Silo 49: Deep Dark

Chapter Eleven

Soft raps on her door woke Marina from a sound sleep and she was confused by her surroundings for a moment. She croaked out a hoarse, “Come in,” once she realized where she was.

The door opened slowly and Greta peeked in, as if regretful of disturbing her rest, and said, “I’m sorry to wake you. I didn’t want you to miss dinner.”

Marina struggled to sit up and wiped an unfortunate smear of drool from her cheek. She felt simultaneously like she had been asleep for days and had just fallen asleep a moment before.

“What time is it?” she asked Greta.

“Dinner seating is about halfway through.”

“Yikes,” Marina said and immediately reached for her boots. “I only meant to sleep for an hour or so. I’ve been out for a while. Just give me a second and I’ll be ready.”

Greta opened the door a little wider and motioned toward the chair, “May I?”

“Of course. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. I think I’m still half asleep.”

The older woman seated herself, perching very precisely on the end of the chair, her back ramrod straight, “I don’t think you’re rude. Don’t concern yourself with that. We’ve all had those weird wake-ups before.”

Marina finished tying her boots and stood up, happily surprised to find no significant pain at the motion, and ran hands down her coveralls to smooth them some. When she looked at Greta, the woman pointed toward Marina’s hair and gave a little expression she couldn’t decipher. Marina turned to look into the polished metal mirror and then laughed at her reflection and the giant wedge of wild hair pushed up on the side of her head.

She dug her comb from the drawer in the nightstand and dragged it through the curly mess, finally securing it all with a twist and a few hair pins. She turned to Greta and said, “Yeah, that was attractive.”

Greta almost laughed but not quite. Her smile was a friendly one and the two women made their way to the little dining hall the Historians shared. Places that had to service many people ran with an unwavering dedication to a schedule. However, this small group took turns making food and doing the washing up and could be a bit more relaxed about the timing of meals.

Three shadows were sitting at a larger table with benches on either side, deep in discussion over some point or another. At a smaller round table, the only male Historian was sitting with two more shadows listening to them talk as he sipped a cup of something hot enough to steam. Florine was scraping her tray but she waved and smiled at Marina before hurrying out the door.

The food was set out on a counter, still in the pots or pans they were cooked in, along with a few empty trays and utensils at one end. Marina followed Greta’s lead as she grabbed a tray and her utensils and strolled along the counter, inspecting the offerings and dishing up what caught her fancy.

The food was formed of plain ingredients but, like the Wardroom, arranged in such a way that the eye was pleased. Marina took a circle of pale cheese, topped with a tomato slice and a perfect basil leaf drizzled with some delightfully spicy smelling sauce. She took a spoonful from a dish that Greta indicated was a spicy eggplant stew and a wedge of flat bread that had been baked with a sprinkle of herbs on it and smelled of roasted garlic. A fresh mix of beet greens, various lettuces, onions and tomatoes and topped with a dressing made from the rare and valuable Honey Vinegar was the only decadent thing on the line. Marina’s mouth watered at the thought of the sweet and tangy flavor.

They made their way to a table, conveniently near the male Historian and his charges, and were largely silent while they ate. Their desired topic of conversation wasn’t one that could be indulged in, even in this place as long as there were other ears around to hear them. Marina listened as best she could to the historian and his shadows as they discussed the importance of understanding the way another person thought about a subject and how to listen to more than just the words a person spoke. She smiled as she listened to him have the two shadows practice on each other by speaking a sentence and then try to figure out the full context of what the other shadow said.

He was patient and very insightful. Marina could tell this even with her back to him. His voice was both calming and strangely electrifying. She found herself blushing at the thoughts in her head and then blushing more furiously when Greta looked up and gave her a crooked smile that said she knew exactly what Marina was thinking. It was embarrassing but Greta smoothed it over with a quiet word and good humor.

She was relieved when the man and his shadows left but she noted that the bright patchwork of the coveralls did nothing to diminish his dark good looks and purely masculine physique. Marina doubted every man could pull those off in quite the same way and she sighed, eliciting an abrupt bark of laughter from Greta.

