by Phillip Mann
I closed him down with gas, considering that to be gender than the drugs administered to him since his rescue. I secured his tongue and placed it so that he could not swallow it. I massaged his gums. I brought his knees up to his chest and let his bowels and bladder void. Afterward I cleaned him and made him comfortable. I am aware that that act of release can carry the sleeping human back to the time before birth and can clear and settle the mind. No child feels guilty in the womb. Ad pleasure is innocent there.
Jon Wilberfoss has awoken and slept several times since he was returned to my care. When possible, I have made sure that he has awoken in my garden. I have had plenty of time to observe him.
I like his hands. The hands can tell so much. When I was in military service hundreds of years ago I spent many hours holding the hands of the dying. I became so sensitive to the life signals that are transmitted through the hand that I was able to predict those who would live and those who would die. I was not always right. My awareness of those that were failing meant that I was able to take action in time to save them. Sometimes, those whom I thought were safe, would suddenly withdraw from the world and pass away in their sleep. For one who is dedicated to the saving of life I have seen so much of death that. ..
Wdberfoss’s hands give me cause for hope. His grip is strong but not aggressive. His hands are square-palmed and the fingers maintain a nice proportion. There is great practicality in his hand. He gripped my grace and feather dexetels once when I was stroking his palm and scratching gently along the line of his life, and his grip had a desperate power. He was asleep, and I wanted him to squeeze, hoping that I would see a dream of bitterness resolve itself through tension. But he relaxed as though afraid to crush me and the nightmare carried him away. Ha. He will have to learn some cruelty before he improves. One day, with luck, I may be able to slap him into anger and his dignity will assert itself.
Wilberfoss has well-spread shoulders and strong limbs. I once cared for a wrestler who had broken his neck in a fed. Wilberfoss reminds me of him, except for his temperament. We must be grateful for the sturdiness of his physique. Had he not been solidly built, there is no way that he could have survived the strain of living on the high-gravity planet where he was marooned.
His face. The tranquilizing drugs have made him into an imbecile. I doubt if his mother would recognize him. The muscles of his face have no tone and this is another reason why I have chosen to control him through gas. If he ever comes to himself and looks at himself in the mirror he will expect to see a face he recognizes. Dignity, you see. Health and dignity. These are different names for the same thing. For one who despises himself, an imbecile face could seem a just punishment and would be relished. If he begins to recover and if I have the opportunity, I will operate on his face for one cheekbone is depressed and the nasal cartilage is deformed. I doubt there is much I can do to eradicate the patterning on his skin. He has been tom by high gravity and now his face is covered by stretch marks. I will massage him and exercise his muscles. But you know, those who have been in high gravity invariably grow to love their sliver lines. In one such as Wilberfoss whose skin is naturally dark, the effect could be striking, handsome even, I imagine, like sliver tattooing. When he comes to health he may even enjoy his skin as a record of his ordeal. But for the time being, guilt has deformed his understanding, and he is a long way from health.
How can I speak of guilt?
I can read it in him. I have studied the words he spoke when he was first rescued. They are words which describe his inner landscape. He talks of the Nightingale having blood streaming past its windows and that he made the blood to flow. He talks of the screaming that drove the sensitive bio-crystalline brains aboard the Nightingale into frenzy before he stopped them. He talked about a sea that moved like molten lead and with drops of blood on it.
This I, Lily the autonurse, affirm, that Jon Wilberfoss committed an act aboard the Nightingale that he cannot now face. Though he cannot face his action, he is aware of his guilt. He is his own harshest judge and madness is a kind of sanctuary. He is like a pitcher that is filled to the brim with horror. He would like to break the pitcher but what he really needs is to be emptied out. I believe that when he begins to talk again he will be on his way to a cure. And to assist in that cure I am glad that I have Wulf with me. I am sure also that when all is revealed we will look upon him more in pity than in contempt.
For therapy this I propose. Sleep, naturally, and good food. There are Talline herbs that will help him. So far as I am able I will lead him toward good dreams. I will relax my grip on his consciousness as he shows his mental strength rising. However, he must begin this process for himself.
At the moment as I compose this he is sleeping in my womb. I have moved from the building and out into the shady green of my garden. It is almost midday and the autumn sun is gathering its last strength. Last night there were high winds and this morning there was a shower. Weather patterns are changing rapidly. The rain has released many smells. The garden is alive with wraiths of steam. It is an old belief that sun after rain is peculiarly beneficial and I have noticed that those who are sick frequently relish such sunlight.
So let it be with Wilberfoss.
20 The Nightingale Founders
WULFNOTE
It was autumn when Wilberfoss came to us. It was winter before he began talking to us. On a cold day when the sunshine seemed almost white and the wind shook and loosened the last dry brown leaves from the trees and sent them hurling over the wall of the Poverello Garden, an old Talline woman came to us. She was wintering over in the garden like a migrating bird and would travel south in the springtime. She had heard that we had a sick man and she came from the Hall of Sanctuary to the enclosure where Wilberfoss lived and knocked at the gate. That morning she had visited the Pectanile just before dawn at a time when the moonlight was still reflected in its pool. She had gathered some water while the moon was on it. To this she had added fresh herbs finely chopped and some strips from the bark of the Builder Tree. She presented this potion to Lily and suggested that it might help if the body of the sick man were washed in the water and the water left to dry on him.
