New Fleece on Life Read online

  An Effect of the Fluid

  That moment was very different from how Holston had imagined it.

  He imagined going into the outside world and finding out the truth, whatever the truth was, would be intensely liberating, but it would ultimately end one of two ways. Either he would find Allison alive, or he would not. All other considerations were secondary to this great, overpowering, singular thing: Find. Allison.

  If he found her alive, he imagined himself overcome with joy and light, as though he had swallowed a piece of love itself. He would hold her and they would do… something. They would play the part of whatever the rest of their lives had in store for them. It didn’t matter, because he would have her.

  If he found her dead, he imagined himself curling up alongside her, laying there until the grief and the sadness and that hollow, empty, dead feeling grew out of him like a living thing, slowly creeping over his whole body until his flesh became as dead and lifeless as his soul. He imagined the grief would crush him as surely as a thousand tonnes of stone, burying him under an avalanche of misery and pain.

  The truth that he was starting to realise was, however, that during the years after her departure from the silo he had mourned her to completion. Rather than now being buried, his entombment had already begun, traversed its course, then the final stone had been laid. This buried man hadn’t walked out of the silo in search of Allison; he had done it because he had nothing left anymore except the hope. Hope he could find something to stop the misery, the nothingness he thought eternal, the unmoving stones over his heart.

  He was not the kind of person who got help with these kind of thing, but at some point, he couldn’t even remember when, he’d seen a counsellor. A young, attractive woman who listened attentively and jotted down notes as he spoke. When he finished, she told him that time, as it tended to do, would take its course. The wind would worn away the stones burying him, just as the feet of countless humans had worn away the diamond coating on the stairs—the very same stairs Holston had climbed as he took himself to his death.

  Three or four months later, she hanged herself. Nobody ever found out why.

  Despite her predictions, though, Holston’s grief had not slowly faded, the wounds in his mind had not scarred. He had been numb. Dead to everything. Existing but not living.

  But suddenly, out here in this place, confronted with certainty that Allison was dead, he felt peace. Whole again.

  Death, if that was really had happened to him, had given him a strange kind of clarity.

  Liao lead Holston to her tent. Although she had said earlier that she would take him to the mess hall, perhaps the emotion still painted on his face was too obvious, too raw to meet her crew. He was thankful and touched by her discretion.

  “Evening,” she said to a fresh-faced sailor who stood beside the entrance to her tent, “I’ll take my dinner in my tent tonight. Some tea as well, please, and bring a second meal for our guest.”

  The man gave a polite nod of his head, then left to his task.

  There was a moment of comfortable silence as Holston took in the view. An oak desk sat in the middle of the tent, manilla folders and loose papers scattered across the top. The carved claw-foot legs, covered in dust from the dirt floor, aged and worn to a comfortable shadow of their former glory, brought a touch of home to an otherwise depressing, sterile, military issued tent. An open mahogany box on the desk revealed the glint of metal; steel and bronze medals. Nothing was mounted, nothing was set or affixed. Everything was bound, tied, clipped together. These strangers were permanently stuck fighting their environment, living in temporary solutions meant for a war with tangible enemies.

  It seemed impossible that anything organic, such as paper or wood or anything else, could survive out here. He ran his finger along the desk and collecting a thin film of dust.

  “This is amazing. How come it’s not melted by the air? The same way we aren’t, using your technology?”

  Liao gently rested her hip on the other side of the desk, smiling casually. “Actually, using yours. We found a vat of the AIDI #41 in one of your other silos.”

  She had mentioned other silos before. “Other silos? Like the one I’m from?”

  “They’re similar,” said Liao. The two sat on a faded leather couch, also sitting on the dirt and covered in a thin layer of dust. For Holston, used to living in the impossibly clean silo, it was shockingly dirty but he accepted nothing could keep the dust that constantly swirled around them away from the furniture. To be concerned about mundane cleanliness when the very air they breathed was a toxic cloud was strange.

  “I didn’t know there were others,” he said, “And you found one?”

  Liao rested her hands on her knees as though preparing to tell a long story. “We did. Many of them, a dozen or so at least. When we arrived—crashed, really—our hull plating was still charged and, thankfully, intact. The rigidity affect seems to be able to repel the toxin’s corrosion. We sent out our strike craft to scout the area. The first thing we found, littering the landscape every few hundred miles or so, were silos. Some were vast, like yours, some as small as an apartment complex or missile base. Most were empty; they’d been opened at some point and all the occupants were dead. Some were closed, full of living people, and some were never filled to begin with. We found the stockpile of the AIDI fluid inside one of them.”

  The varied descriptions of the silos turned over in his mind. He had always imagined that if other silos existed they would be identical to his own, almost down to their exact blueprint, but they were all wildly different. “Our silo had no such technology. I’ve never seen anything like it. If we had access to even a little...” Allison might still be alive.

  Liao extended her hand, resting it across his. The gesture was comforting, soothing without being patronising. He didn’t feel that she was pitying him.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Liao said, her fingers curling around his palm. “But you didn’t have it. You didn’t even know it existed. Knowing now, at this stage, changes no decision you could have made.”

