Zero World

by Jason M. Hough

  “What did they choose?”

  “They chose to change.”

  “And this worked?”

  He shook his head. “It tore them apart from the inside.”

  She fell silent then. Her gaze shifted slowly to the landscape that smeared across their window. Ice began to form in the corners of the glass, and soon the view became murky as a heavy snow fell. Caswell decided to let her ponder what he’d said. He let the sway of the train lull him, along with the low hum of its long rows of rubber wheels against the half-pipe track in which it moved. He tried to take his mind off the smell of the food and “cham.” It had tasted wonderful when he’d tried it in that prop room, until it had wreaked vengeance on his alien gut.

  “Tell me what happened in Hillstav,” she said after a time. “We left a lot of problems behind us. I should know about the ones ahead.”

  “Fair enough,” Caswell replied. “I came upon a house. It was empty and I needed supplies, so I broke in. Used some, uh, lockright tools I’d stolen earlier. Then some men arrived, apparently searching for the person who’d robbed the lockright. They surprised me and I killed them. No choice in the matter.”

  “And then?”

  “I stole one of their…um…the three-wheeled thing….”

  “A cruiser,” she said.

  “Cruiser, yes. I stole one and fled.”

  “But before that…”

  He shrugged.

  Melni squinted at him. “Four bodies were dragged away from the cottage and buried in a ditch.”

  “Ah, yeah. I didn’t want anyone to find them.”

  “A ditch beside a lake,” she said.

  “That’s right.”

  “You couldn’t return them to the water?”

  “Huh?”

  “It was right there. They may have been your enemies but to deny a proper return, that—forgive my saying, but that is unnecessarily cruel. No one would have found them either way, yet you chose to keep them from—”

  Caswell understood now the gravity of the mistake he’d made when he’d buried those four police officers the day after he’d landed. In truth he’d wanted to dump the bodies in the lake and leave, but something had stopped him: the guilt of taking innocent lives on a world he had no business being on. Killing them was not like killing the crew of the Pawn. These were utterly innocent, being in his way their only crime. He’d wanted to make things right, at least a little. Honor them somehow, not leave them in the pools of blood where they’d fallen. Instead, like a bumbling idiot abroad, he’d made mockery of their most sacred ritual. “I didn’t know the custom. Forgive me.”

  “How could you not know that?”

  Caswell fought to keep his face blank.

  “Help me resolve,” she tried. “How could you know so little? You and Alia, both. And yet for all that she knew you! There is a connection here, I know there is, and if you want my help—”

  “The roller is slowing.”

  “What?”

  Brakes squealed from beneath the car. Caswell leapt to the window and glanced in both directions.

  “There are no platforms for miles,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, we’re stopping.”

  “Wait here,” she said. “I will go look.”

  He nodded and tried to watch through the frosty glass.

  Seconds later he saw two uniformed soldiers moving along the tree line. They hunkered down about halfway along the train’s length, almost parallel to the cabin Melni had picked. One raised a spyglass or binoculars to his face and began to scan the windows. Caswell ducked back and swore. This was no stop for an obstacle on the track.

  Behind the roller, a cruiser streaked across the field of snow, white spray kicking high from the single rear tire. It stopped twenty feet from the tail car. The two occupants hopped out. They high-stepped through snow that came up to their knees. One carried a rifle. The other gripped a folder between two gloved hands.

  “Curd,” Melni said, reentering the room. “NRD. They are searching the cars, starting at the back. Two of them inside already.”

  He heard the panic in her voice. “What can we do?”

  She looked at the floor, jaw moving soundlessly, at a loss, a deer in headlights. For all her planning, she’d not anticipated this.

  He grabbed her by the arm. “The situation, Melni. Describe it for me. You can do that, can’t you?”

  “Speculate,” she whispered, monotone.

  “Yes. Please!”

  In an almost robotic voice she rattled off the details. “They have surrounded us, watching all the doors. No cover for a hundred feet in any direction.”

  “Is there a luggage car?” Caswell asked.

