by Phillip Mann
I explained ad this to Wilberfoss and in his mind he knew the truth, but in his heart he could not accept it. Guilt is not like mud on a pair of trousers that can be easily washed. Guilt deforms the very fabric.
So we have a story of near-greatness. A man picked out for trial who came to face his own deepest nature and recoiled in horror. I hope I have made it clear.
Wulf does not mean to be sententious in pointing out that old wisdom has always enjoined that Man should seek to know himself and that that is the hardest quest of ad. How nice to be safely bio-crystalline! My limits are more or less knowable and as I contemplated the bowed head of Wilberfoss, I knew that I was at one of my limits.
As always, as ever, as it has been from the first day, the human is alone to find its path I think. Perhaps the only certainty is that, at least, there is a path or so I am told.
After the hardest truth, the rest of the truths fed free, like the release of a log jam. I will tell the rest of Wilberfoss’s story quickly.
The rockets burned long enough for the Nightingale to escape.
Within minutes of their departure they were resting in orbit and the Nightingale was busy about the calculations that would enable the STGs to go into action. Wilberfoss felt that he was in a dream. The delusion which was to possess him for most of his time with us in the garden was already shaping his thinking. At the same time, after deliberating (that is to say making him once again aware of) his killer instinct, Wilberfoss conceived a deep hatred for the Nightingale and prepared to kid it. While the Nightingale plotted an optimum course, Wilberfoss plotted how best to destroy the Nightingale. As he freely admitted, this would allow for a great cover-up. He would destroy the evidence and he would then let the madness which was already teeming in his mind, take charge. Very convenient. I cannot understand why he did not choose to kid himself at the same time. My guess is that the instinct to live is so strong. He seems to have conceived of a future as a great deluder, protected by madness. Is that not itself madness?
While they were in a part of space that had not been visited before (which is, let us face it, most of the galaxy), the Nightingale yet had one clue. There was a telltale cluster of stars which it thought it could identify by their spectra and it programmed the STGs to tear space to that proximity.
This they did. The journey was uneventful as far as Wilberfoss was concerned. One patch of space blinked out and with it went a high-gravity planet with a gray sea, dun colored land and a single moon. Moments later the black sky blazed with a multitude of different stars and the Nightingale was intact.
Immediately the Nightingale began to broadcast MAYDAY and the signal contained a coded map of the stars about them. Wilberfoss settled down to wait. He might have waited ten minutes, ten years or ten decades. He had no way of knowing.
He settled down in his suite of rooms with only the idiot flickering fire for company. I asked Wilberfoss what he thought about during that time and he replied, “Nothing.” I have checked this under hypnosis and it is true.
The man was closed down as though catatonic.
And at the end of three weeks the MAYDAY was acknowledged. An incredulous communications officer on a mining asteroid sent back a reply, verifying position and advising that a message had been sent to Assisi Central. Help would be on its way.
The Nightingale had been found as a result of a stroke of chance and I note how often this has been the situation in this narrative of Jon Wilberfoss. The communications officer was checking his main receiver after completing an annual overhaul. He had it tuned to a frequency that is rarely used for close range transmission. He was checking the calibration when he heard the whispery voice of the Nightingale, calling coordinates and identifying itself. He, like anyone engaged in exploration of space, knew of the Nightingale and of its strange and sudden disappearance. He was incredulous, but he was wed trained too and within minutes priority circuits were humming and the distances between stars were bridged as STG amplifiers opened up.
Days later Wilberfoss received his first real/time transmission. This was the first time for many months that he had spoken to a fellow human being. He was quiet and polite and reserved. He confirmed ad details but when pressed to speak of his ordeal, said nothing.
Another week passed and then Jon Wilberfoss was awakened by the Nightingale telling him that a C-class starship of the Mercy fleet of St. Francis Dionysos had arrived in the proximate space. It was already negotiating to engage. Jon Wilberfoss looked out of the view ports but could see nothing. But then, as he was turning away, a beam of light dabbed out from the darkness and the Nightingale was touched. A Laser Communication Beam had reached it.
“You are saved, Jon Wilberfoss,” said the Nightingale.
“You will be a great hero. You will have many stories to tell.” But Jon Wilberfoss did not answer.
Quietly, methodically, as he had done a thousand times before, he donned his survival suit and checked the power pack on the small anti-grav unit and the air supply. Ad was wed.
Then he drifted down the corridor to the vacuum chute that led down to the room where the bio-crystalline seeds were growing.
“Where are you going, Jon Wilberfoss?”
“To make my farewell.”
Knowing that he had a sentimental side to his nature and that such symbolic acts were of value to the human animal, the Nightingale did not think to interfere.
Jon Wilberfoss dropped into the darkness and turned ad his suit lights On. He was in vacuum and soon stood outside the entrance to the seed chamber. The door opened at his request and the blaze of light from within the chamber paled his lights. The Nightingale still had less than one hundredth of its original capacity, but what it had was impressive. It had grown. The new seeds that Jon Wilberfoss had implanted like coals against the pale glimmer of the dying brain, now blazed. A pattern of sliver nerves filled the entire upper chamber of the room.
