On My Way to Paradise

by David Farland

  I felt bad. I wanted to tell Abriara I wasn’t like the men that had raped her in the past. I wasn’t her enemy. "I’ll help you if you need me," I said, "Just as I did in the simulator."

  Abriara looked confused for a moment—hopeful, frightened. She nodded and edged out the door, unwilling to turn her back to us. I wished her luck.

  Perfecto said, "Let’s go down the ladder," and Mavro and Zavala agreed. I recognized that to run was useless. It didn’t really matter where we ran, or if we ran anywhere at all. The riot, when it came, would be delivered right to our door.

  Over the persistent thrum of feet pounding on floors and steady chant of "Let’s go home! Let’s go home! Let’s go home!" a Japanese shouted, "Go back, silly woman!"

  Abriara slipped back into the room and stood panting. "The samurai have cleared the halls. They’ve got everyone trapped in their rooms!"

  The ship didn’t carry many samurai. At best there could only be one to every five of us. Their short swords, or wakizashi, were meant primarily as an emblem of honor rather than a weapon. The samurai carried it as a promise to commit seppuku if his honor was lost. They couldn’t keep us at bay with such weapons. They couldn’t control the entire ship. For now men were content to shout and pound their feet. But when violence broke out, the samurai wouldn’t be able to contain it. Abriara stood by the door, her knife poised.

  "I suggest we put away our weapons," Perfecto said, "Unless we plan to stab each other?"

  "Good idea!" Zavala said. He set his knife on his bed and the rest of the men did the same, but Abriara held to her corner and kept her knife in hand.

  We sat on our beds and paced the room and listened to the pounding of feet and the shouts of "Let’s go home! Let’s go home!" Sweat was pouring off my face as if I’d been doing hard labor, and my breathing was constricted. The room felt very hot.

  Below us, someone yelled in defiance and his voice became a shrill death cry. I’d heard many such minor scuffles, but till then didn’t realize what they signified. Those who sought to dissuade the rioters were being silenced. Zavala smiled wanly, his eyes those of a troubled child. The halls echoed with the chant of "Let’s go home! Let’s go home! Let’s go home!" The floors vibrated, and when I touched the wall it hummed like a guitar string. Perfecto paced. He stepped to one end of the room, then returned, paced back and forth several times. And each time he went away he passed nearer on his return, as if he were a great fish and I held a line that guided him closer and closer. I sensed he wanted to protect me, and as if to verify my supposition he finally came and stood by me and patted my shoulder, then didn’t leave again.

  The hallway quieted; no more barefooted samurai ran by or shouted.

  Abriara opened the door. "The corridor is empty," she said, and stepped out.

  We followed, Perfecto walking in front of me, guarding me, and found it as she’d said. The darkened corridor was empty. The samurai had all gone below to try to guard hallways. Sakura and two fellow diplomats watched at the top of the ladder. With the lights around the ladders, they couldn’t see us in the shadowed hall. There were only the five of us Latin Americans in the tiny state room on this level. They hadn’t spared samurai to guard us.

  "What shall we do?" Zavala asked loudly, to be heard over the chanting.

  "We won’t find a more protected position than this aboard ship," Mavro yelled. "I think we should guard the ladder and kill anyone who tries to come up."

  "Anyone?" Perfecto asked.

  "Sí. If we don’t let any of those fuckers get behind us, we don’t have much to worry about. No one is going to put up a good fight while trying to climb up out of the hole."

  I couldn’t imagine killing people so indiscriminately. "There’s a safer place," I said.

  Mavro arched his eyebrows in surprise. "Where?"

  "Above us, in module B," I said.

  "What about the plague?" Zavala asked.

  "That whole part of the ship was sterilized. There’s nothing left alive up there."

  "The atmosphere should be good," Abriara said, "They took Lucío through it."

  From my voyage down below our own living quarters, I knew the physical layout. There’d be half a dozen little work rooms and some storage facilities, separated from the living quarters by a second airlock.

  "How do we open the airlock?" Abriara asked.

  I pointed to Sakura standing with his two friends in the circle of light thrown up from the ladder shaft. "He has a transmitter that will open it."

