On My Way to Paradise (40 page)

"He’s crazy," Mavro said when they’d closed the door.
"I do not mind fighting on Baker, but I do not want to do it with
crazy people."

We all nodded. It was obvious the samurai wouldn’t
turn the ship around. They considered it a personal affront that we
even think of retreat a possibility.

Mavro went to the dorms a few hours later and
reported that all over the ship the samurai delivered the same
message. It was as if they’d thrown a wet blanket on our smoldering
fire. We went to battle practice and lost two out of three. Zavala
was released from the infirmary and he demanded more anesthetics,
struggling to relieve countless imagined pains. The anesthetics
left him passive as a drugged baby. At dinner the air was still
tense, but in the eyes of my compadres was resignation. Inertia
carried us forward. They were convinced we should continue on. News
reached us that Garzón and the samurai were searching for ways to
improve our chances on Baker, to arrange affairs so we could lower
the expected fatalities. Men trusted Garzón and were willing to
wait. No one seriously spoke of return to Earth. But the men on
module A that trained during our sleeping cycle were not so easily
persuaded to continue, and I was totally surprised when the riot
suddenly broke.

In the middle of the night I woke to a distant
throbbing, like the sound of blood rushing behind one’s ears,
accompanied by a roaring sea. Thousands of feet pounded in unison;
thousands of voices were chanting in the distance. I tried to make
out the words to the chant, but the voices were indistinct. I could
feel the tension in the air as if it were cobwebs, electric cobwebs
brushing my face. Perfecto was rushing to his locker. The rest of
us rose simultaneously. Through the thin walls I heard the slap of
feet as samurai ran down the hall, a samurai shouted excitedly like
the sound of a badger growling in its den. I slid from bed and
searched in darkness for my crude wooden dagger.

"What’s happening?" Zavala asked sleepily.

"A riot is building on A-module," Abriara ran into
the bathroom while we armed ourselves. Then we stood, not knowing
what to do. Down below us, men began stamping their feet and
chanting in unison, "Let’s go home! Let’s go home! Let’s go home!"
Working themselves into a frenzy, and I understood that sharper
ears than mine had picked out those words from the module above us,
and we’d begun to echo them as if we were a single organism.

Someone on the floor below shouted "Noooo!" a heavy
instrument smacked flesh.

Abriara came out of the bathroom holding her dagger
in a protective position, eyeing us, "I’m going downstairs, to find
some amigas," she said evenly.

I was shocked that she didn’t trust us, that she felt
she had to seek out the protection of other women. "Would you like
an escort?" I asked.

"Keep away from me!" she said. Even though she was
the one who’d said that we should put our backs to the wall and
stab anyone who got near during a riot, I could not believe she
would do it. She opened the door and peered into the hall. Her
muscles were tense. Her movements were graceful and powerful, like
those of a panther. Three samurai ran past the door, flashes of
blue kimonos and steel swords.

I felt bad. I wanted to tell Abriara I wasn’t like
the men that had raped her in the past. I wasn’t her enemy. "I’ll
help you if you need me," I said, "Just as I did in the
simulator."

Abriara looked confused for a moment—hopeful,
frightened. She nodded and edged out the door, unwilling to turn
her back to us. I wished her luck.

Perfecto said, "Let’s go down the ladder," and Mavro
and Zavala agreed. I recognized that to run was useless. It didn’t
really matter where we ran, or if we ran anywhere at all. The riot,
when it came, would be delivered right to our door.

Over the persistent thrum of feet pounding on floors
and steady chant of "Let’s go home! Let’s go home! Let’s go home!"
a Japanese shouted, "Go back, silly woman!"

Abriara slipped back into the room and stood panting.
"The samurai have cleared the halls. They’ve got everyone trapped
in their rooms!"

The ship didn’t carry many samurai. At best there
could only be one to every five of us. Their short swords, or
wakizashi
, were meant primarily as an emblem of honor rather
than a weapon. The samurai carried it as a promise to commit
seppuku if his honor was lost. They couldn’t keep us at bay with
such weapons. They couldn’t control the entire ship. For now men
were content to shout and pound their feet. But when violence broke
out, the samurai wouldn’t be able to contain it. Abriara stood by
the door, her knife poised.

