Waiting for the Machines to Fall Asleep

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

  * * *

  The capsule was almost completely buried when they reached it, and he thought to himself that it resembled a rock or a cliff formation, a part of the planet itself.

  "Get going," he said, pulling irritably at his tight silver collar adorned with the black leadership pin. "Looks like we'll have to dig our way in."

  The wind pulled at his hood and the sand lashed his face when he turned around, squinting up at the ridge further away.

  A noise. Distant.

  He tried to catch it again but it was difficult to hear with the hood pulled up over his head.

  It took less than ten minutes for the team to dig their way down to the outer hatch. When they were done they stood silent for a moment, leaning on their shovels. In their black outfits with silver click-seams they resembled nothing so much as a gathering of mourners.

  The corpse patrol, he thought, brushing the sand off his shoulders. A well-deserved nickname perhaps, but they could at least have given us suits that look a little more cheerful.

  "Perhaps their comm-system has been damaged," he said in a loud voice to make himself heard over the wind. "We can't know for sure. They may still be alive."

  When he closed his mouth grains of sand cracked between his teeth.

  The hatch opened and they looked at each other but didn't need to speak: they had all done this before. When they stepped inside they prepared themselves for the smell and sight of death.

  "Light," he said and the capsule was illuminated.

  Empty.

  The tension eased slightly around his shoulders and neck. Most of the interior seemed intact. Only one computer unit appeared to be damaged, its interface panel black and cracked but the screen on the work-desk seemed active. In a corner they found bloodstained clothing and empty packs of painkillers.

  "Somebody's been working here, after the crash," one of his crew said after checking the work-desk.

  "Working on what?"

  "Looks like observation stats. They must have set up a couple of stations judging by this. But nothing from the probe as far as I can tell, neither the first nor the second one."

  "Not surprising considering that we haven't found any traces of them either. Not even a positioning blip."

  "Crew of four, right?"

  "Two men, two women, the usual. One terraformer, a couple of engineers, a ship's specialist."

  "Somebody must have been injured. Almost half the pain pills are gone from the medical supply."

  "Okay," he said. "A search party. You three. One k radius to start. Maybe they've collapsed close by. Look for tracks."

  "With this wind it'll be difficult to find any kind of tracks. Anything older than a few hours, maybe even less, will be gone."

  "I know. But look anyway."

  "If they've spent the night outside they must be dead by now. It's pure desert and tundra out there."

  When the others had left, he haphazardly went through the furnishings, the bedding and toolboxes.

  "I don't think they've been here for quite a while," said his second in command who was still going through the work-desk entries. "The last info is a few weeks old already. Before that it seems to have been used almost daily."

  "So where are they?" he asked testily. "The life-support systems are intact and as far as I can tell the hull is intact as well. The rest of it is no worse than that they should've been able to fix it in a couple of days. The food and water supplies have hardly been touched, the solar panels are working. Why aren't they here? Try to find the ship's log. It must be here somewhere."

  "Maybe they snapped. Wouldn't be the first time that happened. You and I have been on enough expeditions to know that. The psych problems in these teams are rampant. Even worse than our own."

  He was standing by the window, peering out into the sunlight.

  Nothing but sand and wind out there, he thought. Sand and wind. Finally he said:

  "Out there, when we approached. Did you hear something?"

  "Hear something? Like what?"

  In the light he could make out a palm print on the window.

  "I don't know," he said. "Kind of a yell, or howl."

  "Human?"

  "Perhaps."

  "I didn't hear anything. Could've been just the wind. This place is not too inviting. Blustery to say the least. That sand gets everywhere and it's as cold as a deep freeze at night."

  "No worse than many other places they've terraformed."

  "We've found them."

  The sudden sound from the comm-link in his ear gave him a start even though he'd been expecting it. He adjusted the volume behind his earlobe: it was always set too loud.

  "What shape are they in?" he asked.

  "Dead. Have been dead for quite a while. Since the crash is my guess. Frozen solid by now. But there are only three of them here. One of the women is missing."

  "Cause of death?"

  "Two of them have skull fractures and some serious lacerations. Death was probably caused by a sharp object to the head. Almost identical injuries on both. Could've happened during the emergency landing I guess, but I don't want to speculate. The third has some broken bones and signs of internal injuries. We've found the ship's log but it's useless. Looks like somebody tried to erase it. Not a professional job, but there are only bits and pieces left."

  "Erased it? And no sign of the fourth?"

  "Nothing so far."

  To hell with it, he thought and held up his hand to shield his eyes from the light. To hell with all of it.

  When they left four days later he was standing by the round observation window in the gathering hall, watching as the planet's illuminated crescent disappeared beneath them. The three bodies were resting in the cargo hold, sealed in shiny metal containers.

  "Seems perfect for terraforming," his second in command remarked.

  "But without complete stats they can't begin. And they don't know when the next science team can be sent out here. They're pretty busy elsewhere."

  That elicited a derisive snort.