Jon Wilberfoss entered. He selected a small, wed balanced machine hammer from the suit tools and deliberately struck at the nearest seed. It exploded in motes of light which shimmered in the chamber. He went on. He struck with his hammer and swept with his arm. He broke the bio-crystalline fibers. With his gloved hands he scooped out the semi-living seeds of light and smashed them on the ground and trampled on them. Last of ad he struck at the fiber which connected the local brain of the Nightingale with the specialized brain of the STGs. It was already wavering to red in shock for it hid no way of defending itself against the destruction. Wilberfoss struck and struck again. This was one of the original links and it was strong and tough. But it began to break. There were splinters first and then whole strands came away. He gripped the trunk with both hands and pulled and it tore away and came crashing down on him.
There was still faint luminescence from one place in the room and as he crushed this Jon Wilberfoss said, “Goodbye.”
The rescue ship drew near. I will let the Captain of that ship explain things in his own words:
“We were pulling close using the L-M linkage. We could see something of the damage done to the ship. Plates missing, holes punched in the ship and the entire hydroponics ring had been ripped away. We were amazed that it still held together. But then, parts of it were blazing with light and we guessed it was putting on a brave show. Whatever disaster had overcome it, it had survived.
“We were at full alert, of course. The hospital bays were ad open and standing by. We knew the Nightingale’s full complement and we were ready to take as many entities on board as we could. We knew another two ships of the Mercy Fleet were due within hours and that one of these was specialty designed to take DMEs.
“Then, as we came close, as we were dwarfed by the giant wreck, as we were looking for signs of life at its windows or a discharge of static, suddenly ad the lights went out. The ship became black as an asteroid.
“I piloted our way around, looking for one of the entrance bays. And it was one of our junior consoeurs who first saw Wilberfoss. He was a minute sliv
er figure. A shining dot of light in the dark ship. He was standing at a hole in the ship’s side and waving, the lights of his survival suit were blazing.
“We brought Wilberfoss on board.
“Minutes later we boarded the Nightingale and found it a dead ship.”
★★★
So we have returned more or less to the place where this story began but we have been on a long journey.
It now only remains for me to describe the final events in the Poveredo Garden.
27 Epilogue
Shortly after Wilberfoss’s final collapse into truth, I wrote my official report. I dealt in facts. I was not, at that time, greatly interested in what forces made a human rick. I was more interested in meshing cause with effect.
I published my report and many senior members of the Gentle Order visited the Pacifico Monastery to interview Wilberfoss. He answered their questions eagerly. He spoke about everything and occasionally I had to intervene as he tended to cast the worst light, that is the most self-critical light, upon his own participation in the events. In his way he was still asking for punishment. The wiser brains of the Gentle Order took note and it was decided that never again would one man be asked to take such awesome responsibility. The Nightingale was a one-time-only ship. In the ship’s capacity to extend the powers of a fallible man, it came close to making him God. In the hands of a brigand the Nightingale could, alone, have devastated the Gentle Order.
“We must therefore,” as the Magister of Assisi Central put it, “give thanks that in choosing Wilberfoss, we almost chose correctly. But it is an experiment not to be repeated. It allows vanity too wide a scope.”
And where is the Nightingale now? The ship is a museum, a tourist attraction. It is tethered out from Assisi Central in permanent orbit and parties of sightseers are ferried out to it daily. The story of the Nightingale has become a myth, like the story of old father Noah and his ark.
That the ship is a wreck is significant. Because it is a wreck, the imagination is free to wander and guess at its one-time magnificence. Given time, its ordeal may begin to seem heroic rather than tragic. And that will be a loss.
Magister Tancredi visited the Nightingale during his last sabbatical to Assisi. He informs me there is a restaurant in what used to be the DME sector and he also told me the food was excellent. Some sections of the ship have apparently been restored such as the dormitory and recreation areas. Others, such as the lobes containing the massive symbol transformation generators, have been gutted and their cells redeployed. The private quarters occupied by Jon Wilberfoss are just as he left them right down to his last recorded message. The seed chamber which he ruined is also left as found. Few people visit it as it has an atmosphere of dejection and grief, like a cell for the condemned.
I am told that the museum is wed appointed and informative. The one and only journey of the Nightingale is clearly documented with pictures and video shows. The part which Jon Wilberfoss played in the ship’s demise is not, however, emphasized. The implication is that he is dead.
And that is how it should be. The saga of the Nightingale is complete unto itself and makes a fitting conclusion to a thoughtful pilgrimage. It would be wrong to contaminate the myth with the flesh and blood of a real man.
But Wilberfoss lives. The events I have described in this yarn occurred some twenty years ago and it is now time for me to place a few last pebbles in my mosaic.