  “No.”

  “Anywhere to hide?”

  She glanced around. The tiny room had nothing but two benches that doubled as beds, and a closet too small for even a single person to conceal themselves in.

  “That porter brought food,” he said. “From where? A restaurant car?”

  “I do not know ‘restaurant,’ but there is a porter car, two ahead. They store food there. Cleaning supplies, spare parts. It is behind the engine. But,” she added, holding a hand up to stay his instant move toward the door, “it will be staffed. And they will search it soon enough.”

  “We have to run then. No other choice. Come on.” He turned for the door.

  “No, wait,” she said. Her eyes met his. “I have a plan, I think.”

  She explained and he took in the details without comment or question.

  “That,” he said, “just might work.”

  Melni scattered the remnants of the cham and pastries on the benches and floor. Then she flung the narrow window wide open. The roller’s track was a curved ditch, so the snowbank was only centimeters below the window. Next she scooped handfuls of the white powder into the cabin and made sure it splayed violently across the thin carpet of the floor.

  “Good enough,” he said, impressed. On a whim he grabbed a small carving knife from the tray. “Let’s move.”

  She went out first, moving one cabin over. It proved unlocked and she went in, closing the door behind him when he followed a second later.

  Silence, then. Just his breaths, and hers.

  Less than a minute later a door clacked open at the far end of the car. Footsteps in the hall, and low voices. They sounded bored. Good.

  Melni glanced back at Peter and he nodded his readiness.

  The NRD officers reached the adjacent cabin. One let out a startled gasp. The other rushed inside, heavy footsteps across the six feet of carpet and then at the window.

  Melni burst into motion. The plan relied entirely on timing.

  Caswell followed on her heels: left turn into the hall, left turn into the neighboring compartment. A male guard stood a step inside, his long black coat like a curtain drawn across the interior. Melni lowered a shoulder and drove into the center of his back, leaving her feet. The man yelped in surprise as he flew forward. He went face-first into the legs of his companion, a female. She’d half-turned from the window at the sound of Melni’s entrance, her rifle too long to ready in the cramped quarters.

  A cry of alarm died on her lips, the hilt of the carving knife protruding from her breast. Caswell had not expected much more than distraction from the small blade, much less a solid wound. He’d never been much of a knife man, as far as he remembered, at least. It had slid right through the uniform, though. All the way. The NRD officer glanced down at the hilt, a look of wonder and surprise on her face. Then the life drained from her features, and she collapsed.

  On the floor, Melni fought to keep her prey pinned. The man writhed wildly, spurned to terror at the sight of his dead comrade. Caswell stepped in to help, then held back when Melni raised one arm high, her pistol gripped like a baton. She smacked the back of the man’s head with it. Three, five, eight blows. Bone crunched, and then came the spongy wet sound of brain being pulverized. The back

  of his head became a clump of long bl
ond hair mixed with sticky, dark red blood before he finally, mercifully, went still.

  Breathing in huge gulps of air, Melni staggered to her feet and studied the carnage before her. “Why would he not stop struggling?” she asked, her voice not for him. Just a whispered grasp at her own humanity. “Garta’s light, what have I become?”

  “At least he can’t talk.” He gripped her shoulder and urged her to be calm. “Focus now. The coats, right?”

  “At least he can not talk? How can you say—”

  “The coats, Melni. You made a plan, let’s stick to it, eh?”

  “Coats. Yes, coats” Melni agreed. The vacancy in her eyes faded. She blinked. “Coats.”

  Caswell hunched over the man on the floor and began to pull his heavy black coat off. Seeing him disrobing the officer, Melni returned completely to the moment. She knelt and grabbed the female agent by the lapels. The knife had to come out before she could remove the garment. Melni’s face scrunched up as the blade pulled free. Caswell watched, ready for her to lapse into remorse again at the sight of the blood. He reminded himself—and not for the first time—that Melni would remember all this. She’d carry what she’d done here, what she’d been capable of, on her conscience for the rest of her life.

