Richard Russo

by Ship of Fools

  “Yes.”

  “It would be best if you made a decision before you left.”

  I didn’t like being pressured. The mutiny seemed a reckless and foolhardy undertaking. Even though I understood his arguments for my participation, I refused to be rushed into a decision. There were too many possible outcomes, and almost all of them were bad.

  I finally gave him a shrug for an answer, which didn’t please him.

  “Sari Mandapat is on the landfall team,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “If you haven’t decided before you leave, let her know your decision when you manage to summon enough courage to make a commitment.” He stood, and flashed a sly grin at me. “Say hello to the priest for me next time you see her.” Then he turned and walked away before I could respond.

  But what would I have said? The dwarf knew far too much.

  THE next day we went into geosynch orbit around Antioch, directly above the source of the transmission. Satellite probes were launched; final preparations were made. All or nothing, Nikos had said. He was right, and I was ready.

  9

  THE small ship fell out of the clouds. Came down shaking and shimmying in the wind currents, turbulence that diminished as we dropped farther and then swung around into a more gradual descent. I felt queasy all the way down.

  The shuttle was tiny compared to the Argonos, of course, but large enough to comfortably hold the landing team of thirteen, two pilots, two armored terrain vehicles, and a smaller, faster, and more maneuverable flyer capable of making further exploratory surveys of the planet.

  We watched our descent on video monitors mounted in the ceiling around the cabin, choosing from among several different views of the ground, the sky, even the surface of the shuttle itself. The shuttle’s skin was coruscating metal, color and texture changes popping chaotically across its surface. Every so often it all snapped into focus, a perfect camouflage against the terrain below, but then the focus burst apart and the chaos returned. Once, decades or centuries earlier, that metal skin worked perfectly, providing three-dimensional camouflage, making the shuttle almost invisible from any vantage point; but like so many other things on the ship, it functioned sporadically, and no one knew how to repair it.

  The terrain below was awash in the orange glow from the rising sun, the sun’s rays cutting in under dissipating clouds. A muddy river snaked through densely wooded flat-lands, the woods bordered several kilometers to the west by a ragged range of foothills that in turn gave way to higher, stony mountains scarred by swaths of burned trees and vegetation. No signs of smoke rose from the charred stumps, the spikes and spines of blackened wood. A herd of large, mottled beasts moved through the devastation.

  Down by the river, a large section of the woods had been cleared, and in that clearing was a town, dozens of low buildings, roads and pathways and other artificial structures. There was no movement in the town except for leaves and bits of flotsam blown about by the wind, a few pieces of cloth flapping from their places of attachment. But no creature moved, unless it was inside a building and out of sight. How likely was that?

  We approached the town, descending more slowly now, arcing around it. Finally, over an open space just back from the river—a flat rectangle of dirt partially fenced—the shuttle shifted into a hover. Stationary for several moments, we began a slow vertical descent with loud, wailing noises from the shuttle’s engines. The dust below us boiled and swirled until the shuttle touched down. The wailing faded, the engines shut down, and eventually there was silence.

  We waited for an hour or so while sensors and probes were dispatched and data was transmitted back to us. When everything checked out as we’d expected, we readied ourselves, masking our faces with breathers. The shuttle’s belly opened up and dropped down, a wide ramp leading to the ground. A few minutes later, led by the soldiers, we walked down the ramp, and took our first steps on that alien world.

  THERE was no one left alive. We had not expected to find anyone, but the desolation of the settlement was surprisingly grim, and I could feel the emptiness as I stood near the shuttle, looking out at the buildings. A pall rapidly settled over us, worked its way into our bones so that it became impossible to dispel. A discomforting stillness hung over the area, as if there was nothing alive; no humans, no animals, not even tiny creatures like insects.

  I noticed the light more than anything else. It was like nothing on the Argonos, even in the largest of the nature rooms that tried to re-create natural environments. Not brighter, but more intense somehow, so that everything around us seemed to have the faintest hint of shining outlines. I had forgotten what real sunlight could be like.

  The soldiers insisted on leading the way as we left the fenced landing area. Our first task was to find the source of the transmission. Barry Sorrel, the head of the science team, had some instrument that homed in on the signal; we followed him through the buildings, along rutted pathways. I searched each structure we passed for signs of life, but everything was dead and quiet, abandoned or forgotten.

  The transmitter was on top of a building near the center of the town, powered by surrounding arrays of solar panels. No way to know how many decades it had been pulsing out its steady, meaningless transmission. Andrew Thornton wanted to destroy the transmitter—out of pique, I think. But the science team wanted to take a closer look at it over the next few days, see if there were codes or messages stored somewhere, anything more meaningful.

  We were not a military-minded group, and after we found the transmitter, we began to disperse—the science team members stayed together, though they ignored the soldiers; Sari Mandapat and Father Veronica drifted toward the outer edges of the settlement; Thornton stuck with two of the soldiers; and I went off on my own.

  I was the first to find bones. Down near the river was a rectangular building of rotting wood, the sunlight slashing through cracks and jagged holes and broken windows. I stood in the doorway, watching dust luminesce in the beams of light, when the bright white curves of a rib cage caught my eye.

  We spent most of the rest of the day making a general search of the settlement, through all the buildings that were easily accessible. We found the remains of at least a few of those who had once lived here. Only bones. No flesh remained. Four skeletons mostly complete and completely bare except for an occasional shred of colored fabric or bands of plastic or metal, oxidized rings circling white finger bones. The scattered pieces of two or three others, perhaps. Once we had gone through the entire settlement, we began collecting all the skeletons, partial or whole, every bone that looked like it might be human. The science team examined the bones as we collected them, particularly the complete skeletons, but it soon became clear there was no way to glean even a clue to the reasons any of them died—there were no obvious signs of trauma, no shattered and strangely disintegrating skulls, no unusual lesions.

  In an open area near the woods, the soldiers blew open a small pit with explosives and stone burners; then we carefully laid the skeletons and bones on the bottom.

  Father Veronica stood at the edge of the pit, gazing down at bones and earth. She made the sign of the cross, and began to speak.

  “Absolve, Domine, animus omnium fidelium defunctorum ab omni vinculo delictorum. Et gratia tua illis succurrente . . .”

  A dead language spoken for the dead. None of us understood what she was saying, and if the dead could have heard, I’m sure they would not have understood, either; they couldn’t hear, so perhaps it didn’t matter.

  But I was certain Father Veronica understood what she was saying, for there was strong emotion in her voice, a sadness eased by hope, a comfort and acceptance.

  “. . . Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis et miseriae; dies magna . . .”

  We were all silent, standing along the edge of the pit on either side of her, gazing down along with her on all those bones. She was beautiful, and in a way magnificent, and my admiration for her grew as I watched and listened.

  “. . .
Kyrie, eleison . . . Christe, eleison . . . Kyrie, eleison.”

  She once again made the sign of the cross, and this time everyone except me joined her.

  That was it for the day. Barry Sorrel and the other science-team members wanted to use the last of daylight to explore the town, but Thornton, Sari Mandapat, and I overruled them, and we all returned to the shuttle. There was no hurry. The dead there had been long dead, and the living had nowhere to go.

  Father Veronica remained until dark standing at the edge of the pit, presumably praying; then she, too, returned to the shuttle. I wanted to talk to her about the graveside ritual, but she said she needed to be alone. She gave me a copy of the text she had spoken from (I still have it), then retreated to one of the armored land vehicles and shut herself inside.

  There was no translation for the text, no explanation, but I read it over several times, quietly aloud; the sound and rhythm of it gave me an unexpected sense of comfort.

  A violent storm blew in during the night, and it only worsened throughout the day. I couldn’t see the settlement through the viewing windows or on the monitors, just the vaguest of dark outlines through the torrential rains crashing down from the black clouds above us.

  It was odd. Stuck inside the ship for all these years, searching for a habitable world, waiting for the chance to walk on solid ground once again, maybe even breathe open air, and now that we’d landed we were trapped inside a small metal vessel with far less freedom and space than we would have had if we’d still been aboard ship.

  The storm raged on. Three days and it never let up. We barely managed to get daily transmissions through to the Argonos, apprising them of our status.

  Father Veronica went out into the storm the morning of the third day. Sergeant Woolf wanted to take one of her soldiers and go after her, but I persuaded her to stay with the shuttle. I reminded the sergeant of her duty to the ship and the exploration team, arguing that if she or one of her soldiers were lost, she would put us all at greater risk. I didn’t believe any of it, but I felt that if Father Veronica needed to go out into the storm, she should be allowed to do so.

  She returned several hours later. The shuttle’s security/ detection system apparently wasn’t functioning, for we only knew of her return when we heard her banging on the shuttle’s hull. We lowered the embarkation ramp, and had to help her inside; she was so wet and exhausted she could barely walk, but at the same time she looked refreshed and somehow invigorated. She wouldn’t answer any questions. She dried off and changed into another cassock, then settled down in silence to read from an old bound book with thin, translucent pages. She appeared content and peaceful, and I thought that maybe we should all make trips out into the storm.

  10

  THE storm broke during the night, and the sun rose bright and radiant on the fourth day, lighting up stray clouds with red and purple, bringing light and warmth to the silent, empty buildings. Steam rose from the river, from the building rooftops, from the mud, from the trees surrounding the town—antediluvian jungle.

  I was the first to leave the shuttle, and stood alone beside it, my face and lungs exposed to the air of this world. I had decided to abandon the breathing apparatus—people had lived here long enough to build a settlement; it probably wasn’t anything in the air that killed them, and if it was . . . I’d accept whatever came. For some reason, I felt comfortably reckless.

  Without the breather, the smells were intense. Exotic and strange and exhilarating. More than ever, I knew I was on an alien world, my mind trying to identify so many odors that didn’t match anything I’d ever experienced.

  The air was nearly silent. But as the sun climbed, sounds of life finally emerged from the woods—animals presumably, although the clicks and chitters and rustlings and mewling cries sounded distinctly alien, as they should. This was an alien planet, alien to human beings, alien certainly to those human beings who had landed here just days ago.

  Then there was another sound, a low and quiet yowling. Not from the woods, though; this time the sound came from one of the nearest buildings. I turned and stared in the direction of a long, weather-beaten structure, at the open doorway and shattered windows.

  A large cat stepped through the doorway and emerged into the sunlight, staring back at me. The cat was larger than any I’d ever seen on the ship. The low yowling became almost a growl, and its tail, fat and puffed, twitched stiffly.

  I squatted and reached out a hand.

  The cat hissed, then ran off toward the trees.

  I was filled with a wonderful sense of peace and contentment, and wished that none of the others would leave the shuttle.

  BUT they did, and the exploration of the settlement resumed. The ground was still muddy, and moving about was tiresome and sloppy. I lost interest before noon. Buildings filled with rotting furniture, broken doors and windows, warped and mildewed floors and walls, unrecognizable masses and shafts of rusting metal. I doubted anyone would discover anything useful, anything to tell us what had happened.

  Leaving the others to explore, I went down to the river at midday. The remains of a crude dock extended three or four meters into the water, although it was clear that at one time the dock had been much longer. When I took a few steps onto it, the wood was so decayed I sank slightly into it, and the entire structure creaked and swayed, threatening to collapse beneath me. I backed off and sat on a section set into the bank and watched the muddy water flow past.

  The water was hypnotic, so that I lost all sense of time, and even a sense of place. This was only the second time in my life that I had seen a real river—it felt so different from the small, artificial streams that flowed in the nature rooms on board the ship. Vast and uncontrolled and somehow alive.

  I heard a noise and looked up. Father Veronica stood just a few feet away, watching me.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “The settlement doesn’t interest me,” I told her. “Digging through the mud and the rot of the past . . .” I shook my head. “Not when it’s so unlikely that any answers will be found.”

  She didn’t reply at first, and it seemed she was bothered by my answer, or made thoughtful by it, I wasn’t sure which.

  “Then why did you come with us? On this landfall?”

  “To be the captain’s representative,” I said. “He needs eyes and ears down here.”

  She smiled slyly, and I wondered what she was thinking. But whatever it was, she kept it to herself. “I meant personally. If you hadn’t wanted to come, you could have found a way to stay on the Argonos.”

  “I’m not sure that’s true. But yes, I wanted to come. I wanted to see this place. I wanted to stand on solid ground. I wanted to experience real weather, not the simulated rains and winds of the nature rooms. See a real sun and a real moon.”

  “We all should be allowed to make landfall,” she said, gazing across the river and into the dense undergrowth on the other side. “Everyone on board should be given the opportunity, for at least a few days.” It was something Pär might have said, and I wondered if she knew of the plans for mutiny. “It isn’t right.” Her face was set, and I thought she might actually be angry.

  “Why did you come with the team?” I asked.

  “For the Church. So there would be someone to comfort the living, someone to bury the dead.”

  “And your personal reasons?” I asked.

  She turned back to me. “There is no difference,” she said. “My life and my faith and my Church are all the same.”

  I could see that she believed that about herself, but I wasn’t sure that I did. I wondered if her Church was the same as the bishop’s. I doubted it.

  “I’m going back now,” she said. “I want to be there if I’m needed. I just wanted to see that you were all right.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “I can see that,” she said. She turned and walked back toward the settlement, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the swirling of the water beneath my feet.

&nbs
p; THE orbiting probe surveys were completed that day. Photos and imaging scans were transmitted both to the Argonos and to us on land. The science team spent hours in consultation with the captain, the bishop, and another science team up on the ship, trying to determine what, if anything, needed further exploration.

  There was only one obvious site, another large group of buildings, although no electromagnetic emissions whatsoever could be detected from it, and there were no signs of life. It would be several hours to the southeast by flyer.

  After that there was much disagreement. Lots of discussion, lots of uncertainty. I retreated to the rear of the shuttle’s main cabin, not wanting to get involved. Eventually, though, their uncertainty was overcome, and it was decided that two other sites warranted further exploration. Then it was time to select a two-person team to make the trip. I wondered if anyone would volunteer. This was an alien and unknown world, and any venture would only add to the risks we all currently faced.

  “I need to be with the exploration party,” Father Veronica said. “In case there are survivors that need help, comfort.” She paused. “Or more dead to be buried.”

  I waited for the objections, but none were forthcoming. There was silence, people in the shuttle looking around at one another. The bishop’s voice came through the linkup.

  “I approve,” he said.

  His approval surprised me, until it occurred to me that the bishop might actually want Father Veronica put at risk. Just as Nikos saw the bishop as a threat to his captaincy, the bishop might see Father Veronica as a threat to his own position. The fact that Father Veronica had never demonstrated the slightest ambition might only make her more dangerous in his eyes.

  I came forward and said, “I’ll accompany Father Veronica.”

  Everyone was surprised, I think.