Song for the Unraveling of the World

by Brian Evenson

  IV.

  It took him some time to gather his equilibrium. At first, he was confused and panicked. He found it unbearable that he couldn’t continue wandering. There was an incident with an orderly, and then a bigger one with several orderlies, and then he was screaming and strait-jacketed and lying on the floor of a padded room and unable to move. Not moving was killing him, he was sure it would kill him. He had to keep wandering, keep one step ahead of the watching eyes.

  But then, slowly, he calmed down. He thought it through. Did he feel anyone watching him? No, nobody. Besides, now that he knew he was watching himself, that made it something altogether different, didn’t it?

  The meds kept him groggy. Groggy wasn’t so bad. He didn’t mind being groggy and in here if he couldn’t get to his younger self, couldn’t haunt who he used to be.

  Doctor Singh periodically met with him and evaluated him. Slowly he was coached to relinquish the story he had told when he was admitted and came to offer up something else, something more “believable.” He was not Rask, he had never been Rask—he was much older than that Rask had been. Yes, he was willing to accept that. But who was he, then? Why couldn’t he remember?

  “Do you know what had happened to Rask?” asked Doctor Singh. “What did you do to him?”

  He shook his head. “Rask is fine,” he claimed. “He’s safe.”

  “Would you like to get out of here someday?” the doctor asked.

  “No,” he said. “It’s safer here.”

  “Safer? Safer than what?”

  “Than out there,” he said.

  “What do you have to fear?” asked the doctor.

  He looked at the doctor a long moment, trying to decide how to respond. “I’m afraid of myself,” he finally offered.

  “But you’re in here with you,” the doctor said.

  “Yes and no,” said Rask.

  But in the end, there were few grounds to keep him. There was no real reason to think that he had done something to Rask, no proof, and when neither his doctor nor the policemen were able to ruffle him, they only kept him on because he was “disturbed.” And yet, he was a model citizen, no difficulties at all. As long as he took his medication he saw only the things that other people agreed were there. As long as he took his medication, he did just fine.

  “We can’t keep you here forever,” claimed Doctor Singh.

  “Why not?” he asked, but the doctor had already made up his mind.

  He was released to a halfway house. He had a room of his own and shared a bathroom, a kitchen. During the day, he worked at the public library wiping the covers of the recently returned books with a sanitized rag. It was less a job than the same repeated motion of an arm, although it was something, it got him through the day. He brought his lunch in a paper bag, two pieces of limp white bread with a slice of American cheese between, an apple, a carrot that had been washed but not peeled. He always ate the same thing. It was easier that way.

  His days of wandering, he told himself, were over.

  But his younger self, he knew, was still out there, wandering, unable to stop. If that self stopped, it would only be because the younger self of that self would be wandering in his place. A younger version of him would always be wandering. There was no getting around it.

  He wiped the cover of a book. He sprayed the rag with more sanitizer. He set the book to one side.

  Before he went on to the next one, he waited a moment to see if he would experience a prickling at the back of his neck, the feeling that he was being watched.

  There was nothing.

  He picked up the next book, wiped it down, and set it aside. He waited.

  Still nothing.

  Still nothing.

  Still nothing.

  Lord of the Vats

  I.

  “State your name for the record,” said Villads.

  …

  “State your name. For the record.”

  What record?

  “Are you having difficulty remembering your name?”

  No, I … No …

  “State your name—”

  —where am I? Why can’t I see?

  Villads sighed. “You have been injured,” he said.

  I’m blind?

  “Yes.”

  A permanent blindness?

  “No,” said Villads. “Not exactly.”

  Not exactly? What does that mean?

  “Let’s say that perhaps soon you won’t even remember not being able to see.”

  From beside him Esbjorn began to speak. Quickly Villads cupped his hand over the microphone to prevent the subject from hearing. “Do you really think this is the best way to proceed?” asked Esbjorn. “By lying to the man?”

  “I’m not lying exactly,” said Villads. “And besides, she’s not a man.” He moved his hand away from the microphone. He brought his lips close to it, then drew back and cupped the microphone again. “You forget,” he said to Esbjorn in a low voice. “She’s no longer really human at all.”

  Hello, the flat voice said from the speaker affixed to the center of the table. Hello? Is anybody there?

  “We believe you to be Signe,” said Villads finally, when the subject still wasn’t able to produce its own name. “Is this correct?”

  I … I don’t know, said the voice.

  Villads grunted. “We have a few questions for you. About what happened.”

  Did something happen?

  Esbjorn leaned forward, gesturing for Villads to hurry the process forward. Kolbjorn, on the other side of the table, remained placid, motionless.

  Did something happen? the voice asked again.

  “You tell me,” said Villads.

  I was … I was … and then the voice trailed off. Villads waited. The last thing I remember …

  …

  …

  There seems to be something wrong with my memory, the voice finally said.

  “Something wrong with your memory?”

  “I told you this was useless,” whispered Esbjorn. “The brain was too compromised.”

  There are … holes … gaps …

  “Memory loss is normal after trauma,” said Villads.

  Across the table, Kolbjorn frowned.