Soon enough they were finished. Marina felt strange about just leaving her dishes for someone else to clean up. Greta said that she would be joining her when it was her turn and that would be lunch the next day. They scraped their plates into the compost bucket and put them into the soaking water, filled their flasks with tea, and departed the common room.

Greta led Marina away from the private rooms and back toward the Memoriam proper, but they passed by that door and continued toward the archives, conveniently labeled on the wall with a stern warning that only authorized personnel should continue. Greta turned to her and handed her a badge to clip onto her coveralls. It was a plastic card bordered in the colors of the historians with the word ‘Guest’ in bold black letters.

She clipped it on and felt strange in the doing. She was a Fabber, a worker of small objects and fixer of broken things. In her wildest dreams she never would have imagined what was happening now. She could never have imagined going into the archives of the Memoriam, a place she had been only dimly aware of and not at all interested in until she opened the back of that watch. She knew there was more. She knew there were answers to all the puzzles of this life and she couldn’t help but be eager to dig and reach the down deep.

When Greta punched in the combination at a big metal door, much like the one that she had seen in IT, but without windows, Marina couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed in what she saw inside. She wasn’t quite sure what she expected but rows of shelves with neatly labeled boxes filling them wasn’t quite the picture she had made for herself. Maybe dramatically lit rows of books or enigmatic and mysterious locked boxes at the very least. This looked more like the Small Parts counter down at Supply.

Greta must have seen her disappointment because she said, “Boxes can hold many wondrous things, Marina.” She smiled her small smile at Marina then, the one that bowed her lips the smallest bit but lit up her expression with meaning.

Marina stepped into the row of shelves just in front of her and looked at Greta, who nodded toward a box just above her head with that still, small smile. Marina carefully extracted the box and placed it on a rolling cart that was left conveniently nearby. At another nod from Greta, she lifted the lid and saw that it was filled with objects carefully wrapped in cloth or clean paper.

Greta reached in and extracted one seemingly at random then unwrapped it for Marina. Inside, a beautiful symbol almost just like the one she had found rested on a round disk of metal. The strange animal with the claws outstretched over the shield that held stars at the top and stripes at the bottom was rendered in metal and colors. To that symbol was also added a round background with star shapes circling the round portion.

Greta placed it gently in Marina’s cupped palm and she examined it. On the back were knobby bits and Greta reached over and twisted one of them off, revealing a pointed post. Marina looked up, her brow creased in question and Greta took it back, twisted off the remaining knobs and then attached the object to Marina’s coveralls near the neck opening. She affixed one of the knobs and Marina felt the prick of the remaining sharp points as she laid her hand over it, her confusion deepening and clearing at the same time.

She said, “This is like their version of badges, isn’t it.”

Greta nodded but made no reply. She merely watched Marina and she could sense the woman was waiting to see what she would ask or say next.

“They used them to identify something in themselves, but what was it that they were identifying? What could it possibly identify to have this animal on a badge?”

Greta’s smiled widened a little and she said, “And now you’re asking the same questions that Historians have been trying to answer for generations.”

She gave a wry laugh and reached out to take off the heavy metal badge from Marina’s coverall, leaving her with a feeling of loss she couldn’t truly explain. She felt as if there had been something connecting her, for just those few seconds, with all those that came before her. It was more complex than that but she couldn’t even explain it to herself. She merely felt the loss and had to resist the urge to reach out and snatch the badge back from Greta.

When it was nestled in with the objects inside the box Greta rested her hand, with gentleness and reverence, on the top of the massed paper and cloth before meeting Marina’s eyes and saying, “I know what you must be feeling. This box is filled with such things.” She waved her hand along the shelves and to all those beyond this row, shelves that filled this immense series of rooms, and continued, “This whole place is filled with such curious things that offer glimpses but no certainties. We might never know what it all means.”

