Fisherman's Hope (The Seafort Saga Book 4)

by David Feintuch

  My voice was hoarse. “Don’t do this to me! I don’t have the strength.”

  “You know the truth. I know. That’s enough.”

  I whispered, “Edgar, I beseech you. It’s the only consolation I’ll ever know.”

  With the finality of a judge, he shook his head.

  I let them clothe me in my dress whites, lead me silently through crowded corridors to the forward lock. Every man in Prince of Wales had found excuse to be present, to see the notorious Nicholas Seafort one last time.

  Stone-faced, I showed them nothing.

  We cycled through to Earthport Station, strode along patched corridors to the waiting shuttle. I took my seat, fumbled uselessly at the belts with my injured hand, allowed them to strap me in.

  They lodged me at Portsmouth, where I’d sent Sergeant Serenco for trial. The next day Admiral Duhaney, lips pursed, himself handed me the indictment. The formality of his salute startled me, but I returned it crisply.

  I saw no one else except Captain Jason Tenere, appointed my counsel. He told me of the crowds massed in the streets outside, hoping for a glimpse of me.

  Captain Tenere ignored my instructions to plead guilty. Over my outraged protest, he entered a plea of innocence. I tried to dismiss him, demanded to speak for myself, but the Court refused. I would have to undergo trial. Because of my attempted plea, I was spared the misery of the drugs.

  The trial lasted two weeks.

  Entering and leaving the courtroom I endured the bright lights of the holocameras and the forest of mikes thrust in my face.

  I refused to speak on my own behalf.

  Cadet Boland was one of many called. Young, proud, he stood before the bar in crisp grays, a splendid specimen of the Navy to come. If it weren’t for the obscenity of his testimony, even I would have been moved. He spoke earnestly of my intent to join my victims in immolation, and of the vast hordes of fish we had summoned and passed down the line.

  One by one, Captains in the Home Fleet waited their turn to attest to the hopelessness of their situation, before we’d begun to caterwaul.

  Even Admiral Duhaney made his appearance, acknowledging that I’d submitted a caterwaul bomb proposal and begged him to speed its development.

  By the time an aide to Admiral Seville came forth, to testify regarding the welter of unconfirmed reports and pleas for help that had inundated London Admiralty, I suspected the worst. The Navy was gathering around one of its own.

  When it came to pass, my acquittal didn’t shock me. Holding my nausea in check, I stood at stolid attention while the President of the Court extolled my resourcefulness and heroism, and cited the incontrovertible and conclusive evidence that it was necessary for me to relieve Admiral Seville to preserve the fleet.

  After, they sent me back to Admiralty House. Lord God wasn’t done toying with me.

  A week later, they summoned me to Duhaney’s London office. I went, my resignation typed and ready in my pocket.

  The Admiral’s aide showed me in. Senator Richard Boland was present; I hadn’t expected him. Well, no matter. I saluted, held attention until released.

  I listened to what the Senator proposed, refused at once.

  “Good heavens, man, you’re a natural,” Senator Boland said. “You saved the world. As a candidate you’re unstoppable!”

  “You’re mistaken.” I peered down from the window to the pedestrians scurrying in the warm afternoon sun.

  “No, I’m not. You don’t know politics, Seafort. You’ll be—”

  “I’m stoppable. In fact, I’m stopped.”

  The Senator crossed glances with Duhaney. “What do you mean?”

  “I resign the Commandancy of Naval Academy. And I resign from the Naval Service of the United Nations.” I unfolded my formal paper, laid it on the desk.

  Duhaney gaped. “Resign? Don’t be ridiculous, Seafort. If you won’t help us in the legislature, the Navy needs you. Your image is invaluable, and we have a fleet to rebuild, the aliens’ home planet to find—”

  “No.”

  “Let me remind you,” he said with asperity, “you have no choice. Captain or Midshipman, you serve where you’re assigned.”

  “True. I’ll admit freely at court-martial that I refuse your orders.”

  “Court-martial?” His tone was unbelieving.

  “Yes. Let me go, or try me all over again.”

  “Is it because of how I spoke to you on Trafalgar! You were right, we were confus—”

  “You misunderstand. I’m done, for my own reasons.”

  Duhaney said, “All right, perhaps we shouldn’t push you into politics, no matter how much it would benefit the Navy. But you can’t resign; you have your duty. Your honor must rise to that.”

  I walked toward his desk, spread my hands on its gleaming surface, leaned close. My voice made even my own hackles rise. “Duhaney, if you again use the word honor in connection with my name, I’ll kill you with my bare hands.” I held his gaze until he could not.

  The Senator studied me with interest. “What will you do, Seafort, without the Navy, without politics?”

  “Do? It’s none of your concern. We’ve nothing further to say to each other.” I crossed to the door.

