Zero World

by Jason M. Hough

  The drawing had vexed her from the moment she’d first cast her gaze upon it, for what it lacked rather than what it showed. In the center of the home, below the main rooms, was a gaping blank area marked simply “Think Tank.”

  For a long while Melni just stared at the empty section of paper, as if the act would produce the detail she so desperately wanted. Tomorrow she’d be on the grounds. Closer than ever before to the famed room where Alia pondered the problems of the North and how to profit from fixing them.

  Even now this mysterious place seemed as far away as shining Garta herself.

  SEVERAL HUNDRED MOURNERS SAT in tidy rows of red chairs on the emerald lawn.

  Melni’s vibrant dress from Blade’s had turned heads since she’d stepped out of her pedicab and through the gates. Peach with white piping, the outfit ran to her knees in a form fit, accented by a tiny matching shawl and hat. Above her left breast she’d pinned a purple flower, and she’d left her backpurse home in favor of a small white evening case. All Valix-inspired styles, of course. Melni tugged the shawl tighter against the tenacious chill breeze.

  On a white-clothed table in front of the chairs were four ornate spheres of brass and steel. Inscriptions covered the smooth surfaces between studded rivets. They were vessels of the highest quality to carry the remains below. In the old days, well before the Desolation, people believed the soul of the departed would continue down, all the way to the center of Gartien, the beating heart of the world where they believed a fragment of Garta gave heat and life from within while the star blazed above. In that molten core one’s essence would dissipate and mingle with others from all over the planet, eventually recombining into a new soul and returning to the surface to enter the body of a newborn babe with its first words. Only then would a child be named.

  A quaint view from a more superstitious time. Still, the tradition carried on for sentimental reasons, as did the firstwords naming ritual.

  Respects were paid for a full hour as Garta set behind crimson clouds on the western horizon. One hundred full minutes of silent, serious introspection. Melni welcomed the bell signaling an end to the quiet and the start of the festivities. Alia Valix herself led the procession. She held an actual lit torch high above her head and walked confidently through the great hedge maze her property featured. The labyrinth being of her own design, Alia followed the optimal path to a clearing in the center. Here a wide, white pavilion sat invitingly in the glow of thousands of winking candles. The waitstaff, which seemed to outnumber the guests, swarmed in and began guiding people to tables of food and drink arrayed around the perimeter of the vast space. The families were taken up into the pavilion and guided to ornate couches and chairs where they could receive condolences in reasonable comfort.

  A cup found its way into Melni’s hand. She sipped at the sweet golden liquid, pleasantly warm in her throat and stomach on such a cool evening. Circling the periphery, avoiding conversation, she mingled and observed.

  Whenever possible she deposited the contents of her cup into a potted plant and then took another from one of the staff’s trays.

  Eventually she made her way into the maze. Others wandered there, too. Mostly in pairs, they walked arm in arm and spoke with the kind of conspiratorial quiet that so often comes with unexpected death.

  Having pretended to consume six glasses of wine, she stumbled her way toward the Valix house and climbed the immaculate white stone steps. A pair of waitstaff, no doubt security under the gray garb, pulled open wide glass doors for her without challenge.

  “Lav?” she asked.

  “We have facilities available by the pavilion, esteemed guest.”

  “Gratitude, but it needed to be cleaned. Someone had a spill. So they sent me here.”

  “Our regret. Up the steps, then, to either wing. Second door.”

  Drawing on her mental map of the house, Melni took the right passage from the top of the stepwell. Left would have led to a series of guest rooms and the staff quarters, among other more mundane places. To the right would be Alia’s own apartments, workspaces, meeting areas, and—one floor below, near the very center of the house—the entrance to the Think Tank itself.

  In the lav she locked the door and checked the time, then killed the light. The party would end soon. The families and close friends would follow Alia Valix to her yacht and sail off to return the remains of the dead, ten miles offshore. Everyone else would leave.

