Before, After, Alone

A note from the author:

The following ten stories are set before, during and after the four novels set in the Planetfall universe. Some feature characters from those novels, but only two contain potential spoilers for people who have not yet read the associated novel. This is indicated before the relevant stories, so you can decide whether you wish to listen.

At the end of the collection, I provide some quick notes on where certain characters feature in the novels, just in case you want to find them again and potentially see them in a different light.

Albert and the Kraken

If someone were there to ask him, he’d say he didn’t know why he picked it up. It wasn’t the sort of thing he could use and he didn’t even like its sad face. But for some reason he couldn’t leave the teddy bear half buried in the sand, looking for all the world like it had crash landed on the beach in a little toy rocket.

Into the sack it went, with its rocket and the drift-plastic and the ancient PC monitor he’d found wedged between two rocks. The bear was stuffed into a nook on one of the workshop shelves, left to sit there as he dismantled its rocket. It was nothing more than a large plastic bottle with fake metal panels painted on and rivets drawn with felt-tip pen. He paused at the sight of the letters, big and red, drawn on the side in capitals. AF. He tried, and failed, to push away the image of a boy sitting on a rug, tongue poking from between his lips as he drew the letters on carefully. Anthony. Anthony... Foster. Little Anthony Foster decorating his toy rocket with his initials as his mother-

With a grunt he tossed the bottle and the daydream into the grinder, knocking the tip off the rocket as it hit the side of the hopper, sending it rolling across the floor. He snatched it up and tossed that in with the bottle, then stabbed the button to start the machine. Its metal teeth tore into the red letters and the ink rivets until it was nothing more than chips of plastic and flakes of paint. Stupid rocket. Stupid kid, whoever he was. Should’ve looked after his stuff better.

He went over to the workbench and cracked open the monitor but his foul mood made him clumsy and the screwdriver slipped, slicing his hand open. Swearing, he stomped out of the workshop and crossed the muddy yard to clean the wound and bandage it up. It was as he sat in the doorway afterwards, finger throbbing and head pounding in time with it, that he realised he shouldn’t have mashed the rocket. He could have given it to the Kraken. He swore again and decided to leave the workshop alone for the rest of the day.

It was a week before the cut had healed enough for him to work again. He didn’t want to admit to himself that the enforced break had been good for him. He’d still collected every day, of course, nothing would stop him going down to the shoreline with the old sack. But he hadn’t done anything more than pile up his finds in the bin near the workshop door. He’d stood on the threshold, tugging at his beard, wondering what he could get done one-handed. But he was no fool. Better to wait.

There was a new energy to him when he started to sort through his finds. Most of it went into the grinder to be chewed up and spat out as flakes that he could chuck in the printer to make something new. Long walks up and down the beach had given him some distance from his design and the change in his routine had fed his dreams, making him wake wild with fear in the night. The Kraken was impatient and getting hungry. What he’d had in mind to feed it wasn’t good enough. He had to make something really special, something beautiful and fragile and tragic. Something that would make people weep to see destroyed.

He scoured the shelves as the grinder chewed its way through the drift-plastic. His eyes fell upon the bear, wedged in where he’d left it, forgotten in the wake of his injury. He grinned and snatched it from its place, took it to the workbench and swept the monitor pieces to one side to rest the bear on its back. After a few moments of feeling the fur on its face with probing fingertips, he selected his finest chisel and a small hammer, then wedged the bear’s head in the vice. Taking care to place the sharp edge of the chisel in just the right spot, he struck the blunt end with the hammer.

Ouch!

He dropped the tools and jumped back with a yell. Chest heaving, he stared at the bear. He could have sworn it just cried out. He ran his hand over his beard, smoothing it down as he took several deep breaths, half-laughing at his own stupidity. He picked up the tools again, having made barely a dent in the clear plastic eye rim.

Please don’t hurt me, the bear said, just as he raised the hammer to make a second blow.

Shit! he yelled, dropped the tools and ran out of the workshop.

He went and sat on his favourite rock, heart pounding against the inside of his ribs like the sea against the cliffs in a force ten gale. He watched the birds circling out to sea, probably hunting a shoal of herring. He should put the nets out but he was shaking too much.

He’d always feared going mad, but he never thought it would manifest this way. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected it to be like. Seeing people, perhaps, people who weren’t there. Or talking to himself. He’d done that at the beginning, but then stopped when he realised he was doing it too much. Sometimes he swore, under his breath, but that was different. He was good at being by himself, always had been. He liked it. Why should it have made him go mad? And why come out this way? Was it because the bear had its own eyes, rather than some he’d made? The Kraken had many eyes. Perhaps the Kraken would be jealous, and his mind was warning him. No, that really was madness. He tugged at his beard and watched the birds as his heart finally settled.