  “Mr. Seafort, thank you for saving my son.”

  I’d tried to kill his son. I strode to the door, and to purgatory.

  Epilogue

  THAT WASN’T THE LAST of it, but in the end they had to let me go.

  I rode the ancient electric railway to Cardiff, but with Father gone, nothing was the same. Eddie and Annie met me at the cottage door. Their anxious pretense at welcome set my nerves on edge. After a time Annie noticed my discomfort when her hand strayed to Eddie’s for a reassuring touch. On the few occasions she ventured to stroke my shoulder I responded with rigid indifference.

  We endured the mutual misery for three days. I brooded, and visited Jason’s grave. Then I left.

  I took a flat in Devon near Academy, but word of my presence soon spread, and I had no peace.

  I wandered Britain, looking for I knew not what. When recognized, I fled.

  One bleak day my path led me to the Neo-Benedictine order at Lancaster. My interview with Abbot Ryson was difficult; he seemed to take a visceral dislike to me. Nonetheless, something in my recital moved him to admit me as a novice. Three weeks later I took vows of chastity and obedience, and moved into the cloister bringing only the clothes I wore.

  Father Ryson had warned that monastery life would be hard. I didn’t mind. Testing my vow of obedience, he obliged me to weeks of absolute silence, a requirement normally reserved for punishment or as a mark of disfavor.

  The silence eased my way. Each morning I rose, filed with the brothers to matins, prayed on my knees on the cold stone floor. After, I toiled in the bakery where I learned how to knead the dough for three risings, preparing the sweet hot rolls that graced our meals.

  At night, I went to my bed in the tiny room called a cell, but which wasn’t such. I said rote prayers while making ready for sleep. The ritual words gave a certain remembered comfort, but I couldn’t feel the presence of God.

  At least they helped me not to think.

  Kneading dough helped me not to think.

  Cleaning latrines helped me not to think, a duty from which Father Ryson eventually relieved me, over my bitter protest.

  A parishioner recognized me at services, and for a time public services were unusually well attended. I focused my gaze on the stone floor, managing not to see the pointing fingers, not to hear the murmurs. Once a congregant brought a holocamera to services, but, thank You, Lord God, was bustled out by two burly monks before he could torment me further.

  Not thinking is difficult, when you’ve spent your life training to be a more precise thinker. Failing at it only makes me try harder. I’ve opted for confession, now a voluntary rite. Weekly I confide my sins to Abbot Ryson, whom I elected my confessor.

  Among my sins is the self-absorption that requires me to think
of who I am and what I’ve done.

  Perhaps as penance, Father Ryson has required me to set down the history of my life in such detail as it takes for me to adjudge it complete.

  And so, these many months, I’ve sat in my tiny, scrubbed cell after the day’s baking, and scratched with an old-fashioned pen onto real paper these recollections of my life. Written ostensibly to Abbot Ryson, they are actually addressed to You, Lord God, as if You could not read that which is inscribed in blood in my heart.

  With the detached observation that has always been my burden, I’ve described my self-ordained slide down the greased chute to hell. It started, perhaps, with the undeserved pride that made me offer myself to the Navy, and the foolish complacency that allowed me to stake my soul on the certainty that I could fulfill my oath.

  I slid further by lying to myself on the occasion I saved Vax Holser from the penalties of his disobedience, when he refused to abandon me on Telstar. At the time I pretended it was an act of mercy, but now, I know better. It was dereliction of duty.

  I slid faster, until I could skirt my oath of obedience merely to save Midshipman Philip Tyre a caning. Gliding ever onward, I found myself able to refuse an order from my superior Admiral Tremaine to take on the passengers he had disembarked.

  Could I ever have stopped, saved myself? Truly, I don’t know.

  By then it had become so easy, You see. I confess: duty had replaced You as my beacon. To protect my ship, my people, I knowingly swore Elena Bartel no harm, then shot her through the heart, exploding beyond pretense the myth that my oath, my covenant with You, was a thing I valued.

  What matter, after such folly, that I lied glibly to my superiors about Vax Holser’s conduct at Orbit Station? By now I was sliding with breathless speed, the breeze against my face ever warmer.

  And so we come to my ultimate folly, wherein I tricked obedient boys and rosy budding girls into casting away their lives to save my planet from the alien fish.

  Would they have given themselves willingly?

  I don’t know. I never gave them the chance.

  Was what I did necessary?

  In a sense, yes. Because I had no faith that You would save Your people, Your Church, Your creation. In my arrogance I believed that my acts alone could draw away the fish.

  But at night, when I compose myself for sleep and lie tossing until the early hours of the morn, I commune with Kevin Arnweil and Kyle Drew and Jacques Theroux, and so many others. At times, Midshipman Thomas Keene sits charred at my bedside, to vanish when I wake.

