Zero World

by Jason M. Hough

  A map on the wall caught his eye. He walked to it and studied the familiar coastlines. The rivers, the mountains, all were basically the same. Only the borders differed, really. He’d given up trying to find a reason why this might be. How this place could exist at all. No answer to that would ever come. Just another piece in the impossible puzzle called existence.

  Sunlight spilled in a porthole as the boat turned. It felt warm on his cheek. Welcoming. He wished he had coffee. Or juice. Fuck, even a sip of water. Here he was, dreaming about a lifetime spent here when his dehydrated organs would give up in a week, or less. Focus on the mission, he told himself. That’s all you have left. That’s the rest of your life. Dream all you want, it’s not going to change that.

  “How similar is it? To your world, I mean.”

  Caswell glanced at Melni. She stretched, catlike, and sat up. The cushions had made her pixie hair stand up on one side. Caswell said, “Virtually identical. Well, it’s a lot more developed where I come from. Cities and sprawling farms everywhere, except for the places too hot to occupy or the protected lands.”

  “Too hot?”

  He returned to the bench and sat opposite her. “We caused it. Burnt too much oil and gas, didn’t heed the warnings. The whole planet warmed up. The coastlines raised, the weather got all…well, it changed. Unlike your Desolation, this happened over a hundred years rather than overnight. Long enough that people could debate the reality of it happening at all.”

  “What is it like now?”

  “Earth?” he grimaced. “Nasty. Wonderful. Depends on where you go, or who you ask, I guess. The population is still declining but it’s starting to bottom out. That century of neglect will take a century of sacrifice to fix. Maybe more.” He wanted to tell her of the asteroid mining, and the colony stations under construction. But Monique’s warnings kept his tongue in check.

  The captain of the ship entered through the outer door, propelled on a warm salt-tinged wind. He muttered that his passengers could eat if they wished, they’d paid enough for the privilege, and when Melni prodded he even offered the use of his bath.

  “Do you have any spare boots?” she asked.

  He did, but they didn’t fit well. Far too big. Caswell put them on anyway. Melni forked over more bills and thanked the captain.

  “We’ll reach the port at Marados in four hours,” the gruff man said, pocketing the extra money without apparent joy.

  “Our gratitude.”

  “Will you, ah, want to depart in harbor, or…before that?”

  Melni glanced at Caswell. He nodded. She looked back at the captain. “If you could put us onshore a mile south, I would be most grateful.”

  “One of my crew will run you out on the fisher.” The man swept strands of long, sweaty gray hair back behind his ears. He stole a curious glance at Caswell and slipped back out.

  “Can we trust him?” Caswell asked once the footsteps outside had receded.

  “We don’t really have a choice. But I think so.”

  Caswell nodded thoughtfully. “Where’s this Marados, and what’s it like?” he asked, craning his neck toward the map.

  Melni joined him there. She pointed to a port city on the Desolation’s southern frontier. “Marados thrives as a conduit to the west. The port is larger than Dimont’s, even Combra’s. It is also popular with those who supply the shadow market. Scavengers and smugglers. Is there a city here on Earth?”

  “Casablanca,” he said with nostalgia. He’d spent two weeks there, once, on one of his holidays, pretending to be a billionaire. That had been a hell of a party. He shook the memory away. “And after Marados?”

  “We’ll buy supplies and head north.”

  “Into the Desolation?”

  “Into the Desolation.”

  THEY HIKED the last mile to the city, following the sandy shore until reaching the first signs of civilization. Melni led him inland then, just a few hundred yards, to avoid the fishers and tanners that crowded the beaches on either side of the port.

  Farmland surrounded Marados. The homes were small, the color of dust, built in circular clusters with lush and carefully maintained gardens in the center. The more affluent circles had fountains. Colorful flowers of blue, yellow, and white grew from intricately dyed pots that hung from nearly every eave. Chimes tinkled in the soft wind, the sound intermingled with the laughter of scrawny, half-naked children.

