Silo 49: Dark Till Dawn Page 3

  Marina nods, her mouth tight. This is more than they had expected. She and the rest of the Historians had assumed that the blotch on the map marked ‘Catchment Lake’ was further away. Further than this anyway. But the land is sloping downward a little in front of Henry. Even she can see that. She plucks his sleeve to regain his attention and he tears his gaze from the screen reluctantly.

  “Young man, I want you to focus on that feature. It may be very important. The distance is what I want most of all. If you can get anything about it on paper then you must.”

  Marina tries to put the import of what she wants in her words and it appears to have worked because the young man’s expression turns grave. “I will. I’ll get everything that can be gotten. You can count on me, ma’am.”

  She gives his arm a little pat and shoos him back with a wave. “Good, good. See me directly after so that I can take down your impressions before they fade.”

  He nods and hurries back to his seat, almost immediately setting his writing stick to a fresh sheet of paper. Marina looks back at the view and thinks that the shadow is clearer now, darker. Time passes and she finds that she is getting used to the bouncing scene, her own body straining and relaxing as if she were the one running.

  The sound feed from Henry’s helmet is limited to his breathing and short acknowledgements of the times as they are called out. Fifteen and then twenty minutes pass before Henry is directed to stop and look at his suit. He holds out his arms and looks at his legs and the murmurs in the room increase in volume as the suit engineers discuss what they are seeing.

  Henry is covered with a fine layer of dust that has glued itself to him via the slippery film. It is only the finest of the grains that have stuck and his suit looks almost as tan as the Sheriff’s coveralls in places. What is worrisome is the ragged look of the suit along the front of his thighs, on his forearms and on the back sides of his hands. To Marina, it almost looks fuzzy.

  Marina sees Henry’s reflection better now that he is standing still and sees that he is sweating. A small computer fan inside the helmet is keeping it from fogging up, but it doesn’t do much to ease the heat that builds up inside quickly.

  Marina is sure that this is the cool part of the year because the days are at their shortest. The single volume of the Legacy they have describes the solar system and they have been able to learn and confirm this much in thirty years. Even so, he is wearing a lot of layers and keeping most of his heat inside.

  The operator asks for a close up of his arm again and then the suit engineers give their verdict. The operator pauses, as if he doesn’t like what he’s being told to say. He shakes his head, but leans toward the microphone anyway. “Henry, that suit looks good enough to keep going. But keep an eye on your arms and hands. At the first sight of red you turn around. Got it?”

  Henry nods inside the helmet and then says, “Got it!” He is running at full speed almost immediately and the sound his feet make on the rough ground sounds a bit like someone chewing a mouth full of seeds.

  The council medic is clearly upset with the suit engineers and pushes one of them roughly aside to speak to the operations crew. He raises his voice enough for the council members to hear, which means that everyone can hear him. “His suit is one thing, his endurance is another. He isn’t going to be able to run back as fast as he ran out there. It’s a pretty simple equation. He shouldn’t stay out until he sees red. He should turn back before that.” He pauses and jerks his hand toward the screen where Henry’s breathing sounds out loudly like a second opinion. “Anyone disagree?”

  Marina watches them make up their minds and she can see the battles going on inside each of them. A movement out of the corner of her eye draws her attention. It is the artist she assigned to monitor the feature in the distance. He is standing, jaws agape while he stares at the screen. He starts to make a choking noise.

  As she whips her head back toward the screen, Henry’s voice sounds out as do a few others in the room. Henry’s is amplified and dominates the weaker voices inside. “Do you see that? Does anyone see that?” He sounds almost afraid and his fuzzy looking arm rises and points toward a spot in the distance, far to the left of the jagged shape he’s been aiming for.

  She does see it. Everyone sees it. A chair falls backward and clangs to the floor. The operator shakes out of what is gripping them all first and slams the talk button on his microphone. “We see it, Henry! Describe it for us so we know we’re seeing what you’re seeing!”

  Henry is still breathing heavy and his words come out tight in between his gulps of air. “It’s blue. It’s a patch of blue. There’s brown around it, like maybe the blue is past a hole of some kind in the dirt. I can’t describe it. It’s moving though. It’s very far away, I think. Too far to run.”

  Marina can see that, too. It seems very hard to gauge distances outside but it looks impossibly far away to her. There’s no chance he could reach it.

  His pointing finger draws a line in the air, up and down. He says, “It’s changing shape. Getting longer and skinnier.”

  One of the artists calls out, “Oh no! I think it is going!”

  Marina stumbles from her chair, hips grinding with pain, and yells toward the operator. “Get the direction! Don’t let him turn until we have a direction!” She can see that the patch is disappearing and knows they will never be able to precisely identify where it was once it is gone if he moves at all.

  The operations crew and two of the artists spring into action. Marina just stares at the shrinking patch of blue. It is already less blue than before, smudged with the brown of the dusty wind outside and not nearly as brilliant a shade. She can hear Henry’s sound of distress as the last streamers of blue disappear. It sounds like a sob and she can see in his reflection the grief there, even on only the upper half of his face.