  Several floors below us rose a shout, hundreds of voices crying out in unison. The surge in volume made the floor jump, and my compadres and I all began to run forward, afraid the riot had started—but the chanting continued unabated, and we soon slowed.

  It had been a simple falter in the rhythm, a rise in volume—nothing more—I thought, but then people screamed below and blunt objects slammed against flesh as localized fighting broke out while hundreds continued shouting "Let’s go home! Let’s go home! Let’s go home!"

  Sakura and his amigos peered down the ladder below them, and the sounds of scuffling were loud enough that I knew they were watching a battle. Abriara sprinted up behind Sakura and slugged him in the kidney and he collapsed. We charged up from the shadows and Sakura’s friends ran.

  Sakura lay gasping on the floor as Abriara searched the pocket in his kimono. Down the ladder, three floors below, a great many samurai fought Latin Americans. There was some much noise—chanting and shouting—that we could not hear the din of melee, the individual cries and sounds of battle, so it appeared as if they battled in silence. The scent of sweat and blood tainted the air.

  Abriara pulled the transmitter from Sakura’s pocket. "Is this it?" she cried.

  I nodded and she aimed the transmitter at the airlock and began pushing buttons. Nothing happened. I saw a tiny white disk on the transmitter—a thumb-print reader. "Let me try," I said, grabbing the transmitter and pressing the white disk against Sakura’s thumb. The airlock began to slide open. Abriara raced up the ladder. The airlock opened into a wide tunnel, and the ladder climbed up five meters before ending at the door that led to module B.

  I considered removing Sakura’s thumb so I could use the transmitter, but he appeared totally unconscious and didn’t pose a threat. I began lugging him up the ladder. It was a task I wouldn’t have imagined myself capable of in the heavy gravity, but fear lent me strength. When I was inside the airlock, I dropped Sakura to the floor and fell exhausted atop him.

  Abriara was waiting for me. Before I even dragged my feet through the airlock, she ripped the transmitter from my hand, held the register against Sakura’s thumb, and pressed the button to close the door. Perfecto was half way up the ladder, guarding my rear as he ascended, and he looked up in surprise and shouted, "Don Angelo, wait!" and tried to jump through the hole, but the door slid closed. The airlock suddenly became quieter.

  Abriara put her wooden dagger to my throat. "Don’t move, old man," she said. I lay gasping on the floor, winded from my short climb. She reached into my sleeve and removed my crystal knife, then pulled my wooden dagger from my belt. "I’ll let you live because you are old and slow and weaponless." Her face was a pale mask of terror, yet she fought to control it. She put her back to the wall, and brandished the crystal knife.

  "Thanks," I said. But part of me wondered, wouldn’t I pose less of a threat if I was dead? If she is as cold-hearted as she pretends, she should kill me. And I looked in her eyes and I knew—I knew—that she was trying to work up the nerve to kill me. I could not imagine what terror drove her to this. Never make the mistake of thinking of her as human, I told myself.

  She pushed a button on the transmitter. The door above hissed open, and we breathed fresh air—the kind of fresh air one can only enjoy on a clear day after a rain. I hadn’t guessed how musty the atmosphere in our own module had become. Abriara grabbed Sakura by one arm and climbed the ladder, Sakura flopping like a rag. He began regaining consciousness and shook his
head, but she ignored him. I followed as close behind as possible, afraid she’d leave me as she had the others. When we stepped onto the maintenance deck of module B, Abriara pushed the button to close the door behind. As the door began to slide, she kicked Sakura back down the hole and sealed it behind him.

  Abriara and I were alone. Above us in the distance I could hear the rioters on A module, like the voices of many gulls crying on the shore. Below us the chanting faltered as several hundred men shouted. The worst is yet to come, I thought.

  On this level the halls didn’t radiate and separate into many rooms as in the living quarters. Four doors near the ladder each led to rooms that appeared small because they were crammed with equipment for processing water, waste, and air, and producing food. A short passageway led to a small room containing medical equipment.