  “It’s beautiful here,” Caswell said.

  “We haven’t reached the port yet. You may change your mind.”

  Twenty minutes later, walking between crates and stepping over the thick mooring ropes, she thought he had.

  The port reeked of rotten fish and failing sewers. Gulls wheeled above, thick as Renewal flies, and brawled on the docks over scraps of old bread and the remnants of dead vermin. Workers swarmed the cargo ships, attaching lift cables that dangled from giant cranes to the huge, cube-shaped iron containers brought in from across the sea.

  A sprawling roller yard loomed just beyond, plumes of steam rising from the aging vehicles. Looking at them now, with their narrow tracks and clattering wheels, Melni felt a sudden embarrassment for her side of the world. The rollers used in the North were faster and provided a much smoother ride. Superior in virtually every way. This difference could not be written off as another Valix-driven improvement, unlike so many other things. No, the North simply arrived at a better solution.

  “Gartien must seem so primitive to you,” she said to Caswell. “At least this half.”

  He grunted a laugh. “It’s romantic, really. Reminds me of a simpler time, one I only know from stories. Earth is more advanced, yes. More automated, more controlled. It was supposed to be simpler, easier, but coming here makes me realize the opposite is what’s really happened.”

  She led him to Gylina Square, the famous market. Hundreds of colorful tents were lined up in something like rows. It seemed as if the entire population of Marados milled about. The vast array of fresh crops and powdered spices on display overpowered whatever lingering odors still remained from the port just one hundred feet west of the edge of the square.

  Melni bought herself food, plus a surplus army hat and coat for each of them. A few stalls later she found a beat-up old camera, and haggled for it as well. With it she could capture evidence of Valix’s true origin, should they find it.

  “I know we’re in a hurry, but some boots that actually fit would be nice, too,” Caswell said.

  A toothless old vendor sold them a secondhand pair of beige desert treadmellows that covered the ankles. The toes were both patched but the tread looked almost new. Caswell ran a hand over the stitch work and nodded, impressed.

  She ate a simple meal of spicy dried meat mixed into rice and some fresh veilfruit. Caswell, she noticed, kept his gaze carefully away from the food. She could only imagine how hungry and thirsty he must be. And the only food he could eat or drink lay in some store-room inside Riverswidth, permanently out of reach now. They would have to start testing his stomach, she decided. There had to be something here he could eat; it was just a matter of finding it. Clearly Alia Valix had solved that problem. Mentally she began to prepare a list.

  They moved away from the bustling market, walking northeast through narrow, winding streets. Wet clothing hung on lines strung between windows above. Birds and monkeys chattered in the heat of the morning. Somewhere nearby, musicians played a lively ceremonial joining tune with soaring lyrics against a deep rhythmic drumbeat. A crowd cheered along. She could almost see their smiling faces, and those of the pair being joined, and she found she wanted to see them. She wanted to show Caswell.

  Lost in thought, Melni almost tripped when Caswell suddenly yanked her by the elbow into a narrow, shadowed alley. She recovered and started to ask, but he had his hand flat across his mouth, urging silence.

  With great care Caswell leaned back out into the crowded street and took a quick glance back the way they’d come.

  “What is it?” Melni asked, whi
spering, when he’d finished.

  “Footsteps behind us.”

  “There are dozens of people walking this lane.”

  He nodded. “Yes, but only one who has been with us since we left the market. A patient thief, perhaps, but it makes no difference. They’re gone now. I suggest we move quickly.”

  Melni, mind full of images of black-clad shadows tailing them, readily agreed. On the edge of town she spent the last of her stolen money on two thumpers. The two-wheeled motorized cycles were as old as everything else in Marados, but the pressure tanks were solid and the little air-piston engines both rattled to life without much complaint.

  “Do they care we’re going into the Desolation?” Caswell asked as he lifted one leg over the saddle and began to examine the simple controls before him.

