Four crew-one Candidate, one gatecrasher, one illegal, and one shipborn baby-had been asphyxiated by the smoke. Four naked bodies had been sent tumbling away from the hull, to be scattered in the ferocious tidal rip of the warp bubble wall-naked because they couldn’t spare resources for coffins or flags or even clothes.
Kelly went on, “We’ve been through the flaws in our practices that led to the seriousness of the incident, once the fire started. The failures in our maintenance routines in particular. The worst contributory factor was a buildup of dust and other flammable junk behind the equipment racks in their frames against the hull walls. Each rack is supposed to be pulled out and its docking bay cleaned once a week, or more in some areas. Some looked as if they hadn’t been shifted since Jupiter.”
Kelly’s ferocious inquiry hadn’t attached any blame to Holle and her internal-systems maintenance team. The failure had been in the laxity of the regular crew, getting worse year on year, in keeping up their daily routine of cleaning out the small spaces they all had to inhabit. Doc Wetherbee had long complained about this, and butts had been kicked after an outbreak of food poisoning caused by poor hygiene in Halivah’s galley. But the spread of the fire had been a much more severe consequence.
“We’re trying to put this right from here on in. But all of us who cut corners in our cleaning routines are going to have to live with some of the responsibility for what happened to Peri and Anne and Nicholas and little Sasha.
“However, only one of us actually started the fire that did so much damage. Only one of us bears the burden of guilt. Thomas Windrup confessed, as soon as the fire was under control, and you’re aware that we ran through the surveillance records to establish that guilt independently. There’s no doubt the arson was his, just as he claimed. He was trying to kill Jack Shaughnessy. He nearly killed us all.”
Holle supposed you could say it was a crime of passion. Here among the crew, stuck on this Ark as the years wore slowly away, obsession and lust and suspicion had a way of putrefying. Thomas had never stopped believing that Jack Shaughnessy still wanted Elle, and that Jack was playing a long game, waiting until they all arrived at Earth II where he would use the new Ship’s Law about multiple fathers to claim her. On the Ark you couldn’t get away from your enemies, or even your friends. Endless chance encounters with Jack had, in the end, driven Thomas crazy-or at least crazy enough to try to kill Jack.
But Thomas hadn’t meant to hurt anybody else, he insisted. He knew Jack was due to overhaul the pressure suit he generally used. Thomas had rigged the suit so that when a test valve on the oxygen inlet was triggered, a spark would ignite a jet of oxygen, and then the materials of the suit; he had poured flammable solvent over the suit’s liner. Thomas had done much of the preparation in the dark, to avoid the ubiquitous gaze of the surveillance cameras. He planned that the fire would eliminate all trace of its own cause, his own guilt. Anyhow his plan had failed. The suit had exploded into flame, too violently. Jack hadn’t been killed but thrown back, badly burned but alive, and the resulting fire had quickly spread beyond the suit itself.
“But now we have to handle the issue of sentencing. This is the most serious crime we’ve seen aboard this Ark since we left Earth-far more serious than anything I expected to have to deal with. I’ve thought long and hard. I’ve come to a decision.” Kelly looked around at them, her face set. “And I’ve implemented that decision, with the aid of Masayo, here, and Doc Wetherbee. You know I’ve always tried to work through consensus, through unanimity if we can get it. But I thought that in this case the choice was too hard, the consequences too grave, to be debated in the open. This decision was mine alone. I bear the responsibility.
“Please hear my logic. Thomas attempted murder. On Earth, while the Denver government was still functioning, he’d have been thrown into jail, or sent to some penal work gang, endlessly building seawalls or processing camps for eye-dees. And if he’d succeeded in killing Jack Shaughnessy he might have been put to death for it. So what are we to do with him here? You Candidates will recall that we debated such issues in the Academy, and then while we were en route to Jupiter and under the auspices of Gunnison. We also have as precedent Gordo Alonzo’s verdict when Jack Shaughnessy assaulted Thomas himself back in ’43. Jack was put back to work.” She glanced at Venus. “As Venus hasn’t ceased to remind me, Thomas is her best astronomer. We need him back in the cupola, checking out Earth II. We can’t even isolate him socially because we need his genes. But this crime, which could have killed us all, is serious, and I don’t believe it can go unmarked. So what do we do?
“I did some research in the archive. We’re not the only society to face this kind of challenge-resource-stretched, yet having to deal with miscreant individuals. Medieval England, for instance, and western Europe. They evolved punishments the criminal would have to live with the rest of his or her life-and a visible deterrent to others-yet that wouldn’t stop him working. And so-” She glanced at Masayo. “You can bring him out now.”
Masayo looked highly uncomfortable, Holle thought. He pulled himself over to the door of the cabin behind Kelly, but before he opened it he glanced around, his arms folded, his chest out. “I don’t want any trouble over this. We all need to deal with it calmly, however you’re feeling. OK?”
Venus looked furious. Wilson was cold-eyed, watchful. Zane looked amused.
Masayo opened the cabin door. The interior was dark. “Come on out.” Holding onto the door frame for balance, he extended an arm into the cabin.
Thomas Windrup emerged into the light. He hung onto Masayo’s arm, and wouldn’t look anybody in the eye. His face was still puffy from the beating he’d received when Paul and a few of his illegal buddies had managed to get hold of him. But Holle thought he looked paler, more sick; he had suffered something worse than a beating.
Kelly said, “Show them.”
Clearly shamed, Thomas lifted one leg. The boot dangled, floating free in the air, and the trouser leg twisted, empty.
There were gasps, muttered oaths. Zane Glemp laughed out loud.
“Shit,” Venus said. “You took his foot. ”
Kelly said, “It will make no difference in free fall. Clearly he’ll be impeded under gravity, on the Ark and on Earth II. But the doctor is working on a crutch for him, even an artificial foot. Obviously this won’t make any difference to the work he does for you, Venus-”
Venus turned on Wetherbee. “You did this? You’re a doctor. You mutilated him?”
Holle had never seen Mike Wetherbee more unhappy than right now. “You would say that. Everybody knows Thomas is one of yours. Anyhow it was a direct order. And who would you rather did it? Should I have let Paul Shaughnessy loose with a chain saw?”
“Don’t blame him,” Kelly said, and she drifted down so she came between Venus and Wetherbee. “The decision, the responsibility, were all mine.”
Venus took a deep breath. “I never thought I’d find myself saying this, Kelly. You know I admire you, what you’ve done for us. You’ve held us together through some tough years, especially since we lost contact with Earth. But I can’t accept your judgment over this grotesque mutilation. You maimed a healthy crewman. You compromised the doctor, and Masayo, who you turned into a strong-arm thug.
“Kelly, you hold your position as speaker through consensus. Well, I withdraw from that consensus.”
There was a lethal silence.
Holle was well aware that there had always been heated confrontations behind the scenes as Kelly tried to get decisions made. But this was the first time anybody remotely as senior as Venus had challenged Kelly in public.
Kelly snapped back, “You want the job, Venus?”
“I’m not saying that. I’m saying you need to stand down. And when you’re gone, we’ll deal with the consequences.”