ALEXANDER KARAPANCHEV was born in 1951, he is a publisher, editor, SF writer, his book "The Epoch of Unimo", published 2002, won the international prize of the European SF Association for a SF book in Czech Republic.
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THE EMPTY ROOM
He had almost risen from the spring, when a birch leaf came up.
Jade-colored, with scarlet droplets and sharply protruding veins. There was something infant and mercurial about it, something aged and wisely-painful. Perhaps it had been the last one on the branch. How strong had been its craving to breathe there longer, caressed by the sun and the air, its eyes immersed in the blue yonder. "Get down, already," the birch had scolded it.
"I don't want to! I helped some rays flow into you, too. Let me enjoy the world a little longer."
"Can't you hear what I am saying? I am going to sleep, I don't need you anymore. I'm giving you to the wind."
The leaf had quivered and there it went, down the spring, going who knows where. Taking its time, savoring all sights and sounds; prolonging its glamorous, yet fallen life, bound to end as a smoke or a bitter brew. Wasn't that leaf a moment in our fate, a moment when we grasped the beauty of our actions and our feelings, but then someone just came and blew them out? The spring, however, dragged it under thicker and thicker shadows.
The path then ended at a hill of purple forests. Below: scattered, rapt beehives of cobalt. His heart again stung him with joy. The colors were healing him. He didn't know how long he had been walking before he sat down to rest. Dry grass was swaying, taller than an alerk, the sky was dreamlike, domed as if drawn on an ancient map. He was still so calm and clear down to the bottom of his soul. What gift I had received, he thought - to become one with the galaxy on a deaf autumn afternoon. And: if possible, to hide such a bright day of his in the wilderness, the way one would stash away some unexpected treasures in his heart. Just to return to it later and change all his dark blood.
The sunset sprinkled ashes on the clouds; a jay flew by and disturbed the nightfall.
Gliph closed the door to the apartment in the giant residential tower. The disinfection chamber walls came down at once. Machines sprayed his clothes and he felt as if they had pumped out the howling stuffed inside his ears. Gliph cherished those minutes in the chamber, so close to the comfort of home, when you knew you were the only master of your rest.
In the hallway, the three green eyes of Roumpa turned to him cheerfully.
"Oh, here you are, dear! Are you tired?"
There ran the endless plastic avenues, the flocks of aerobuses, the Gastrostorage jam-packed with samples. He could feel the sticky touch of the oxygen mask again, the crashes, the pain in the temples. All day he had been thinking about the forest he and Roumpa sensed two weeks ago. In his thought, he was wandering there, listening to the dripping birches, gazing at the beehives, lost in yearning. If only he could live the sweet, fruitful, and natural life of a bee!
The kitchen was throwing a chartreuse light, the windows were drawn in, and he tried not to imagine the raving rhythm outside.
"I ordered your favorite groceries. Will you make the menu?"
"The same one we had two weeks ago, and I will put some music on."
And Gliph reclined. He could feel the room's verdurous embrace. A quiet song caressed his frayed nerves. He caught a glimpse of the spring; dew sparkling on the webs. He would be lying there a long time, if he hadn't heard his wife's footsteps between the tunes, and the avian squeak of the culinary closet.
"And where is the daughter?" he fidgeted.
"Limetya went to a party in the Palace of Painting with her boyfriend Fnot."
"When is she coming back?"
"She said we shouldn't wait for her."
"Great!" Gliph frowned. "Today is our series' turn. Or maybe she forgot?"
"How could she forget? But she chose the party instead. What do you expect? She is a young girl, and they will probably run archived sensorecordings at the Palace."
They sat at the holiday table; Roumpa pulled out a rotund fruit with a devilish look.
"Look, a real lemon! Fnot gave it to Limetya last night."
"Hm. Where from?" The man rubbed the delicacy and cut it open.
"His brother works on the Planet of Regimes and sent him a couple of lemons. You know, they get our share of the good life there."
While they were having dessert, Roumpa asked:
"Hey, what did you do about that thing?"
"Don't be mad, Roum. I had no time for the Projects today, but I went there last week and they said they were swamped with orders and that we are way back in line, right?"
"You're just sitting on your hands, that's all! It is going to take years this way! Don't you get that I am sick with bumping into furniture like a blind man, spoiling my fun at the best moments! Last time I bent down to look at a blooming dog rose and I hit my head on the table. And now, you're...."
"Listen, Roum, until our number comes up, we can push the furniture back deep into the bays. I don't see any other option for the time being."
"Stop beating around the bush. All I want is when you walk into the bedroom or the living room, to see their purpose. I want the rooms to have their own look and scent. That is why we need an empty room!"
He knew what Roumpa was going to say next.