  The operator turns to the room and shouts, “We’ve got it! The direction! We’ve got it!”

  The room erupts in yells and shouts and laughter and tears. It is a frantic scene and that is bad. They still have a runner out there.

  Marina lifts her metal chair and bangs it on the ground several times to get the attention of the room. When the operator, who has jumped up and started hugging the other console operators, finally turns to her she says, “Bring our runner home.”

  Six

  Henry’s run back to the silo is much harder than his run out had been. Everyone in the control room could see it for themselves and hear it through the speakers. It wasn’t a lack of air but the strenuous nature of the activity that was doing it. His ragged gasping breaths make them all tense, fists clenched and backs ramrod straight. He doesn’t even pause to show them his suit. He just holds up an arm in front of his helmet so they can all see for themselves.

  A fine stream of white —and some red— particles trail away from his arm as he holds it high. It blows back onto his helmet and there is no mistaking the meaning of it. His suit is being eaten away and it is getting faster. Once the film had worn away, there was nothing to stop whatever it was outside from doing its worst.

  “Draw!” Marina calls out, but she can’t tear her eyes from the screen to see if anyone does or not.

  The decontamination team is already in place, as they have been since the outer door opened, but they are helpless until Henry actually reaches the airlock. When Henry’s rushing feet pass the camera ball he had dropped at the top of the ridge, he gasps, “Ridge. Open.”

  The airlock almost immediately begins that shaking groan again as the laboriously slow opening sequence starts. The decontamination team lowers their visors to seal their own suits and the medics wheel their gurney in behind the team, ready and nervous.

  All eyes are glued to the screen as the stunted top of their silo grows in the view from Henry’s helmet. So small and insignificant from the ridge, it expands as he nears, suddenly seeming larger than life. His gasps have become more than ragged. They are pained and painful to listen to and Marina’s fists clench as she whispers, “
Hang on. Hang on!”

  The opening to the ramp suddenly fills Henry’s view and he has the amazing presence of mind to grab the power sprayer on his way down. It must have used up the last of his reserves of strength because he takes only a few lurching steps down before the whole view skews wildly and Henry rolls down the ramp toward the airlock.

  Marina, along with everyone else, gasps and the operator calls into the microphone, “Henry! You can do it! Just get into the airlock!”

  A moan that may have been an answer comes back through the speakers and Henry’s view rolls and skews violently. They can all see his hands bracing him up as he gets to his knees and crawls forward. Marina almost screams a cheer when his hand crosses the airlock threshold. He barely drags his second foot in before another groan sounds amidst the gasps. No one waits for any kind of confirmation. There is just a chorus of shouts to close the airlock.

  The airlock operator slams the button home and the doors begin to close. It isn’t over yet for Henry, though. Laying in a shaking huddle on the floor of the airlock, he has to wait for the doors to completely close before the water can come in and cleanse him of what’s eating his suit.

  He must have realized this because his shaking arm comes up and Marina’s heart goes out to him as he looks at the ragged remains of his sleeve. The red has an obvious breech in it, like it has been rubbed on rough concrete and worn away. His clumsy gloved fingers probe the rent to see whether the inner layer is intact. His strained breathing is still almost all that they can hear inside the control room but then a couple of loud gulps sound out. Marina can tell he is trying his best to find his voice.

  “I think I’m sealed. Tell my parents I love them if…” He stops there, his gasping breaths giving out for a moment. “Just do your best to get me inside.”

  The clang of the airlock shutting is loud even in the control room. The airlock operator and his counterpart on the other side of it both yank down on two levers each and water rushes with great force down the pipes. There is a loud slamming noise as the water encounters the seals and then the whoosh as it breaks through the wax and into the airlock. The wax seal, slathered with a liberal coating of the repellent liquid, is all that prevents contamination from the airlock from traveling up the pipes. Once the airlock is filled, whatever was airborne will be trapped in the water and drain away.

  Marina comes as close as she dares to without interfering with the decontamination teams and their gear. She can see nothing from where she stands with two airlocks between her and Henry, but she can hear him slamming around inside the airlock as the water tosses him about. He was supposed to hold onto the metal grips and put his feet under the bars on the floor to keep this from happening, but he has either lost his grip or was simply too exhausted to get himself braced. She makes of note of that in her book though she almost hates herself for thinking of her notes when that boy might be drowning a few feet away.

  The pitch of the rushing water changes to a higher register, indicating the airlock is getting full and then it abruptly stops with a gurgling slam. Both airlock operators pull their levers home and wrench open the lower ones that will pull away the metal seals behind the wax plugs for the lower drains.

  There are twice as many draining tanks as filling tanks because water will only drain until the level of all vessels the water flows into is equal. To make that a manageable level, eight tanks are needed. They have not dared to chip away the concrete of the floor to install tanks below the floor, which would allow the water to drain more quickly and all the way. With forty feet of concrete between them and the next level, they could dig down and install the tanks below the floor level with some effort. It is just the very idea of breaking a floor that stops them. With eight tanks, they can drain the water from the airlock down to about eight inches. That is enough for now. They must be sure it will work before they take the irrevocable step of destroying the continuity of their floor.

