Ship of Fools Read Online Free PDF Page A

changed to defiance, but I was certain the fear was still there, camouflaged. He couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen years old.
    “My name’s Bartolomeo,” I said. “What’s yours?”
    The boy finally spoke. “Let me see your face,” he demanded.
    I swung the torch around and lit up my face from below.
    “You look weird,” he said. “What’s that metal behind your neck?”
    “Part of my exoskeleton.”
    “What’s that?”
    “A special support for my body, for my back and neck. My spine is . . . defective.” I tried again. “What’s your name?”
    He hesitated, grimaced, then said, “Francis.”
    “A saint’s name.” An automatic response, which I immediately regretted. The boy’s grimace twisted even more.
    “Yeah, that’s what my mom told me. But I’m no saint, and I never will be.”
    I turned the light back onto his trapped leg and started slowly forward. “Let me help you with that. You don’t want to get stuck in this place. No one would ever find you in here, and you’d starve to death.”
    “ You found me,” Francis said. “And that big bald guy would come around pretty soon. I wouldn’t starve.”
    “The big bald guy? You mean the bishop?”
    “I don’t know.” I was right next to the boy now and I could see him shrug. “He comes here and other places, and he builds machines.”
    Yes . . . he builds machines. I knelt beside the boy and aimed the light down into the chaotic webwork of metal and wire. His leg was buried in it to midthigh.
    “Any idea what that machine does?” I asked the boy.
    “Not really. Makes a weird sound and it gets real hot. But it doesn’t go anywhere. He likes these old machines, he likes to make them work.”
    “You don’t know who the bishop is?”
    “No.”
    “Have you ever been to the cathedral?” I began carefully pulling and pushing at the wire around his thigh, creating a gap around his trouser leg.
    “Is that the big church?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’ve never been there.” He paused, and I could almost sense him staring down at me. “Your arms aren’t real.”
    “They’re real,” I replied. “They’re just not flesh and muscle and bone.”
    “They’re not real,” he insisted.
    I nodded, smiling to myself. “I guess you have a point.”
    “And there’s something wrong with your foot.”
    “Yes, club foot. I was born that way.”
    “Your body’s pretty messed up.”
    “Yes. But I get by just fine. No, don’t move your leg yet; hold still until I tell you to pull.” A twisted metal rod had become wedged against his knee. I couldn’t get a good grip on it, but I pulled at it anyway. My fingers slipped; I grabbed the rod again, grip better this time, and managed to pry it a few centimeters away from his leg.
    “All right, try pulling your foot out now, slowly.”
    The leg came up a bit, but his foot was caught almost immediately. It was stuck underneath a bundle of corroded wire.
    “Can you straighten your ankle and twist your foot around to the right a little?”
    There was some slight movement, but he stopped. “It hurts,” he said.
    “All right, let me work on it some more.” I lay down on my stomach and stretched my arm far down, grabbed the bundled wire, and pulled. There is a lot of strength in my prosthetic fingers and arms; suddenly the wires broke apart and the boy’s foot came free. He pulled his leg and foot all the way out and stumbled backwards. He sat down on a metal bench that was attached to a dark blue apparatus littered with broken rubber belts.
    “Are you all right?” I asked.
    Francis nodded. “Foot still hurts is all.”
    I sat beside him. “Do you think you can walk?”
    He snorted. “I can walk.”
    “What were you doing in here?”
    The boy shrugged. “Looking around.”
    “Do you come here often?”
    “Sometimes. And other places like this. I like them.”
    “How about school?”
    Francis barked out a laugh. “What’s the point of that ?”
    “Do your parents