  Except Melni.

  She sat there in the plush lav for two hours, until even the sounds of cleaning faded and the house grew silent. After a good twenty minutes of quiet she got to her feet, stretched, and slipped out of the room into the dim hallway beyond.

  “May I help you?”

  The voice made Melni’s stomach flutter. There was no mistaking who it belonged to.

  She turned to face Alia Valix. The woman stood just a few paces behind her, statuesque under the wan light of a dimmed chandelier above. She’d chosen a light blue outfit with sand-colored trim, in a style almost identical to what Melni had chosen. The cut accentuated her unusual height and thin, rather bony frame. The similarity in outfits, and their pale midlands pallor, made Melni suddenly feel like one of the legions of young Valix wannabes. “I just…” she paused and collected herself. “Drank a little too much and dozed off. My regret.”

  For an instant Alia’s gaze bored into her like the flare of a searchlight. Then she softened and stepped aside, pointing back toward the middle of the house and the doorway Melni had so innocently passed.

  Melni mumbled her gratitude and shuffled by.

  “Do I know you?” Valix asked.

  Melni slowed, then stopped. Her mind raced, caught between wanting to leave no impression whatsoever with this woman lest she be wondered about later, and the very possible fact that she’d already crossed this line.

  “It’s just,” Alia said, “I know all the families now, and of course my own people who worked closely with the…” She trailed off, allowed a brief silence. “Were you friends with one of the—”

  “I have an invitation,” Melni said, clicking open her evening case. “A friend could not attend and asked me to come in his place.” She handed the paper across despite the fact that Alia had not reached for it.

  An uncomfortable second passed before Alia reached out and took the offered slip. She studied it briefly and handed it back with a thin smile. “You’re a friend of Detective Kulit?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you a detective as well?”

  “No, no. I am a reporter with the Weekly. Boran is just a friend.”

  Alia studied her face, then briefly glanced at the rest of her. “I do know you! Melni Tavan, yes? It’s okay, I make it a point to know all the press in Midstav. Alia Valix,” she said, holding out a hand.

  “I know who you are.”

  “You wrote a very nice piece about our partnership with the Tandiel mining conglomerate recently.”

  Flustered, astonished, Melni could do nothing except offer a meek smile. Despite her true purpose here, to receive recognition, even praise, from this woman of all people, left her speechless. And in a quandary. The last thing she wanted was to be known to the person she was here to spy on. Already she could feel her ability to blend in slipping away like water through cupped hands. And yet, where one door closed, another…

  Alia’s brow creased. “This is the moment where you, the ambitious young reporter, ask for an interview.”

  “Oh, I could never. Not here, not during a memorial. I would be tossed out on my ear.”

  “I’m giving you permission.”

  Melni swallowed. She shifted on her feet and felt the sheathed knife on her left thigh grate against the lockright implements on the right. “Surely you have guests to—”

  “Everyone’s gone. The families took my yacht but I decided…well, I didn’t feel right going along. So I’m stuck here, I’m afraid, waiting for their return so I can close the event officially. Please, ask me. I could use
a distraction.”

  “All right, then,” Melni said. To her own ear she sounded like an uncomprehending child asked to apologize for some archaic slight. She cleared her throat and lifted her chin. “Miss Valix, may I ask you a few questions on behalf of the Weekly?”

  —

  Alia took Melni to a large den and left her sitting alone for several minutes. When she returned she’d shed her mourning dress for a simple dark blue blouse over black slacks. She took the seat behind the desk without a word and sat for a few moments studying a sleek beige cube emitting a harsh greenish glow from the front. In that light the woman looked cold, almost sickly. The box sat atop another, the lower one thin and rectangular in shape like the box that Blade’s had delivered Melni’s dress in. The front tapered down slightly and sported at least a hundred buttons in neat rows. A computer, Melni realized. She’d read about them but never seen one in person. Just a few years ago it would have taken up the entire room.