The walk back to the workshop seemed to take a long time. He was afraid of what he’d find in there. He was almost relieved to see that the bear was where he’d left it, that it hadn’t freed itself and run off. Or rather, that he hadn’t imagined the whole thing.

Slowly, chewing his lower lip, he approached the workbench, ignoring the tools lying on the floor. He stopped by the bear and peered down at its face, seeing the scratch on the plastic of its eye.

Hello, it said to him. Please don’t be afraid. My animation motors are malfunctioning, so I can’t make my mouth move. My name is Albert. Please can we be friends?

Oh shit, he moaned. Oh shit and blood. I’ve really lost it.

Lost what? the bear asked. Perhaps I can help you find it.

My mind, he whispered.

Why do you think that?

Cos I’m talkin’ to a teddy bear. And it was the first time he’d talked in... years. It must be years, he could remember at least five summers and more winters than that.

But not just any bear. I’m a FirstBest BearTM, equipped with full visual and auditory processing, a Sigma3 core with an AI rating of A* and an extensive repository of knowledge. I have been slightly damaged, but I am still able to be your friend. What’s your name?

He peered more closely at the bear. Perhaps he wasn’t going mad. Sigma3? You’re a computer?

I have a computer inside my tummy. It helps me to be your friend. I can see you are not my special best friend, but as I am lost, I’m hoping you will be my friend, and help me to find her.

It was a toy. A toy that could speak, of course, why hadn’t that occurred to him? He laughed.

I cannot connect to the Internet, the bear said. Please can you tell me where we are?

He tugged at his beard. He wasn’t sure he should say. What if the Kraken didn’t like it? There’s no Internet here.

After a pause, the bear said; I do not understand. Please could you take me outside?

Narrowing his eyes, he leaned back. Why?

So I can see where we are. And you didn’t tell me your name.

Pursing his lips, he undid the vice. It didn’t seem right to have him stuck there, not now they were having a conversation. My name is... he smirked. Robinson. That’s it. Robinson Crusoe.

Hello Robinson Crusoe. I am pleased to meet you. I’m sorry I cannot shake your hand. Perhaps after we’ve been outside you could help me to repair myself.

He lifted the bear up and sat it on his hand, resting its back against his chest with his other hand over its belly, like he would carry a baby old enough to hold itself up. He’d held a real baby once, he was sure of it. But the memory was as slippery as a fresh fish and soon gone.

There’s not much to see, he said, walking out of the workshop. But I’ll take you to the beach. That’s all there is really. That’s where all the best things are.

The bear was silent as he walked down to the shoreline. He showed it his favourite rock, the cave, the rock pools and the place where he liked to sit on windy days in the lea of the cliff.

What is the name of the ship? the bear asked.

He shuddered at the thought of the wreck. He never looked at it now. He’d had so many bad dreams about it. Don’t remember.

Is that how you came here? Were you shipwrecked?

He remained silent. He didn’t want to talk about it.

Robinson Crusoe is the name of a character in a novel about a man who is shipwrecked, the bear said and it felt like something cold gripped his core. He was ready to throw it in the sea, but then it said Would you like me to read you that story?

You can do that?

I have over ten thousand novels in multiple languages stored in my core. I would be happy to read any of them to you.

His throat was suddenly thick, his eyes filling with tears. Stories.  He used to love listening to them every night when he was alone on the ship and there was only the radar and night sky for company. It had been so long since his phone had died, dropped accidentally into a rock pool when he’d been exploring, so long since he’d heard a voice, let alone been fed by a story.

I’d... he cleared his throat. I’d like that very much. You can read to me after I fix your face, how about that?

That will make my narration more enjoyable, and it will help me to be a better friend, it agreed. Thank you.

He wrestled with the pang of guilt and then gave into it. My name isn’t Robinson. That was just a joke. It’s Franz.

Hello, Franz. My name is Albert. I am sure we will be very good friends.

Franz looked out at the wreck for the first time in... seasons. At the ropes he’d made and strung between the tumbledown causeway of spilled containers. It had been a long time since he’d scavenged in the ship itself.

He told himself that it was because he had everything he needed now. He lived in one of the containers washed high onto the island by the storm that hit after the Kraken nearly killed him. The workshop was made out of another. One of the containers that made up the causeway was filled with food printers, and dozens of others were filled with the canisters they needed to work. He already salvaged enough to last him for years. Thanks to the freshwater spring on the island he could live there forever, theoretically.

He’d been the sole crew member of one of the largest container ships on the ocean. So large there were only three ports in the whole of Europe and Scandinavia large enough to accommodate it. He wasn’t the captain though. The computer was. He was just there to satisfy some archaic insurance requirement that a human being must be on board in the event of computer failure. And when that had actually happened, he’d been powerless. He’d just clung to his seat on the bridge, as a narrator with a honeyed voice had read a romance novel to him while the ship ran aground. It was terrifying, feeling the behemoth scrape the seabed and judder to a screeching halt beneath