  Another silence, entirely comfortable and easy, came between the two. He spent a moment studying her. For all her authority, her skill and patience, Liao seemed trapped in this place, on this world where she didn’t belong. Was this whole planet her silo? Her tomb that she just had to escape? The feeling of contentment ebbed, but returned as the scuffle of feet outside her tent broke the spell.

  “Come in,” said Liao, gently slipping her hand from his and resting it back on her knee.

  The assistant pushed back the tent’s entrance flap, bearing a tray with two four bowls balanced on it, two of steaming rice and two of a brown curried meat, along with two pairs of steel chopsticks, two small cups and a pot of tea. Holston’s attention was drawn to the meal, his nose tingling. With another polite, formal nod the assistant handed each of them their meals, laid the tea on the coffee table and left.

  Once the man was gone, Liao tipped the meat over the rice and Holston followed suit. The aroma, rich and heady, filled the air around him.

  “Is this a meal from your ship’s stores?” Holston asked, clumsily trying to work his fingers around the unfamiliar eating implements. “Blast it, uh...”

  Laughing, Liao held up a finger then stood, making her way over to her desk and, after some searching, produced a silver fruit fork and a matching letter opener. “Not the most suitable tools,” she admitted, handing them both to him, “But better. Chopsticks can be a pain if you’ve never used them.”

  “I can see that,” said Holston, holding the slightly-too-small fork awkwardly and gently stabbing a thin sliver of meat, rolling it around on the rice.

  They ate for a time, and Holston slowly began to realize how hungry he was. The questions he had were put aside by the growl of his stomach and although his serve was much larger than the Captains it was gone before hers.

  When they finished, Liao set her bowl aside and dabbed at her lips with a cloth. Drips and
splatters from his hastily consumed meal were everywhere.

  “Sorry,” He said. “I’m not usually so...”

  Liao smiled. “The healing process makes you hungry. I felt like I could eat a horse when I had my first injection. Don’t worry, it’s normal.”

  “You’re not wrong. Honestly, I could eat another one right now.”

  She smiled and Holston instinctively smiled back. “You’ll be sick,” she warned. “Your body isn’t used to having to spend so much energy so quickly. It’s overcompensating. You’ll keep being a bit peckish for a while but slowly your body will adapt.”

  He winced uncomfortably at the continued hunger pains, but nodded. “So, was this food from, uh…”

  “From our ship’s store? No. This was something we raided from another silo.”

  He was somehow relieved that he wasn’t imposing even further on their generosity. “Strange, I’ve never had it before.”

  Liao folded her hands in her lap, her expression sobering slightly. “I’m not surprised. Our resident...” she hesitated, “foreigner had a theory about that. She believes the silos were designed to all be interlinked via some kind of network, so they could communicate, exchange supplies and aid each other if necessary. The silo we scavenged the AIDI from? We believe it was some kind of communications and coordination base. We found huge, rusted out vehicles which we believed were supposed to form some kind of transportation network where silos could be allocated a ration of various supplies on a regular basis.”

  Holston imaged rows of supply vehicles, frozen and immobile, partially digested by the planet. “We’ve never had contact with the outside. Why weren’t these supplies delivered?”

  “That we don’t know. Maybe the network failed, or wasn’t ready by the time...” Liao shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever happened, happened, and while some silos were mostly stocked, like yours, some were still acting as distribution points for the supply chain when it all went pear shaped. We found silos with tonnes of food but where plagues or diseases had wiped everyone out, or silos where the occupants had starved to death because all they had were ten thousand crates of penicillin.”

  “Is that what happened to the silo where you found the fluid?”

  Liao looked away before speaking. “Not quite. Their computer system was still active when we arrived, so we read their logs. That silo was a smaller one, much smaller than the others we’ve found.”

  “Smaller? Why would it be smaller?”

  “Well, we think it might have been a military facility. Most of the population were male, they had those trucks, and their uniforms were like yours only black. It would make sense, if it really was supposed to be the first silo.”

  It did make sense to Holston. “Did they starve, were they wiped out by illness, or...”

  Liao reached for the cups, pouring the tea as she spoke. “This silo was the most heavily protected that we’ve found, buried under a mountain. Based on the reports we found in there, it seems as though...” She set the cups down, then folded her hands in her lap once more. “It seems as though the first three silos they visited had all failed, somehow, and because they couldn’t hail anyone on the network, they thought they were the only silo left in the world. We don’t know why they stopped at three, or much at all other than what I just told you, really. What we do know is that because of the gender imbalance, they worked out pretty early on that they didn’t have a sustainable population... and after a few decades, everyone started to get older. The work wasn’t getting done. What was the point? Without women, they were just keeping themselves in their misery.”

  “What happened to them, in the end?”

  “From what we saw in their logs, they locked themselves in a sealed room in the lower part of the silo, vented the exhaust from their emergency generators into the room and let carbon monoxide poisoning beat time and old age to the job.”

  Holston didn’t have an answer for that. On one hand, it was an intensely selfish act. If they had gone further out into the world, searching manually for all the other silos, they could have integrated with other groups. They could have shared the secret of survival in the acrid, toxic atmosphere.