Marina saw just a hint of sadness in Greta’s eyes and realized that she wasn’t strict about speculation because she wanted to be. She was as curious and awed by all this as anyone would be. Her strictness must be because it really was a necessity. This much uncertainty would wreak havoc on a mind not dedicated to controlling it. She realized she was being given a rare and surpassingly valuable gift just by being here and she felt the immensity of her good fortune.

When that overwhelming feeling passed, she turned back to the Historian and asked, “Is all of this like that? Objects, I mean?”

Greta motioned for Marina to follow and she walked down the row as she answered, “No, not at all. Most of it isn’t like that, in fact. A lot of it consists of drawings of objects or the results of testing or other things that relate, in one way or another, to the study of our past. Most of what’s in this room is really current history though. It’s pretty much all we can do to keep up with adding new things. There’s just no time to research the old stuff.”

She stopped and then began scanning the boxes along the rows where they stood as if searching for something specific. She finally let out a little ‘ah’ of discovery, took down a box that was almost too high up to reach and placed it on the cart she had rolled after them. She opened it up, all efficiency now, and Marina peeked inside as a smell like old fire wafted up. Inside was a corner of a book, pages spread wide by something. Greta plucked a pair of cotton gloves from her pocket and slipped them on before she gently lifted out the book to put it gently on the cart.

She stepped back, exhaling as if she had done something of great effort, and motioned Marina forward for a better look. She said, “This is the remains of a book from below IT.” She ran a finger along the ragged burned edge of the cover, close to it but not quite touching it, before continuing, “As you can see it is in a fragile condition and we have only this portion left. But we were still able to find out a lot of from just this bit.”

Marina looked at the wedge of book, a roughly burnt triangle several inches in length along the side and along the top. The pages were fanned out with slips of white paper stuck between the pages, making the book even thicker than it had been originally, and impossible to close. She bent down to try to peer in at the pages but Greta touched her shoulder to halt her progress when she got too close.

“Not so close. We try not to breathe directly on the pages. The moisture in our breath can damage the pages.”

Marina nodded, understanding that from her own work and remembering her own carefully directed sighs or sneezes away from the delicate components. She said, “What’s in it?”

Greta shook out her hands like she was about to undertake a heavy burden, then tightened the gloves on her hands before reaching out and gently pressing open the pages very slightly. The creak the binding made from even that light touch was alarming. Greta looked as if she knew exactly how to handle the artifact so Marina just bit her lip and watched her every move. She landed on one of the slips of paper between some of the pages and lifted it out. With her gloved finger to hold the page open, she said, “Go ahead and look, just don’t breathe on it.”

Marina bent her head and peered at the tiny and perfect writing. Only on some blueprints and instructions and labels had she seen such perfectly formed script in her life. All copies of books were done by hand, as was anything newly developed. This was printed, as in the old printing of the past that no one could do anymore. And though the paper was yellowed even at its most undamaged inner edge and a brown so deep it was almost black near the burnt edges, it was clear that this paper had once been something special. It had a gloss to it and looked somehow different. She adjusted her view so she could read the words and for a moment, they were silent. When she realized what she was reading she drew back in shock and looked at Greta, who nodded and told her to keep reading.

It was a partial description of something called an ocean. It was missing most of it, but the partial lines she read were wonders to her and there was nothing that she could marry the words with in her own mind. She saw the words, ‘covers more than 70% of the Earth’s surface’ and shook her head, not understanding how that could be. There was no water outside and surely if there was that much she would see it. The rest was too fragmentary to make sense of. It was just words to Marina and she straightened with a look of confusion on her face. Greta carefully placed the paper back inside the book and let it close before she spoke.

“This one is, we think, from a series of books that described all manner of things and this one is for things that begin with the letter O.” She made a gesture as if to qualify that statement and added, “We think it is. We don’t know for sure. It is just a fragment and much of it makes no sense. There is no context.” She ran a finger along the edge where all the white slips of paper came out and said, “These papers keep apart the pages we were able to separate. The rest are melded together and so far, most pages are destroyed in any attempt to separate them.” She sighed and withdrew her hand, her eyes sad as she looked at the book.

