Descended from Darkness: Vol II Read online

  The fan the battery powers plays its game with daylight and shadow on the wall. The flick-flick of the fan's light, the record's swelling scratch, the empty, moldy jars, everything rotted, everything in its place: a perfect dystopian moment. He sighs a contented sigh. No, wait though, no. It's not a dystopian moment, is it? No, he reminds himself, it's no longer dystopian. There are no more dystopian moments. They've come and gone. That dystopian stuff is old hat. And, come to think of it, those moments weren't like this at all. Those moments, which seemed so bleak at the time, were good, really. As it turns out. All those screams he hated hearing through his closed, curtained, window, the dull thuds and muffled crashes. It was painfully hot with the window closed, stretched on the floor with his wife, both naked, in opposite corners of the room, as far apart as possible, out of each other's heat bubbles. It was hot, but all that crying and screaming---couldn't open the window to that. And the pleading. That was the worst. All that pleading for mercy. He imagined they were on their knees when they begged like that, but he never raised the blinds then, not even an inch, so he was never sure. How he longs to hear them scream again. The screamers were dying, or were about to, but they were alive, and someone else must have been about to do the killing, and that meant at least two people were out there, alive. But he never peeled the curtain, not one light-letting inch; they could have seen him then, and then he'd have been the beggar. No thank you. Dystopia is best viewed from a distance.

  What he has now, what he is experiencing now, he reminds himself, drumming the table for emphasis, is a perfect post-apocalyptic moment, not a perfect dystopian moment. It's an important distinction, and he marks down his confusion in his notebook. He's lately been trying to track his mental decline. It's not as visually detectable as his physical decline. He's been tracking that one for a while. It was quicker, and obvious. Lord, but those first blisters were frightening. The mental-state notes are incomplete, but they still show a quick drop, too. Quite a quick drop. There was a day he even forgot his name. (He soon remembered it again and wrote it down as prevention. Tarries.)

  The fan and music are holdovers from the dystopian moment, he reminds himself, but the jars of water, the pills, and the sores are part of the p.a. moment; that's what he calls it now, p.a., in lowercase---cool. Stands for postapoc---that's what they called it then. It's what he called it, anyway. Other people, had there been any, would have called it that, too. The postapoc. Could be Indians. The Postapoc Indians, from Postapocaquage, Connecticut. That's funny, so he writes it down.

  8

  The flinty sun is up again, reheating the bricks. Not that they cooled much in the night. Nice to have the window open, though, now that there are no screams to block out. He closes the window and lowers the blinds, to trap the cool air. Flips on the fan. It plays again with the sliced light, like a train flashing past his window. The same never-ending train. Who could possibly be riding a train? And to where? Then, of course (of course!) he realizes there's no one on it, and it's not going anywhere because he remembers it's not really a train, and he takes his morning pill, which leaves seven. He notes in his log that there's no train. He turns off the fan.

  He's already cut back from three pills a day to two, and the sores are worse. And the diarrhea. What a good thing there's no one outside the window. He can't go down to one. There'd be no point in that. It might make them last a little longer, but it wouldn't matter because he'd be too sick to eat. With three he only had sores in his mouth and a little one inside his nose, but with two he's got them on the undersides of his eyelids, the tip of his penis and around his anus. Sitting is a pain in the ass. That's funny, so he writes it down. And he's tired, too. Like there's a tax on every movement, little demons in his muscles siphoning off a bit of go for themselves. He's got food still, sure but, no matter how much he eats, he's tired all the time from reducing the pills. Feels better the less he eats, actually, less to shit out that way, less to irritate those sores.

