Zero World

by Jason M. Hough

  The captain’s quarters were a welcome change. Melni took a seat on a small cushioned bench on one side, across a narrow desk from Liso. She set the bag on the floor between her feet and faced the captain.

  The woman was squat and powerfully built. A muscled, veiny neck connected her squarish head to a set of broad shoulders. Her hair, what little there was, had a slight tinge of gray to it, a color reflected in hard, close-set, narrow Southern eyes.

  “Well, Tavan,” the woman said, “you may have started a war back there. Anything to say for yourself?”

  The adversarial tone went beyond the usual competitive jabs between the Southern agencies. Melni weighed several responses. “Gratitude for rescuing us,” she managed. “Has there been any word from Riverswidth?”

  “Not yet. We will have to get far away from here before we can risk surfacing again to make contact. With any luck the Combs will think you and your friend drowned and keep their search to the coastline. If they find out we have been skulking about out here it really will be war.”

  “How long until we can try?”

  The captain let out a breath. “If none of their fast-attack craft are around, maybe in an hour. Two to be safe.”

  “And if they pursue?”

  Liso narrowed her eyes. “If the damned Combs pursue then ask Garta for help, because this old boat cannot outrun the monsters they are building these days.”

  A black box on her desk chirped. Liso pressed a finger to it. “Speak.”

  “Dr. Gilot here.”

  “How is our…” She paused and glanced at Melni. “Who is this man, anyway?”

  “His name is Caswell.”

  “What branch? Riverswidth?”

  Melni shook her head. “It is complicated.”

  Liso grunted. “How is your patient, Doctor?”

  “Strange, that is what he is.”

  “Stable?”

  “Yes, stable. For now. Whether or not he will recover is another question.”

  “Explain.”

  “Well, for one, his blood chemistry is unique. For seconds, I took radiographs and…Captain, you had better come see for yourself.”

  The captain glanced at Melni and frowned at the confused expression she saw there. “On our way.”

  Melni followed the captain aft again. The submersible sailed level now, at cruising depth. The idea of all the water surrounding her, not to mention the creatures that swam in it, filled Melni with a dread she did not know lived within her. In that instant she wanted nothing more in the world than to be off this boat.

  At medical room two the Captain swept inside and moved far enough to allow Melni in beside her. Caswell lay on the examination table, naked save for a thick wrap of bandage around his midsection, already marred with a red stain the size of a fist. A drip line of water snaked from a bag down to an applicator protruding from his left arm.

  His body was lean and scarred. His skin had a shocking lack of hair. Chest, arms, legs, and pubic area were all baby-smooth. Had it all been burned off? Or was this just another stylistic choice where he and Alia came from?

  “Look at this,” the doctor said to Liso. He pointed to a radiograph imager on the wall. The print showed Caswell’s skeletal upper back, spine, and skull, taken from the side. The doctor’s fingertip hovered near a small rectangular block attached to the spine just below the brain.

  “What is it?” Captain Liso asked.

  “I have no idea,” the doctor replied. He and the captain both turned to Melni.

  She ignored them and stared blankly at the image on the wall. Finally she crossed to Caswell and rotated his head to one side, examining the back of his neck. “No scar,” she said.

  “Doctor?” Liso asked. “Speculate.”

  Her word made Melni twitch, remembering the even, cold voice she’d spoken to from the public box.

  The man fidgeted. “There has been some recent work on an implantable device to regulate one’s heartbeat. Northern work. Of course it came from Valix Medical and we have not had a look at one yet. I assumed they would be much bigger than this, and implanted in the chest.”

  “You are certain it is artificial?”

  The doctor stepped around the captain and pointed at the radiograph. “Absolutely. There are two wires. Here, and here. They terminate within the brain. I have never seen anything like it, Captain.”

  Melni ignored them and stared at the man on the bed. Did a similar device exist in Alia Valix’s neck? Did it have something to do with her intelligence? The knowledge Caswell said she’d stolen?

