Pilgrim. Sara Douglass

       Prologue

      The lieutenant pushed his fork back and forth across the table, back and forth, back and forth, his eyes vacant, his mind and heart a thousand galaxies away. Scrape … scrape … scrape.

      “For heaven’s sake, Chris, will you stop that? It’s driving me crazy!”

      The lieutenant gripped the fork in his fist, and his companion tensed, thinking Chris would fling it across the dull, black metal table towards him.

      But Chris’ hand suddenly relaxed, and he managed a tight, half-apologetic smile. “Sorry. It’s just that this … this …”

      “We only have another two day spans, mate, and then we wake the next shift for their stint at uselessness.”

      Chris’ fingers traced gently over the surface of the table. It vibrated. Everything on the ship vibrated.

      “I can’t bloody wait for another stretch of deep sleep,” he said quietly, his eyes flickering over to Commander Devereaux sitting at a keyboard by the room’s only porthole. “Unlike him.”

      His fellow officer nodded. Perhaps thirty-five rotations ago, waking from their allotted span of deep sleep, the retiring crew had reported a strange vibration within the ship. No mechanical or structural problem … the ship was just vibrating.

      And then … then they’d found that the ship was becoming a little sluggish in responding to commands, and after five or six day spans it refused to respond to their commands at all.

      The other three ships in the fleet had similar problems — at least, that’s what their last communiques had reported. The Ark crew were aware of the faint phosphorescent outlines in the wake of the other ships, but that was all now. So here they were, hurtling through deep space, in ships that responded to no command, and with cargo that the crews preferred not to think about. When they volunteered for this mission, hadn’t they been told that once they’d found somewhere to “dispose” of the cargo they could come home?

      But now, the crew of The Ark wondered, what would be disposed of? The cargo? Or them?

      It might have helped if the commander had come up with something helpful. But Devereaux seemed peculiarly unconcerned, saying only that the vibrations soothed his soul and that the ships, if they no longer responded to human command, at least seemed to know what they were doing.

      And now here he was, tapping at that keyboard as if he actually had a purpose in life. None of them had a purpose any more. They were as good as dead. Everyone knew that. Why not Devereaux?

      “What are you doing, sir?” Chris asked. He had picked up the fork again, and it quivered in his over-tight grip.

      “I …” Devereaux frowned as if listening intently to something, then his fingers rattled over the keys. “I am just writing this down.”

      “Writing what down, sir?” the other officer asked, his voice tight.

      Devereaux turned slightly to look at them, his eyes wide. “Don’t you hear it? Lovely music … enchanted music … listen, it vibrates through the ship. Don’t you feel it?”

      “No,” Chris said. He paused, uncomfortable. “Why write it down, sir? For who? What is the bloody point of writing it down?”

      Devereaux smiled. “I’m writing it down for Katie, Chris. A song book for Katie.”

      Chris stared at him, almost hating the man. “Katie is dead, sir. She has been dead at least twelve thousand years. I repeat, what is the fucking point?”

      Devereaux’s smile did not falter. He lifted a hand and placed it over his heart. “She lives here, Chris. She always will. And in writing down these melodies, I hope that one day she will live to enjoy the music as much as I do.”

      It was then that The Ark, in silent communion with the others, decided to let Devereaux live.