Waiting for the Machines to Fall Asleep

by Waiting for the Machines to Fall Asleep- The Best New Science Fiction from Sweden (retail) (epub)

  A skin affliction? I thought and said: "Keep on drinking. Newcomers don't realize how much they sweat in this weather."

  "You're right." Klim opened another water bottle and emptied half of it in a few gulps. "Pardon me for asking, but what happened to your face?"

  I chose my words carefully not to reveal my feelings: "Well, no offense. I served in Ariana. Working with security in the multilateral operation. It was an infernal device. I survived the blast, some of my colleagues didn't. My face and chest were badly burned. But both of my eyes still see and I can hear with one ear. I have enough teeth left to eat. And one can live without a nose. So I manage."

  "You should be home with a veteran's pension!" Klim's outburst affected the voice in a strange manner.

  Suddenly professionally wary I gave an appropriate response while assessing the situation: "And waste away in idle loneliness? I'm no cripple. And if a marshal looks hideous, it's a small matter. People still have to deal with me." I watched Klim's face closely: the chin was round and small with no sign of fuzz.

  "I understand. Please tell me what a road marshal does."

  I started explaining the minutiae of my job while checking Klim's mannerisms and speech as taught by our manual of investigation. "The Road is shared by all states with a presence in the Hinterlands. She is like the sea, too important to be controlled by any one government. The Road Co-dominion administers her as neutral ground, open to everyone all the time. That's why we even use the old Imperial flag. The marshals serve as the Road's police force." The more I observed, the stronger my suspicions became that Klim was not an adult man.

  I stood in front of the commandant's desk. "Sir, I'm a bit concerned about the two friars who arrived with me today."

  "I heard of them. Quiet fellows. Please tell me what's troubling you."

  I reported my observations.

  "Well, I trust your detective skills, but investigating the Ekklesia, that's sensitive."

  "I know, sir."

  "Any suggestions what to do?"

  "Well, sir, if you ask them to carry out a divine service at the post chapel, they could hardly refuse. After all, we don't have any resident cleric right now. And that would give me a chance to study how well they carry out their duties."

  "Clever. We'll do that."

  The trilling cadences of a silver flute filled the chapel. Klim was a master musician, but certainly not a friar – so much clumsiness, so much obvious lack of experience during the service. Brod, on the other hand, had performed the liturgy convincingly. I therefore believed I knew what was going on.

  The service ended with Brod giving the blessing of the One God, his right hand holding a candle and making the Circle of Light in front of us as he chanted the benediction.

  The friars left the hall for the sacristy and the participants exited through the main door. I went to my favorite icon: the Divine Whisper. On my knees I lit a candle and meditated on the abstract depiction with red and black symbols on gold. What next? I opened my heart to the silence of the stone and the light. Some words of the Heavenly Sage rose from my memory. So be it. My right index finger made the circle over my heart and I got up.

  A knock on the door and I entered the sacristy. The friars had put away their liturgical vestments and were relaxing in armchairs among the bookshelves. A pair of brown eyes and a set of dark glasses looked towards me.

  "Greetings, marshal," said Brod and looked away.

  "Greetings," I said and pulled a chair to me with the foot. "You two are in trouble. We are going to straighten it out right now." I slid into the chair and assumed the law officer's know-it-all attitude. "You're an impostor," I said and pointed at the covered eyes. "I've watched you carefully and you've done a poor job at being a cleric. You're an adolescent woman and you're pregnant. Your way of moving tells me that."

  The girl sighed.

  "So you're Brod's mistress and you're carrying his child. The breach of his celibacy vow is a disciplinary matter for the Ekklesia and of no concern to me. But deceitfully pretending to be a practitioner of a licensed occupation is a crime according to the laws I enforce. Explain yourself."

  "Brod is an honorable man," she said. "I don't carry his child. It's his brother's. Brod has done all these things to save me and the baby."

