The Chain

After he was shown the paper, Marlow said nothing for about half an hour.

It was not that there was nothing to say. There was too much of it, and he did not know which part to say first.

Willa was the one who spoke first.

“You're not going.”

“I haven't said anything yet.”

“Say you're not going.”

“Willa.”

“Say it! Fourteen went down and not one came up! Fourteen!”

Harlan spoke while he folded the paper.

“It says to report next month. Not this month. There is no hurry in this.”

“So next month a man with my face walks in here.”

“That is how it goes.”

“And if he doesn't?”

“I report it to the Empire. The reply is that the next roster comes. That is all.”

＊

That afternoon, the Empire's engineer came down from the tower.

Young. Barely thirty. Human, with a face that looked like it had never spent two days in this country. Black hair combed flat with oil, small round glasses. His clothes were clean. He was the only person at the drill site in clean clothes.

He walked differently from the other nineteen. He was not hurrying.

“Silas Meredith, at your service. I have come from Central. I am the recordkeeper here. You must be weary after so long a journey.”

His bow was fixed down to the angle.

Roslyn, still holding her board, drew in a small breath.

“I am the recordkeeper,” Roslyn said.

“Then there are two of us. How very agreeable.”

Silas smiled. There is a way of saying that a man's eyes are not smiling; with this one it was the other way around. Only his eyes smiled, and his mouth did not move.

Marlow disliked this man. He decided it ten seconds in.

“You would be Marlow Kane, sir. Such an early arrival. I am much obliged.”

Sir, the man had said.

Marlow's back stiffened on its own.

“Drop the sir.”

“My apologies. Mr. Kane.”

“I was told next month. That's what I heard.”

“Indeed. But an early start is most welcome. Two lengths of pipe have been clogged since last week. We were quite at a loss.”

“I came on the haul. I didn't come to be a diver.”

“I am aware of it. Compulsion is out of the question. The Empire proceeds by volunteers.”

“All fourteen of them volunteered, did they.”

“All fourteen were kind enough to get into the cage. That is what the paperwork records.”

It was there that Silas raised the corner of his mouth for the first time.

His eyes had been smiling from the start.

＊

It was that night that Roslyn moved.

In Harlan's hut she had him bring out one more ledger. The work log for the digging. How many meters on what day, how many lengths of pipe used, how many times the cage went down and came up.

“Mr. Bessel. Do you weigh the cage?”

“We weigh it. It is a question of whether the chain will hold. Every time.”

“Both on the way down and on the way up?”

“Both.”

“Then please show me those numbers.”

Harlan turned the pages and opened it to one of them.

Roslyn followed the figures with her finger. As she followed them, she said the numbers under her breath.

After about two minutes, she looked up.

“This is wrong.”

“What is?”

“The count, to begin with. The cage has been sent down and raised thirty-four times in nine years. That is once every three months.”

“There were fourteen divers.”

“Yes. In fourteen of the thirty-four, a person is aboard on the way down. The cage is forty kilos, the person sixty to eighty. A hundred to a hundred and twenty in all.”

“And the other twenty?”

“The cage alone. It goes down at forty kilos. A trip made only to bring water up.”

“What about coming up?”

“Forty-three kilos. All thirty-four times.”

Marlow did the subtraction in his head.

“Cage is forty. That's three kilos over.”

“Yes. Exactly three kilos. It is not a measurement error.”

“Hold on. The twenty runs with nobody aboard. Those come up at forty-three too.”

“They do.”

“Then who put the water in? On the runs when nobody's supposed to be down there.”

Roslyn did not answer. The man who asked had already finished saying the answer himself.

Harlan drew the ledger over to his side and traced the numbers with a finger.

“…I was not looking.”

“Someone was looking. The one who wrote it.”

Roslyn pointed to the edge of the page. The writer's stamp was pressed there.

Of the thirty-four, the most recent six carried the same stamp.

Silas Meredith.

＊

Marlow went outside. He walked to the foot of the tower and looked down into the hole.

Dark. He could not see three thousand eight hundred meters down. Of course he could not.

Three kilos.

Marlow knew the weight of the glass cylinder. He had lifted it that night inside the water main. He could hold it in one hand. With the contents, two or three kilos, about that.

That cylinder had come up out of this hole.

The one who goes down draws the water, loads it into the cage, and up it goes. The cage comes up carrying only the water. No person in it.

All thirty-four times, it had gone that way.

Footsteps behind him. It was Willa.

“You're thinking about it.”

“I'm thinking about it.”

“Don't.”

“Listen.”

Marlow lifted his face from the hole.

“Say we go back to the city. Then what? Next month I'm on the roster as a diver. The Empire comes looking. I run, and another one with my face gets made, and he comes out here, and he goes down this hole.”

“…Gets made. What's that supposed to mean?”

“I don't know. Only there were three. Three with the same face and the same name, and only the last three digits different. Another one's due next month. His number is the same as my arm on all seven digits.”

“That still isn't a reason for you to go down there!”

“No, it isn't.”

“Then don't say things like that!”

Willa kicked the rim of the hole. A pebble went in, and no sound came back.

“There's one more thing. This one's the real reason.”

“…What.”

“Everyone here thinks those fourteen are dead. But nobody's seen a body. And it turns out nobody's seen the cage come back empty either.”

Willa raised her face.

“Three kilos of water, drawn by somebody, loaded into the cage, every single time. Once every three or four months. Nine years of it.”

“…You mean someone's alive?”

“You can't draw water if you're not alive.”

End of Chapter 12