  Dr. Gilot cleared his throat. “Shall I remove it?”

  Melni whirled. “No,” she said.

  The captain raised an eyebrow. “Something about this you want to tell us, Tavan?”

  “I am afraid,” she replied, “this is classified highest secrecy. As of now.” The words spilled out with as much authority as she could muster.

  Liso’s face hardened. “It could be a weapon. If my ship is in jeopardy—”

  “It is not a weapon. If it was he would have used it already. All I can tell you is this man has a connection to Alia Valix, and I suspect our betters back home will want to employ extraordinary care in examining him and that object.”

  A speaker on the wall by the door crackled, followed by a brief high-low chirp.

  The captain crossed to it and held the transmit button. “Liso here, go ahead.”

  The tillmaster replied, his voice muted and tinny. “Six Combran warships just rounded the north edge of the bay.”

  “Six! You are sure?”

  “No. We track seven now, the last coming from the west.”

  “Go silent,” Liso said. “I will be right up.” She pressed and held another button on the speaker. “Attention, crew. We are being pursued by hostiles and we are in their waters. We have something aboard they desperately want, and we will not give it to them.”

  The lights in the submersible dimmed to just a quarter of their previous strength and took on a bluish tinge.

  The captain let go of the button. The lights, Melni realized, signaled a silent mode of operation that the crew likely drilled for constantly. Nothing more needed to be, or would be, said.

  The captain studied her for a moment. She turned to the doctor. Her voice fell to just above a whisper. “Let me know if his condition changes. Tavan, you’re to stay here in case he wakes. I am assigning two guards to the door. I will not have a stranger with ties to Valix wandering about my ship.”

  “Understood,” Melni said. “And gratitude.”

  “If he dies,” Captain Liso said to the doctor, “remove the device and cold-store it.”

  Melni started to object.

  “Relax, Tavan. I suspect there will be a lot of people in Dimont who want to get a look at it….”

  “That resolves.” The captain was right. Melni had let emotion cloud her judgment. “I…I will want to be present if it comes to that.”

  The captain looked at the doctor. He shrugged a tacit approval.

  “All right then,” Liso said. “Now we find out just how fast these new Combran boats really are.”

  —

  Melni huddled against the wall opposite Caswell’s bed, one arm looped through a pipe to keep herself steady as the submersible dove, climbed, and turned on some course completely invisible to her.

  The doctor had left for a small chamber across the hall, and he’d taken the radiograph images with him. Writing a report for the Naval Information Office? Preparing surgical plans for removing the strange device in Caswell’s neck? Both, probably. Melni stared at the unconscious man and tried to put out of her mind the chase going on beyond the hull.

  “Would they go to war over you?” she whispered. “Are you that much of a risk to Valix?”

  Caswell did not reply, of course. He barely clung to life. Once again she eyed his bag of supplies. Something in there could probably help him, as he’d helped her after a bullet tore through her arm. But foreign medicines were d
angerous, too. If there was one thing in the bag that could save his life, there were probably others that could end it. She could do nothing but wait, and hope he had the chance to tell her what to do.

  The submersible made another steep dive, moving Melni’s weight almost entirely to the wall instead of the floor. Caswell shifted from the change in angle. He was strapped to the bed expertly, but his left hand and wrist dangled from the side of the bed now. A glint of silvery metal there caught her eye.

  The bracelet.

  She’d seen him glance at it often enough to guess it held extraordinary sentimental value for him. She stared at it for nearly a minute as the idea of betrayal germinated in her mind from the tiniest seed to something just shy of action. Not betrayal of him, but of Riverswidth. He’d be taken into custody the instant they reached Dimont, of that she had no doubt. The bag of supplies would be confiscated, too, if not sooner, along with the “needler” device if she decided to part with it. But the bracelet, if truly just a trinket, she could take, could claim as her own and then, when all this ended, return it to him. A token sign of regret for what would soon happen.