  "Busy. Right. If they'd start terraforming now, it could be ready for colonization within the next decade. Instead we have to wait for another expedition before the process can begin. Sending out another ship could take several years considering how slowly Search and Science works."

  "The regulations are there for a reason."

  "But following them is occasionally a waste of time. We both know that. As if we have all the time in the world. As if we can afford to be picky. You know my opinion. These manned expeditions are a waste of resources. A couple of robot teams could make evaluations on flyby, maybe not all that precise but good enough. We don't have to be so thorough."

  He said nothing, just blew on the hot cup of tea he had just poured, watching the steam fog up the window.

  "They're running an analysis on the remains of the ship in Tech-lab right now," the other man continued. "But with the crumbs they have to work with, it'll be difficult to determine what really took place."

  "What do you think happened to her?"

  "Anything could have happened to her. Most likely an accident on the way to one of those useless monitoring stations she set up."

  "But no body."

  A shrug.

  "No body. Maybe she overdosed on pain pills like the ship's specialist. Maybe she committed suicide out there in the sand somewhere. We'd never find her."

  "And the probes? Two of them gone and not a trace. And the monitoring stations? Every instrument smashed."

  "She must have done it before she killed herself or got herself lost. Psychosis. How many times have we seen that before? A couple of months down there all alone would drive anybody crazy. It was a stupid idea to set up those stations, but I guess it gave her something to do anyway."

  The stars were dense here in the inner spiral arms of the galaxy, and they stood silent side by side looking at scraps of white starlight while the ship kept going.

  Cold, he thought. It must have been so very cold
.

  "Long shifts for those teams," his second in command mused. "Enormous psychological pressure. I don't envy them. Hey. Are you listening?"

  He felt the tug at his sleeve and turned, but instead of the other man's face he saw the ridge and its shadow and the shimmering ice crystals that had shattered beneath the soles of his boots when they had gone down into the hollow to pack up the bodies.

  If it wasn't so cold.

  He closed his eyes so the sand would not get into his eyes.

  "The wind," he said finally. "Almost like voices sometimes even though you can't understand what they're saying."

  "What are you talking about?"

  But he turned away, staring out the window again.

  I wonder what she saw, he thought, placing his palm on the window, fingers sprawled on the glass as if in a greeting, but all he could feel was the cold outside.

  "The Publisher's Reader" – Patrik Centerwall

  "How was your holiday?" The manager put down his cup on the desk.

  Helga shrugged. "It was quite okay. I stayed at home most of the time, but spent one week in Paris."

  "Paris? How was it?"

  "A lot has happened since my last visit. Guess the Parisians have become accustomed to the fact that the Eiffel Tower is gone, but for me it was a bit odd."

  "I can imagine that."

  "How was your holiday then?" Helga knew that she had to ask, even though she wasn't interested at all. When her boss told her how amazing it was in New Crete she barely listened and let her eyes wander along all the awards on the wall.

  Awards received by The Publishing House for bestsellers edited and marketed by her boss.

  "Well, well," the manager said at last. "Let's get to the point. I have two authors who have just begun writing their books and who might suit you."

  "Do I get to choose?"

  "Given that you stopped that filthy creep before your vacation, you might say that The Publishing House is very pleased with you."

  "Okay, what do we have?"

  "Well, you can choose between Thomas Kladesky, who I think you are familiar with, and a young aspiring woman who just got her license to write."

  Helga did indeed know Kladesky. She had been responsible for one of his books before. He was boring. He wrote uninteresting stories and his prose was at best miserable. But they sold like hot cakes.

  New authors who had recently received their license were mostly enjoyable, even if they didn't always finish their stories. Besides, a lot of them were of course often forced to terminate their novels, and sometimes even have their license revoked, since they didn't fully understand or want to abide by all the rules.

  "I'll take the debutante," she said.

  The manager smiled. "I guessed you would say that. She has already written six to seven pages so you can start immediately."

  Helga returned to her station, logged on to her terminal and opened up the newcomer's pages. It had been a long time since she had stopped hoping that she would read anything really good, but she still felt a special thrill to work with a new and fresh author.

  Her job was to read the pages just hours after they were written, make some corrections, come up with amendments and hopefully approve the writing so that the author could continue the next day. All steps part of the process to make sure that the book was finished as soon as possible and could enter into circulation and be downloaded to the audience's e-readers.

  It was stimulating work, but she had to admit to herself that it was not often that she read something that really grabbed her, made her think, or caused her remember why she loved literature.

  The Publishing House had strict guidelines for the appropriate content of a book, and it was up to her and the other publisher's readers to stop whatever didn't work. For example if it was too peculiar and would be too difficult to sell on the market. Or if it was obscene and did not meet the moral requirements.

  Now and then a few more literary works were published, but it was mainly the more experienced readers who worked on those.

  Sometimes she toyed with the idea of applying for a year's leave to get a higher degree, but she never got around to it.

