Richard Russo - Ship of Fools

“You know why not.”

“That’s no answer. What are you people afraid of?”

“Just drop it,” I told him.

Pär stared at me with that ancient wrinkled face, his expression hard, and I was afraid he was going to push it. Then his face sagged and he slowly shook his head.

We talked some time longer, but about nothing else of import. I stayed long enough for another cup of coffee and a glass of his homemade distilled liquor. He called it whiskey, but it was far less successful than his coffee.

As I was leaving, Pär said, “Things will be changing. Think about that. You and I can work together. We can be of use to one another.”

I didn’t want to encourage him, however, so I left without giving him a response. I did not trust him. But then I did not trust anyone, not even the captain.

BISHOPSoldano always managed to make major announcements on holy days. On that Holy Thursday, his voice booming from speakers mounted throughout the cathedral, he announced to an almost full congregation what most people already knew—that a signal had been detected. What was surprising, however, was that the bishop had given the planet a name.

“If there are people on this planet who have already christened their world,” the bishop began, “then it shall be called by the name they have given it. If, however, they have not given it a name, or if there are no people there, it shall be called Antioch, after one of the great, early centers of Christian learning on Earth. It was in Antioch that many different peoples were brought the word of God. I will read from Acts:

“Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to none except Jews. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number that believed turned to the Lord. News of this came to the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad; and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose; for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith. And a large company was added to the Lord.”

I laughed to myself, hearing that, for I couldn’t help thinking about what had happened on our last landfall, when the bishop tried to do something similar—convert a city, an entire colony, to the Church—although in his case he attempted to do it by force, not by words. A disaster, as I have already mentioned. He should have read the Bible more carefully.

The bishop paused, and I nearly nodded off. Protocol required me to attend holy day services, but protocol couldn’t always keep me awake, especially when the bishop preached. I tipped my head back and stared up into the shadowed reaches of the vaulting high above me, thinking about this vast and solemn place and thinking, as the bishop wanted, about the uncertain mission of the Argonos .

The bishop claimed the ship’s mission was to spread the word of God throughout the galaxy, even throughout the entire universe, to man and alien alike (there was no recorded contact with intelligent alien life that anyone was aware of, but the bishop continued to hope). The bishop pointed to his unshakable faith and his exalted position in the ship’s hierarchy as evidence for the religious nature of the ship’s mission, which I found unconvincing. What was convincing, however, was the existence of the cathedral.

There could be little doubt that the cathedral had been incorporated into the original design of the ship. The occasional suggestion that the cathedral had been built into the ship at some far later date, after the Church had forced its way into a stronger position within the ship’s social structure, was absurd. Structural engineers pointed to the cathedral’s size and its central location, as well as the way the ship’s infrastructure so perfectly accommodated it. The main section of the cathedral was over 450 meters in length and 125 meters in height, with a set of enormous stained-glass windows behind the apse actually comprising a section of the ship’s outer hull. Physical deflectors and an array of energy shields protected the stained-glass from the forces and debris of interstellar travel. There were also extensions from the cathedral and other connected aisles and chapels that ran throughout that level of the Argonos , culminating in the galilee, a small, private, and secured chapel which had its own much smaller stained-glass windows lit from an interior light source.

I looked back at the bishop, trying to remain alert, hoping to get some idea of what he planned for Antioch, and for Nikos.

“Bring people the word of God: that is one of the most important things we can do. The exploration and colonization of worlds presents us with one of our greatest opportunities to do just that. Human and alien alike, we all need God, we all need to know His word and His works. It is one of our missions to bring the word of God to those who are ignorant of Him, and to establish outposts on those places where others may come in the future.”

I started losing interest again because he was moving on to one of his regular sermons. The bishop’s dream was to set up an intergalactic network of missions committed to converting all intelligent beings, “human and alien alike,” and bringing them into the Church.

He had visions of grandeur, and he was arrogant. But he had a great deal of power, which was growing day by day as Nikos’s power waned. I sat through the rest of his sermon, no longer listening, but watching him, and I grew more and more afraid that I was seeing my future.

THE Argonos was still seventeen days out from Antioch when I returned to the chamber to check on the bishop’s progress with his new machine. I wanted to know what it was; I needed to be prepared.

After stepping inside the chamber and closing the door quietly behind me, I stood motionless in the darkness and listened. I couldn’t hear anything except a distant ticking sound that could have been metal cooling, or water dripping, or perhaps something else altogether. No light or glow of any color. The air was cooler, with a hint of moisture.

I switched on my hand torch and made my way through the chamber, choosing a path by guesswork; there were no lights or sounds to guide me this time, although I knew the general direction. Twice I thought I heard something, footsteps perhaps, but both times when I stopped to listen I heard only the faint ticking and other ambient sounds.

I finally reached familiar territory—the two large cylinders and the corroded metal structure I had crawled through the last time I had been here. Once again I was perched above the open bay. This time, however, there was only a silent, lifeless structure below me; no bishop, no other men.

There was no easy way down, so I worked my way around the upper edge of the bay to the far end and the ramp leading down into it from a large, open corridor. I walked down the ramp, my footsteps echoing dully, and approached the massive structure. It seemed dead and somehow incomplete. Perhaps the bishop had abandoned it and moved on to other projects.

A metallic scraping noise startled me, followed by a cry of pain. I swung around, sweeping the torch beam across the jungle of broken machinery surrounding the bay. The light caught a pair of eyes that tried to pull back. I steadied the beam and held it on the face of a boy staring down at me from above a mound of twisted wire and metal. The boy tried to shift to the side, then back again, but his foot and leg were caught in the wire, and it seemed that the more he struggled against it, the deeper his leg went.