Dark Ararat - Brian Stableford [27]
Matthew was reluctant to take it for granted that Hope’s dust was a symptom of decay or slovenliness, but when he added the observation to other evidence of unrepaired malfunctions—wall-panels moved to expose bundles of cables; makeshift handles glued to doors that should have been automatic; cracked keypads and taped-over screens—the general picture did seem to be one of lost or forsaken control.
It was only to be expected, Matthew knew, that an ecosphere and mechanisphere as small as Hope would suffer a continuous erosion of organization. The comet core into which the original metal ship had been inserted had been intended to serve as a source of organic materials as well as providing invaluable momentum for the initial phase of the journey, but Shen would have been extremely fortunate to find an entire wish list of elements in its stonier and ferrous components. On the other hand, Hope had been in the new system for three years, and if the system contained an Earthlike planet it must also be rich in other supernoval debris. Hope’s drones should have been able to scavenge an abundance of new resources from the outer system while the decelerating ship plotted a course toward its present orbit. The ship’s environments should have undergone a spectacular renaissance by now, unless the deterioration of its machines had become chronic, or its manpower seriously depleted.
It was, eventually, impossible to resist the conclusion that something was seriously rotten in the state of Hope, and in its mission to found a new world. The people on the surface were at odds with the crew, and seemingly with one another, and the crew seemed far from contented in their own little empire.
But what can you expect in a world without TV, Matthew thought. If the only person who ever broadcasts to the whole population is the captain, it’s no wonder that there’s no social adhesive to hold things together, no force of consensus.
It was wishful thinking, of course, but he couldn’t help dallying with the notion that there was nothing amiss here that couldn’t be corrected by the voice of a professional prophet: a man trained not merely to see the bigger picture but to provide it with an appropriate soundtrack.
Seen from another viewpoint, Matthew decided, there was something rather homely about the sight of dust-filmed shelves and broken latches. They could be taken as reminders of Earth’s surface, of the world in which Matthew had grown from infancy to adulthood. Nothing here seemed to be alien to him, except perhaps the purple face of the planet they were circling—and he did not find it at all difficult, as yet, to think of that as an authentic Earth-clone nurtured and educated in a slightly different fashion.
The crewman leading him through Hope’s corridors, by contrast, had presumably never known any environment but the ship; to Riddell and all his fellows, Hope and Hope alone was home, refuge, and prison.
With what uneasy eyes must the crewpeople regard the kinds of images that Matthew and Vince Solari had been studying? To them, Matthew decided, the new world must be exactly as exotic, and as utterly alien, as Earth.
They passed other crewpeople in the corridors, often having to swing their shoulders in order to pass by without making contact, but the crewpeople did not seem to regard them with any conspicuous curiosity. At first, Matthew put this down to the fact that any novelty value that the reawakened had possessed three years ago must be long gone now. There was, however, something odd in the character of their disinterest, as if it were contrived or pretended. They put him in mind of extras on a TV set, whose function was to fade into the background—but he was too curious about them to accept that kind