The last person she wanted to see was sitting in the near darkness of the kitchen and dining hall when she entered. Greta cradled a cup in her hands and was bent over it like it was the last warmth in the silo. She turned dull and glazed eyes toward Marina as she entered. She gave her a weak attempt at a smile but it was sadder than if she hadn’t tried at all.
Marina joined her and rested a hand on her arm. “How are you holding up?”
Greta tried that smile again but it came off as a grimace. Her voice was ragged when she answered, “I’m better. Taylor is bad, though.”
There was no helpful reply to give to that so Marina just nodded in understanding.
“I don’t know why I’m taking it this bad,” Greta said. “I mean, aside from this project, we just sort of were,” she paused and searched for the words. “I guess you could say we were friendly strangers.”
Again Marina nodded. She understood this well. Everyone had people like that in their lives. This time she added, “But we aren’t anymore. You were his friend and he yours. We all shared something special, right?”
Greta looked up at Marina, her eyes grateful at the understanding. “Exactly,” she said. “And the way it happened.”
“Don’t think about that, Greta. Just don’t,” Marina said firmly. “I don’t know what you’ve been told, but Joseph told me it would have been so fast he wouldn’t have felt pain or known what was happening. That is more than many can hope for in this life.”
Greta’s expression said she did know that but she was not getting past the graphic after-effects of the death. Those were hard things to get past and sometimes, like this time, they were too hard to put aside. After a few minutes, Greta took her leave and Marina was left alone, her stomach growling and the memory of that unfolded sheet of circles flying around in her head. She grabbed some handy leftovers, refilled her flask and hurried back to her room. She knew she should go and see Taylor and that she was being a very bad friend. She rationalized that he was probably asleep by now and it would be worse to disturb him.
She gobbled the food as fast as her mouth would let her chew and her stomach would accept it. She was a bundle of nerves and her suddenly loaded stomach actually felt worse than the fluttery emptiness of before. She belched and giggled, entirely inappropriately considering the day just past, but there had been too much and she wasn’t reacting right. Other silos. Other people. Others?
In her room, she emptied her pack and sorted the contents on her bed. She was careful with the fragile papers but the pack hadn’t been so kind. Crumbles of paper drifted out along with the contents. The chart, back in its envelope, she left alone. There was so much more. She selected a few others and found a diagram she immediately recognized as something a Fabber would use for reconstruction or repair. She examined it, read the notations and understood it was for a radio.
She thought back but couldn’t remember the details of the various handheld radios she had repaired or made parts for in the past to compare with, but this one struck her as different in any case. On the back, in careful letters, were the instructions for frequencies to contact forty. She had to assume that was for Silo 40 and not Level 40. The former seemed more likely than the latter, given the situation.
There was so much it was almost overwhelming. On her way in she had carefully looked at a few of the pages displayed beneath the tenets. Many of them were just as she remembered and a quick look inside the fabric books confirmed that these books were their origin. In times past, the non-visible side of the page had been copied onto another sheet and hung in protective frames alongside the originals. Those were different, obviously, but the originals had the same writing as these books. Eventually she, or the group, would need to figure out where in each book the pages came and put it all into context.
The big book was something else entirely. It was machine printed, just like the little volume that led her to the box. She knew what to look for now so she opened the cover and the first few pages until she came to the one that had the numbers. There she found what she was looking for, ‘Legacy, Inc. 2045, 2048, 2051’. She touched the letters. The first book, so old that it was almost indecipherable, had numbers in the 1800s and 1900s. This book had numbers in the 2000s. The records upstairs, the ones furthest back and least useful had numbers only slightly higher than these.
And those records had recorded things in terms of drafts, initial plantings, testing and dry runs. These were terms she understood. They signified a trial of something before it became the accepted way of doing things. Marina felt very sure, in a place deep inside her, that she knew the answer to their questions.
Outside, the world had not cycled their years in batches of fifty. They had been there at least 2051 years and then they had tried things inside the silo. They had dry runs and tests of the systems.
And then they had come inside and everything had changed.
She opened the book at a random page, ignoring the many little metal clips that marked specific pages, and discovered the existence of Shorelines, Shoreline Management and part of Shoreline Usage. She flipped again and revealed the hideous beauty of Skinks. Again and she was faced with the Solar System. A metal clip on the next page led her to Earth and the note there told her that this was what they lived on. It was a ball, much like the sun looked in those rare instances when the fiery orange gleam could be seen clearly when it set. They lived on a ball but this one was beautiful, and shone blue and green and brown and white.
A tiny dot marred the surface and a hand drawn arrow pointed to the words, ‘We are here’. She bent her head to try to see closer but all she saw was a swath of green partially covered with a swath of white. So tiny were they against all that space.
Marina couldn’t really take in any more. She wasn’t taking it in now, merely piling un-absorbable facts over already unbelievable facts. She felt dizzy with it, like she was walking around in a dream and no one but she could see that. She lay down on the bed and pulled all the wonderful things toward her. She spooned them like a child and fell asleep.
Chapter Nineteen
Waking up to someone who shouldn’t be there moving around in a room is a jarring thing. Marina woke to just that and saw Taylor gently trying to remove the book from underneath her arm. He saw her eyes open at almost the exact moment they did and he didn’t delay. He moved with a purpose Marina wasn’t ready for after a few hours of disturbed sleep and dreams of blue orbs. Just as she uttered a sound of confused query, he snatched the book from under her arm and made a grab for the envelopes that had scattered while she slept.
Marina bolted upright and grabbed his outstretched arm. “Taylor! What are you doing?”
“You can’t do this. This isn’t right! I’m making it right!” he exclaimed as he tried to yank his arm back. Marina jerked with each yank but held on. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the chart with the silos unfolded on the floor. He had been in here long enough to do that. What else might he have been up to?
Taylor dropped the book back to the bed and papers fluttered to the floor around him as he put more force into the yank. Marina had a grip on him and leverage on the bed while he was trapped by the little chair and table. When his body signaled he was about to make another big effort, she timed her response and threw herself into a solid push at the moment of his pull. Taylor flew backward and hit the table and then the chair. The table fell over with a bang and dishes clattered across the floor.