Richard Russo - Ship of Fools

When the cleric escorted Toller into the anteroom, the old man gave off an aura of contentment and well-being. The cleric withdrew, the door sealing behind her. Toller clasped my shoulder, shaking his head with a smile.

“You should see the archives, Bartolomeo. They are incredible.”

“Believe me, August, I’d like to see them.”

“I know, it’s crazy. Does anyone really think you’d steal or harm anything?”

“The bishop, apparently.”

“The books, Bartolomeo… there are thousands of bound folios in the History. Beautiful workmanship, quality materials…”

“That’s fine, August, but what about what’s written in them?”

“That, too, is incredible. Not so much the prose itself, which is sometimes awkward and pedestrian, but the content… the detail and texture…”

I was becoming impatient. “What about what we’re looking for?”

Toller shook his head. “Nothing yet, Bartolomeo. It’s so slow-going. All of it is handwritten, none of it is recorded in any other media, so it’s impossible to do a computer search. I’ve asked the bishop if we could scan the records into the computers, but he refused.” He shrugged. “We can only push him so far.”

I shouldn’t have expected this to be easy; I was beginning to realize it could take weeks, or months, to find what we were looking for. I knew we didn’t have that kind of time—people on the Planning Committee would grow impatient, support for my proposal would wane, and eventually the decision would be made to undock from the alien ship and resume our travels in the same manner we’d been traveling for decades.

“We’re working our way back from the time of the Repudiation,” Toller said.

“Why start there? Why not start at the beginning?”

He smiled. “You forget, Bartolomeo. The bishop claims there is no beginning. According to him, the Church’s History goes back forever. We have no choice but to work backwards. What else should we do? Pick out volumes at random? Ask for one from three hundred and fifty years ago? Five hundred? Any other approach would be arbitrary. This is the best way. We won’t miss anything.”

“Try to hurry it up, August. Skim the damn things.”

“We are, Bartolomeo. Maria and I are working in shifts, and most of our shifts overlap. We’re not getting much sleep.” He grinned. “But it’s wonderful. It’s difficult not to get caught up in the archives, not to get lost…. We are historians. But we’re working through them as fast as we can.” He sighed, frowned. “There may not be anything there, Bartolomeo.”

“It’s there, August. Somewhere in all those beautiful folios of yours is the information we want.”

The cleric returned. “Mr. Aguilera?”

“Yes?”

“A call for you. From Mr. Taggart.”

“All right.” I turned back to Toller. “Find it, August.”

He nodded. We left the anteroom through the same door, but Toller went down the connecting corridor to the right while the cleric led me off to the left and a communications station. Taggart’s face was on the screen.

“Bartolomeo,” he said, “I’ve been trying to find you for half an hour.” His face was flushed. “You’ll want to get up here. She’s talking.”

“The old woman?”

“Yes. In English.”

“I’ll be right there.”

BYthe time I got to the med center, the woman had lapsed into incoherence. Dr. G. was with her. Nikos was already in the observation room with Taggart, and the three of us stood side by side, watching the two women through the one-way glass. The old woman lay on the bed, trembling slightly; Dr. G. was seated beside her, holding the woman’s gnarled hand. The old woman whimpered through dry, cracked lips.

“It’s all right, Sarah,” Dr. G. said, her voice soft and comforting. “Nothing can hurt you here.”

“Sarah?” I said to Taggart.

He nodded. “She said her name was Sarah.”

I remembered the letters tattooed onto her arm—S.C. “Sarah what?”

Taggart shrugged. “She didn’t say. Or couldn’t. Dr. G. asked the same question, but she didn’t seem to understand.”

We watched the old woman, listening, but nothing changed. Nikos appeared rested and at ease, more so than he had in a long time. I wondered if he’d quit drinking.

After five minutes without change, Taggart nodded toward the glass. “It looks like we won’t get any more for a while. You can watch the recording of what you missed.” He shook his head. “It was something.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll let you see for yourself.” Taggart crossed the room to his console.

The old woman’s eyes were closed now, but her hand still gripped Dr. G.’s: a pale, shaking claw that would not let go. Dr. G. adjusted her position, prepared to stay a while. The woman’s face seemed to relax.

A monitor came to life above the one-way glass. The image jumped, then settled and the recording began to play. Dr. G. was seated in the chair beside the bed, and appeared to be dozing. The old woman lay on the bed with her eyes open, staring up at the ceiling. The only sounds at first were of breathing.

The old woman’s eyes widened; then she sat upright and croaked out, very distinctly, “Help me!” Her fingers clawed at the blanket. “Help… ahhhh…” Her voice trailed off.

Dr. G. had jerked awake at the woman’s cry and now rose. She stepped to the bed, cautious, as the woman turned to look at her. “It’s all right,” Dr. G. said. “You’re safe here.”

“Safe?”

“Yes, you’re safe now. No one will hurt you.” She reached out to her patient, but the woman flinched and Dr. G. pulled her hand back. “Safe.”

The woman looked around the room, her head movements stilted. When her attention returned to Dr. G., she stared at the psychologist for a long time, hardly blinking.

“You understand me?” Dr. G. asked.

The woman hesitated, then said, “Ye-e-esss…” Drawing it out.

“You didn’t speak when we found you.”

“Where…?” the woman said. “Where am…?”

“You’re on the Argonos ,” Dr. G. answered.

“Ar… go… nos.” Then: “What… Argonos?”

“It’s a starship. We found you on board another ship.”

The old woman closed her eyes and trembled. “Found,” she whispered, her eyes still closed.

“My name’s Glienna. What’s yours?”

The woman hesitated for a long time, then finally opened her eyes and looked at Dr. G. “Sarah.”

“Sarah.” I saw Dr. G. glance at the woman’s arm tattoo, thinking along the same lines I had. “Sarah what?”

But as Taggart had said, the woman didn’t seem to understand the question.

“Sarah,” she repeated. Then: “How…” She stopped, grimaced. “How… how long have I been…?” She could not quite finish the question.

“We found you three weeks ago.”

“Weeks?” As if she didn’t understand the word.

“Twenty-one days.”

“How… how long was… was I… how… other ship?”

“We don’t know,” Dr. G. said. “We have no idea.”

“They… they rescued us,” Sarah said, trembling again. “They rescued us, then… then… died. They died.”

“Who rescued you, Sarah?”

Again, she either didn’t understand the question, or ignored it. Instead, she shook her head slowly, making a faint, keening sound.

“We were on… Antioch,” she eventually said. “Oh… God… all the… all the killing… the bodies, bodies hanging… we couldn’t… couldn’t couldn’t couldn’t get away, madmen… slaughtering us… slaughtering…” She was becoming more agitated, clawing again at the blanket. “… men monsters, they were men and women they were… madmen… madmen killing us….”