  He wonders why he really got all this stuff together, the water, the batteries, the tuna. He must have known that if it really happened, tuna wouldn't be enough. Did he think he was going to rebuild his town, or go searching for some magical far away place, carefree and un-ionized? He could have bought a boat and caught every last tuna in the sea, bought a canning factory and canned every last tuna in the world until he had a tuna stockpile larger than he could ever eat. Wouldn't have mattered. The pills were the thing. Even adding his wife's to his own didn't give him a large collection, neither did scouring the other apartments. The one time he'd had the nerve to. There was only one apartment he had found that hadn't already been picked over. Mrs. Perchman's. It had a hard-to-find door because it was an illegal apartment. Fighting for space. What nonsense. The whole building was empty now. True p.a. living.

  He must have known, somewhere under the surface, that he was doing it for the experience. The experience of sitting here rocking slowly in this chair with the split cushions, listening to this thin recording, watching the dancing train on the ceiling---it's gone---no, he turned the fan off. He must remember these things. These things are the experience, and the experience is the reason, and he's the only one he knows of who is experiencing it. That's a good enough goal isn't it? To be the last one, the last human being hanging out on the planet? The only person who knows how the light looks now, filtering to the old, hum-drum red and yellow and, on special nights, a little purple accent, a little secret brush stroke, just for him. Maybe for someone else, too, but, well, no way to know if that's the case. And on nights like tonight, it casts lavender on the windowsill, a lovely---it's gone. Dark. Must be nighttime. Pill-time. That leaves

  Six (Not very many. The end is near. No, nigh. The end is nigh.)

  Taking the morning pill leaves five. It jogs his stomach. He washes it down with peaches and tuna and the tiny bit of bread remaining after he slices the mold off. This is all very silly, he thinks. Why bother with the pills? He knows he'll run out. He almost has already. He was the one who said it, of his own plan. He said, "What's the point?"He said, "I have food, a power source, water and water purifiers, the filter kind, the UV kind, iodine tablets, and tablets to remove the taste of iodine, a utility knife, a hunting knife. "But the point of all that stuff, all that fancy stuff, is to help you survive for a little while, just long enough for someone to find you, or for you to find someone. That's it. All the clever gadgets---the water filters, the five strike-anywhere matches, the weather radio---aren't for the long haul, aren't for rebuilding the town, aren't for testing soil or planting crops. So why do it? "Why bother with tuna if the pills will run out?"That's what she asked, and everyone else. "What else could you do?"he asked back. "Get a gun and off yourself as soon as things got uncomfortable?"That's what he said and that's what she did, and wasn't the only one. But he's got them now. He's got them all now. He's here. And where are they? Dead. That's where.

  He replays the conversations, as he drools into the sink. It hurts too much to swallow. The sores in the back of his throat are irritated by choking back the pill that's still scraping his stomach. This drooling, really, is the perfect postapoc moment, spitting out the blood that seeps from the sores in his throat and mouth. Not yesterday's rocking in the chair with the fan and record and train-light, that was kid stuff. This bloody drool is the perfection of post-apocalypse chic. Postapoc sounds like an Indian tribe. From Postapoganset, Rhode Island. That's funny. So he writes it down. For posterity.

  4

  He throws up the morning pill, but fishes out what he can and forces it down again. He could have done what she did, that's what else. That's what else he could have done. The sun doesn't care. It warmed her up so she was rotting when he found her. On the roof. He left the record out last night, and must have slept too long; it sat in the sun. It melted, and warped. It won't play. Just like his wife. Isn't that touching? Ha! He writes it down. He dumps some old, fetid tuna from a bowl into his water jar, and runs it through the filter just for the fun of it. Shame
to let such a fancy filter go to waste.

  He has an uncommon urge, an urge he hasn't felt in a while: to masturbate. But the first touch coaxes only blood from a sore. Wanting to write a warning to himself, should he ever feel the impulse to try again, he looks for his notebook but can't find it. He sits back in the chair. Dozes for a while, and comes to, coughing, remembering that the book is in the refrigerator, but he can't record the information because he can't find the book. Back to sleep.

  1

  He holds the last pill in front of him and twirls about the room with it, serenading it, with love songs, promising a golden tomorrow. He won't go to the roof as his wife did. He'll stay inside, make sure the drapes are closed, the sun blocked, sit in the shade, and keep cool. Real cool.