  I see them, please forgive me, at matins when my mind should be on the prayers I chant, and when I should not, of all times, be forced to think.

  I see them now, when I prepare to lay down my pen and attend to vespers.

  I am damned. That is as. it should be, for what I have done is damnable.

  But yet ...

  In the silence of the night I sit at the side of my bed, robe thrown over my bare shoulders, and I wonder ...

  How is it that I know that You are a God of mercy, a God of love, yet, nonetheless, I know equally well You must not forgive me?

  You see, if You could forgive the frightful evil I’ve done, then, Lord God, I’m sorry, I could not believe in You. For the sake of the children, if naught else, You must mete justice, and I, of all men, have earned punishment.

  But after I return to bed, and lie sleepless through the waning night, sometimes a still, small voice wonders, Oh, Lord God, surely You knew what You were doing, when You fitted my cog into the complex interwoven gears of Your creation?

  You made me what I was, and You provided the circumstances by which I threw myself from Grace. It was You who made it appear that my world and its people could not be saved unless I led those bright trusting children to their doom.

  And then, I ask:

  Lord God?

  Lord, why hast Thou forsaken me?

  Afterword

  SO ENDS THE AS YET unpublished autobiography of my friend and mentor Captain Nicholas Ewing Seafort, U.N.N.S. These painfully frank pages are the only record he has made of his accomplishments.

  Though his story ends here, history’s judgment of Mr. Seafort is less harsh than his own. As we all know, ten years after he completed these writings, he emerged from seclusion and plunged himself into the world of politics, drawn by a plea for help from an old friend.

  Allying himself with the Boland organization, Seafort was elected to the U.N. Senate with virtually no opposition. From the start he demonstrated the unswerving, selfless honesty that was ever after his trademark. His divorce from Annie Wells Seafort, later Annie Boss, had left him alone and desolate, a condition he endured for several years until his marriage to Arlene Sanders in the rotunda of the U.N.

  Most biographers have underestimated the effect of Abbot Ryson’s harsh mercy on the tormented ex-Captain in his care.

  Drawing on Seafort’s unbroken relationship with Lord God, Ryson evoked from him the depths of his anguish, and its cause. The means by which Nick Seafort unburdened his tortured soul and became reconciled to his past is unknown. But ever after, he would brook no evasion, no dishonesty, not the most insignificant white lie.

  This characteristic made his company uncomfortable for some, but wiser men, and I, found it reassuring.

  During his term as SecGen, Mr. Seafort staunchly supported the Navy while it rebuilt from its debacle with the fish. Yet, at the same time, he moved firmly and decisively to quell the Navy’s chronic nepotism. Today’s Naval meritocracy is a direct result of his efforts.

  Nicky Seafort was utterly inept at traditional political skills. He tolerated no diplomatic lies or convenient subterfuge. In the Port of London scandals, it was his unflinching honesty and refusal to disavow blame that led to the fall of his government and his personal disgrace. Had he been less blunt about his failure to oversee Senator Wade’s misdealings, his administration might well have survived the March 2224 vote of confidence.

  Over time, the public and the Senate have come to appreciate Seafort’s refusal to exculpate himself. His admissions are now admired as a mark of integrity and honor, and there are those who have called for him to cast aside his premature retirement and enter again the public arena. His urgent need for privacy, his troubled nature, and his distrust of power make that event unlikely.

  It is hard, in times of relative tranquillity, to recall the turmoil and uncertainty of those perilous days when fish roamed unchecked and the colonies struggled to recast their relationship with the home world.

  Today, unmanned Caterwaul Stations in permanent Solar orbit safeguard the security of mankind. It would seem the threat from the fish has ended, but the Stations remain sentinels of our vigilance, serviced by Nick Seafort’s beloved Navy.

  I met Captain Seafort again on several occasions when business brought me to Earth or politics took him to Hope Nation. When together, we often reminisced about living friends and long-departed comrades, and those young days when our destinies lay ahead.

  Despite the honors and achievements of later years, Captain Seafort once remarked that never in his life did he feel as fulfilled as when first we’d met, while he served as senior midshipman on U.N.S. Hibernia, on our first hopeful voyage to the stars.

  Derek, Lord Carr

  First Staadholder

  Commonweal of Hope Nation

  October, in the year of our Lord 2225

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents eit
her are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  copyright © 1996 by David Feintuch

  cover design by Michel Vrana

  978-1-4532-9563-2

  This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media

  180 Varick Street

  New York, NY 10014

  www.openroadmedia.com

  EBOOKS BY DAVID FEINTUCH

  FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA

  Available wherever ebooks are sold

  Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media.

  Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases

  Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.

  Sign up now at

  www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters

  FIND OUT MORE AT

  WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM

  FOLLOW US:

  @openroadmedia and

  Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia