Maximum Ice (21 page)

“My parents sent me to safety, to study in a land called America, because I was good at studies. Then my parents died, and when I came home to bury them, I found the truth about how the world treated us. My gypsy people were exhausted and bitter, so we left. In the ship.” It was too long a story to tell in one night. Once you started to tell, what could you leave out?

Oddly, she found herself wanting to tell him. It had been a long time since she’d had a friend—if Wolf could be considered such. There was never time in her patchwork life for a friend—there was barely time for lovers, although they were easier to find.

She looked over at Wolf, wondering if he could be a friend, or if she was just desperate.

He sat very still and silent. Perhaps he was sorry he had asked about fire.

“They even killed the children,” she said.

He nodded, as though he knew how war could be. But how could he know, in this land of rats and Ice?

“And worse,” she whispered. “Worse.”

In a low voice he said, “The fire,” nodding again.

The dried rat meat lay in her hand, and her belly churned, festering with words. She closed her eyes. Wolf’s quietness opened a space for her words. They started to come.

“I arrived at the camps to help the living. They thought I might know what to do. I was a counselor, and there were children in the cells, children who couldn’t just walk out, after what had happened to them. We opened the cell doors, but the little ones stayed inside. It was all they knew, by the time we got there.

“The women who were raped in the camps, we gathered them up and tried to help them. Many went on the ship with me. But these children didn’t go. They were… gone, somehow. We tried to reach them. But they went deep inside, their only hiding place. Most never found their way out again.”

She opened her eyes, finding that Wolf was still gazing at her. “Many sold themselves for sex. They ran away to live in the streets. When we brought them back to families that would have loved them, they ran away again, selling themselves for a piece of bread. That was the worst thing I ever saw, that their abusers had taught them to abuse themselves.” She finished by saying, “So when each generation in turn asks, why did we leave earth, I tell them.”

“Ship Mother,” came Wolf’s voice in the darkness. “You tell the stories.”

She nodded, out of words.

“It’s a good name,” he said.

Behind him, a glow burned on the horizon. It wasn’t the moon. Wrong direction.

Noting Zoya’s gaze, Wolf said: “Error’s Rock.” After a moment
he continued, “Zeros think it’s sacred, but it’s only a mountain of Ice.”

“It burns,” Zoya murmured, staring.

“The rock is large. Zeros go there to get truth. What they get is death. The starving death, the rat death. The snow-witch death.”

Apparently he thought that was a proper note on which to end their conversation, and, turning, he shuffled off to the sled, where he preferred to bunk.

His voice came back to her: “Sleep now, Ship Mother.”

Eventually, she would. But nothing, not even the dour Wolf, could spoil a fine evening with a good crop of stars overhead. Yes, sleep could wait.

Anatolly bowed his head. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

The confessional booth was polished wood, carved with loving care out of rare mahogany. It was a special contribution to the Ship from Pope Innocent XIV himself. The entire chapel was a place of peace and comfort. Anatolly wondered when it was that he had stopped going there for spiritual sustenance.

“My last confession was… long ago. Father, I am in jeopardy.” He should have said
we
. We all are. But this confession was for him, and he sorely needed it. “For my soul.”

When Anatolly paused, Father Donicetti’s voice came from very close to the window between them. “Our Savior is capable of all things, my son.”

Anatolly basically liked Father Donicetti. The Father was vastly learned, more tolerant than many preferred him to be, and capable of surprise and innovation. Not bad for a 250-year-old AI unit. Donicetti was a bit of a liberal, with a tendency to rabble-rouse around social issues. Some of the crew didn’t think it sat well on a priest.

“My soul… doubts, Father. I doubt my faith.”

“Even our Lord endured the arid lands of doubt.”

“Yes, but… But it’s worse than just doubt, Father. I despair.”

The requisite pause ensued, at this revelation of deep sin. “Go on,” Father said, his voice carefully neutral.