  "Why?" I said.

  "Because my brother is a bad man," said Brod.

  "It's more complicated than you think," said the girl, as she flipped down the hood and removed her dark glasses. She looked at my mutilated face without flinching while the glasses trembled slightly in her hand.

  I stared into a pair of light blue eyes nested between pinkish eyelids. Ah, she is using skin-darkening lotion, I realized. "Have you dyed your body brown? Are you one of the Forsaken?"

  "Yes, and I'm fleeing for my life. We're from Akrovâl."

  Many times I had read in the newspapers what maltreatment the Forsaken suffered in that country. "I understand," I said and slumped in the chair. In that instant, something shattered inside me – the concrete around my heart. "I will help you."

  "Why?" she said. "You are not one of us."

  My voice cracked. "Look at my face! I know what it's like to be an outcast. People call me 'monster' and they call you 'vermin', right?"

  Tears appeared in those horizon-colored eyes. She got up and extended a hand towards me.

  I shivered. "Don't touch me, please."

  Her face stiffened.

  "No, it's not you. I can't stand touching. Not by anyone," I said. "The scars run deep in my mind."

  Her face relaxed and she sat down.

  "How will you help us?" said Brod.

  "There's a Refugium for distressed women in a nearby town," I said. "Miss, I'll drive you there straight away. I know the matron and your background won't trouble her. You can stay there until you give birth and meanwhile figure out what you want to do with your future. As for the locals you'll meet there – for them you're just another weird foreigner. Their prejudices are different from ours."

  "Thanks," she said and wiped her face.

  "I'd like to know your real name, please," I said.

  "Nëavoira."

  "Brod, while Nëavoira and I are getting out of here, you'll have to talk to Mattir."

  "I'll take care of it," he said. "By the way, I never expected a public official to do what you just have done."

  There are some decisions that are surprisingly easy to make and surprisingly difficult to explain. "Well, life is the way it is. You can't run it according to regulations all the time."

  This was not the first time I had escorted a woman to the Refugium. But this case turned out to be different: I could not let go of Nëavoira. She had touched my heart and my memory of her would not fade. So I requested to have my Road-patrolling schedule changed to take me to the town where she resided as often as possible. Every time I also went to the Refugium, pretending to have some legitimate reason.

  After my second visit to Nëavoira, I stood in the Refugium's stable and groomed my steed before putting on the saddle. He growled in that particular approving way.

  A child burst through the open door like a dust devil veering off the Road. She wore a boy's off-white breeches and nothing else. Her skin was light brown like mine, not the dark brown of the locals.

  "Greetings," I said.

  "Hi." A long braid danced along the child's back as she skipped and darted around me.

  "Why don't you wear a skirt like the other girls?" I said.

  "I'm no girl, I'm a chepard." Her face contorted and her hands moved liked clawed paws while she growled like a feline.

  "Then I should call you Chep," I said.

  "Yes, yes, please. And what's your name?"

  "Kitu," I said.

  "That's a strange name."

  "Not where I come from," I said. "I'm from the islands in the middle of the ocean."

  "What's your job?"

  "I'm a road marshal."

  "So you capture bandits?"

&nbs
p; "Sometimes." I smiled to the extent my stiff cheeks permitted.

  "Why are you here?"

  "To see a friend," I said.

  "Why is your face so ugly?"

  Trust a child to speak bluntly. "Bad people hurt me a long time ago. What are you doing here?"

  "I live with the orphans. I came here to see your steed. The stable-lady says it's a beauty." She came closer. "Is it dangerous?"

  "That's a 'he' and his name is Gale. And he is dangerous to anyone who threatens me. Look at his sharp teeth."

  Chep bent to get a better look. Gale turned the head in her direction and sniffed. He was at ease; children make him curious.

  I scratched his neck. "Try here. He likes it a lot."

  Chep imitated my action carefully. Gale's growl made her back off.

