Richard Russo - Ship of Fools

Ireturned to the chamber of abandoned machines. Darkness and deep shadows and the smell of old lubricants—just what I needed. Although I hadn’t taken even a sip of alcohol, I felt almost drunk, or otherwise drugged. With my hand torch on its dimmest, widest setting, I stumbled along among the useless machinery, trying to think of anything but Father Veronica. The deeper I went into the chamber, the harder it was to keep away the image of her broken body, the warmth of her smile, the memory of honey and cinnamon.

I climbed across a tangle of metal pipes and sat on a pile of cabled wire, gazing down into the open bay at the bishop’s lifeless machine. Damn him and his machines. I switched off the hand torch and sat motionless in the dark. Don’t think about her, I told myself. Don’t think about her. So I concentrated on the alien ship, envisioned it suspended in the depths of space, surrounded by black night and silver stars, and tried to imagine a means of escape.

TWOor three hours later, Pär and Nikos found me there. I heard them calling my name, and I thought about doing what Francis had done that time—scramble deep into the ruined machinery where they would never find me—but I didn’t have the heart or energy for it. What was the point? I sat and waited for them, watching the thin beams of light arcing back and forth, up and down, listening to them calling my name over and over. Maybe they would just give up.

Half an hour later they came around a wrecked cylinder and one of their torch beams sliced across my face and they came to a stop.

“Damn!” Pär said. “Scared me.” He laughed nervously. “Why didn’t you answer, Bartolomeo?”

Nikos just looked at me, waiting for a response.

“I didn’t feel like it,” I said.

“We’ve been searching for you for hours,” Nikos said. “I tried signaling you, but Pär said you had the system disabled. He suggested we look for you here.”

Pär shrugged. “I know your secrets, Bartolomeo. Some of them, anyway.”

“Why are you looking for me? I just want to be left alone.”

“The bishop told me what happened,” Nikos said. “He seemed to expect me to order his imprisonment, and was surprised when I didn’t. I thought that if you hadn’t come to me demanding he be imprisoned, then you didn’t want that. I figure you probably don’t care any longer what happens to him. He’s in his own private Hell, and you’re content with that.”

I managed half a laugh. “You’re so damn sure about what I’m thinking and feeling.”

“No,” Nikos said. “Just a guess.”

Neither of them said anything for a long time. Their hand torches were aimed at the floor, and their faces were barely distinguishable in the dim light.

“I know you’re hurting,” Nikos said, “but we’ve got a ship with several thousand people who are still alive, and we have got to figure out a way to save them.”

“Are you both insane?” I asked. “Why would you want my advice? My suggestions? Every decision I’ve made seems to have been the wrong one. I chose to join with Pär and the downsiders in the failed insurrection, and spent seven months in a cell. You put me in charge of the alien ship exploration team, and we end up with a shape-changing alien creature on board the Argonos , people dead and gone mad, Casterman’s suicide. Finally, when almost everyone is ready to abandon that damned ship, I convince you all to dock with it and take it with us. Now we’re probably all going to die. One bad decision after another, and you want my advice?”

Pär grinned.

“What’s so funny?”

“You are, Bartolomeo.”

“Everything you’ve said is true,” Nikos added, “but it’s not that simple. Your choices, your decisions, were not necessarily the wrong choices. Sometimes, they were the right choices, the moral choices. They just didn’t work out.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“I’m not just saying this to make you feel better,” Nikos offered, “but docking with their ship probably didn’t make any difference in the long run.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did Margita tell you how we would drift closer to the alien ship every few days?”

“Yes.” It didn’t matter now if he knew.

“I’d bet they were just feeling things out. They have technology we can hardly imagine, and I would guess that they could have sucked us right into their ship any time they wanted, and we wouldn’t have been able to do a damn thing about it. I also believe that if we’d tried to leave them behind the way the bishop wanted, they would not have let us go. They would have drawn us in, or come after us, and we’d be right where we are now, more or less.”

“So I just made it easier for them.”

“ We made it easier for them, yes.” Nikos paused. “We need your help, Bartolomeo.”

“What about the rest of the Executive Council? I thought you were going to meet every twelve hours and exchange ideas.”

“Come on, Bartolomeo, we both know how useful that’s going to be. With the possible exception of Margita or Geller, no one’s going to come up with a damn thing, and you know it. And they don’t need some misguided brainstorming session to think; if either of them comes up with something, they’ll let us know.” He paused. “We need your help.”

“What? The three of us are going to brainstorm? You and I and Pär, sitting in the darkness surrounded by derelict machinery, we’re going to come up with a way to save everyone?”

“Maybe. This is as good a place as any.”

I looked from one to another. Finally, I gestured for them to sit and said, “All right. Stay a while.” I managed a brief, mirthless laugh. “What the hell. You want an idea? I already have an idea. I’ve been sitting here in the dark, surrounded by ruins, and an idea has occurred to me, an idea I don’t trust because I don’t trust anything I think anymore. So I’ll tell you my idea, and you two can tell me whether I’m as crazy as everyone else.”

They sat, and Nikos said, “Tell us, Bartolomeo.”

I breathed deeply. “We go back to Antioch.”

Neither of them said anything for a long time. They stared at me, they looked at each other, and they stared at me some more. “I don’t understand,” Nikos finally said. “How?”

“We take the shuttles.”

That gave them something to think about for a minute. “There aren’t enough to take everyone,” Pär said.

I nodded. “I know. That’s only the first of a whole lot of problems with this idea.”

“What are some of the others?”

“The logistics alone are a serious problem. Fuel and food and water… How long do you think it would take for a shuttle to get back to Antioch?”

Nikos sighed. “I don’t know, but a long time. Weeks, or months. Yeah, fuel’s a problem. Initial acceleration… deceleration… descent and landing…” His eyes were unfocused as he was thinking. “The less used for acceleration, the longer the trip… the more mass in people and food and cargo, the more fuel we’d need….” His voice trailed off. “Yeah. But we can work all that out. We’ll know how many can go on the shuttles.”

“And how many have to stay,” I said.

“Yes, and how many have to stay.”

“And that’s another problem,” I started, “how…”

“…to decide who goes,” Nikos finished. “I know. But, like the logistics, it’s something that can be done. Even if we can only save a thousand, or several hundred, that’s better than nothing.”

“The harvesters,” Pär said.

We both looked at him.

“We’ve got three harvesters,” he continued, “and their holds are huge. They’d carry a lot of people and food and equipment.”