Lily, ever one to learn where medicine is concerned, accepted the brew, analyzed it for toxic substances, noted the contents for future reference and then did exactly as the old woman had suggested. Wilberfoss was restless and as the water dried on him his skin became blotchy and angry and hot. Lily held him under close observation and noted that it was inner heat that was being released. The redness of his skin fluctuated, each time becoming less angry looking, until finally it stabilized and Wilberfoss lay on his face clean and rested and breathing easily. Lily brought him out of sleep and he smiled when his eyes opened. Lily brushed him lightly with a clean napkin dislodging from his skin the small dried particles of chopped herbs.
At this time Lily was experimenting with hypnosis. She had spoken to him in his dreams, telling him that he would gradually remember everything, but that there would be no pain. She had also implanted a hypnotic suggestion deep in his psyche such that I could use key words to help him reveal his memories. I am convinced that the gentleness of this procedure materially helped Wilberfoss to recover.
The Talline potion, whatever it was, had brought Wilberfoss relief. He woke up smiling. It was not the normal human smile of full consciousness but a somewhat brittle smile, by which I mean that it was a smile that was full of tension, the smile of a man who wants to be liked or who wants others to agree with him.
Wilberfoss looked across at me and said, “Wulf. Good to see you.” Those were the first conscious words that Wilberfoss had spoken to me since his return. Then his gaze slid across to Lily. “And hello to you too, Lily. Why don’t you both come with us on the next trip in the Nightingale? We could use such as you. You could be very useful.”
“I could certainly have helped you with Sandy/Quelle,” I said clearly and slowly and both Lily and I watched carefully to see what reaction the words migh
t provoke.
Wilberfoss nodded as though listening to a private voice. “Sandy/Quelle. That was a close shave. I loved them both, you know. Shame they couldn’t love one another. But they couldn’t. They were poison to one another. I only realized it one night when Sandy was really sick. He was howling in his room like a cat that has had its muzzle bitten. I went in to him and held him in my arms and the Quelle tried to make him bite me. Me! Ha. The Quelle held no dangers for me. I managed to get through to it, to join with it. It was terrified, poor beast, and had no more substance than slime. I wondered then whether or not it had been ill even before it joined the Nightingale. I managed to quieten it. But I couldn’t stave off the inevitable. They killed one another, Sandy and Quelle. Someone blundered when they made that joining. Someone has got questions to answer.”
“And what happened to the Nightingale when they died?” I asked.
“Why, nothing. We treated the bodies with respect and continued on our journey, I think, and then I came back here. I can’t remember how I got here. But I’ll be ready for duty again soon I hope. I have a lot of service in me.”
Hearing that, I induced the hypnotic state in him. His conscious mind was holding out on us. I thought for a while before my next statement. I wanted to challenge Wilberfoss. “You did not continue on your journey,” I said. “The Nightingale was damaged. You came out of Noh-time without preparation. Your ship was damaged, and you made landfall. Tell us about that."’
Wilberfoss frowned and looked puzzled and then he nodded. He looked downward and to his right, a bit like a person peering through a hole. I think he was seeing things. New memories had been revealed to him.
“You are right,” he said. “That strange gray and green planet! We landed there. We came down with a thump. I’m remembering.”
Wilberfoss’s Narrative
When I climbed from my couch I fell. . . and the floor was sloping so that I stumbled when I tried to stand. Oh, the weight. My arms and legs were of lead. It was unrelenting. I crawled to the door and dragged myself upright against the door frame. Standing, I found it easier to walk and stumped into my quarters. There was silence. I had got used to the presence of bio-crystalline awareness which can sometimes be heard like a humming of bees on a summer’s day and sometimes like the snuffling of a giant beast. Now there was nothing and the silence was frightening. I tried to use the video board but that too was dead. There were no images, not even ghosts of light. I could not speak to the ship or to any part of it. I remember a horrible thought came to me: that the Nightingale was a dead animal and that I was in its stomach. At the same time, I recognized that kind of thinking for what it was and dismissed it.
I knew there must be other people somewhere and that I could not be alone on the Nightingale. I needed to find other people. There was a corridor which spiraled downward from the reception foyer outside my apartment and connected my rooms with a staff canteen. You have been there, Wulf and Tancredi. Do you remember? I decided to go there first. All my senior assistants lived in quarters off this dining-room.
I supported myself on the handrail which ran around the spiral but, before I had gone halfway down, I felt as though I had run a marathon. And then I heard distant voices. People were gathering in the dining-hall. . . there were lights beyond the doors. I walked on and then, using more force than necessary, for estimates of strength are deceptive in high gravity, I pushed the atmosphere doors and they banged open and I lurched through.
There must have been fifty or sixty people in the dining-room. They fell silent when I entered. They all looked at me. There were technicians and medical staff, some with cuts on their faces and others with arms in hastily improvised slings. However, it is the silence I remember and the expressions of disbelief on the faces. You know, a ship like the Nightingale feels as secure as the planet of your birth . . . until something goes wrong.