  Across the hall from the medical supply depot was a larger chamber stocked with the emergency cryotanks—drawered capsules very much like convalescence tubes filled with the syrupy pink chemicals necessary to put a person in stasis. A tiny oxygen exchange plant fed into the cryotanks and could easily be converted to replenish a depleted atmosphere. A heavily padded operating table filled the center of the room, and a thick door could seal the chamber off from the rest of the ship in an emergency.

  Abriara inspected the room. "This will do." She began to shove me out into the hall and I realized she was going to leave me.

  I tried to grab her hand and shouted, "Wait! What if someone comes?"

  She gripped my throat, put one foot behind me, and tripped me. I fell backward and smacked the floor. She locked herself in with the equipment.

  I sat at her doorstep and listened to the chanting from all around the ship and waited. The lighted ceiling panels were on at a neutral brightness, and the walls of the room appeared as if they’d been scrubbed spotless. But they hadn’t been scrubbed. They’d been cleaned when the module was sterilized. Even the black metal of the hatch above me looked as if it had been molded only hours before.

  Somewhere beyond that door lay Tamara. She’d be in danger during this riot. If anyone knew of her past, they’d kill her. An old emotion tugged at me. I longed to seek her out, to protect her. I smiled at myself and considered, Perhaps I’m not as dead inside as I’ve imagined.

  It struck me that Abriara and I were the only living things on this module. The air didn’t carry even a single bacteria. Never had I been in an environment so sterile. Though noise seeped in from distant parts of the ship, everything was still nearby. It was like being in a wooded glen at evening when the cicadas have been singing and they suddenly become quiet. The air becomes filled with what seems an unnatural stillness, and you keep waiting to hear something nearby. The air becomes charged with a sense of expectation.

  There was a soft rustling from below, then Sakura, down in his narrow tunnel, began singing Motoki Sha Ka. His voice was distant, harsh, and slurred, and I knew he must have been severely injured when Abriara pushed him, yet there was a hopeful tone to his song. Was it a prayer? I wondered. Was he praying to his corporation? There was a great roar from module A, an explosion of shouting—and the men in module C answered with a shout of their own. Sakura stopped singing, apparently in an attempt to better hear what was going on. The men below began chanting and stamping their feet again, but above me the stamping stopped and the shouts turned to wails. People were dying up there.

  I was bewildered by Abriara’s actions. When humans become terrified, they seek help from others. But Abriara was reacting differently: She was extending her body space, trying to put distance between herself and others. She was terrified even of me. I did not know how to fight that terror, and I myself was afraid. I wanted to get near her, be in the same room with her behind that nice safe door. I remembered Felicia, the way she had comforted others before she died, and I began talking to Abriara, saying, "The air here smells so clean! It is like being home in the mountains in Mexico when a cool rain would come in from the ocean, no? I remember such days from when I was a student—sitting on my porch after a cool rain. We never got such cool rains in Panamá. It was always muggy after a rain. I imagine you got such cool rains in Chile, in the mountains, no?"

  But Abriara did not answer. It was as if she had gone into that room and become deaf. So I talked on and on, taking some comfort in my own voice.

  Comlink tones sounded in my head. I thumbed the subdural switch beneath my ear.

  Perfecto said, "Are you all right, Angelo?" His voice sounded very distant, drowned by background noise.

  "Sí, I’m fine. I’m lonely up here. Abriara has locked herself in a room."

  "I wish I could keep you company," he said, sounding relieved to hear my voice.

  "It would be good," I said. "Are you all right?"

  "Oh, we are fine. Some muchachos down on the fourth floor broke through the lines and came up to visit us—García and some friends. They had a hard time getting here. They’re pretty beat up. There’s some bad fighting going on down there. I would not want to be down there." There was a long pause.

  Intuitively I knew Miguel had come up the ladder to protect me. It seemed a stupid gesture. A vivid picture came to mind: Miguel sitting at my feet, petting my hand, while we drank in my room. With his sweaty bald head and pale blue eyes he was so ugly I found the memory mildly revolting. I tried to think of something to say, some words to comfort Miguel. I said, "Tell Miguel I am safe, like a child in its mother’s arms," and realized these words would be of greater comfort than any.

  "Sí," Perfecto said.