  “Not here.” She glanced northeast and waited for his gaze to follow. “Up there they might, along the frontier. Scavengers make the journey all the time. There are still plenty of relics to be found in the dead cities and villages. Their papers get checked when they come back, but we will worry about that when the time comes.” She left her fears of a blockade unvoiced. They’d see it well in advance and turn back, perhaps go by ship even though it would make them too late to do anything before the summit. “We shall have to hurry,” she added. “The summit is three days from now. We will barely make it and that assumes no delays.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Do you know how to control that?” she asked, a nod toward his thumper.

  “We’ve got something similar back home, though purely just for sport. Show me the basics and I think I’ll have the hang of it soon enough.”

  She ran him through the controls: gears, brake, accelerator, tiller. He proved a quick study and by fifth hour she found herself racing him up the Great Alvass Road, the grin on her face exceeded only by his.

  Then the pourstone pavement ended. Plumes of sand and dust kicked up by the thumper’s knobby tires filled the air. Melni took air through a thin scarf wrapped across her mouth and nose. The goggles she wore over her eyes were like magnets for the grit in the air, but a simple swipe with her jacket sleeve cleared them well enough.

  Caswell let her take the lead when the frontier post appeared on the horizon. The cluster of low buildings were dark, though, and other than a single guard atop the high watchtower on a nearby hill, she saw no one. Into the Desolation, as easily as if they’d crossed a farm. The lack of border guards, something she’d hoped for over the last fifty miles, concerned her greatly the moment they rode through. It wasn’t right, given everything going on. Northern forces could roll through here without firing a shot.

  Ten miles later the road veered sharply left and followed the rim of a crater. The depression spanned hundreds of feet across and fifty deep. The soil around it crunched like broken glass under the thumper’s tires. Melni took Caswell up to the rim. Below, a small pond of brackish water filled the basin, surrounded by wisps of pale weedgrass six feet high.

  “Are they all like this?” the assassin asked.

  Melni stared into the ugly hole for a moment. “This is a small one. Come, let us keep moving.”

  The road wound its way up the coastline. At Nakala, Caswell skidded to a stop on a bluff overlooking that ancient city and simply stared, mouth agape, at the devastation below. Half the gigantic city had been obliterated by one of the larger rocks that had fallen. The crater spanned almost a mile across, its rim lined with half-destroyed buildings overrun by spider vines and other invasive weeds. Huge piles of sand, blown in from the desert and fifteen feet deep in places, pooled around the bases of every structure’s eastern edge. Opposite, facing the ocean, the surfaces were marred with patchwork patterns of black mold. The whole place seemed to shimmer with the populations that had replaced humankind: swarms of sandflies, whole flocks of gulls, and roaming packs of feral canis.

  “Have you ever seen anything so terrible?” she asked Caswell.

  Fingers twitching on the handles of his cycle, he replied without breaking away from the view. “There are weapons on Earth that can do this, but I’ve never…they haven’t been used in a long time.”

  “Weapons? So powerful?”

  He turned to her and nodded gravely. At her aghast expression he sighed. “I know. It’s a wonder Earth isn’t a molten ball of slag.”

  Caswell went back to studying the annihilated landscape below them. Melni found herself staring at him. Did he realize what he represented? That even a basic description of how such weapons worked could shift advantage to the South? At least provide an equalizer to hold the stalemate, perhaps indefinitely? Yes, she realized. He did know. She finally understood why he refused to tell her things, and why he saw Valix’s influence here as so dangerous.

  “You said such weapons have not been used in a long time. When were they used? Why?”

  “To end a war,” he said, voice flat. “Two cities, not unlike this one, destroyed to force one side to surrender.”

  “And it worked?”

  He nodded.

  A chill ran through her. The thought of Alia Valix unveiling such a weapon at the summit. Threatening to wipe the South out entirely if they did not bow to the North’s supremacy. Perhaps she, too, would use one as an example. Fired from the water or dropped from one of those massive airships. Whatever information Caswell could provide would be rendered trivial if there were no South to benefit.