  “Thirsty?” Alia asked without looking.

  Melni shifted in the small, plush chair. “Gratitude, but I am fine.”

  Alia tapped a few buttons on her computer and the green glow of information winked off. Without the cold glare on her face she looked more like the polished businessperson the press was used to seeing. She didn’t seem tired at all, despite the hour. “Well, I hope you have questions or this will be a short chat.”

  Melni fumbled with her pad of paper. She set it in her lap and pressed the cover open to the page she’d jotted notes on while Alia had changed clothes. “Gratitude for speaking with me,” she started, lamely.

  The woman across from her waved the comment aside with a tiny gesture and the flash of a smile at the corners of her mouth.

  Melni glanced down at her notes, groping for the right strategy, torn between the need to learn answers and the desire to be forgotten by this person before the next setting of the Sun. The silence in the room became an oppressive, palpable thing. Alia began to tap her fingers together.

  “Right,” Melni said. “The Think Tank.”

  “Yes?” Alia asked, one eyebrow arched in slight amusement.

  “How about a tour?”

  Alia laughed brightly.

  “Sorry,” Melni said. “Had to try.”

  Another wave of the hand. A curt dismissal to an amusing question.

  Melni tried a different tack, one she hoped would be unexpected. “Where are you from, Miss Valix? I mean, the Desolation obviously. We have that in common, at least,” she said, pointing to the pale skin of her own cheek. “But most of us went north or south centuries ago. Your ancestors stayed. Where specifically?”

  A flash of annoyance touched the woman’s steady blue eyes. She puffed out her cheeks before answering, something Melni had seen her do in countless public appearances. “Given your profession,” she said evenly, “I’m sure you know the answer to that as well.”

  “I know what most people know, probably. Raised in a remote cabin in one of the disputed regions. You have said you do not remember exactly where—”

  “All true.”

  “This always surprised me,” Melni said.

  “Why?”

  She leaned forward, pen poised above the paper. “Your astonishing intellect implies a rather exceptional education. And yet you never learned where your own home was?”

  “So?”

  “A bit odd.”

  “Not really.”

  Melni frowned. “Can you elaborate?”

  “Look,” Alia said. “If you’re trying to find out where my parents are, forget it. They passed away. I stayed until the supplies ran out and wandered. North, as luck would have it. I’ve explained this many times and don’t care to continue doing so.”

  “My regret, this is not what I sought. I wish to understand the education you received, given the mind it led to.”

  For a long pregnant second Alia stared right into her. Then she nodded, once. She was used to questions. Bored of them.

  Melni went on. “You were schooled at home by parents of, it’s fair to say, humble background.” When Alia made no response Melni continued. “I am curious why they focused so absolutely on certain topics—physics, mathematics, chemistry—and shunned things like history and geography, as you have previously remarked. It is…well, at a minimum I am sure you can agree this is an unusual approach. The results dispel any argument, of course, but…well, I suppose what I want to know is what you think of it now. Should we raise our children with similar regimens? Are we wasting our time teaching our youth about history? About great works of art and literature?”

  “Of course not,” the woman said. She ran a finger along the lock of hair pressed diagonally across her forehead. “My parents were…” She paused, puffed out her cheeks again. “They weren’t well educated themselves. And in my case, they simply made do with what they had, which wasn’t much. Beyond the basics, once they’d taught me to read I was simply given full access to any book they had or could find. Some topics were simply underrepresented. And, as a result, I suppose, I was never really interested in those things. It’s actually quite embarrassing, if you want to know the truth. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve suggested an idea to my staff only to be told it was tried fifty years ago, or a hundred, sometimes a thousand! This is why I’m so grateful for the people I work with, and why I spend so many nights in the Think Tank simply reading old books. After all, those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it.”

  Melni’s journalistic instinct took pen to paper at the remark. “Can I quote you on that? That is a lovely phrase.”

  Alia grinned at the request. “I surprise myself sometimes. By all means, quote away.”