  Or was it more than jewelry? Did it serve some other purpose she could not see, like the device in his neck? Exotic Valix tech not yet revealed to the world? She could check, she realized. If the ring of metal was just jewelry, she would hide it and return it to him when all this was over. He’d saved her life on more than one occasion. She could do this small favor for him, should he live.

  Melni glanced up at the articulated arm of the radiograph imager above Caswell’s bed, then at the open door of the tiny medical berth. She stood on shaky feet and climbed the steeply inclined floor to the entrance. Two guards, a man and a woman, stood—or rather leaned awkwardly—just outside. The hall was otherwise empty, but carried the hushed sounds of activity in other parts of the ship.

  “Okay if I close the door?” Melni whispered to the guards. “I cannot sleep with it open.”

  The guards traded a glance, then shrugged indifferently in unison.

  “Gratitude,” Melni said.

  She closed the door, careful to minimize the dull metallic thud when it sealed with the wall. Alone with the unconscious assassin, she studied the imager until she found the on switch. From a drawer beside the bed she found blank photo paper similar to the kind she kept in her old flat back in Midstav, along with a backing plate. The paper slid into grooves along the sides.

  Melni placed Caswell’s wrist on the glossy white sheet, then positioned the radiograph above it.

  The submersible leveled out. The lights in the room turned a crimson red. A deep and ominous sound rippled through the entire vessel, rattling the walls and causing the metal to groan. A depth bomb. Melni went utterly still. War. It was really happening. Would the history books site her actions as the start of it? And what would they think back home? She could just as easily picture a heroes’ welcome as a quiet execution in some dank cell below Presidium Square.

  An indicator light on the radiograph’s bulky imager turned blue. She adjusted it one last time over Caswell’s bracelet and tapped the button. There was a sharp click that made Melni wince. Could a sound like that travel well enough to give away their position? She had no idea.

  Another rolling boom seemed to answer the question. It sounded closer. The hull of the submersible groaned as the concussion wave passed through.

  Melni slid the paper from its backing plate and stared at it as the image started to appear. She turned to the wall where the lightbox hung. Very carefully she flipped its power switch on, wincing as its overly bright light filled the tiny cabin.

  Paper inserted, Melni watched with held breath as the picture exposing the innards of Caswell’s wrist, and the bracelet upon it, took form.

  This was no simple piece of jewelry. In fact complex shapes filled every bit of space possible beneath the silver outer shell. Most were incomprehensible to her, just sections of dark or light patches arranged in a way that implied electronics on a scale she’d never seen. The only bit she could recognize made her mouth tighten. Lettering, on the edge of one of the dark squares.

  SAMSUNG / 2077-Q1 / MADE IN KOREA

  Melni rolled this over in her head a dozen times as the submersible avoided Combran bombs. She knew of no Samsung or Korea. People’s names? Places? The middle bit could be some kind of designator. Melni frowned. Clearly this was no mere piece of jewelry. She slipped it back on his wrist and then, the sense of duty in her suddenly strengthened, she placed the needler device back in his bag.

  Another explosion rocked the submersible violently to one side. The ceiling light flickered. From some distant corner of the vessel came the horrible sound of hissing gas or, worse, water.

  Frantic footsteps clanged in the hall, silence evidently now a secondary concern. Melni turned off the lightbox and the imager and threw herself back into the far corner.

  The door remained closed. The footsteps passed. She warred with a fear she’d not known she harbored: the fear of drowning. It had not manifested in the Think Tank, perhaps because there she’d known at least on some level that escape was possible, the waters something she could survive. But here…in the dark depths of the Endless Sea, what she feared was that endless cold embrace. Corpses were sent here, returned back to the core of Gartien for reuse. This was no place for the living.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Please.”

  Another explosion washed across the hull, but weaker than the last. Melni gripped a pipe on the wall and cringed. Another boom, this time like thunder on the horizon, barely audible through the walls.