  Of course, the easier option was to remove Caswell himself. Find out where he is and make that place the example. The individual threat, a whole city, and the determination of an entire hemisphere, all obliterated in one single act. If Valix did nothing else, the entire history of Gartien would be forever, irrevocably, altered.

  “Valix,” Melni asked carefully, “knows how to build such a weapon?”

  Caswell nodded. “And others. Worse, much worse, than this. Relax, okay? It would still take an enormous effort, and I see no pressing threat here that would make her open that particular box of horrors.”

  “Nothing here, no. But what about from your world?”

  He thought about this for a long time. “That I had not considered.”

  “I mean, you are just one man. What if they send an army next time?”

  Caswell kicked at a loose rock, lost in thought. He glanced habitually at his wrist and, seeing no bracelet there, balled his fists in frustration.

  “They took your jewelry,” Melni said, with a pang of guilt. “Regret.”

  “It’s all right. Just…sentimental value. Let’s keep moving.”

  Caswell insisted on riding well past the dead city before they stopped to refill the air vessels. She showed him how to set up the collapsible turbine on a windy gravel beach, then convinced him to try a bite of spicy pie filled with minced nuts and red bean paste. He swallowed one bite and then, a minute later, face green, walked off to expunge it. While she ate, the little turbine blades spun overhead in the strong breeze. Even with that energy, she and Caswell still took turns cranking the manual pressurizer to feed more air into the cycles’ canisters. It took nearly an hour, and by the end they were both tired, sweaty, and eager to be moving.

  “Day becomes night by the minute,” Melni said. “I would like to be at the coast before dark.”

  He nodded, pulling his dust-coated goggles on. “I’ve been wanting to ask about that. How do we cross?”

  “Another boat,” she said, hoping the code still held that scavengers kept communal watercraft in sailing condition as a courtesy to one another.

  —

  “Who are they?”

  He lay next to her on a boulder wedged in a cleft between two hills. Above the sky blazed with the twinkling eyes of a thousand stars, capped on either end by the waning moons of tiny Gisla and her lover, Gilan.

  Ahead, on a smooth, narrow beach pestered by frothy waves that crashed like muffled thunder, a woman and a man worked together to heave a large mesh bag over the side of a tiny sailboat. They wore shabby clothing beneath impr
essive gear: knives on each hip, hunting rifles slung across their backs, goggles to keep the sand and dust out of their eyes.

  When Melni spoke she tried to sound relaxed. “I do not think they are dangerous. We call them Grim Runners. Desolation scavengers. Sometimes they smuggle between South and North.”

  “All the way to the other frontier?”

  “Not so far. There are rolltowns in places, well hidden.”

  “Rolltowns?”

  “Like…a place to unroll your bed and sleep, nothing more.”

  “We call it a campsite.”

  She thought about that and nodded. “Grims from both sides meet and trade what they can, barter for maps and food. I wrote a report about them, years ago, when a miniature war flared between their factions and our agents needed to avoid such places. Those tensions later eased.” Melni glanced up and down the beach. “I do not see any other boats. There are usually three, maybe more.”

  “What do we do? Steal it?”

  Melni placed a hand on his arm, a sudden fear in her that he might march up the beach and slay the couple before she could shout to stop him. “Be calm. The boats are shared. We wait for them to leave, then we take it across. Nine miles to the other side.” It had been a clear day and she could see the rocky hills of Cirdia across the water.

  “Suppose they don’t leave. It’s late; they might camp here.”

  “Then we risk approaching. I’d prefer no one see us here but we cannot delay much.”

  He picked at some pebbles on the boulder in front of them, tossing them down into the sand below. “Maybe we should approach now. This waiting is—”

  “You are right,” Melni said. “Look.”

  The pair had moved the bag up the beach about fifty feet and buried it under sand. That task complete, they’d returned to the boat and now worked to turn it around. “They are going back across,” Melni said, already up to her knees.