Zero World

by Jason M. Hough

  He stood with his toes at the waterline and readied a headfirst dive.

  Melni pulled the stick from the water. It snagged on something. “Hold on,” she said, a heartbeat before Caswell leapt.

  He watched as she heaved on the stick. It had snagged on something. A few centimeters finally lifted out, along with a length of razor wire.

  Caswell eased back and let out a long breath as a line of the barbed material broke the surface, a few meters in each direction. He envisioned ribbons of the stuff, entwined and snaking their way all around the base of the structure. “That would not have been a pleasant swim.”

  “Boost me up,” she whispered, dropping the stick. “I will cross the roof and look down from there.”

  He cupped his hands and hoisted her to the awning, then busied himself with his clothes.

  Dressed, he stood back a ways to watch her cross the roof. The tiles were coated with slick green moss. She crept to the far end slowly, avoiding portions of the surface that dipped downward. At the back, she lay down and peered over the edge. Then she turned and crawled back. She motioned for him to approach.

  Caswell moved to the wall and looked up. “What did you see?”

  “An old boat, tied up. I cannot see what condition it is in. There is another door, and some toolboxes.”

  “The door. Locked?”

  She shrugged. “Yes, but there is a window. Boarded, but not visible from the front at least.”

  “Okay. Okay. How sturdy is that roof?”

  “It will hold us,” she said.

  Caswell pressed himself against the wall and reached up for her offered hand. He stopped short of clasping it, and paused.

  “What is wrong?”

  Through his hand pressed against the wall he felt a constant, low vibration. He looked up at her. “A vibration,” he said. “Coming from within.”

  “Perhaps just the flow of water against the supports?”

  He thought about it. Held his hand firm for a while. The faint movement was absolutely constant. “Maybe.” His gut told him her theory was wrong. This felt electric. He decided to keep the theory to himself until he could be absolutely sure. “Let’s try that window in back.” At least there it would not be immediately obvious someone had entered.

  Caswell took a running leap and clasped her outstretched hand. It made a lot of noise, but he saw no alternative. She hauled him up and led him to the edge of the roof.

  “Avoid those depressions,” she said, pointing at the sinking portions.

  He kept a modest distance and followed her steps. At the edge she lowered herself over the side and dropped onto the narrow edge of the dock below. The wood planks creaked under her weight. She moved in and watched as Caswell repeated her motion.

  An old fishing boat bobbed in the calm black water of the slip, covered by gray canvas. The ropes that held it in place were black with mold. To either side of the moored craft were various stacks of toolboxes, air cylinders, and spare lengths of rope. Mold, dust, or a disgusting mixture of the two coated everything. The whole place reeked of mildew. He glanced at the door, which was chained in the same fashion as out front.

  “Search these boxes for something we can use,” he said. Melni took one side while he rummaged through the other.

  In the third tool chest he found a pry bar and set to work on the lone boarded window. The nails holding the wood in place were rusted through and, with only a mild groan, came free easily. In less than a minute he had the sill clear. He paused only to glance at Melni. At her nod he hauled himself up and in.

  —

  Darkness swallowed him. Even with the thin light spilling in from the now-empty window frame, he had to wait for his eyes to adjust.

  Melni plopped down next to him and started to move farther in. He wrapped a hand around her forearm.

  “Let your eyes adjust,” he whispered.

  “Why are you whispering?” she asked, her voice as low as his.

  “Just in case.” He could feel the vibration through the floor now.

  Melni finally noticed it, too. She glanced down at her feet. “What is that? A bilge pump?”

  “It’s warm in here,” Caswell noted. “Maybe a power generator.”

  A trickle of sweat ran down his spine. He inhaled deeply. Moist air rank with decay.

  “There does not seem to be anything toxic,” Melni said.