"Even before they introduced transmissions, a lot of alerks ordered empty rooms in a parallel time phase. Nothing could be more convenient: minimal passage, optimal bright signal. Just a new door in any wall of our crammed apartments. Gliph, I'd love us to have one of those rooms!"
"I'll do my best to get one. Let's go now."
The sensovisor filled the living room with blue light and the show hostess suddenly materialized. Looking straight into their eyes, the beautiful young alerk girl smiled:
"Dear friends, the long-awaited moments are finally here. After a two-week pause, the Planet of Regimes once again will let you enjoy its natural treasures. Tonight, the series K-217 subscribers will sense a number of moments from the magnificent spring along the banks of the Dorva River. May you have some good time by your sensovisors!"
A bird's-eye view of the Dorva's riverbed spread before Gliph and Roumpa. The river cut through dull green fields, sometimes straight, sometimes in curves and angles like a cardiogram. Roumpa and her husband forgot about the working day, the synthetic food, the traumas of the megalopolis, the talks on the empty-room issue, and found themselves in the bosom of the living nature.
At this moment, along the Dorva's basin, scores of sensocybers were running, flying, or freezing motionless. On hills and sand, in gardens dressed in bridal garments, underwater. Watermelon-sized plastic balls, covered with eye-like openings: colorful, glowing, dim, blind, of children and adults - those were the machines' senses.
When the Planet of Regimes was formed, Gliph and his wife were kids. The Industrial Era had poisoned the rivers, turned the mountains into rubble, strangled the plants and the animals, crucified the skies, so that the nature finally dealt its blow: it had all but disappeared. Its last remaining islands were just a matter of time. Thus came the Era of the Arts and one of the neighboring small planets was declared a reserve. They healed its balance, established a Center, whose associates were there to maintain the wildlife, until proper conditions were created on Alerko to allow the murdered fairy to arise from the dead. Sensovision was invented. On certain days, certain groups could taste the reserve's miracles.
Roumpa stood with her feet sunk into the river. The sensocyber seemed to have sensed her thought, dipped and filled the room with clear dusk, with glimmering quicksilver of fish, with crawling crabs and swaying seaweeds.
Gliph had stopped before a lilac shrub. Its white locks made him dizzy with the thick scent. The alerk felt younger and, mindless of all rules, outpacing his sensocyber, reached out.
And quickly pulled his hand back, touching the videophone. Through the torn fabric of the transmission, he saw his rugged living room, felt a glut in his senses, and his runaway dream crashed into the apparition of the lilac shrub. Yes, Roumpa was a hundred times right: they needed an empty room! Still, he didn't give himself away. He didn't want to disturb his wife, even if he envied her for the longer lasting illusion.
The light suddenly went out, then came back again - the hostess materialized in the room. Roumpa sighed and reclined in her armchair. Her hand reached out for Gliph's hand, and both hands, hot and strong, began to cool off intertwined.
"Dear friends," the hostess nodded. "You had another transmission from the Planet of the Regimes. We ask our sensators not to be alarmed that it has been so short. Due to the ever increasing number of the sensocybers, the volume of transmitted data reached a level overloading the Sensotranslator. As of this evening, the transmissions' time is cut by half. An upgrade of the Sensotranslator is pending. See you soon!"
Thousands of rooms in the megalopolis regained their usual appearance.
"No need to overreact, Roum! Let's hope everything will be back to normal after the upgrade."
"Back to normal!" She was shaking. "They've been talking about that repair for so long and still nothing! One transmission in two weeks and it's no good!"
"Well, Roum, it's not easy for the alerks at the Center: maintaining a whole planet with real rivers, mountains, and seas. The program requires enormous effort, we are barely aware of its scope."
"It's their job, isn't it?"
"Even if small in number, the visitors on the Planet of the Regimes still disturb its balance, the sensocybers do, too. It needs constant reconstruction, which uses a lot of power, and limits the sensovision."
"A monstrous quarantine! Not only Alerko is dead, but even when nature merely peeks into your room, it dies even faster....! And why are transmissions individual, so that you can't enjoy other people's series? Always on the lookout for the time of your allotment!"
"Maybe we are being punished by ourselves," Gliph stroked her cheek with the same fingers that broke the link between the living room and the moments of spring. "Punishment for biding our time."
He left and came back with two glasses of silvery sedative.
"Let's drink it, honey, and go to bed."
"We are in their hands," she said quietly. He kissed her. Her lips stung from the sedative.
The room of their dreams was filled with the scent of fresh snow. Their eyes were radiant with exuberance, their blood was young and potent, their souls triumphant.
They reached a spring snugged in a snowdrift. Rivulets of ice were shimmering on its edges. The white cover was embroidered with footprints: a bear, the four-spoked prints of a capercaillie, a hare. Roumpa was stroking the tracks, the floor of the empty room didn't give itself away. A squirrel darted, a deer peered out; the wild air was drawing all the troubles, all the doubts out of the head and the heart.
