“What about the second column?”
“I do not know. There is nothing I can put there.”
“Can I make a suggestion? You said you were sent to an installation, in the second column. Was that installation the bunker?”
He took a moment to reply. Another thing he didn’t want to be true.
“It is possible. But it could have been anywhere…”
“I think, given you have both these sets of memories, it’s the most likely thing.”
“But I remember nothing!”
“Okay. What about the first column?”
He pointed out the final weeks before the end of the list. “Here is when I armed the device. Here is when the war took place. We heard from the last survivors on the surface here. One of my aides killed himself here. A general did the same here. We waited before we went into the hibernation units. We waited as long as we could. And then we laid down and slept.”
“But there are things missing, aren’t there? At the end?”
“Perhaps. But I do not know what they are…”
There was nothing more on the list. I took a step back. “Well. This is fantastic work… and very brave.”
“It is not bravery.”
“No, seriously, Kwame, I know you didn’t want to do this. I know it was difficult.”
“I…” He really didn’t know how to take a compliment and seemed at a loss.
“But I think there’s still more to do,” I said.
“I do not know what else I can do… this is all I can remember.”
“Well, more might come out over time. This all came in something of a rush, didn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“But maybe…”
He waited for me as an idea sparked in my head.
“Maybe we can jog your memory a little more. This all started when you saw your dream. Maybe we can put you back there and see what happens…”
He was shocked. “Go back? To my world? That is death!”
“Not for real. We have some very large rooms here that we don’t use. And we can model those rooms exactly the same way you can model yours.”
“I do not understand.”
“We can make a simulation of the bunker. Some of it, anyway. I think we have the schematics on record. I’ll need to get some people in but it’s doable. What do you think?”
He stepped back.
“You want me to go… back there.”
“The bunker’s the biggest gap on this list. I don’t know if it’ll work but it’s worth a try.”
He couldn’t find the words. He was dreading it.
“Or if you’re not ready we can…”
“No!” He found his backbone quite suddenly. “I must. I must know!”
I nodded. “Okay, then. I’ll get everything started.”
6. Olivia
It was no surprise that Olivia was angry; I’d long since given up being surprised at how she continually generated new bitterness. But on this occasion, I found myself thinking she had a point.
She came in with her ICT representation already prepared, inconveniently written in pen and ink. She was never keen on using keyboards — she said she was no one’s secretary and never had been so why should she learn to type? This made sense from the point of view of gender relations and historical typing machines, but was more likely a way to avoid any therapy that required her to write something down.
So I had to read the representation she thrust in front of me on a sheet of paper, scrawled in a language that only she and the computer that translated it for me knew. It could be summarised as a demand for the IU to prosecute itself, followed by a number of surly complaints that such a thing would never happen so why should she even bother to ask.
“Okay. I’ll pass that on,” I said.
“Won’t do any good.”
“I’d like to discuss it, if you don’t mind.”
“There’s nothing to bloody discuss. Just give it to them. They can use it as cigarette papers if they want.”
“Why do you feel so hostile about this?”
“Because you left us there to die! And now you come along and you say you’re going to do what’s right and you’re not going to do anything of the sort!”
I nodded. This was going to be difficult; I didn’t have anything new to give her.
“Well, I’ll certainly pass it on. And I do hope they do something about it…”
“They won’t. They won’t do anything for poor old Pew either, and his troubles are a damn sight worse than mine…”
“Actually, that’s a good point. It might be worth connecting the two cases, given that they’re both about negligence…”
“And what good’s that going to do?”
“Even if you can’t get some prosecutions out of it, it might change IU policy.”
“What rubbish.”
“We can’t go back and save your world, but it might save another species in the future.”
“And what good’s that to me? Or Pew?”
“You’re right. No good at all. So what do you want? I mean, what’s your goal here?”
“I want someone to pay for letting us all die.”
“Okay. But who’s ‘us’?”
“My species, who do you bloody think?”
“I mean something a little more concrete. If you keep it vague, they could just say they had no proof of survivors and had to follow health and safety procedures—”
“That’s what they bloody did say!”
“Yes. But what else could they have done? Even if they couldn’t land because they didn’t know what they were dealing with, what else could they have done to save you?”
“They could show a bit of backbone and use some of that godsdamned technology you’re all so proud of!”
“To do what?”
“I don’t know! Fight them. Find us. Get us out of there!”
“Right. Something constructive. If you’re going to prove negligence, you have to show that something could have been done. Could you have been found? Was there a way?”
“I don’t know, we lost radio contact with everyone by then—”
“Radio. Good. You had radio. So they could have done a radio survey.”
“We didn’t hardly use it any more. No one to listen to.”
“But you did try sometimes?”
“…Yeh.”
“Did you keep trying, even after you were alone?”
“Yeh. I didn’t give up like the others.”
“So there you are. That’s a better way to present it. You were broadcasting. If the Exploration Service didn’t try to listen, or didn’t try long enough, then the ICT might find that worth looking into.”
“I suppose.”
“And it’ll help if they know more about what happened in those two years.”
“Why should they care?”
“If two years makes the difference between one survivor making it and a species making it, they’ll care. You need to show there were people who could have been saved. Give them locations they can search in. Use your own group as an example. Were there other people still alive on the day the expedition left?”
“We didn’t know, that’s why they all bloody went!”
“Okay, but you still had some hope. So what could you put in? What happened?”
“We lost contact with the last station about a month earlier. As long as everyone could hear another voice out there, they could pretend someone was coming. But once the last station went dead…” She sighed. “I couldn’t keep them there any more.”
“Was it that dangerous?”
“Of course it was! We’d sent out expeditions before. They never reached the other stations. They never made it anywhere. But they wouldn’t listen. They thought there was some country out there that didn’t have any revenants, or an island or something. And there wasn’t, was there?”