"I suggest we put away our weapons," Perfecto said,
"Unless we plan to stab each other?"

"Good idea!" Zavala said. He set his knife on his bed
and the rest of the men did the same, but Abriara held to her
corner and kept her knife in hand.

We sat on our beds and paced the room and listened to
the pounding of feet and the shouts of "Let’s go home! Let’s go
home!" Sweat was pouring off my face as if I’d been doing hard
labor, and my breathing was constricted. The room felt very
hot.

Below us, someone yelled in defiance and his voice
became a shrill death cry. I’d heard many such minor scuffles, but
till then didn’t realize what they signified. Those who sought to
dissuade the rioters were being silenced. Zavala smiled wanly, his
eyes those of a troubled child. The halls echoed with the chant of
"Let’s go home! Let’s go home! Let’s go home!" The floors vibrated,
and when I touched the wall it hummed like a guitar string.
Perfecto paced. He stepped to one end of the room, then returned,
paced back and forth several times. And each time he went away he
passed nearer on his return, as if he were a great fish and I held
a line that guided him closer and closer. I sensed he wanted to
protect me, and as if to verify my supposition he finally came and
stood by me and patted my shoulder, then didn’t leave again.

The hallway quieted; no more barefooted samurai ran
by or shouted.

Abriara opened the door. "The corridor is empty," she
said, and stepped out.

We followed, Perfecto walking in front of me,
guarding me, and found it as she’d said. The darkened corridor was
empty. The samurai had all gone below to try to guard hallways.
Sakura and two fellow diplomats watched at the top of the ladder.
With the lights around the ladders, they couldn’t see us in the
shadowed hall. There were only the five of us Latin Americans in
the tiny state room on this level. They hadn’t spared samurai to
guard us.

"What shall we do?" Zavala asked loudly, to be heard
over the chanting.

"We won’t find a more protected position than this
aboard ship," Mavro yelled. "I think we should guard the ladder and
kill anyone who tries to come up."

"Anyone?" Perfecto asked.

"Sí. If we don’t let any of those fuckers get behind
us, we don’t have much to worry about. No one is going to put up a
good fight while trying to climb up out of the hole."

I couldn’t imagine killing people so
indiscriminately. "There’s a safer place," I said.

Mavro arched his eyebrows in surprise. "Where?"

"Above us, in module B," I said.

"What about the plague?" Zavala asked.

"That whole part of the ship was sterilized. There’s
nothing left alive up there."

"The atmosphere should be good," Abriara said, "They
took Lucío through it."

From my voyage down below our own living quarters, I
knew the physical layout. There’d be half a dozen little work rooms
and some storage facilities, separated from the living quarters by
a second airlock.

"How do we open the airlock?" Abriara asked.

I pointed to Sakura standing with his two friends in
the circle of light thrown up from the ladder shaft. "He has a
transmitter that will open it."

Several floors below us rose a shout, hundreds of
voices crying out in unison. The surge in volume made the floor
jump, and my compadres and I all began to run forward, afraid the
riot had started—but the chanting continued unabated, and we soon
slowed.

It had been a simple falter in the rhythm, a rise in
volume—nothing more—I thought, but then people screamed below and
blunt objects slammed against flesh as localized fighting broke out
while hundreds continued shouting "Let’s go home! Let’s go home!
Let’s go home!"

Sakura and his amigos peered down the ladder below
them, and the sounds of scuffling were loud enough that I knew they
were watching a battle. Abriara sprinted up behind Sakura and
slugged him in the kidney and he collapsed. We charged up from the
shadows and Sakura’s friends ran.

Sakura lay gasping on the floor as Abriara searched
the pocket in his kimono. Down the ladder, three floors below, a
great many samurai fought Latin Americans. There was some much
noise—chanting and shouting—that we could not hear the din of
melee, the individual cries and sounds of battle, so it appeared as
if they battled in silence. The scent of sweat and blood tainted
the air.

Abriara pulled the transmitter from Sakura’s pocket.
"Is this it?" she cried.