  Caswell grunted his agreement. His eyes began to register details. Furniture covered with sheets once white, now coated in thick dust and those strange orange spiderwebs. Wooden floorboards creaked beneath his feet. He took a path that led around the edges of the room and looked for a closet or chest. Anything that Alice might have left belongings in. Maybe her spacesuit, or empty meal packets. Something.

  Melni, able to see now, went to the center, picking her path with great care. The floorboards squeaked at first, then groaned with each step she took.

  “Stop,” he said.

  Melni stopped, her eyes on him.

  Something wasn’t right. Caswell focused on the floor.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “The sound of the floorboards changed.”

  Melni glanced down. Then she closed her eyes and focused. She took two careful steps back. Groan, groan, squeak.

  He came to her. His last two steps also produced groans.

  A low table separated them, covered in a dusty sheet. Caswell tore the fabric aside and coughed as a cloud of dust and grit filled the air. Melni waved at it uselessly, gave up, and went to her knees to inspect the floorboards. He joined her, and together they poked and prodded the surface.

  One chunk moved when Caswell’s fingers gripped it.

  “Here,” he said. He lifted the broken section of wood away. Gray metal gleamed just below, unmarred by dust. A ring the size of a bracelet lay flat on it, attached to a small hinge.

  Caswell slipped his fingers through the ring, raised it, and lifted. “Move back,” he said. After she did so he tried again and this time a square section of floor one meter on a side came free.

  Beneath was a circular hatch of gray metal with a circular window in the middle. Familiar words were printed at four marks around the edge, in block lettering:

  LATCH

  PREP (BLEED PRESSURE BEFORE OPENING)

  TEST

  UNLATCH

  Caswell allowed himself a grin. “Venturi Lander One.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “The proof we need, Melni. A vessel just like mine, the one she came here in.” How Alice had managed to get it under the building he could only imagine. The most likely explanation is that she built the place atop it, after landing here. A lot of work for one woman, he thought, and then remembered the two graves just up the trail. Maybe she’d enlisted help, or forced it, and then did away with them.

  A hungry growl from his stomach banished that moment of revulsion. There might still be food in the stores. Alice Vale must have figured out a way to eat and drink here, otherwise she’d be long dead, but whether or not she’d solved that particular problem before running out of the supplies she’d stowed remained to be seen. He didn’t hold much hope, but even that glimmer filled his mouth with greedy saliva.

  He pulled out the recessed handle and twisted it from LATCH toward PREP, grunting with the effort, his mouth pinched in a snarl, teeth clamped together. The handle lurched and clicked into position. Breath held, Caswell waited. Inside the porthole window a single red light began to blink. He hissed breath through clenched teeth as more and more lights began to wink on inside. The damn thing still had power. It was causing the vibration. But why? Why hadn’t Alice shut everything down?

  Finally the circle of the porthole window glowed with a green ring of light. All clear. Caswell twisted the handle, with a bit less strain this time, to the UNLATCH marker. He eased Melni back with one arm and then yanked the whole thing up and away. There came a hiss of cool, stale air. Not pure like the air from his vessel, though. This air reeked
of sweat and something foul. Spoiled food, he thought. Maybe even disease. Curious.

  Melni suddenly backed away, repulsed by the odor. She looked at him with obvious worry. “It smells like death,” she said.

  Caswell tried to give her a reassuring smile. She had it right, but his mind still lingered on the possibility of edible food. Rancid, spoiled, or otherwise. “Let me go first.”

  She nodded emphatically, then watched in silence as Caswell lowered his feet inside and then, with only the slightest whisper of fabric against metal, slid his body down.

  “Is it safe?” she asked from above.

  “I think the air processors are failing, but it seems to be okay,” he called back to her.

  “Seems? It reeks like skinrot, Caswell.”

  “Let me open the inner door before you come in. Let some fresh air in.”

  She covered her mouth and nose with one hand and nodded to him, dubious.

  The inner door opened without complaint. Another rush of disgusting air, even stronger here, flowed into the boathouse. After twenty seconds he took a tentative whiff. Still awful, but at least bearable now. “All clear,” he called up.