Suddenly there was cheering and smiles. I was greeted like Lazarus up from the dead. I found out later that a rumor had been circulating that I was dead and that the Nightingale was without a leader. For my part, I was glad of their support. I had not realized how warmly I was regarded. I found out later that people admired the way I had handled Sandy/Quelle. However . . .
I sat down gratefully at one of the wide tables and spread my legs for they had begun to ache. I began to organize things. We had food in the stores and the hydroponics girdle which could be seen from the dining-room was green and misty. No trouble there. The plants stood tall and the gardeners were already at work tying up plants and supporting them. The Nightingale had cast a gravity field around the hydroponics troughs and was able to hold them at just thirty percent above normal gravity.
We had light. We had heat. So, within certain parameters the ship was obviously functioning even though it was not communicating directly with us by voice.
But I needed to get a clearer idea of how things were in the rest of the ship. I organized survey parties to explore. The members wore gravity suits which enabled them to float through the ship. Even so, I knew it would be hours before they could report back. The inhabited parts of the Nightingale occupy more than a cubic mile of space. It wasn’t until six hours after we had made planet fall that the first reports of our state began to come in.
They were not good. I discovered that the DME sector, badly damaged by the meteorite, had only managed to protect five independent atmospheres and that these were now isolated behind their own particle screens. There were now in total only some forty DMEs still alive. Communications had been established by using vacuum microphones which could attach to the particle screens. In the absence of bio-crystalline channels we had to use amplifiers and hundreds of yards of cable. I was informed that each of the five atmospheres contained a contact specialist from the Gentle Order. They seemed wed and confident but they wanted news. They would not leave their special charges but wanted to remain in contact. Each atmosphere contained its own special food supplies which included food for the Contact Confrere.
Ad the other DME areas were dead. Their atmospheres had been sucked out into space along with their occupants. It was only the particle screens with their dimensional laminate which protected the entire DME sector from ruin. Deep in space when the tragedy first struck the particle screens faced and held at bay the vacuum of space. Now the particle screens were protecting the DME area from the raw atmosphere of the planet on which we had landed. But we were paying a price. The particle screens consumed considerable power from the Nightingale and limited the ship’s other functions.
The chambers belonging to the Close Metabolism Life-forms had fared better as regards overall physical damage but their systems were less secure. There were atmospheric leaks aplenty and I dispatched a team to try and locate and seal these.
However, while this news was bad, the worst news of all was that the dormitory areas where the crew who serviced the Nightingale had their lodgings and gymnasia, had been completely isolated. The dormitories were a vast complex of two- and three-room cells close to the STGs. Evidently when the Nightingale lurched back into normal spacetime the strain on the bio-crystalline linkages had been too great and they closed down. Now we could not contact these areas and we did not know whether they had been denied atmosphere and power or whether they still functioned but as autonomous units.
I singled out one of the strongest of our young men and sent him out. We did not have any spare gravity units and so this junior confrere donned a simple survival suit and went outside. He dragged himself laboriously, against the unrelenting lead of gravity, over to the dormitory section. He carried an override charge so that he could get in through the local air-lock should such be necessary, but he never needed to use it. There was a gaping hole in the wad of the Nightingale. Something must have happened at the moment of impact, a detonation of some kind, inside the wads, for bodies had been ejected from the dormitory and now lay exploded among the stiff gray shrubs at the base of the ship.
The junior confrere climbed into th
e dormitory area of the Nightingale, being very careful not to damage his survival suit on the sharp metal edges which rose up at him like knives. As he made his way through the ruined dormitory he described what he saw. He found himself in a chaotic world. So great was the tug of gravity that quilts which had tumbled from beds as the ship came down now looked as though they had been starched and ironed into place. In one place a folio of letters had fallen open and the pages held to the floor as though glued. In the gymnasium, the rings and ropes hung down from the ceiling stiffly, like poles. Where there were bodies, the hair was teased back from the scalp and the faces were collapsed.
The young confrere searched through every chamber and it became obvious that the catastrophe had not occurred instantaneously.
Some of the dead inmates were found struggling into their survival suits. But no one had survived. It was a graveyard.
I ordered him back. And he came slowly, like a crab, easing his way around the curves of the Nightingale.
So there we were.
Despite the bad news there was a kind of optimism in the air. I think we truly believed that things could not get worse. We appreciated the safety of the moment. To welcome the teams back from the DME and CME sectors I ordered that a warm meal be prepared. This gave everyone something to do.
Privately I knew what I had to do. I needed to visit the bio-crystalline core of the ship and see how extensive the damage was to the bio-crystalline brain of the Nightingale. I encouraged celebration followed by rest and when I saw that others among the crew were dragging themselves to their various apartments, I made my farewells and donned a gravity suit and glided to my private rooms.
WULFNOTE
With those words this session ended and Wilberfoss woke up. He blinked and looked at me anxiously. “Did I tell you anything new?'' he asked.
“You did,” I replied.
“And when will I remember?” “Very soon.”