Gliph scooped a handful of snow and threw it at Roum. She squeaked, her smile exuded resounding red light, which suddenly turned blue, went out, and once again gushed in.
The hostess emerged. She smiled measuredly.
"Dear friends, you had another transmission. Please, series K-217, don't be alarmed that it was so short. Due to the ever increasing number of sensocybers, the transmission volume reached a level overloading the upgraded Sensotranslator. As of today, the transmissions for the whole quota are cut by 60 percent. An upgrade is pending. Until then, we'll be seeing each other each eighth Saturday. See you soon, dear sensators of our landmark program....!"
"There's nothing they can do to surprise me now," said Gliph after a long silence.
"Gliph, honey, please, get two glasses of the silver drink."
"Two glasses for you?"
"Two for me."
Gliph sighed and pressed down the handle of the door which was installed five months ahead of schedule to the great joy of the family.
The metal rectangle didn't open.
The handle was uselessly turning around the perfectly greased axle.
"Gliph, are you still here?"
"The door doesn't open!"
"The door? Which door?" the woman whispered, as if in a dream.
Patiently frustrated, he articulated, clarifying:
"The door to our apartment, located within the real coordinates of the megalopolis."
Her hair drooped down like a torn banner, covering her eyes.
"Try again! Do something!"
The man dashed to the door, hit the barrier with a shoulder, then kicked it - one time, five times. He knew it was pointless. Around him, the naked walls of the empty room kept pulsating in a soft chartreuse light.
Roumpa sat on the floor cringed, with pale cheeks. The white hairs in his lemon-yellow mustache seemed comic to her, but suddenly she felt even sadder. She realized Gliph's eyes had the color of autumn grass caught unawares by a snowfall.
"I'll tell you, Roum," he took her in his arms. "I'll tell you. I was afraid of this, but I didn't want to think about it. I can think of two colleagues, who had the same experience. One of them, by the way, relocated immediately.... Courage, Roum! The technicians have made an error, and instead of our empty room to be in a time phase, our apartment remained in this phase. A small error. At this point ,we do not exist for the others, we are outside of time...."
"Then, how did we get in here?"
"This effect takes some time. A wonderful trap for the nature lovers."
"And, Gliph... And, Gliph," she began sobbing. "How long are we going to be outside of time? Isn't there a way to send a signal for help?"
"From this new room, Roumpa, we can't send a signal to anybody."
"How about Limetya?"
"Within three days she can't help us. Such cases are still rare and there is no emergency service." He held her again; their hearts became one and began to grow cold and faint together.
The birch leaves in the spring became charred, the river was subsiding, crabs were evaporating on the silt, the lilac was withering in seconds, the snow was turning gray and a deer with broken antlers was shrieking nearby.
"Gliph, once we used to bump into furniture and the transmissions ended prematurely for us. Once we got bruises only on our bodies!"
"Only on our bodies?"
"Well, even if it wasn't only on our bodies, but now this is like prison, and you insist that no living soul will come to our rescue. Is that so, Gliph? Gliph! Is that so, Gliph?"
"Don't scream!"
"I am not screaming! No one except you can hear me.... Maybe we were better off in the living room? There, at least we could get some of the silver thing right away.
He released her from his embrace and started walking around, soaked in the green equanimity of the barren room.
"Honey, why don't you say something? Tell me what did your colleagues do?"
Trying not to look at her, the alerk uttered:
"Yes, we are not the first, and we'll hardly be the last. At this pace, this frantic chase of cutting ribbons.... In three days, the technicians, who built the room, will come on inspection. This is the rules."
"In three days!" Roumpa screamed. "And we have to stay here for three days, without seeing anybody, without a thing in this artificial wasteland! Three whole days! This is.... This is...."
Her husband touched her knees, cold like rimed flowers:
"Roum, you should be grateful that technicians carry out regular inspections lately. They will switch the phases of our room and our apartment. We'll go back where we came from, Roum. Everything is going to be all right."
"But for three days we're going to go crazy in this empty hole!"
"How do you know? We'll clench our teeth. It's just three days. Just think, dear Roum, in just eight Saturdays we'll have sensovision again!"
Roumpa uttered a sob, held Gliph, covering his shoulder with her lifeless hair, and cried.
In the room of their dreams, as if a generous gift from the Sensotranslator, the young scent of snow hung over. The mellow green was oozing out steadily during the first night. On the Planet of the Regimes, the sensocybers of all series had a break. Piled in the hangars in lifeless cairns, they would anticipate the hour of awakening for the myriads of their eyes - colorful, glowing, dim, blind, of children and adults.
In three days and eight Saturdays.