  Minutes passed in silence.

  The light above her shifted from red to blue. All clear.

  Not long after that the room tilted again. The submersible was ascending. Who waited above? Friends? Or had Captain Liso surrendered, not willing to sacrifice her crew for the life of a stranger?

  Melni took the bracelet from Caswell and slipped it on her own wrist. She fetched the needler from his bag and stuffed it back into her sock.

  Then she waited. Waited to emerge from the depths in the belly of a great sea monster, to face the unknown.

  MELNI SAT with an engineer in the communications office, just opposite the captain’s quarters. The thin woman held a headset to one ear, like a young version of Anim Corda. She was probably the one who transcribed Corda’s meager reports from the Portstav listening post.

  Repair crews rushed through the hallways of the submersible with each shrill sound of the alarm. Dozens of pipes had burst, spraying frigid water in fine mists. A number of the crew had been injured, bumps and bruises mostly, as the depth bombs took their progressive toll on the vessel. But they had made it. A near thing, judging by the constant congratulations offered to Captain Liso by her crew.

  Fifty minutes earlier the vessel had passed under a blockade, hastily arranged by the Southern Naval Alliance on the loosely agreed border that bisected the Endless Sea along the path of the devastation. Captain Liso had fetched Melni from the medical berth sometime later, as if she had come to escort a prisoner to execution. “Quite the storm you have started, Agent,” was all she’d said.

  “Did they clash? Are we being pursued?” Melni had asked.

  Liso had scowled. “No, they did not pursue. That should be obvious. But neither did they turn back. Right now they sit at the edge of range, waiting. A standoff, one they could easily win if they wish to press. You and your companion have brought us right to the cliff of war.”

  Melni had said nothing. Liso had brought her to the communications office, ordered her to sit and wait, and then stormed off.

  The room had no door or even a back wall, but the hall beyond had been cleared to give her privacy. Melni wore the bulky set of earphones all the same, and kept her voice low.

  Dials and meters covered the three walls around her, along with dozens of indicator lights and sheaves of laminated papers that hung from the ceiling on chains, swinging slightly with the waves outside t
he hull.

  “You are connected,” the engineer said. Then she backed away toward command, leaving Melni alone.

  Melni put the headset on and leaned over the microphone. “14772 here,” she said.

  “Go ahead, 14772. Speak quickly. The Council is meeting right now to discuss this…incident, and they need information.”

  Melni spoke slowly and clearly, relating everything that had happened from the moment she’d set foot inside Alia Valix’s den to the current situation aboard the submersible. Out of pure instinct she left out the details of what she’d seen inside Caswell’s vessel, partly because she didn’t fully understand it herself but mostly because she feared they would think she’d lost her mind or been drugged. Much of the story already sounded crazy; no need to add logs to that fire.

  The person she spoke with was the same woman who’d spoken so tersely to her when she’d made contact from Midstav. This time she listened without interruption. Melni thought she could hear a pencil scrawling across paper when she finished her story.

  The note taking went on for some time. Voice muffled, the woman said to someone, “Run this up to the Chamber. Tell them I sent you. Tell them whatever you have to, just get it into their hands.” Her voice became clear again. “14772, remain on the link while this is reviewed.”

  “Understood,” Melni replied. “May I ask a question?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Has there been any news of Valix? The way we left her…she may have drowned in there.”

  “Oh, there is news. You have poked the sleeping giant, Sonbo.”

  Melni grimaced, both at the news and the use of her real name. Her cover, gone, just like that. “What happened?”

  “What has not? Troops amassing along the Desolation. Warships streaming out of every Northern naval base. Word of a whole squadron of airships approaching the Cirdian wastes.”

  “But Valix—”

  “At first we received demands that her ‘kidnapped employee’ be returned immediately. She says this man with you is one of her top scientists, and their Triumvirate considers our snatching him an act of war.”