  The glugging of the drainage diminishes as the flow becomes a trickle of sound. Henry must enter the second airlock himself. There is no one there to assist him. Inside the second airlock, he must go through another shower and use the scrub brushes to get into every nook and cranny of his suit that he can. Only then will the decontamination team enter and do it all over again, remove his suit and begin to examine his body.

  They all hold their breath but there is no movement inside the chamber for a long, painful moment. They can see Henry’s reflection in his helmet and his eyes are closed but his breathing is still loud and evident. They know he is alive but is he conscious? Has something gone irreparably wrong?

  The console operator grabs the microphone and says, “Henry? Can you hear me? Can you wake up and open your eyes for me?”

  Henry’s eyelids flutter for a moment and his eyes roll before they finally open to focus once more. His breathing, though not even close to normal, has retreated from that frightening struggle of before. Marina thinks perhaps the anxiety and the exertion may have gotten the best of Henry for a minute or two.

  He looks down at the floor of the airlock, where he is sitting in the expected eight inches of water and they watch as he pats himself down. Suddenly he laughs, his voice hoarse, and says, “I’m so sweaty I can’t tell if I have water in my suit or not.”

  Everyone in the room laughs and cheers, some hugging each other while others cry unashamedly. Marina is one of the latter and she smiles as she dabs the tears from her eyes. The operator’s voice is almost as hoarse as Henry’s when he says, “Come on through, Henry. Come inside.”

  Part Two

  Race Year 89

  The Butterfly

  Excerpt from the book “Silo Ecology for Students”

  Within the silo, there are many flying insects. Some are appreciated more than others, but each has significance. In times past, there were many more species, but careful policies of control have eliminated some while others were inadvertently destroyed through lack of care. Examples of some of these can be viewed in the Memoriam.

  The concept of flying is a source of constant fascination for all of us. Farmers and other natural professions reason that flight developed as a way for pests to get past the barrier of the stairs and fly to other levels, where more farms can be impacted. Historians believe that flight developed outside, in the time before the silo, because it has not flourished inside the silo and so many species have been exterminated.

  Notable species include the gnat, which is almost impossible to eliminate due to the variety of conditions under which it can live. It is of particular nuisance within the animal farms and near fruit trees. Likewise the fly has never been completely eliminated, though careful handling of all compost and animal droppings has decreased their numbers dramatically and their population remains low.

  A few species of flying insect provide endless fascination. One of these is the Black Swallowtail butterfly. Everyone who sees them is struck by their delicate beauty and the bright blue, yellow and orange markings, but why they exist remains a question. Their final form seems to serve no purpose other than mating, which could better be done in their less delicate caterpillar form.

  Butterflies were almost made extinct due to careful farm management. It is for that reason that most agree the butterfly developed outside and were brought inside in the form of eggs on plants. Their preference for parsley and related plants made their eggs easy to destroy during harvesting and when their numbers dwindled, the butterfly garden was created.

  Inside the butterfly garden, plants play host to the population in safety. Many males are removed each year to prevent fighting and placed in portable habitats with a female and sufficient plant material. The lottery for these habitats is the most popular lottery in the silo.

  Males and females can be distinguished by their coloration and size. Females are larger and have a bigger swath of bright blue on their wings. Because of this, many have come to believe that the female butterfly is an omen for the outside and a return of blue skies. To kill a butt
erfly is considered very bad luck and to have a successful mating in a habitat very good luck.

  One

  Lillian and Leo played cards while they waited for judgment. Every so often, he had to reach across and push down on Lillian's bouncing knee to stop her from shaking the whole bench. She had upset the fans of cards laid out on the top once already. She apologized or smiled each time he did it, but she couldn't seem to stop her leg from beginning to bounce again almost immediately. She was grateful for Leo's patience with her little foibles and quirks. But he had always been so and she loved him all the more for it.

  Leo laid down another set of cards, this time three nines, and flicked the cards in her hand. "I'd hate to think you're letting me win on purpose."

  She stuck her tongue out at him and wrinkled her nose. "I have to let you win at something!" She looked back at the cards in her hand, a pathetic assortment that just needed one additional card to be awesome. Unfortunately, she just wasn't drawing those cards.

  Her game was off and she knew it. The cards were a distraction, just not a complete one. There were really only two outcomes of the day. She would be a finalist— a true contender— and enter the race or she would be eliminated from the competition and go home in defeat.

  While much of the silo remained ignorant about who the individual candidate racers might be, aside from some personal favorite or a racer that happened to live nearby, there were still a lot of people who followed each step of the race with a passion. Those were the people that gave knowing greetings as they passed her on the stairs during the course of a day or smiled and nodded with a peculiar familiarity at others. Those people would know if she failed to be selected.