  Swallowing, searching his eyes for reassurance, Melni sat at the edge of the trapdoor and slid her body down into Alice Vale’s spacecraft.

  CASWELL WENT STRAIGHT to a cabinet door on the back wall and flung it aside. Dust fell in great clumps and spread into the rancid air. With desperate madness he began to paw through the contents, examining silvery packets and flinging them aside with growing frustration.

  Finally he found one that met his criteria. He twisted off its cap, tilted it above his mouth, and sucked the contents down in four gigantic swallows.

  “Slow down,” Melni said. “You will just vomit it up if you eat that fast.”

  He nodded without looking at her, ashamed at his lack of self-control. Then a violent shiver ran through his body. He quickly inhaled the second packet. Then a third.

  Melni left him to his desperate feast and took in the cramped cabin of the spacecraft. It resembled the one she had visited in Hillstav down to the last detail, but nothing gleamed. It was like viewing a beautiful work of art and then seeing it again, faded by time, half-hidden under grime and dust. Her treadmellows left imprints on the floor. Melni knelt and trailed a finger along the surface, watching the brownish material return to white. Her fingertip brushed across a groove. She traced it, revealing another porthole like the one above. Aboard Caswell’s craft she had glimpsed the same feature through the gap in her blindfold. “Why,” she asked, “do these vessels have a door on the floor as well as the ceiling?”

  Caswell had to swallow a mouthful of food before answering. “The bottom one has no airlock. It’s used only to connect the vehicle to other modules.”

  “What kind of modules?”

  He shrugged. “You name it: habitats, labs, engines, other landers. Link enough together and you’ve got a city in space.”

  “I see.”

  Her fingertip squeaked across a round window inset into the porthole. Melni froze. She’d expected to see mud below, as she had in Caswell’s craft, or perhaps swaying plants in the depths of the river. Instead she saw what appeared to be a wall of dark blue material a few feet away, broken only by a glowing green line inlaid perfectly into its surface. “What is this one connected to?”

  “Nothing.” He turned, a water container in his fist, squeezing the last few drops into his mouth through a blue straw. “It was connected to a ship called the Venturi, until Alice fled in it.”

  “Well, there is something down there.”

  A vertical worry line creased his forehead. He knelt beside her and wiped grime from the glass with one swift swipe of his forearm.

  She pressed her face to the glass next to his.

  “What the fuck?” he gasped.

  Another room waited. Something separate from the lander. The dark blue of the wall curved gracefully at its edges to meet a floor and ceiling. Dimly glowing green lines ran along the surfaces in elegant patterns of no discernible purpose, though Melni sensed they were not simply decorative.

  In places, holes six inches in diameter receded into darkness within the wall. They were spaced at regular intervals, as far as Melni could see, anyway, and displayed the same curved joining where they met the flat wall, as if the surface were clay and the holes had been simply pressed inward.

  “What the hell is it?” Caswell asked.

  “That you must ask me makes me very worried.”

  He grunted, a bitter laugh of agreement. “Well, let’s have a look.”

  “Just like that? A strange dark room. Just go on in?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  She marveled at him. “Driven by instinct, as ever.”

  “You’d prefer we sit here and make a detailed plan?”

  Melni dropped her head, shook it. “You could at least see if there is air inside. What if we open this and drown ourselves?”

  “Hmm. Fair point. All right.” He flipped open a panel beside the airlock door and tapped at a flat, recessed screen. Annotated graphs bloomed to life, varying in color but mostly green, which seemed to be the standard color for a positive indicator.

  “There, you see? Breathable air.”

  “Are you always so lucky?”

  He grinned at her. “As far as I can recall.” Still smiling, Caswell twisted the handle and opened the lower airlock door. Through some unspoken agreement he slid first into the cavity below.

  He stood almost perfectly still in the strange dark blue room for several seconds, his mouth agape in naked astonishment. Slowly he raised one hand to cover his open mouth.

