might find people down there,” I said to her, trying for optimism. “To give us context.”

  But she just sighed. She put out her hand and I grasped it in mine.

  “It’s been good talking to you, Bartolomeo. I’m looking forward to making landfall with you, whatever we find.” With that she released my hand, turned, and walked away, quickly becoming lost in the shadows.

  SHE smelled of honey and cinnamon.

  8

  “THE transmission has changed,” Nikos said.

  He stood in the open doorway of my quarters holding a bottle of wine.

  “Then there is someone alive down there.”

  Nikos shrugged, then stepped into the first of my two rooms. “Share a bottle with me,” he said.

  “All right.” I stood up and got glasses; then we sat in the two chairs at my small table, bottle and glasses between us. Nikos looked awful. His skin was pale and drawn; the dark crescents under his eyes were deeper and seemed permanent. I could smell alcohol and knew he had already been drinking, but his hands were steady as he opened the bottle and poured a glass for each of us. The wine was dry and good, far better than what was usually available, even in the upper levels. The Costa-Malvini clan had a private vineyard downside, and their own personal master vintner.

  “I don’t know, Bartolomeo.” He glanced up at the overhead lights, squinting. “How about bringing them down a bit?”

  I dimmed the lights to half-normal, and he nodded his thanks.

  “I don’t know,” he said again. “It changed frequency, and the duration shortened, but the damn thing is now as steady and unvarying as it was before. I have a feeling the change doesn’t mean a thing.” He was staring into his glass, tipping it slightly from side to side. “We’ve been sending our own transmissions, everything Communications can think of, but we don’t get any response.” He slowly shook his head. “I don’t think anyone’s down there.”

  “Unless they’re scared,” I suggested. “Scared and hiding.”

  That seemed to pique his interest, and he looked up from his wine. “That’s a possibility. But if that’s true, why is there any transmission?”

  “Good question. Perhaps it’s meant as a warning. Or . . . perhaps no one knows about the transmission.” There was a third possibility, which had just occurred to me, but I was reluctant to bring it up. I hesitated, then said, “It could be bait.”

  “Bait.”

  “To lure a ship like ours into some kind of trap.”

  Nikos stared long and hard at me, then drank the rest of his wine and refilled his glass. He turned his face to the dimmed light globes above us. “Traps,” he said.
“Traps everywhere.” I wondered if he was thinking about the bishop, and about what trap the bishop might be laying for him.

  He stood up, a little unsteady now, and took his glass with him as he wandered about the room, drinking, looking at everything but me. I gradually became unnerved, but I couldn’t figure out just why.

  “We’ve known each other a lot of years,” Nikos said.

  “Yes. Since I can remember, really.” When we were children, he befriended me when no one else would. Something I would never forget.

  He finally turned to me. “I don’t know what to hope for down there,” he said. “It’s all or nothing now—I can feel it—and too damn much can go wrong.”

  “You said you have a plan to deal with the bishop. Tell me what it is, Nikos. Let me help you.”

  “I can’t, Bartolomeo. Not yet.” He returned to the table and sat, his eyes locked on mine. “I’m counting on you, Bartolomeo. Whatever happens down there, I’m counting on you to tell me what is really going on, what is really there, to make the right decisions, to give me the best advice.” He drained his glass again, refilled it and refilled mine. “I’m counting on you.”

  PÄR found me in the cathedral the day before we went into orbit around Antioch. We had no meeting scheduled; in fact, we hadn’t spoken in several days. I was in the cathedral hoping to find Father Veronica alone, hoping to speak with her again before we made landfall. But there was no one there. I sat on one of the pews to wait; Pär’s approach was so quiet, I was startled when he slid in beside me. More disturbing was that he knew where to look for me—I had never been known to frequent that place.

  “We’ll be there soon,” he said.

  I nodded. “Tomorrow.”

  “Have you thought about what I asked you?”

  “Yes, I’ve thought about it.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. I’m still thinking about it.”

  “Bartolomeo, Bartolomeo . . .” Then he coughed out a kind of laugh. “You’re on the landfall team.”