He had to credit the Father for his tact. Donicetti was certainly not going to accept despair, but he would let Anatolly unburden himself. The Vatican committee that designed the Priest in Space program judged that a certain flexibility might be needed, given the unique stresses the ship’s population would encounter. Early on they had discarded the idea of raising up priests from the ship population over the generations. With the ship eventually out of contact with the Holy See, theological drift could distort Church doctrine out of recognition. And since Church authority was eroding at home from all sides, this ship, at least, would be an oasis of orthodoxy. The virtue of the AI program was that it wouldn’t drift, but stay anchored to twenty-second-century Vatican III.

“Father, the Church is gone. The papacy, the liturgy, everything. We came back to earth, and it was all gone.”

“The Church is eternal, my son. It lives in the hearts of those who believe, whatever befalls its institutions.”

Anatolly whispered, “Yes, as you say, Father. But it wasn’t
supposed
to abandon us. The Church was built upon a Rock. Nothing is as it used to be.” He wasn’t expressing himself well. It was just falling out of him, all the doubt and pain.

“The papacy is gone, you say?”

They should have updated Donicetti, but there was so much going on. “Sorry, Father. We’ve had reports. So, it looks like it, yes.”

“That is a grave circumstance.”

Anatolly came out of his own concerns for a moment to
wonder if the Vatican had programmed in a contingency such as this one. They knew the ship would be gone so long that even inconceivable changes might befall the Church.

Donicetti was surprisingly calm about all this. Maybe he didn’t like to admit failure himself. The priest had been an outspoken advocate of the return home, that painful decision that nearly broke the Rom in two—that even after two hundred years, could still inspire flashes of temper. Especially now…

He wanted the priest to acknowledge their woes, to really listen, to really comfort him. “The earth is dying under terrible fields of crystal. Babies abort in the womb…”

“Abort?”

Wrong word. Donicetti knew their problems on that score. Why was he being so pedantic? “Spontaneously, Father. People are despondent. Tereza Bertak was hospitalized.”

“Tereza is much better now.”

“But depressed, like so many of us.”

“I wouldn’t call her depressed. But what about you?”

Yes, what about him? He’d been intent on setting an example. Confident, optimistic, determined. It was a good show. But when he looked at the view of earth—of what it was, and what it was fast becoming—he was afraid.

“It’s not just Ice, Father. It’s…” Anatolly struggled to find the heart of it. “It’s that even below Ice, the land is ruined. Even what’s still Ice-free is deadened. Because of the dark field.”

“I’ve heard of this dark visitation.”

Anatolly whispered, “It’s as though God is trying to kill us.”

“If God calls us, my son, we will go.”

“Yes, Father, but then why struggle, why
care?”

“Because we love His creation. But we do not see the whole of His creation, only through a glass darkly.”

Father spoke of heaven, of course, but Anatolly thought of

Vlad’s other dimensions. They were like fish who couldn’t see, couldn’t even imagine, the airy world above…

Anatolly’s voice broke. “Why is Ice growing, Father? It needn’t have stayed.”

“Evil is always with us, Anatolly.”

“But Ice began as a defense….”

“Even Satan began as an angel.” His tone grew darker. “A fall from grace.”

Anatolly didn’t like the direction of this talk.
A fall from grace. That was him
, of course. Was that what Father was trying to say?

“My faith is deserting me. Help me, Father.”

“My son, God is eternal, as is His Church. The earth may not endure, nor any of its creatures, but still the Church lives. It lives here, on this ship, if nowhere else. And you are the ship’s leader, and must resolve to uphold the Church in the eyes of those you command.”

Anatolly looked up from staring at his shoes. Was the priest chastising him just when he had made himself most vulnerable?

“Therefore, you must be strong, my son. Accept God’s power and mercy to forgive you, to love you, though you do not love yourself.”

“I don’t?”

“No, my son.”

Anatolly had never thought about whether he loved himself or not. It didn’t seem relevant. He could see why some people didn’t like the ship’s priest. And with a name like
Donicetti.
Crew always suspected that was the name of the chief Vatican programmer, but Rome wouldn’t say

“Be a ship captain, Anatolly Razo.”

Anatolly frowned at this change of focus. What he wanted was his faith back. Wasn’t that Donicetti’s job?

