Inger's Reason

By Miska Ned

Inger and three other Norwegian scientists are commissioned to determine the crash location of a defunct Russian satellite. Sent deep in to the Arctic to the idyllic town of Narvik, the crew become increasingly suspicious about why they are really there. This is the story of the first people killed by objects falling from space and those whose fault it was.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Miska Ned
• Release date: Feb 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311650979

Book preview

inger’s

REASÖN

The story of the first people killed by an object falling from space and those whose fault it was

Contents

Prölogue 5

Reasön I 8

Reasön II 17

Reasön III 25

Reasön IV 33

Reasön V 40

Reasön VI 45

Reasön VII 55

Reasön VIII 63

Reasön IX 69

Prölogue

I wandered lonely as a defunct satellite, William Wordsworth might have written if he had lived in the days of great big chunks of iron wafting weightlessly over the heads of every human on the planet.

Clouds, it might be argued, aren’t really lonely at all. For a start, they almost always move in flocks. Also, they have a purpose, do they not? And then there is the fact that a cloud doesn’t even stay up there wandering, it falls as rain onto mountains and down streams with much to keep it company and before you know it its back up there again as a cloud, and up there isn’t always that high up anyway.

Defunct satellites on the other hand are truly lonely. They are the dog that’s had its day. Once a great feat of astronomical engineering, now forgotten and purposeless. They just whiz around, sometimes for decades, without reason. If they do pass other satellites it is purely by accident, and they do not move together, and they do not really ever come very close at all.

But the main thing that makes a satellite so lonely is its distance from what’s really going on. Orbiting high above the surface of the Earth, the atmosphere itself has abandoned it. Always moving, yet never getting any closer to where everything is.

When a defunct satellite deorbits, it is the most glorious moment of its sorry existence. It finally gets to where it’s going in a colossal fireball. Gravity gets the best of it and it dives back into the atmosphere reminding anyone looking upwards that it is still in existence, at least for another few seconds.

But that doesn’t mean it has purpose. It still isn’t doing anything useful. Defunct satellites, like most inanimate objects, don’t really care too much about purpose. But the wandering Bill Wordsworths of this world – who lonely as them wander – might just. In any case, the fiddly business of useless satellites falling from space is not to be disregarded, for purpose they may have not, but significance they will have indeed if they hit some poor fellow in the face. A forgotten satellite with a murderous fate, that would be a thing.

And that is what this curious tale is all about, a defunct, purposeless satellite-turned-killer and a team of four Wordsworths-turned-scientists trying to determine its point of impact and spare the lives of its victims. Far be it from me to give away the ending to my own story, but I will tell you now that the satellite is not stopped from shedding blood. This is the account of the first human deaths from objects falling from space and the people whose fault it was.

Inger will be your narrator, I leave you in good hands, but don’t let her fool you – she’s tricksier than she seems. She also has an irritating habit of switching tenses like a girl picking an outfit for a first date; sometimes she’s gazing back into the past, sometimes she’s right there in the moment, what can you do? She also likes to retreat into her own bizarre thoughts right in the middle of a conversation – just be glad you aren’t the one talking to her. Enjoy the story…

- Miska Ned

Reasön I

I am about to leave my home and go on a journey that will change my life forever, and I still wonder truly why l did it. I need to write this story down, not so that you will condone what I have done, but so that you will understand. I will not waffle on in great detail most of the time, but I will give you the facts of what happened.

Reasons are elusive. Why do people do what they do? We leaf through the pages of history and always the question is ‘why?’. Why did Hitler invade Poland? Why did Brutus kill Caesar? We scratch around in the dirt for scraps of evidence that make our case. If we had the people themselves in front of us would even they be able to tell us?

They say the bigger the decision the more complex the reasons. Layers and levels of rationale piling up higher and higher to create some kind of direction that all adds up and makes