  Beyond the Garden Close

  Mary Robinette Kowal

  Lena rocked back and forth, feet aching from standing so long, as if the metal floors were harder in the auditorium than anywhere else in the ship. The paper bib she wore rustled as she shifted. The waiting that the high-holy put the prospectives through made Lena nervous. Which was part of the point, of course, and Lena tried not to let her nerves show. There were nine prospectives this quarter, standing in a cluster. Lena knew the other women, but maintained the ship-standard illusion of privacy by ignoring them.

  She wouldn't be among the prospective child-bearers if Phoebe hadn't wanted a babe so much.

  All long-limbs and soft curves, Phoebe had the grace of a goddess, but she'd never be granted child-rights. She had the taint of celiac disease as a hand-me-down from some grand or other and that throwback meant her stock had to be culled from the tree. Even if she made it through the trials today, the high holies would never let her bear a child.

  But Lena, now. Lena would pass for sure and certain, only problem was that she didn't want a child. At least not on her own account, but for her love she would do anything. The memory of her fingers trailing around the soft mound of Phoebe's freckled breast as her beloved's nose wrinkled with laughter made Lena want to back out of line, pull Phoebe out of the crowd of watchers and race home. Why change something as perfect as their love? She held her ground. Phoebe wanted a babe.

  At the other side of the cluster, the old woman waddled around behind them. She stopped at each girl and put a disk on the base of the skull, where it joined the neck. Lena bent forward to accept hers, sweeping her long hair out of the way.

  When the disc touched her skin, the cold sliced through her skull and made the roof of her mouth ache. It would monitor her actions and ensure no cheating occurred. The final trials for the prospective child-bearers differed every time, which didn't stop people from trying to guarantee that their genes were the ones passed down.

  Still waiting as the others received their disc, Lena bounced on her toes. The rituals. The endless rituals of ship life touched every act. Sometimes she wondered if an OCD strain had gotten in, all unnoticed, and infected every line. But it was really just a way to pass the time until the next generation took over and then the generation after that, all biding time until they reached Planetfall. Why did Phoebe want to bring a child into a life of endless waiting for a prize that never came?

  The old woman slipped into the middle of the cluster, holding a raku pot. She sloshed water back and forth in the vessel, drawing circles in the air. "Strong, quick and smart. That's what you need to be. Which of you says you are better than your grands?"

  "Aye!" They shouted as one.

  She flung the water ceiling-ward over the group of them. Lena bent back, arching so that her bib faced the ceiling as the water splashed off and spattered back on them. Her bib clung to her skin where the water dampened it. When she righted herself, the girl across and to the right---Marta---had not moved fast enough. Her bib was dry.

  Weeping, she was pulled out of the group, leaving only eight. Lena had half a moment of wanting to give Marta her spot, of wanting to admit that she didn't need a child. But Phoebe stood watching and the hope in her eyes staked Lena to the spot.

  The old woman bade them all to turn and as dancers, they did. Some girls had spent their whole lives prepping for this moment, and it seemed that their only goal in life was to produce the next generation. If they were near Planetfall, the high holies might have overlooked Phoebe's ailment, but not this far out. Near the front of the crowd, Phoebe had her arms wrapped about herself, chewing on the cupid's bow of her lip the way she did when she was nervous.

  Lena tried to smile, to reassure her.

  Sorted by the amount of water caught, the prospectives were lined up at the mouth of the labyrinth. Lena stood third in line. The door snicked open, the girl in front stepped through into darkness and vanished before the door snicked closed again. Then the second girl. And then Lena.

  The darkness was absolute at first. But as her eyes adjusted, she realized a faint glow came from the bib she wore. The water had a bio-luminescence to it. Lena stripped it off and held it in front of her, blocking her view of the bib itself with her hand so that faint glow did not blind her to the things it illuminated.

