“But why would you say they weren’t people?”
“Because…” Nina shook her head again. “They didn’t look human anymore. They looked… sort of human? But not quite. Something about the way they moved, the way they looked at us. Like we were children.” She took a deep breath. “Berols’ Anna, when she spoke… her voice filled your head. She said three things. She said to leave them alone. And then she said…” Nina frowned.
Vanja waited.
“‘We’ve given ourselves over to the world,’” Nina said. “That’s what she said, word for word. And then the third thing: ‘We’ll come to your aid soon.’”
“What did you do next?” Vanja asked.
“What could we do? No one wanted to head inside. We returned home. The committee swore us to secrecy. Anyone who talked about what happened would be taken care of and sent away. The committee was afraid that if others got wind of what happened, they’d try the same thing, they’d try to break out. Or that talking about what happened would spread Anna’s ideas. It would destabilize the colony. So when we came home, someone torched a leisure center, and they made the official story that the missing people had died in the fire.”
Nina cleared her throat. “I’m only telling you this so you’ll get it. Is this what you want, Vanja? You want things to be like Berols’ Anna made them?”
“But maybe they’re doing well in there,” Vanja mumbled.
“They’re not human anymore. You want to stop being human, is that it?”
Vanja looked away. She had an impulse to say yes but stopped herself and instead shook her head.
Nina emptied her cup. “So, that’s that. And since that happened, it’s been harder to maintain order—just look at the lake. Maybe it’s because there are fewer of us. Or because what Berols’ Anna did changed something. I don’t know. But we can’t afford to be lax like people in Essre apparently are. Of course, there are those who slack off. Fifteen years is enough for people to start to forget. And the children aren’t told about this. They have to believe there was a fire.”
She filled her cup again. Her speech had taken on the overly precise enunciation of the very drunk. “Maybe Ivar would still have been here.”
“What?”
“Maybe Ivar would still have been here. If people had just followed the rules, then nothing would have fallen apart. Maybe that chamber wouldn’t have collapsed.”
Nina sniffled and wiped her cheeks with her palm. Then she fixed Vanja with bloodshot eyes. “I don’t want to, because I care about you. But I’ll report you if I have to. Promise me I won’t have to.”
“I promise,” Vanja said.
Nina rested her head on Vanja’s shoulder. Before long, her breathing grew more even and deepened. Vanja caught her cup the moment before it tumbled from Nina’s hand.
She lay awake for a long time with Nina’s arms wrapped around her. Ivar’s gray face haunted her. Nina couldn’t be right. Ivar was in pain because the committee forced him underground, because they wouldn’t let him live his life the way he wanted. Not because of what he saw when the tunnel caved in.
When she finally drifted off, she found herself in the cave with the machine. The luminescent lichen festooned the surfaces in white and green. Everything was very still. The dripping noise had stopped. Then the engine shuddered to life with a screeching groan. The wheel tore free of the stalactites with a crash and slowly began to turn. Lichen and minerals scattered in a cloud.
She couldn’t see what the machine powered.
SECONDAY
Anders was back. He stood behind the counter, blowing his nose into a soiled handkerchief. In front of him sat a stack of papers and folders.
“You’re on time,” he said when Vanja entered. “Good. The research division has given us work to do.” He pushed the stack toward her. “These are requisitions and permission applications. We need them in triplicate, one copy for the archive and two for the office upstairs. They need to be processed and sent back to the research division immediately. So get going.” He looked oddly exhilarated.
Anders sat down in front of his typewriter and hammered out what looked like reports. Vanja fetched blank forms and copying paper. She spent the morning translating the short messages in the stack on her right into applications. The research division was applying for equipment and workers. Their purpose wasn’t stated very clearly; they made several references to some decision that the committee had reached the day before. It had something to do with object diagnostics and emergency protocols.
By the time she had finished typing up the forms, it was already time for the midday meal. Vanja delivered the copies to the secretary upstairs and then went straight to the canteen. Today’s dish was bean stew. The atmosphere in the canteen was oddly subdued. People spoke in short, indirect bursts:
“Did you hear…?”
“Yes. I got a summons. Hedda, too.”
“One wonders what’s going on.”
“It’s probably nothing.”
“You’re right, it’s probably nothing.”
The last sentence recurred in all conversations, repeated by everyone within earshot.
In the early afternoon, a band of couriers came downstairs and filed past the reception. One of them stopped at the desk; it was the same girl with braids who had been there the day before. She waved at Vanja and Anders to get their attention, held up a note, and recited: “INCREASED MARKING. In a campaign to improve the commune’s well-being, normal activity will be suspended between fifteen and sixteen o’clock for marking of all objects in the area. This will be repeated every day until further notice. Hooray for Amatka’s commune!”
“Hooray!” Anders hollered.
“Hooray,” Vanja echoed.
Ivar’s death certificate was delivered. Date of birth, date of death. He was thirty-two years old. Cause of death: self-inflicted hypothermia and drowning. As Vanja stood in the archive holding Ivar’s file, she realized how easy it would be to just stuff the papers down her shirt or into the box of forms she’d brought downstairs. Nina could have some evidence of Ivar’s existence to keep. The children would be able to remember their father. She pulled the papers out and began folding them so they’d take up less space. “Anything exciting?” Anders was standing right behind her, much too close, eyebrows raised.
Vanja stiffened and waved the papers around. “Nah.”
“They’re going to be scrapped, I take it. Given that you’re not filing them.” He took the papers out of her hand. “I’ll do it for you, it’s no bother.” He tucked the thin stack under his arm and gestured at the door with his free hand. “Marking time!”
Anders tasked Vanja with marking office supplies in the small supply alcove. Every pen, paper clip, measuring stick, folder, envelope, and piece of paper might need to be named and re-marked. She started with the envelopes and went on to notebooks and paper. When she finished, it was already four o’clock. She would have to hurry if she hoped to get through the rest of the supplies in time. Behind her, Anders went downstairs to mark temporary folders.
Vanja emptied a box of pencils, lined them up on the shelf, and pointed at them one by one. “Pencil, pencil, pencil.”
It wasn’t long before the words flowed together. “Pencil-pencil-pencil-pen-cilpen-cilpen-cilpen-cilpen-cilpen—”
The last pencil in the row shuddered. As Vanja bent closer to look, the shiny yellow surface whitened and buckled. Then, suddenly and soundlessly, it collapsed into a pencil-shaped strip of gloop. Vanja instinctively shrank back. Her stomach turned. She had done it. She had said the wrong name, and the pencil had lost its shape. It shouldn’t have happened that quickly. She extended a finger and let it hover just above the surface of the transparent sludge. Then she slowly lowered it.