  “What is it?” Melni asked.

  “Come down,” he said, “and see for yourself.” Then he stepped out of her view.

  Melni slid in after him, landing neatly on the floor and rising to a half crouch, ready for anything.

  Or so she thought. Her own jaw went slack at what lay before her, and without intending to do so, Melni soon stood as Caswell had, one hand over her own gaping, astonished mouth, her gaze utterly locked on the thing her companion now stood beside.

  Focus, a voice in her head urged before the sight overwhelmed her. Analyze. Study.

  With a conscious effort Melni clamped her jaw shut and lowered her hand. She strode forward. Three tentative steps ahead and to the side opposite Caswell.

  Between them was a bed, or something like one. The surface was made of translucent bulbous shapes of amber, linked by flat, conjoined edges as if they’d started small and grown until connecting. The bed was not flat, but formed exactly to support the body of a very tall, very thin person who lay upon it. Man or woman she could not tell. It seemed somewhere between the two. A he, she decided, for the sake of a mental handhold.

  His skin was bone white and smooth, veins visible under the surface. He looked impossibly thin, and not in a natural way. There seemed to be no muscle under the sagging skin, as if he were being consumed from the inside. Melni shivered.

  He had long silvery hair that looked soft as spider silk. It lay in a cloud atop the amber bulbous cushions. His eyes were closed, the lids slightly blue—the only color on his face. His lips were as pale as his skin. His nose, long and finely etched, had an almost inhuman perfection to it.

  Gradually Melni took in the rest of the body. Arms and legs as thin as a malnourished child’s. The chest was hairless and lacked nipples. A belly button did mar the otherwise smooth stomach.

  A cloth of fine white fabric had been wrapped around his pelvis and thighs. Long fingers and toes sprouted from the hands and feet, the nails perfectly matched to the tips as if meticulously trimmed.

  Caswell reached out. Melni hissed a warning at him, shook her head, but he did not stop. Acting on instinct, yet again.

  Two inches from the man’s arm, a sharp crack broke the silence. Electricity rippled away from Caswell’s finger, drawing fine little blue-white dots in a ripple pattern across an invisible surf
ace. Caswell jerked back, his mouth twisted in pain. He shook his hand vigorously and blew on the fingertip.

  “Are you insane?” Melni asked.

  Caswell glanced at her apologetically. “I just wanted to see—”

  “Think before you act, just this once, will you?”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Who are you?” a third voice said.

  Melni glanced down to the source of those brittle, barely audible words. She felt sure he’d spoken, but the face of the man on the table had not changed. The eyes were still closed, the hairless skin still pallid, the lips…

  One lip twitched. Then they parted and the tip of a pale tongue emerged and slid across them. His eyes fluttered beneath closed lids and, as if in reaction, a semitransparent tube emerged from between two of the bulbous amber cushions. The tube glided upward and curved around to touch the man’s parched lips. With a motion of pure economy he moved just enough to draw clear fluid into his mouth. Then his head sank back and he became still once more. The tube retracted without a sound.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” Caswell said.

  “Are you sick?” Melni asked at the same instant.

  “Very,” the man croaked. Again the eyes moved beneath the lids. The tube extruded itself around from the bed, and he sipped once more. The fluid had an orange color to it this time.

  “What can we do?” she asked. It was, she realized, the most ludicrous question she had ever asked. “Medicine, or…”

  “No.”

  Caswell spoke, force in his words that seemed incongruous to the frail figure on the bed. “Who are you? What is this place?”

  The pale blue eyelids drew back. The irises below were like liquid gold flecked with rust. They drifted from Caswell to the ceiling and all at once the room changed. Blue walls and ceiling turned white. The floor became a dull, dark maroon. The glowing green lines that snaked along the walls graduated to a bright yellowish white, ramping in brightness until the whole space flooded with a sunlight hue and noticeable warmth.