  Trauma? asked the voice.

  “Take your time,” said Villads, not meeting Kolbjorn’s gaze.

  For a long time, the voice said nothing at all. And then she—or it—said, I can’t seem to feel anything. Why can’t I feel anything? Have I been drugged? Am I suspended in a vat? Have you warmed me just sufficiently to make me barely conscious?

  Villads looked at Kolbjorn. The latter hesitated a moment, then said, “Tell her.”

  Tell me what? asked the voice.

  “You’re not in a storage vat,” said Villads.

  Then where?

  “There’s been an accident,” said Villads.

  An accident? What kind of accident?

  “You’re nowhere,” said Villads. “Technically speaking, you’re not even alive.”

  I … I … Technically speaking?

  “Something killed you,” said Villads. “Your body was frozen after the hull was breached, although seemingly quickly enough to be left relatively intact. We were able to make a scan of your brain. An impression.”

  I’m a scan?

  “You weren’t the only one killed,” said Esbjorn. “All the functioning crew was killed and many of the storage vats were destroyed. Systems are down in much of the vessel. A long tear in the hull. Did you see what made it? We need to know what made it.”

  “And if it’s still here,” said Kolbjorn.

  “And if it’s still here,” agreed Esbjorn.

  “Still a threat,” said Kolbjorn. “Still a danger.”

  “Can you help us?” asked Villads.

  …

  “Signe,” said Villads.

  …

  “Signe?”

  II.

  After more attempts to hail her, Villads switched off the microphone.
“Any suggestions?” he asked the others.

  Esbjorn shrugged. “What can we do? We don’t know what tore open the vessel. Maybe we shouldn’t assume it was a motivated attack. It could have been a meteoroid or some similar large chunk of celestial debris.”

  “Doubtful,” said Villads. “The tear isn’t right for that. Besides, the vessel would have detected it coming and woken us up.”

  Said Esbjorn, “A meteoroid going fast enough might have—”

  “There’s an entrance wound in the hull but no exit wound,” said Villads. “And no sign of whatever struck us. Why not? No, this is something else.”

  “Maybe some sort of displacement,” began Esbjorn, “an object flickering between—”

  Kolbjorn cut him off. “No,” he said. “Villads is right.”

  Esbjorn looked at his twin. His lips began to curl and Villads believed he was about to start yelling, until, without warning, his mouth relaxed. “All right,” he said. “Fine. In any case, whatever remains of Signe doesn’t know anything.”

  “No,” said Villads. “Brain compromised, I suppose.”

  “Or maybe it caught her unawares,” said Kolbjorn. “Maybe she never saw it.”

  “You might as well erase her,” said Esbjorn.

  Again, Kolbjorn countermanded his twin. “Keep her for now, just in case.”

  Villads nodded.

  “So, what do we do?” asked Esbjorn.

  “We’ll have to go look for ourselves,” said Villads.

  “Which of us should go?” asked Esbjorn. “Shall we draw straws?”

  “I don’t know where we’d find straws aboard the bridge,” said Kolbjorn.

  “Rock, paper, scissors?” asked Esbjorn.

  “What’s that?” asked Villads.

  “You don’t know rock, paper, scissors?”

  “I’ll go,” said Villads. “I volunteer.”

  “Why you?” asked Esbjorn.

  “Because I’m alive,” said Villads.

  “And I’m not?” asked Esbjorn.

  Villads turned to him. “No, you’re not.”

  “Then what am I?” asked Esbjorn, crossing his arms.

  “A construct,” said Villads.

  He guffawed. “Like Signe?”

  Villads shook his head. “Not at all,” he said. “Signe was a construct from a recent scan, incomplete. You’re a full impression, exactly as you were the moment before you were placed in storage.” He reached out and passed his hand through the hologram that was Esbjorn, his fingers disappearing within the man’s chest, only barely disrupting the image.

  “Then why activate us at all?” asked Kolbjorn. “Clearly we would know nothing about the accident.”

  Villads shrugged. “Another set of minds,” he said. “Someone to help me think through the problem.”

  “Then why not simply wake us up?” asked Kolbjorn. And then his expression crumpled. “Oh God,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” said Villads.

  “What?” asked Esbjorn. “What is it?”

  “We’re dead,” said Kolbjorn. “Are we dead?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Villads again.

  Esbjorn started to speak, and Kolbjorn too, but Villads had already begun to manipulate the console in a way that first slowed their constructs, then froze them, then made them disappear entirely. Soon he was alone on the bridge.

  III.

  For the past week, Villads had been awake and alone on the Vorag. Seven days before, he had been jerked out of suspension by the sound of a siren blaring, despite the sound being muffled by the fluid surrounding him. Just coming conscious, he was dimly aware of a dark shape passing his vat. Was he meant to wake up? He didn’t think so, it didn’t feel right, but he was awake nonetheless.