Marina asked, “What is an ocean?”

Greta turned that sad gaze toward her and said, “We don’t speculate, remember?”

“Right, right,” she gestured as if to both surrender to and dismiss the notion of speculating, “but if you did. And based on whatever else you must know from all of this. What is an ocean?”

The older woman examined her, trying to decide the correct approach, but instead of answering she turned and said, “Follow me.”

They wended their way down the long rows until they reached the one Greta apparently sought. She smiled over her shoulder at Marina as she bent to take out a huge flat box from a bottom shelf and laid it with great care on the floor. “Prepare to be amazed.”

She lifted the edge of the box, revealing a picture of some kind. It was in many colors but the lines were so precise and beautifully drawn that it couldn’t have been made by human hands. The paper was big, much bigger than anything she had ever seen even though it had clearly been torn apart, making Marina wonder how much more of this there was. It was mounted with on a larger piece of cardboard. Marina had no idea what it was and looked at Greta, her confusion showing on her face.

Greta knelt next to her and pointed with her gloved finger toward a single spot, a dark mark of green, on the large outline. She said, “That is us. Supposedly.”

Marina looked again and then fell back onto her rump when she realized what she was seeing. It was land. And the blue off to the edge had words in it. The words were Atlantic Ocean. She took in the scope of it compared with the land and then with the tiny pinprick that was their silo and felt the world around her spin. Her head felt filled with cotton and it was Greta’s alarmed voice that kept her from fainting. She felt Greta grab her arm and the sensation retreated almost as fast as it came on. She said, “I’m okay.”

“Sure you are,” Greta replied with a hint of amusement in her voice, “if fainting is considered okay. Just breathe and get yourself together. Do you need a medic?”

Marina took an inventory of her body but didn’t think she felt anything seriously wrong other than finding out the world is much more than you thought it was. She shook her head. When she felt herself again she got up on her haunches and looked at the picture again. Greta warned her not to faint and fall into the map since it was the only one they had and Marina gave her a look.

“Why wouldn’t you let something like this be known to everyone? This is certain, right?”

Greta sighed and gazed down at the map. She said, “Only if you consider a single unsupported partial picture that isn’t mentioned in any other artifact and which, I might add, we have no way of knowing wasn’t drawn from someone’s imagination.”

“Oh,” Marina said and frowned. “But the book. It mentions oceans and here is an ocean right here.” She pointed to the Atlantic Ocean again. “That seems like support.”

“Not really. We have no idea if this might have been made by someone who read those books or for another reason. Just because something is old doesn’t make it the truth.”

“Well then, how did you know that this spot was us?” Marina asked.

“Because it says so. Look closer.”

Marina leaned over and peered at the tiny words next to the green spot. Sure enough, it read ‘Silo Field’. She grunted and said, “That seems like evidence.”

Greta sighed again and reached out to close the lid of the box as she said, “Not really. Not when you consider the entirety of the question and the rules for historical evidence. We don’t speculate. Our job is to provide truth to posterity. This,” she gestured to the box, “is not evidence. It is merely another question that we can add to the list that grows every day.”

The two women slid the box back into the slender opening for it and stood. Marina sensed that Greta had something to say so she stood, trying to give the impression of patience and openness.

It worked because Greta finally turned to her, slipping her gloves into her pocket as she did and said, “I like to imagine what it might mean, though.”

Marina thought she sounded a little guilty, as if sharing that was a confession to some wrongdoing. She considered her answer carefully.

“Greta, if you never formulate a question then you can never find an answer. Is that not correct?”

The other woman nodded.

“Well, perhaps I’m just a simple Fabber, but it seems to me that the only way to come up with a good question is to do a whole lot of wondering and imagining.”

Greta smiled, a genuine smile this time, and said, “You really should have been a Historian, you know.”