  Occasionally, in her spare time of course, she read works from one of the smaller publishers. That was not looked upon favorably by her employer, but when her boss confronted her about it, he had to admit that it was good to keep an ear to the ground. If she found something that could become a bestseller they would buy the author. Or prevent further releases.

  In any case she harbored no high hopes when she opened the aspiring author's pages – even though she knew it would at least be a little more stimulating than Thomas Kladesky.

  Two hours later she was not sure what she had read.

  It was the strangest and most disjointed first chapter she had ever seen. But it was also one of the best she had read. It was absolutely wonderful. The prose sang, the language was clear as well as sweet and the story was mysterious, dreamy and playful.

  But it was also something The Publishing House would consider completely unsellable. And some parts were even a little bit obscene.

  How this author had been able to get her writing license was totally incomprehensible. Helga knew the rules well enough and she knew what she had to do.

  But before she entered the code that would stop the author from continuing, she read a few paragraphs over again. Could she really end this? She started from scratch, read everything again and sighed. It was too good. It was too beautiful.

  The story was like a fragile bird that was learning to fly. She simply couldn't stop it. She wanted to see the bird fly. She wanted to read more. Just a few days. Then she could terminate the script. She could come up with a lie that the whole thing started well but deteriorated after a while.

  Without further hesitation she approved the text with some changes. She couldn't remember the last time she had longed to return to work with such zeal the next day.

  After a few weeks her colleagues began to ask her questions since they had noticed that she didn't talk about her project when they were on break.

  "Come on, Helga, what are you hiding from us?" Marianne asked when they had lunch at the usual place.

  "Nothing ... I just like to listen to what you're talking about."

  "But you could at least tell us what genre the new book is?" Thomas said. Just then the waiter arrived with their food. It looked pretty good, even though it was almost completely odorless.

  "You could say that it's fantasy," Helga said.

  "You could say? My God, if we don't know what genre it is, the readers will never be able to tell. And then you can't sell it." Tomas picked up his knife and fork but didn't seem to be ready to start eating until he received a satisfactory answer.

  "Of course I can say what it is. It's fantasy."

  "With elves and dragons?"

  "No, no dragons."

  "But elves?"

  Helga nodded in response. She didn't want to go into details. For the characters were not really elves, at least not in the classical sense, and definitely not according to The Publishing House's standards. This was something completely new. She cut up a bit of her lunch and stuffed it into her mouth so that she, at least for the moment, could avoid her colleagues' questions.

  "I once worked with a fantasy novel," said Marianne. "But I had to terminate it about halfway through."

  "What was wrong with it?"

  "The author went too far. Suddenly there was a lot of unmotivated violence, and then there was some kind of ritual where everybody had to be naked. I do not remember all the details."

  "Everyone knows that it is impossible to have any nudity in fantasy!" Thomas said. "I mean, I could understand it if someone thought they could get away with it if they wrote crime, but fantasy? Come on!"

  "I don't recall if she described very much nudity. But they were about to undress anyway. She filled in Form 26B and it became quite clear that she would not be able to finish writing the book. She wa
s suspended for six months, but then filed an application for writing a young adult book which she managed quite well. Without any nudity of course."

  "I assume that no one takes their clothes off in your book?" Thomas asked. Helga looked up.

  "No, not yet anyway."

  And it was actually true. For the pixie-like creatures that a large part of the book revolved around did not even wear clothes in the first place. During the morning she had read an almost dreamlike passage were they danced naked in the moonlight. The author had described how the rain fell and how beautiful it looked on their naked wet bodies, how the dance and the joy just increased the more it rained. It was a hopeless passage. It did not carry the plot forward and was too sensual to be approved.

  But the scene was so incredibly beautiful. When Helga had finished reading it, she had gone to get a cup of coffee, but had first taken an extra lap through the office just to calm down and think about something else. She just had to close her eyes to see the dance in the forest glade, feel the rain drops on her skin and hear the music from the handmade instruments.

  This was the best book she had read in a long while, and she knew that it could not be published. She knew she eventually had to terminate it, tell the author that it was impossible for her to continue, and then delete the entire text.

  She was quiet during the rest of lunch while thinking about it. The novel would vanish from the world. There would be no copies left, no trace of it all. The text on the network would be removed, and only exist in her and the author's memory.

  She was so incredibly sad that something so beautiful should disappear.

  The story grew, and one day Helga was even more surprised when the author broke another rule and sent a message to her. At the end of the text, she found a sentence that obviously did not belong to the novel:

  "Why can't I write more? Ten pages a day is not enough. Is it possible to increase the amount of pages? "

  Helga had never seen anything like it. She had to turn around to make sure that no one was standing nearby and could read over her shoulder. Ten pages a day was the maximum limit for writers who were not yet published and authors who didn't make a living from their writing. There were few who could deliver that much in one day, and Helga could not imagine that anyone would be able to write more. Moreover, it would of course mean that the author neglected her life in general. To cope with a daily job, maybe a family, and write ten pages a day was a big challenge. Trying to write more was just stupid.