  And then the shape had passed by him again, or part of it had—a leg or a tentacle or something in between, impossible in the darkness to tell, and he realized the vat was on its side. He’d begun to breathe, the alarm going off now not only in the vessel at large but also in his tank. He was hyperventilating, breathing too quickly for the tube to provide him sufficient oxygen. When he pounded on the translucent curve of the vat with his fist, nothing happened. The vat wall was too strong, his fist pushing through the viscous fluid too slowly. He pounded again. His vision started to blur, darkness gathering around its edges and he knew he’d soon go under again. Or maybe he wasn’t really awake after all; maybe this was only a dream.

  And then something curious happened. The thick glass of the vat spidered over suddenly with tendrils of frost. Then, rapidly, a network of cracks. He struck out again, and this time the vat shattered, spilling him and a wash of fluid out onto the deck. Immediately he started shivering, unable to breathe. There was the airlock to the bridge, right beside him—by luck his vat was positioned close to it, and in falling onto its side had come closer. He managed to half roll, half slide into it and, vomiting and shaking, to trigger the airlock door to close.

  The blowers came on. He coughed and vomited up skeins of fluid. Someone was mumbling and it took him a while to realize it was him.

  After a while, he stopped shivering. After a while, he managed to stand.

  He had only been in the airless cold a few seconds, but how he was not dead he couldn’t say. Maybe the fluid that encased him had provided some protection. His fingers were numb. He would go on to lose an ear and a week later would still only have partial feeling in his extremities.

  He stood and looked through the thick porthole set in the airlock’s steel door. The overhead lights had gone out, leaving only the faint glow of the emergency panels.

  “Vorag, extinguish the airlock lights,” he said to the vessel.

  The airlock fell dark. Slowly his eyes adjusted until through the porthole he could see a vague but extensive destruction, vats shattered and overturned, bodies frozen and petrified, a huge gash in the hull through which he could glimpse unfamiliar stars.

  He stumbled his way onto the bridge. No one was there, not a single member of the skeleton crew intended to convey them to their destination. For a while he simply lay there, breathing, and then he managed to get up and examine the control panels. They were still seventy-one years, five months, and thirteen days out: still a lifetime shy of arrival. What had stopped them? What had torn them open? The Vorag didn’t seem to know.

  The sensors indicated that all three compartments containing vats had been breached. He adjusted the sensors. No signs of life. Or, rather, one sign of life: him, alone on the bridge. Him.

  Maybe this was a mistake. Possibly it was simply a question of sensor failure. Possibly there was a compartment somewhere where he’d find members of the skeleton crew holed up and without pressure suits, trying to figure out a way to get back to the bridge. Or perhaps at the least a few vats remained intact. The sensors might not be able to detect signs of life from the vats since those lives were, for all intents and purposes, suspended.

  No, he told himself, it can’t be just me. Probably the sensors were faulty and the crew was trapped in a portion of the vessel sealed shut because of the tear. He would go out and look and find them. Together they would figure out what to do.

  He removed a pressure suit from the cabinet and climbed into it. It was painful, his body still throbbing, but he managed. The suit had an emergency rations pack inside the lining of the chest, and by pulling his arm out of its sleeve and into the suit proper he managed to break the pack open and thread the straw up to his lips. He was surprised by how good the paste tasted, and then realized it had been quite literally years since he had eaten anything.

  He made his way back into the bridge’s airlock. Switching on the suit’s light, he sealed the lock, let it depressurize, and then stepped out through the other lock.

  No sound other than his own breathing and his magnetic soles clicking against the deck and then disengaging as he raised them. The breathing sounded ragged and harsh, the click of the soles blunted as if heard from a great distance, as if his body were miles h
igh. No atmosphere here, but he knew that already. And insanely cold—that was what a pressure suit was designed for.

  The damage was much worse than he had expected. The vats should have withstood the cold, but they had not—age maybe, or the rapidity with which the temperature had shifted, or maybe something else entirely. In some places, they were not only cracked but also overturned, broken apart. Bodies lay strewn around as well, frozen in unnatural postures like fallen statues. They were all nude, an indication they belonged to the vats, the legions of the stored. None of the clothed bodies of the skeleton crew in sight. How many had been awake? A dozen of them? Why was he not seeing any?

  He made his way systematically down the rows of the thousands of vats. More corpses, more shattered casings. How could it be that no casing was intact, not a single one? And still no members of the crew?

  There was something somewhere, a flutter of some kind, a movement, a sound hardly audible over his increasingly rapid breathing. No, not even that—just a vibration, something he was feeling through the soles of his boots.

  But then again no, perhaps not after all. Perhaps nothing. Or was it?

  He tried to ignore it. He continued from vat to vat, examining each one, assessing his resources, as if he were the lord of the vats. But there were no resources left, not really. When he was done, he went to the next chamber and found it just as hopeless. And then on to the final one.

  Right outside the door he finally discovered the body of a uniformed crewmember. SARL the nametag read, though he could not tell if that was the whole name because of the way the man’s right arm and a portion of his side was missing, cleanly sheared off. Perhaps he had been sucked brutally through the closing doorway when the atmosphere had fled the vessel, although that seemed nearly impossible. His head, too, had been reduced to a dull slurry, scattered with crystals of ice. Nothing there to salvage, no way to gather a scan of the man’s mind.