  “Gratitude.” She scribbled down the words.

  There came a soft knock at the door. Unbidden, two armed private guards strode in, weapons drawn and aimed at the floor. Melni glanced back to Alia. The amused pride had gone, replaced by a sudden coolness.

  Alia, eyes never leaving Melni, leaned to one side and opened a drawer. From within she pulled a single brown envelope. With calm deliberation she unwound the twine clasp and folded back the flap, revealing a stack of photoprints inside. Like a dealer of cards she fanned them out on the surface of the desk facing Melni. “Now,” she said. “Perhaps I could ask some questions?” The woman steepled her fingers and pressed them to her lips. “How well did you know Onvel Harginns?”

  The words crossed the space between them like an arrow in flight. Melni stared in horror at the images before her. They were all of the same thing. Onvel and Melni, together. On a park bench. Seated across from each other on a tram. At dinner, the night he’d expressed feelings for her that Melni did not exactly rebuff, though she felt nothing for him romantically. She’d needed him, nothing more. “I…” she started, lamely.

  “I’ll rephrase my original question,” Alia said, all patience drained from her voice. “What was the nature of your relationship with Onvel Harginns?”

  “Friends,” Melni whispered.

  Alia leaned over and tapped one picture in particular. It had been taken from directly above. They were seated on the floor of Onvel’s small flat, huddled over the mess of papers he’d snuck out of his office.

  Melni swallowed. How much do they know? What could I say that would get me out of this room? “He…he wanted to show me the sort of work he did. I understood none of it.”

  “Birdshit,” Valix said. Another series of prints was pulled from the drawer. Melni, working under the light of a candle, making copies by hand of the pages Onvel had said were important. In the next she saw the safe house on Bandury Lane, Melni climbing the steps. Then another: Melni walking into Croag & Daughters, the antiques shop in Harborsedge. The image had been taken from a second-story window, somewhere across the street. They’d been waiting for her, watching the place. Did they know about the drop? Had her last message, and Onvel’s final research, made it out? Garta’s light, how long had they been watching her? Some of the images were from her e
arliest days with Onvel, after he’d confessed sympathy for desoa, and even the South.

  She thought back through the events of the evening. Boran offering to let her be here in the first place. The time she’d spent hidden, so she thought, in the bathroom. The surprise invitation to this interview. She’d been lured here. She’d isolated herself, out of contact for hours. Melni could see NRD and Valix agents alike fanning out across the city, arresting everyone she’d been in contact with. She’d been expertly played.

  “Search her,” Alia said.

  ONE OF THE GUARDS stepped in behind her. He grasped her by the upper arm and hauled her to her feet.

  At that instant every lamp in the room flickered, then died. The computer’s fan whirred to a stop.

  Swallowed in absolute darkness, Melni froze. A terrible empty silence held the room for a fraction of a second. Across the desk, Alia emitted a thin, sharp breath, more frustrated than afraid. Melni heard her fingers probe around the surface in the dark, then fiddle with something. The intercom. “This is Alia. Someone give me a status report.”

  Nothing, not even static.

  The guard holding Melni’s arm let go of her, fumbling for his own radio or perhaps a flashlight.

  Melni drove an elbow straight back into his gut. He grunted, fell. She dropped to the ground and lay flat on her back. Buttocks raised, knees at her chest, she reached up her own skirt and slid the knife from its hiding place against her thigh. She flicked it open as she rolled, expecting the lamps to bloom again any second.

  Flight was not an option. She needed a hostage, the highest-value unarmed asset present. She came up to a crouch and, trailing one finger along the outer edge of the desk, worked her way behind it. She found Alia’s chair and reached out, ready to hold knife against neck. Her hand brushed the fabric of the backrest. Empty.

  The guard she’d hit groaned. The other made sounds of a frantic search through clothes. There was a thud and he cursed. A dropped lamp, or pistol? And where had Alia gone?