“I
am
a ship captain,” Anatolly said with some irritation.

“No, my son, you are not.” Now the priest sounded less kindly. He had put on that priestly voice of authority. The Vatican committee made sure they got
that
part down.

“Not?” came Anatolly’s high-pitched protest.

“If you were, would your crew be having meetings without you?”

“Meetings?”

“Secret meetings.”

Anatolly wiped his hands on his uniform pants. Meetings? What was the priest saying? “Who is meeting?”

“That’s my point, my son. You don’t know. And you should.”

God’s Blood, what was all this about meetings? Didn’t people meet on board his ship every day without permission? Talking and arguing was a way of life for them. But still… “When did people meet?”

“Right now. And other times.”

“People can meet, you know, Father. It doesn’t have to be mutiny.” Even as he said
mutiny
, his chest stung with a needle of anxiety.

“You delegate too much to Janos Bertak.”

“He’s my first mate!” Anatolly blurted out in mounting exasperation.

“One devoutly hopes so. But, my son, you’ve taken the Lord’s lesson of humility too far. It’s not our Savior’s teaching that we hold back from the work that the world delivers to our hands. We must seize it, for God has entrusted you with His holy Ship and all the souls on board.”

“I thought souls were
your
business.” Anatolly winced at his rudeness to the priest, but the lecture was insufferable.

“They are, my son. And your business is to keep order so that Holy Mother Church can do her work unimpeded. The
work of souls. Therefore, be a captain of souls, my son. Go forth and captain this ship, in the name of our Lord.”

There was some truth to what the priest was saying. The crew liked a strong leader—except when they didn’t. And it was also true that Janos intimidated him. Janos had the crew’s hearts, and that intimidated him too.

“About that woman, though,” the priest was saying.

“Woman?”

“Solange Arnaud.” The priest’s tone was acid.

So Donicetti had heard about her. Well, good. Anatolly hadn’t been looking forward to broaching
that
subject.

“She must be accorded no privileges or titles.”

“No, Father. Of course not.”

“It’s a grave error to call her mother superior, or sister.”

Christ’s Blood, what difference did it make what they called her, amid all their other problems?

“She is an enemy of the Church.
Your
enemy, Anatolly.”

“Yes, Father.” Now, add to his long list of worries,
Church orthodoxy.

The confessional booth felt too close and tight. He was eager to leave. Yet he wanted to ask,
Have I fallen from grace?

Father Donicetti was intoning, “As penance, thirty Hail Marys, and ten Our Fathers.”

Annoyingly he slipped in, “And tell Janos Bertak to behave himself. Tell him in front of the staff.”

Anatolly swallowed, but lacking spit, his throat clamped shut. “Thank you, Father,” he managed to say

“Go in peace and sin no more.”

He went. Father had been firm with him. Had given him an assignment. A stern chat with Janos Bertak was in order. Yes.

It was preferable to the abyssal questions of grace, evil, and Ice.

Swan watched as they stacked the food in front of him, in tins and bags and barrels.

The heaps grew around him, as the men in robes brought up the provisions. Solange had brought with her four brothers, big as mules, and fully as intelligent, to judge by their demeanor. When the brothers had finished their work, she sent them to wait out of earshot, but within call, as though worried about her personal safety

Swan thanked her, but she was angry and made no response.

Her rudeness hardly registered on him, as fine as he felt. Oh, the difference between ailing and robust! His blood almost fizzed in his veins. He could walk for kilometers through core-text, and never tire.

But it came at a price. He had fought with Solange.

He hoped the matter of the sleeping nuns wouldn’t come up again. It must have been shocking, when she stumbled upon the situation the previous day. OK, but she didn’t realize what it had been like for
him.
He’d been cooped up for days, half-starving, consuming his supplies, but always half-mad with hunger. At the start, he’d smashed the nuns’ prisons with the intention of freeing them. But one thing led to another. He couldn’t remove the circlets from their necks. They were suffering.

Part of him at the time had stood aside, horrified. Part of him was able to rationalize that decent people in extreme circumstances stooped to cannibalism. The events were well documented.