  "Don't be afraid," I said. "He likes it. His dangerous growl is different."

  Once again, Chep scratched Gale. He licked her hand.

  Friendship at first go, I thought.

  At my next visit, I found Chep in the stable with Gale when I came back from the main building.

  I was in a good mood, because I had seen how Nëavoira had started to adjust to her new life. She consorted with a group of pregnant locals of her age, picking up their language word by word and learning the traditional crafts. They treated her like an equal, despite – from their point of view – her sickly pale skin and ghostly eyes. She had told me that Brod had promised to come for her after the delivery. I usually get suspicious when people make big assurances, but I expected him to keep his word.

  "Greetings," I said. "What have you fed him?"

  "Nothing. I'm just scratching," said Chep.

  "I see that Gale likes having you around." My words made her smile. I made a quick decision, once again breaking a Marshalcy regulation. "Do you want to learn how to take care of him? He'd love it."

  "Yes, please."

  "Then today's lesson will be food and water," I said.

  I taught Chep every step of that task and she picked it up quickly.

  A few visits later, Chep had learned so much that I could leave Gale in her care at my arrival without worries. At my return to the stable, the steed was clean and fresh.

  "Do you want to become a marshal?" I said in jest.

  "I want to be like you," said Chep.

  "You can't be serious," I blurted without thinking, because why would anyone wish that?

  "I am, I am, dungbag," she shouted and darted out of the stable.

  Tantrums go with that age, I thought while tacking up Gale. But what will she think of me tomorrow? The uncertainty troubled me.

  At my next visit, Chep came dashing to me as soon as I approached the Refugium. Her hair had been cut in the military style I used.

  "I thought you'd never come back," she shouted.

  "Why?" I said while dismounting.

  "Because I was nasty to you."

  I handed her Gale's reins. "It doesn't matter." Slowly I put my hand on her head and caressed the soft short hair. The cut suited her. "You're a chepard and they growl and fight, don't they?"

  She hugged me before I could react. I stood still without flinching.

  Without hurting. Without shivering. The touch of grace, I thought.

  "And you're an ursi," she said, "a big one prowling the hills and eating sweetberries and rivernewts. Ursis aren't afraid of anything, not even chepards."

  I put my slouch hat on her head. "The ursi and the chepard are buddies, always."

  In the middle of the wet season, Nëavoira gave birth to a healthy son. I was present to bless the baby. She had asked me to perform that task in the absence of relatives.

  The dry weather arrived, Brod came back and the three departed rim-ward. I was there to wave goodbye together with the matron and Nëavoira's friends.

  When I mounted Gale, ready to leave, Chep came running and looked up at me.

  Now or never, I thought and bent down with my hand extended. "You can ride in front of me."

  She grabbed my hand and clambered into the saddle. Then she looked at me over the shoulder. "Will you ...?"

  I saw the longing in the square face and understood. "Yes, Chep, call me mother."

  She leaned back with the shoulders resting on my breasts,

  "Yes, you are my daughter," I said and awkwardly kissed the top of her head. "I won't let go of you." Then I looked at the matron. "You set this up, didn't you?"

  She smiled. "Of course. Are you unhappy?"

  "No. We'll be back in two days for the adoption paperwork."

  The matron moved her hand in the circular blessing of the One God. I saluted her and urged Gale into a canter. My daughter and I headed for the Road, going home.

  "Is that the full story?" says Chep. "Really everything this time?"

  I nod and hand over the box with the birthday gift. She tears it open: a brown and gray hunting dress for adults with a matching long dagger. Her first set of clothes for grown-ups. She is no child anymore.

  "Thanks, mother." She kisses my scarred cheek. "For my next birthday, I would like to have a father."

  I smile at her banter, caress her close-cropped hair and think: Well, who knows what the Road will bring?

