“Quite sure,” Piotr confirmed.
“If you’re sure, then everyone should know. Keeping secrets like that is not above the rails,” Marina replied, her tone full of disapproval and a hint of outrage.
“It isn’t a secret. You know it,” Greta responded, unperturbed.
“Not like know, know,” she said, trying to search for a way to say what she meant. “It’s just a story. We assume it is true but probably something in the past. Not a real threat.” Before they could descend into another argument about this she waved any responses away and said, “It doesn’t matter. Can we find anything on how long this nuke or the eating thing lasts? Does it ever go away? Or is there anything in the archives that will help us find out how long ago this was? Anything helpful?”
“There could be,” Greta said, drawing out the words, “but you’ve seen the deep archives.”
That was explanation enough for Marina. She had seen them and she knew what a mess they were. She also knew that one Historian would not be enough to get through those archives. She had a sudden thought. “Then let me help you with it. You won’t have to tell anyone else any secrets or break any rules by letting shadows in. Maybe Piotr and Taylor can help too.”
Greta gave her a doubtful look and her glances toward the two men were equally doubtful. She asked Piotr, “What do you think?”
“I think we don’t have much in the way of choices. You can’t train a new Historian quickly and you can’t shut down the Memoriam to use the others. Piotr and I can look through files as well as the next person,” he answered but added, “probably.”
“Same for me. I’ve already been down there so I know what I’m up against,” Marina added.
Greta considered their words for only the briefest of moments. She included them all when she answered, “Let’s tell the council and get started then.”
Chapter Thirteen
Telling her family had been the most difficult part of the whole process. Joseph didn’t even bother trying to pretend that he accepted her explanation for why she was staying in the Memoriam. He demanded to know what was going on and finally put a hand over her pack so that she couldn’t continue packing and avoid his gaze. She sighed and dropped a stack of undershirts to their bed in resignation. Joseph let go of the pack and crossed his arms, waiting for whatever she might say.
She gave him a look, one that made it clear that she was not at all happy to be having this conversation. She did understand his position. His wife was packing up and leaving on some pretext to go live more than twenty levels away for an undetermined period of time. She wouldn’t have accepted it either.
“I can’t tell you everything. Let’s just get that clear right now, okay?”
He nodded. It was just one sharp nod that spoke volumes.
She sighed again and said, “I found some objects during the reclamation that turned out to be really significant. You knew I found things that needed evaluation by someone with some knowledge, but it turned out to be a whole lot more than I thought.”
Joseph dropped his arms to the side, a sign that he wasn’t quite as ready for an argument as before.
“Well, as it happens, extra people are needed to go through a bunch of other objects and records to try to place these items and I volunteered. Two other people are too,” she said, hoping that would be enough. It wasn’t.
“Hold on there. You’re trying to tell me that you’re packing up and leaving us so you can look through stuff that belongs to Historians? How is that more important than your job or your family?” he asked, incredulous.
“It depends on what you mean by important. I told you I can’t share everything!”
He narrowed his eyes at her but it wasn’t all anger she saw in them. It was also curiosity and confusion.
She took one quick step toward him and looked up at him. She ran her hands along his arms and then cupped his face in her hands. She said, “I have a chance to change what we know of history. I want to do this.”
His own hands came up and wrapped gently around her wrists. He pulled her hands away from his face slowly and she let her arms come down. There was hurt on his face.
“We’ve never had secrets between us. Never. Secrets never help anyone. I should know,” he said, referring to his job. “Is this really something you can’t tell me?”
She nodded. It hurt her to do this to him. “You’ll understand. I promise you that. I gave my word not to tell.”
It was his turn to sigh then. He stepped back from her and picked up the stack of undershirts she had tossed to the bed. He ran a hand across them and then placed them with care inside her pack. It was a kind of acceptance and Marina was grateful for it.
In the Memoriam archives, the four workers were busy and getting increasingly frustrated and exhausted. They took few breaks and none of them were getting enough sleep. Meals were rushed affairs they escaped from quickly since they couldn’t speak of their joint effort in the dining hall. The dimming was usually long past by the time they broke and sought out their beds.
Dust filled the air as they dragged through box after box and cabinet after cabinet. Marina sneezed regularly and Taylor’s eyes were perpetually watering and red. It didn’t help that Greta, in whose domain they were, kept correcting them or shoving gloves at them or chirping about Piotr licking the end of a finger before he turned pages. It had been a seven-day of solid work and they had next to nothing to show for it.
Marina slammed shut a giant tome filled with numbers about farm produce during a time long past and undefinable. It earned her a sharp look from Greta, who squatted on the floor at the other end of their current row. She was organizing a box of loose papers into neat and very precise stacks in an array on the floor.
As she reached for the next book on the shelf, this one equally big and probably filled with yet more numbers for squash and beans and olives, she let out a loud sigh. She heard a faint, “I hear ya!”, of agreement from Piotr a few rows away and gave a wry smile.
She called out, “There has got to be a better way.”
“You’ve said that a hundred times and for the hundredth time I’ll tell you there isn’t,” Greta said from the other end of the row. She didn’t even bother looking up. Instead she added another crinkled paper to one of her stacks with delicate precision.
They had made progress and Marina, despite her impatience, was proud of that. Greta had started their project by directing each of them to get a random sampling of what records or objects they found in the deep stacks and cabinets beyond the few well organized ones at the entrance. With that information, she put a label on the chalkboard at the end of each of the main rows. As they emptied the stacks and rows, the material was sorted and then put in these newly labeled rows.
Deciding on when something happened was very difficult. When one only identified time in generic ways, one had to look a lot harder to place things in time. For her, each year belonged in a cycle of fifty years. Each year had 365 days, plus the null day before the new year every fourth year.
Maybe if they didn’t cycle the years after the fiftieth year they wouldn’t have so much trouble. She had been born in the 34th year and it was now the 24th year. It was only now that she realized how little sense such a system made. No matter where she looked or what kind of record she found, they all used this system. Except farm records.
Farm records seemed to be the most complete of all the types of records. Everything about them was recorded. From when things were planted to how many plants of each type reached maturity to how much was produced. Seed selection, cross pollination results and even pest activity was scrupulously recorded.