  But by sheer force of will Melni maintained control. His mention of the plan seemed to work like a talisman on her. She set the weapon aside and started pulling arms from sleeves.

  Caswell was a good six inches shorter than the NRD man and swam inside the huge overcoat. Worse, his hair and skin color were completely wrong. With any luck, distance and speed would obscure these inconsistencies.

  Melni picked up the rifle and, as was the Gartien way, took the lead. “Remember,” she whispered, “we are arrogant rassies on state business.”

  The rearmost car was for “standers,” she’d told him. Those who couldn’t afford a seat. It smelled of sour sweat and old newspaper. Melni shouldered her way through the sullen passengers, a palpable air of superiority in her gait that Caswell mimicked.

  A pale-faced porter stood at the back. If he noticed that the two agents coming toward him were different than those who boarded minutes earlier, he gave no sign. Melni jerked her chin toward the rear exit and he obediently opened it.

  “What has happened? What is wrong?” the porter stammered as she strode by.

  Melni did not so much as acknowledge him. She hopped down from the side of the car. Footprints marked the path the two officers had taken. She did not slow. Caswell, on her heels, kept pace and did not look back.

  The NRD cruiser rested in fresh snow a hundred feet away, steam wafting off the motor’s exposed heat sinks. Blue and yellow right-of-way lights flickered in their strangely mesmerizing pattern.

  “You saw them get out?” Caswell asked.

  “I did.”

  “Who was driving?”

  She thought back. “The man.”

  “Better let me, then.” He’d driven most of the way from his landing site to the city of Midstav, in a stolen cruiser not unlike this one. They seemed to have two types of vehicles here: the older, compressed-air style that looked like something out of a 1930s German vision of the future, and those like the one before them, sleek and new, powered by battery. Alice’s influence? He thought very probably. This world was full of such signs of new and rapid technological advancement, and it all pointed back to the woman playing God. Exactly as Monique had assessed.

  They’d crossed half the distance to the car. Melni angled herself toward the rear seat. Caswell aimed for the front. His body teetered on the verge of betraying him. He’d never been so hungry or thirsty in his life. Not that he could remember, at least. His breaths erupted in large puffs, his thighs ached from traversing the knee-deep snow. Ten meters now. Five.

  A distant voice reached his ears. “Agent Tolis? What is the matter?”

  Melni ran, legs lurching in the deep snowdrift. Caswell did his best to keep up. He felt dizzy. He wanted to force chemicals into his brain, consequences be damned. But that option no longer remained to him. The well had run dry.

  “Halt!” the same voice shouted. “Halt!”

  A vicious crack rang out and rolled across the landscape, sending birds to flight from the line of trees beyond the cruiser. Two more shots followed. Ahead of him something thwapped into the snow in a miniature white explosion. Melni twitched abruptly. She swatted at her left arm as if someone were trying to grab her there. Her hand came away red.

  Fuck, he thought.

  “Blix,” Melni said, then fell face-first into the snow.

  —

  He threw her limp body into the cruiser. A bullet hissed past his ear. Lots of people were shouting now, from behind. He didn’t look back. He just jumped into the forward seat, found the switch that activated the motors, and roared away in a shower of white powder. Little eruptions of snow popped up all around. The crackle of gunfire. Engines whirring to life, then sirens.

  “Melni?”

  She said nothing.

  Caswell put it all out of his mind and focused on driving. Back home hardly anyone ever drove a car anymore. Everything had been automated decades ago. But in some parts of the world, the third world most often, one occasionally had to manually operate a car. Caswell had visited such places on his post-mission “holidays.” He’d even taken the occasional trip to the Nürburgring in Germany, where wealthy adrenaline junkies like him thrashed around twenty kilometers of twisting road in antique supercars. A keen sense of self-satisfaction went through him like a warm wave with the knowledge that his risky, expensive, spontaneous training adventures had truly paid off. He tossed the little “cruiser” along a snowy trail, shot through gaps in the trees, bounced over the uneven terrain. For a time he even forgot about the wounded girl in the backseat. A stupid smile had replaced his grim concern, and when he realized this he wanted to slap sense into himself. The lack of food, he decided. It was making him delirious. They both needed help, and soon. But he couldn’t stop as long as there were lights in the mirrors. She might die before he found her medical help, but she’d most certainly be put to death if these fucking “rassies” caught them.

