Ship of Fools
Chapter One
We had not made landfall in more than fourteen years.
One disastrous choice of a star after another. The captain
viewed this string of failures as absurdly bad luck; the
bishop, as divine intervention. Either way, I saw it as prelude
to the captain's downfall, which would almost certainly
mean my own downfall as well.
When we detected a transmission from the world that
would later be called Antioch, I sensed opportunity. But
opportunity for whom? The captain, or his enemies? It was
impossible to say. The captain's position was tenuous at
best, and everything was uncertain aboard the Argonos.
I was exploring one of the dark, abandoned vaults of
disabled machinery deep in the core of the ship, studying
a length of cable scorched and fused at one end, neatly
severed at the other. Shiny blackened metal sparkled in the
light of my hand torch. The air was warm and stuffy and
smelled faintly of burnt plastic and old lubricants. There
were dozens of such rooms on the Argonos, some quite
small, others like this o ... read full excerpt from Ship of Fools ebook