  "Lost and Found" – Maria Haskins

  She was standing by the window, gazing out at the disappearing frost while sipping the last of the soup from the thermo-jar. The pain in her left foot was always worse just after waking, and she was leaning on the wall to take the weight off it until the pills kicked in.

  She liked looking at the frost in the mornings. The ground was covered with a thick layer of sprawling ice crystals, and the windows were coated with swirls and intricate patterns, shimmering like glass prisms in the first sunlight. Soon it would all melt away, and trickle down the capsule's metal hull to be absorbed by the sand. Only in the deeper, shaded valleys would the frost remain until afternoon, the sand there hard and frozen, shattering beneath the soles of her boots.

  How long now? she wondered, instinctively checking her watch. It was flashing the same useless numbers over and over again. The same numbers the computer gave her, as if time had stood still since the crash.

  How long?

  But trying to remember was pointless. She had lost track of the days and nights sometime after the first two weeks. When she awoke she never knew how long she had been asleep, if it was days or just a couple of hours. Sometimes she would wake at the first light of dawn, but more often she woke up much earlier, laying there in the dark, waiting. In the darkness, sleep and wakefulness blended together, with the wind ever-present. Its high, lamenting, pitiless tone was always there, penetrating even the thick walls of the capsule, piercing every dream and thought.

  Maybe one of the others had a watch that still worked.

  The thought took her by surprise and made her throw the empty thermo-jar against the wall in sudden frustration.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why hadn't she thought of that before?

  I could go and get it, she mused, looking out the window at the steep rise, its shadow creeping slowly across the ground as the sun rose higher in the sky. It wasn't far. It would just take a couple of minutes to climb up the rocky bank, shuffle down the slope on the other side, and then she would be there, with them.

  She felt the food turn inside her, the vomit burning in her throat.

  No. She should have thought of that before she moved them. It was too late now. She couldn't go back, she couldn't face them again.

  Two had died in the crash. The third had managed to stay alive the first night, but she hadn't been able to help him. When he too was dead, she had hauled out the bodies one by one, dragging them up the hill and then rolling them down into the hollow on the other side, out of sight. They had been much heavier than she had expected, so difficult to move, their cold skin resembling some kind of syntho-material when she touched them, their eyes still wide open, their mouths ajar as if they were about to speak.

  What would you say? she had wond
ered as she watched them. But she knew it no longer mattered.

  When the last one had been placed in the hollow, she had stretched out on the cold ground next to them to get some rest. She stayed there for a long time before recovering enough strength to go back. It had been so quiet, protected from the sand and the wind, and it would have been so easy to stay with them. But night had fallen and the cold had come with it, so in the end she had crawled back up the sandy incline. She had left her gloves behind, and her hands had been so stiff, numb fingers searching for something to hold on to, scratching and scraping.

  How long ago now?

  She studied the palms of her hands. On the crest of the ridge she had fallen, slamming her hands hard into rock and sand and gravel. The cuts had healed by now. How long did it take for a wound to heal? A week, two weeks, three? But it must have been longer than that, months probably.

  The frost was melting, glistening drops running down the window. She followed one of them with the tip of her finger, saw it join other droplets, becoming larger, heavier, until it finally fell out of sight, into the dry sand.

  Falling.

  The screech of the emergency signal stabbing her eardrums.

  She had always assumed that people would scream in situations like that, but nobody had screamed. The only voice had been the computer's voice, calmly repeating that the rescue capsule's emergency landing system had been activated. And then there had been the noise of the bodies slamming into each other.

  The guidance system was defective, she thought, nodding to herself and wetting her chapped lips with the tip of her tongue.

  She went over what had happened before, during, and after the crash quite often in her mind: memorizing the details, recapitulating the sequence of events, making sure that she remembered everything. Her report had to be complete and accurate when the rescue team arrived. She had tried to document it all, had even attempted to make a voice-record of it. It had been like reading a fairytale to herself at bedtime, but when she reviewed it the next morning she couldn't stand listening to it and had erased the file.