  Time passed in a blur of trees and snow. The lights grew more distant but he knew he was leaving perfect tracks for them to follow. This couldn’t go on.

  Luck favored him in the form of a road, recently cleared. He bounded onto it, pointed the lithe vehicle toward what he hoped was north, and set the acceleration handle to maximum. The rear tire fought for purchase on the gravelly surface and then bit. The cruiser rocketed forward.

  He drove for a long time. Twice he jerked awake, the car grinding against packed snow beside the narrow road. The mirror remained devoid of pursuers. Finally he eased back and let the car roll to a stop beside a frozen pond some twenty meters off the road. Snow fell in lazy, oversize flakes.

  He hauled Melni from the backseat and laid her on his jacket. The cold bit, numbed his skin. His stomach felt like a stone. Caswell ignored all this and inspected the girl’s wound. It looked bad. A lot of blood. He melted some snow in his hands and washed it with the bit of water that didn’t slip through his shaking fingers. She let out a weak groan at this. Her eyes flittered, then closed again. Her lips were as blue as a summer sky.

  Desperate, Caswell searched the car and found something akin to a first-aid kit. He had no idea what most of the contents were for, but the long strips of bandage were all he needed for now. He packed one against her wound and tied the other over it. Finally he stuffed some snow in her mouth, and put her back into the vehicle.

  He drove on. A sudden overwhelming craving for chewing gum fell upon him. Something to keep his saliva flowing, and sleep from overtaking him.

  Hours later Melni stirred. “What happened?” she asked, her voice like dry paper being crumpled.

  “You were shot,” he stated. “I think I’ve lost them but I have no idea where I’m going. We need a map or something.”

  Melni groaned. “How…long?�
�

  “Maybe,” he said, then paused. “Three hours by your, you know.”

  She coughed.

  “The bullet only grazed you, gouged a line across the muscle and back out again. I packed the wound as best I could.”

  “Gratitude,” she whispered. “Need…a doctor. It is worse than it looks.”

  “Can’t do it.”

  She protested, tried to sit up, and groaned in agony.

  “Hold tight, okay? I have a better idea. No surgeon required.”

  She said nothing.

  “Melni?”

  Caswell glanced back. She’d fallen unconscious again.

  BRILLIANT LIGHT BLAZED from above, at once painful and pleasant, like Garta at the zenith of a Renewal-month sky. Yet no heat came from this light. Just the brilliant fingers of glare that stretched to the corners of her vision.

  Melni blinked, and the light became more focused. She blinked again. Not Garta at all, but a lamp of some sort. It was circular, embedded into a recessed channel within a white ceiling made of square tiles.

  Something tugged at her shoulder. She tried to turn and found her head had been strapped down. Her arms and legs as well. She tugged at the bonds with no effect. This must be an NRD interrogation room. She tried to test the strength of her bonds but her body would not yet cooperate. She heard a grunt of concentration, someone standing nearby.

  “Where—” she croaked.

  “Don’t move.” The voice was Caswell’s. He was rummaging around beside her, probing her arm with something.

  Her skin there felt warm and seemed to almost buzz. He’d numbed her. While he worked she tried to look around. Above her was a tiny round window, set inside an oval—a door? It had a wheel attached in the center, with four metallic bars sticking out to each edge.

  “Sorry about this,” Caswell said suddenly, and laid a soft strip of white fabric over her eyes.

  Instinctively she shook her head. The fabric began to slide and fall.

  He pulled it tight across her face. “Remain still, Melni. I’m almost done and we’ll be on our way. I cannot let you see this place.”

  If she glanced straight down past her nose she could see only a small strip of uninteresting wall now. “Where are we?”