  A narrow space, not much wider than arm-span, stretched beyond the range of the glow. Lena walked forward as quickly as she dared. Time mattered here. The hall twisted and turned, with no branches, but she kept resolutely forward not letting the turns slacken her pace.

  A breeze stopped her. Turning, she felt the walls on either side but there was no crack or hint of an opening. Her hair stirred slightly across her back and Lena lifted her face. Cool air dusted her from above.

  Lifting her feeble light, she saw a square in the ceiling, handholds visible, just out of reach. A ladder above them. She studied it, until she felt that she'd gauged the distance, then gripped the bib in her teeth. Blind now to what was above her, Lena jumped.

  Palms slapped against the handholds, locking around them reflexively. Her body swung forward, carried by her momentum, and slammed against the edge of the opening. Grunting, Lena pulled herself up.

  Hand over hand, she hauled up until her feet gained purchase and then began to climb, still blind.

  The ladder curved backward, so she began to hang from it. Her left foot cramped as she flexed the toes trying for some traction on the rung. Between one hand hold and the next, light cut on.

  Blinded by white, Lena shut her eyes. Tears leaked from under her lids. Two heartbeats were all she gave herself. Time mattered here. When she reopened her eyes, they stung and burned as they readjusted. Lena hung over a fathomless drop into the bowels of the ship. Ventilation ducts, pipes and service ladders lined the shaft until it reached the glowing core of the engine. The ladder she hung from ended abruptly in a wall.

  The drop was impossible.

  The grands would have had no reason to build the ship that way, not when every iota of space was needed for the generations. Projection then.

  But what lay beneath the projection could be dangerous if she misjudged the jump. Lena wrapped her hand in her hair and pulled free some long strands. Dropping the three hairs, they drifted down to land a body length away, appearing to hover in midair.

  Lena released her feet from the ladder and let them drop to touch a floor. She flexed her foot against the floor, which felt as though it were hard metal like the rest of the ship. Without letting go of the rungs Lena walked toward the wall where the ladder disappeared. Then she stopped dead.

  Having a labyrinth in the ship made no sense if it was only used occasionally. Not when there were other ways of learning the same things about the women vying for reproduction rights. The disc, for instance, recorded her speed and reactions straight from her brain. If it could receive signals, could it also transmit?

  "This whole thing is a projection, isn't it?"Reaching back, Lena pulled the disk off her neck.

  The room stuttered and faded around her.

  She stood in a storeroom, four of the other girls stood behind her, eyes twitching as if they were deep in REM.

  On the far side of the room, a door opened. Ligh
t shone in the next chamber. For a moment, Lena wanted to pull the disks off the other girls' necks, but the door started to slide closed as a reminder that time mattered.

  She dove through into Classroom A. The shock at finding herself in familiar surroundings almost confused her more than the darkness had. Calling up a mental image of the ship, she could see how the auditorium was only two corridors over from the block of classrooms.

  One woman sat, a blank white mask covering her face with crisp neutrality. She held a Personal Screen unrolled in front of her. "Well done. "The mask distorted her voice, stripping it of identity.

  "Am I finished?"

  "No. Your scores are very good though, so you get the last part of the trial. One question." She tapped the PS. "Why do you want a child?"

  Lena stared at her. She did not want a child. Not for herself. She wanted a child for Phoebe. Phoebe who loved her. Phoebe for whom she would give anything to stay with. But that was not the answer they were looking for. "To be part of something larger. I want to contribute to the next generation."

  The woman looked down at her screen. "I'm so sorry."

  The door to the far side of the room opened, a silent escort. "What? Why not?"

  "You hesitated." She shook her head. "You don't want a child, do you?"

  Lena's heart thumped. Time matters. "I don't. No. But the woman I love does. Give the child my genes and her love. Please." Her voice broke. "Oh please."

  "I'm so sorry." The woman gestured to the door. "But we can't pass on this trait. At Planetfall, a lack of the nurturing instinct would doom us."