  On the other hand, he knew precisely how painful living without hope for the future was and just what it would drive a man to do.

  “I pity them,” Holston said, “And I don’t hate them for what they did. Everyone... everyone wants to have children. Allison and I tried, we applied...”

  Liao nodded sympathetically. “She told us. She was very...” Her voice trailed off.

  “Hmm?”

  After a moment’s hesitation a smile slowly spread over her face. “I want you to meet someone,” she said, standing and extending her hand. Tugging gently, she lead him to the back of her tent, to the second room there, and pushed back the flap. Inside was a simple bunk, cut from the wreckage of her ship, laying beside a small steel table, a washbasin and a rack filled with uniforms.

  All of that was far less important than the bright pink, hand painted steel bathtub that lay beside her bed, lined with a thick blanket and filled with pillows and cushions, upon which a small infant with coffee coloured skin slept, silently and peacefully.

  “He’s beautiful,” whispered Holston, staring at the tiny life.

  “She,” Liao corrected, quietly walking over to the makeshift cot and reaching down, gently touching the infant’s cheek.

  Holston joined her, leaning over and mimicking Liao, the tips of his fingers stroking the other side of the baby’s face. “What’s her name?”

  “I... I haven’t decided.”

  He turned to her, raising an eyebrow. “Really?”

  Liao’s smile was half nostalgic, half saddened. “I wanted James to name her, but he died. Before she was born.”

  “I know how that feels,” Holston said, to which Liao only chuckled again.

  “It was a year ago. I’ve cried my tears and lit my candles.”

  “Still. She’s so beautiful. She should have a name. Allison and I would stay up all night picking out names for ours, boys and girls. We had hundreds all lined up. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be unable to think of even one.”

  “I know, and I have thought about knuckling down and picking one, but names are important to me. My Chinese name is Niu, but I hate that name. I much prefer Melissa. Some part of me wants to give my child that same choice; the choice to take whatever name she desires, without her parents forcing that choice upon her. I want to free her.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Holston said, although he didn’t quite agree. He hoped his disapproval didn’t show.

  Liao looked back down to the infant. “She... well, my child wasn’t exactly planned. James died before I even knew I was carrying her, so...”

  Liao looked to be in her late thirties. To be that age and not want children seemed entirely alien to him. “I love children. If I could, I’d have fifty. You didn’t want to have kids?”

  She laughed, although it faded sooner than it should have. “Never,” she said, “I love this baby, my baby, but I love my career too. If you’d asked me before all this if I’d choose a child over my career, I would have laughed you out of town. Now...” her voice gained energy. “Now I would hand in my commission in a heartbeat.” She laughed. “I sound like I’m twelve.”

  “Nah. It’s understandable.”

  “Sorry. I get a bit like this when I talk about her.” Liao yawned, stretching her arms and closing her eyes tight. Midway through the lights in the tent flickered, dropping the room into shadow for a fraction of a second, the sounds of the ship and its surrounding village disappearing for a very brief moment before returning. Liao opened her eyes, clicking her tongue.

  Holston glanced upwards to the lights. “Something wrong with the power?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Uhh, not that I’m aware of.”

  “Oh, the lights flickered, is all. You had your eyes closed.”

  Liao just shook her head. “
Rowe must be playing with the reactor again. Doesn’t she know reliability is more important than a few percentage points more output we’ll never even use?”

  “The redhead? That woman is crazy,” Holston grinned.

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Another silence, warm and welcome, came and the two spent it staring down at Liao’s infant.

  Holston finally spoke. “We’re very similar, you know, but in a lot of ways, different. Different in a good way.”

  “Mmm?”

  “I always loved children but could never have them. You never wanted them and had one thrust upon you. The symmetry is interesting to me.”

  Liao looked at him, and for a moment Holston worried he’d said the wrong thing, then her expression softened. “I suppose it is.”

  They chatted for hours, well into the night, their conversation drifting from topic to topic. Holston found her easy to talk to and she seemed eager to spend time with him. Soon, however, he felt a wave of exhaustion grip him and he was unable to resist a loud, prolonged yawn.

  “Let me guess,” he said, “An effect of the fluid.”

  Liao smirked right back at him. “An effect of the fluid.” She stared at him a moment, eyes slowly widening. “My goodness, it’s late. We didn’t, uh, we didn’t sort out a tent for you.”

  Holston nodded. Time had escaped him as well. “Don’t worry about it Captain Liao, I’m exhausted. If you don’t mind, I can just rough it on your couch.”

  Although she hesitated for a moment, Liao finally gave a playful smile, reaching up and taking off her hat. “Go for it,” she laughed, her eyes twinkling happily in the dim light, “And please. When it’s just us, call me Melissa.”

  They sorted bedding and shower arrangements, then told each-other good night. Holston lay on the short couch with just a blanket and a few small pillows, staring up at the canvas roof of the tent.

  He’d walked to his death, been half melted then reconstituted, seen Allison’s grave and sealed years of doubts. He’d met strangers from another time, seen more about the world in a day than he ever had through the failing monitors of the silo.