I nodded and she aimed the transmitter at the airlock
and began pushing buttons. Nothing happened. I saw a tiny white
disk on the transmitter—a thumb-print reader. "Let me try," I said,
grabbing the transmitter and pressing the white disk against
Sakura’s thumb. The airlock began to slide open. Abriara raced up
the ladder. The airlock opened into a wide tunnel, and the ladder
climbed up five meters before ending at the door that led to module
B.

I considered removing Sakura’s thumb so I could use
the transmitter, but he appeared totally unconscious and didn’t
pose a threat. I began lugging him up the ladder. It was a task I
wouldn’t have imagined myself capable of in the heavy gravity, but
fear lent me strength. When I was inside the airlock, I dropped
Sakura to the floor and fell exhausted atop him.

Abriara was waiting for me. Before I even dragged my
feet through the airlock, she ripped the transmitter from my hand,
held the register against Sakura’s thumb, and pressed the button to
close the door. Perfecto was half way up the ladder, guarding my
rear as he ascended, and he looked up in surprise and shouted, "Don
Angelo, wait!" and tried to jump through the hole, but the door
slid closed. The airlock suddenly became quieter.

Abriara put her wooden dagger to my throat. "Don’t
move, old man," she said. I lay gasping on the floor, winded from
my short climb. She reached into my sleeve and removed my crystal
knife, then pulled my wooden dagger from my belt. "I’ll let you
live because you are old and slow and weaponless." Her face was a
pale mask of terror, yet she fought to control it. She put her back
to the wall, and brandished the crystal knife.

"Thanks," I said. But part of me wondered,
wouldn’t I pose less of a threat if I was dead? If she is as
cold-hearted as she pretends, she should kill me
. And I looked
in her eyes and I knew—I knew—that she was trying to work up the
nerve to kill me. I could not imagine what terror drove her to
this.
Never make the mistake of thinking of her as human,
I
told myself.

She pushed a button on the transmitter. The door
above hissed open, and we breathed fresh air—the kind of fresh air
one can only enjoy on a clear day after a rain. I hadn’t guessed
how musty the atmosphere in our own module had become. Abriara
grabbed Sakura by one arm and climbed the ladder, Sakura flopping
like a rag. He began regaining consciousness and shook his head,
but she ignored him. I followed as close behind as possible, afraid
she’d leave me as she had the others. When we stepped onto the
maintenance deck of module B, Abriara pushed the button to close
the door behind. As the door began to slide, she kicked Sakura back
down the hole and sealed it behind him.

Abriara and I were alone. Above us in the distance I
could hear the rioters on A module, like the voices of many gulls
crying on the shore. Below us the chanting faltered as several
hundred men shouted.
The worst is yet to come
, I
thought.

On this level the halls didn’t radiate and separate
into many rooms as in the living quarters. Four doors near the
ladder each led to rooms that appeared small because they were
crammed with equipment for processing water, waste, and air, and
producing food. A short passageway led to a small room containing
medical equipment.

Across the hall from the medical supply depot was a
larger chamber stocked with the emergency cryotanks—drawered
capsules very much like convalescence tubes filled with the syrupy
pink chemicals necessary to put a person in stasis. A tiny oxygen
exchange plant fed into the cryotanks and could easily be converted
to replenish a depleted atmosphere. A heavily padded operating
table filled the center of the room, and a thick door could seal
the chamber off from the rest of the ship in an emergency.

Abriara inspected the room. "This will do." She began
to shove me out into the hall and I realized she was going to leave
me.

I tried to grab her hand and shouted, "Wait! What if
someone comes?"

She gripped my throat, put one foot behind me, and
tripped me. I fell backward and smacked the floor. She locked
herself in with the equipment.

I sat at her doorstep and listened to the chanting
from all around the ship and waited. The lighted ceiling panels
were on at a neutral brightness, and the walls of the room appeared
as if they’d been scrubbed spotless. But they hadn’t been scrubbed.
They’d been cleaned when the module was sterilized. Even the black
metal of the hatch above me looked as if it had been molded only
hours before.

Somewhere beyond that door lay Tamara. She’d be in
danger during this riot. If anyone knew of her past, they’d kill
her. An old emotion tugged at me. I longed to seek her out, to
protect her. I smiled at myself and considered, Perhaps I’m not as
dead inside as I’ve imagined.