After the departure of the investigating teams from Assisi Central, the spotlight of publicity went off Jon Wilberfoss. Quickly he became a forgotten man. Physically he was in robust health and so gradually Lily withdrew her attention. She had other things to deal with. There were always babies being born. There were always members of the Gentle Order who needed the deep rest that the Poveredo Garden can provide. There were always Talline women on pilgrimage who needed Lily’s help. There were always fractures to set or wounds to dress. Such was Lily’s work and she felt comfortable with it.
Wilberfoss eventually moved out of the small hospital and into a smaller house further around the wad of the garden, closer to the sea wad. He lived on in the garden as a kind of pensioner. He could roam at will and help with the gardening when he had a mind.
I also withdrew from Wilberfoss. After I had written my official report, I undertook to provide a detailed catalog of the contents of the Nightingale. Later Magister Tancredi needed me. He was into his dotage and thus I became something between amanuensis and handmaid. Magister Tancredi finally entered Lily’s Garden himself after a stroke which left him unable to speak, and he died there within five days. He never saw Wilberfoss, though Wilberfoss saw him.
A new Magister arrived, one who had been an engineer out in the Blind Man System. His name is Staniforth and he is built like a boxer. He spends much of his time down in the maintenance sheds. He has little need of me and the Pacifico Monastery more or less runs itself. I have retreated to the library.
And so what of Wilberfoss?
It has been my practice for many years now to spend a few hours each week with him. We play a game or we talk. He is still not quite right in the head but there is a kind of glee with him and he is always an interesting companion. I never know what he will come out with. I am like one of those old gold miners who, so long as there were lights, continued to pan.
Here by way of mosaic pebbles are two anecdotes. I have given them titles. They complete this volume. I must confess that I do not ready understand them. But then again, having talked about them with many humans, I am not convinced that anyone else does. I hope you enjoy them.
1) Jon Wilberfoss and the Green Man
One day Wilberfoss was working out at the edge of the orchard at the place where the wild wood comes down to the river. Having worked ad morning gathering windfall fruit he felt drowsy and so lay down in the shade and quickly feel asleep.
He began to dream. In his dreams Jon Wilberfoss was always back in the Nightingale and in this particular dream he found himself crouched in the darkness deep inside the ship but safe within a small cell of light. For hours Wilberfoss had been walking through the deserted ship with only darting shadows for company. Several times he paused uncertain of his way and several times he stopped because he believed he could hear someone behind him. Now, tired at last, he had lit his small night light and dowsed his suit lights and had settled down in a comer hoping for sleep. But sleep would not come. He lay awake with his eyes open and eventually, just beyond the small cone of light, he saw movement. A swirl of fabric, he thought.
Now, in the dream he was not afraid. But if such a thing had actually occurred on the Nightingale he might have been driven out of his wits with fear. In the dream he stood up and called upon whatever presence was near to reveal itself. A light shone out as though at the end of a long, long corridor. Hesitantly a figure advanced toward him. Man or woman, Wilberfoss could not say. The figure was clothed in a long gown of green. It was holding a lamp which glittered brilliantly and which was held in such a way that it replaced the face of the figure. Nevertheless, Wilberfoss had the impression that the face was damaged in some way.
The figure came toward him tentatively, as though afraid of him. Wilberfoss called encouragement and opened his arms. At moments the shape of the figure was like Medoc, at others it was like the first woman he had loved or the prison warder who had loved him or like Wilberfoss himself. But the face was always, invisible. It came closer and closer . . .
And when the brilliance of the approaching lamp became unbearable, Wilberfoss woke up and found the sun in his eyes. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was streaming down on his face. He opened his eyes and was dazzled so that he seemed to be in a red haze. At first he did not know whether he was asleep or awake.
Wilberfoss sat up and rubbed his eyes to get rid of the redness, and when his sight returned it seemed that everything about him was brighter.
As Wilberfoss said when he was recounting this incident to me, “I know something of such states. I can recognize wh
en the apparent world of sense dissolves to reveal a different reality. I was seeing the world of the Nature Gods which can exist in the blackness of space or in a secret grove at midnight or midday. We live in this world but we do not see it for most of our time. It is a world in which, when we see it, everything reflects us. For when we are there we are the Gods of the earth.”
I have given you Wilberfoss’s exact words. Those of you who are able to make something of them are welcome to do so. Objectively I cannot understand them. But I know they meant something to Wilberfoss and that is sufficient.
So the world seemed brighter and Wilberfoss found his gaze drawn to a particular tree, a sliver oak with leaves that glowed and a trunk that was more vivid than three dimensions. The tree had dense foliage and it moved and jostled in the breeze.
And as Wilberfoss stared at the screen of leaves it seemed that he could detect a face. It was a green face and slightly larger than the face of a man but yet not the face of a giant. It was an ugly and dangerous face, with fat cheeks and thick lips. Yet it was also a face filled with primitive vitality. Leaves grew in the nostrils and throat. Leaves sprouted from the temples and drooped over the ears. The eyes were dark and flashing. Unmistakably the figure was that of a man.
As though aware that it had been seen, the figure moved from behind the oak tree and out into the yellow sunlight. It advanced on Wilberfoss.