  I heard a scraping noise above me and looked up. The airlock began to slide open.

  I realized that I was weaponless and that no matter who was coming down the ladder, I didn’t want to be found. I leaped through the nearest doorway—into the water purification plant—and hid in a corner. Perfecto began saying something on comlink, and I thumbed the subdural switch beneath my ear, cutting him off.

  I tried to still my breathing and scanned the room for a weapon. There was a cabinet nearby, and I opened it and found many tools. One instrument like a heavy wrench was as long as my arm. I carefully lifted it from its pouch.

  I heard the rustle of cloth and the clang of metal on metal as someone climbed down the ladder. Only a cyborg with metal legs would make that clanging. He breathed in great gasps.

  When he reached the bottom of the ladder, the door above him hummed closed. He snuffled and took a few slow steps, looking through doorways, too cautious to search the rooms. After a moment the door to the airlock below us began to open.

  Distantly the voice of Sakura came up from the airlock, "Who’s there?"

  "A friend," a deep gravelly voice whispered. With a shock I recognized that voice. It was Juan Carlos, the man with the silver face, the man I suspected was the Alliance assassin. He could have had only one reason for trying to get from module A to module C.

  He was searching for me.

  For weeks I’d practiced stabbing him in my mind. I wished to God that Abriara had left me my good knife. I’d have been better off practicing how to fight with giant wrenches.

  I hefted the wrench and dodged around the corner and through the doorway as silently as possible. Juan Carlos was dressed in the silver and red kimono of a sergeant, wearing black metal legs, and he stooped over the airlock looking down at Sakura. His right hand held a wakizashi, a short samurai sword, and his left hand was a bloody mess. He carried a transmitter in his left palm, and he’d relieved the transmitter’s owner of a finger.

  I was certain I’d made no noise, but he must have had an upgraded auditory system, for he whirled as if I’d been wearing bells around my neck.

  "Osic!" he shouted slicing the air with his sword, his voice angry even though his metal face held the perpetual smile of Buddha in repose, the single green gem between his eyes. Arish had addressed me with that same tone of hate, and I wondered why.

  I swung the wrench down on his right shoulder. Juan Carlos crumpled under the blow and I
felt a jolt of pain in my belly.

  I looked down. The onyx handle of the wakizashi stuck through my belly just below the rib cage. He’d inserted the sword so swiftly I hadn’t even seen it coming.

  I wondered, How many men have died looking at sword handles?

  It didn’t seem to matter. I’d died so many times in the simulators. I dropped the wrench and examined my wound. It would be a mistake to pull the blade out—it would cause me to bleed faster.

  Juan Carlos groaned. I hadn’t killed him. He was curled in a ball on the floor, shaking his head, struggling to regain consciousness.

  I kicked him in the jaw, stunning him, then untied his obi, his thin belt, from around his kimono. I wanted to question him, learn why he hated me, but the pain in my belly was growing, and I wasn’t sure I’d live long enough. I wrapped the obi around his neck, flipped him to his back, and began strangling him.

  It takes a long time to strangle a man. Too often a strangler chokes someone a few moments and thinks he’s completed his job just because his victim goes limp, but in reality a man must be deprived of oxygen for several minutes before he’ll die. I knew this, and vowed to finish Juan Carlos.

  I gripped the obi at two ends and pulled. Juan Carlos was unconscious, but as he began to strangle he awoke and kicked with his metal legs and flailed his arms. I was afraid of his legs, not knowing how powerful they might be, and edged away. I readjusted my position and put a knee in his back, forcing his lungs to stay empty, and at the same time positioned myself so he couldn’t kick or grab me.

  He flailed about. His muscles convulsed and he tried to get his knees under him and rise. I yanked one leg straight and he dropped to the floor and didn’t try to repeat the tactic.

  He reached behind his neck and pinched my right wrist, digging his thumbnail into my flesh. I continued strangling him. My arms became tired, and I realized I needed to readjust my grip. I was afraid that if I let go for even a second he would get a breath of air, and I’d have to begin all over. I took one end of the obi in my teeth and maintained pressure by pulling with my teeth, then readjusted my grip on my left hand.