"Tell me about the different buildings. What goes on in each of them?"
"Each building represents something that we need. For example, the one over there houses all the agricultural machine operators and food processing plants. Each morning, the workers are sent into the fields and factories to produce the food that the city eats. That one over there produces energy from waste." Looking more closely, I could see the tower was in fact a giant chimney. I assumed the rest of the power plant was underground.
"Why is so much of the city beneath the surface?"
The Ice Queen seemed to pause for a moment. "Space," she said simply.
"Space? From what I've been told, this is the only city on the entire planet." My curiosity won out over my sense of self-preservation. I felt I was onto something and I wasn't going to let it go.
The Ice Queen's face seemed to melt a little, her displeasure apparent from her expression. "The rest of the planet is uninhabitable. Soil erosion and degradation have spread across the planet, making it a wasteland where nothing grows. Our scientists are working on trying to find the cause." She gazed at me. "Do not go into the Forbidden Zone without permission. It is not a place for curious off-worlders."
Which of course, just made me all the more curious. Not only did I want to find the cause, I wondered if it might help with Earth's soil depletion problem as well. It was something I'd come to Valeria to learn about. I made a mental note to see if I could get on the lab team. Not that the Ice Queen would let me, if she had any say in the matter.
The car pulled up in front of the Science Building and the doors opened automatically. The Ice Queen sat perfectly still. I knew when I wasn't wanted, and climbed out of the car. The doors closed again, leaving me standing on the sidewalk as the car pulled away. For a trip that was supposed to have taken all day, it had been perhaps a couple of hours. I knew I had landed myself in hot water by asking too many questions, but what could I do? Did they honestly expect an off-worlder not to be curious about the way things worked? The Valerians obviously didn't condone curiosity the way we did on Earth.
*~*~*
The Ice Queen had obviously dumped me without making plans, because the Sisters still logged me as out on the tour when I checked. It didn't take the A.I. long to notice that I was back, though, and the Sisters commanded me to report for lab duty at once. I made my way towards the labs, wondering what I was supposed to be doing. The Ice Queen hadn't assigned me to a team, and I hoped I wasn't going to spend another day as a passive observer of the kind of menial science the building was obviously putting on for a show.
I was quite surprised to find Nineteen Twenty-One waiting for me in the hallway. He was all business, punching in his code and wordlessly beckoning me to follow him through the door. We walked into the lab. I passed dozens of drones working on simple tasks that a high-schooler could have completed. Valeria certainly wasn't showing me its greatest minds at work. But why invite me if they were only going to lie to me? They had promised advanced research, infinite chances for learning, and instead here I was, following a man through the kind of science projects one might see at a school science fair. I was just waiting for somebody to pull out a potato battery and show it to me. If they had, I might well have marched back to my ship. I was starting to become tired of the lies and big secrets, and it was only the second day.
Twenty-One swiped a keycard and punched in a code at the far end of the room. Another door opened. I walked into a much darker room, and the door slid shut behind me. I was still aware of the omnipresent cameras watching me with their beady eyes, and realized that while it might seem like I was alone with Twenty-One, I was not. I would have to choose my words carefully, for my sake and for his.
"You have been chosen to receive additional clearance," Twenty-One said. "One has decided that you should work on the Forbidden Zone project with me. You are familiar with soil depletion, yes?"
"Yes," I said, trying to get over my surprise. So the Ice Queen had a designation, too. One. That had to mean she was in charge, at least in this building. I was starting to wonder if there was a government in the traditional sense. Perhaps each building was ruled by a small group of people who decided which tasks were most important. I was even more surprised that she had chosen to give me clearance. After her displeasure in the car, I was certain I'd only gotten myself on her bad side, not earned her trust.
"Not many people know about the Forbidden Zone," Twenty-One said. "You are one of a select few. The others believe that our ancestors destroyed the world in a great war. There's less fear when people believe they are in charge of their destiny. If they knew the Zone was spreading, there would be panic."
I nodded. I understood. Food shortages on parts of Earth not accustomed to going hungry had led to riots.
"There isn't much space left to lose," Twenty-One said. "The fields and the city are all we have left. If the Zone spreads any further, our vital food supply will be threatened. That's why our population, birth rate, diet and tasks are very tightly controlled."
"How long have you been working on this project?" I asked.
Twenty-One bowed his head in a manner that was far more expressive than any I'd seen from any of the other Valerians. "My entire life."
"Your whole life?" I think my eyes widened substantially at that. "How old are you?"
He seemed to think for a while. "28994940505673 ticks. That would be something like twenty-eight Earth years, I think. I graduated from the Education Building when I was about five Earth years old."
"Five?" My eyes grew even wider.
"Is that unusual on your planet?" Twenty-One seemed to blush again, those green flecks standing out from his blue-green skin.
"Eighteen years is standard for our education cycle, but further education can take even longer. I spent thirty years in education alone."
It was Twenty-One's turn to look surprised, but then he shrugged. "Humans live to be over a hundred of your years, though, don't they? Our lifespans are short. I can expect to live to be perhaps thirty to thirty-five of your years."
His matter-of-fact words struck me in the chest like a bolt of lightning. Thirty to thirty-five years! He was already twenty-eight. He was an old man in his culture, and his life's work was no closer to its end than it had been when he started.
"Don't be alarmed." His voice was calm and gentle, like the ocean breeze, and that just seemed to make it worse for me.
"How can you be so calm?"
"It's a fact of life, Nineteen-Nineteen. In fact, the one who once used your room expired last year. He was the same age as me."
It was at that moment that some things about Valeria really made sense. Its lack of sentimentality and romance. A lack of old people. A lack of time spent rearing its young. Its strictly controlled society. These weren't just signs of a culture on the verge of collapse, but of people who were personally running out of time as well. Short lives left little time for reflection. Any Valerian who wanted to change the world had to dedicate his whole life to that cause, or his hopes and dreams would expire along with him. It also explained the group mentality. As one generation died, others could carry on the work. But it also brought up a huge question, one that I trusted Twenty-One enough to ask.
"If time is so short, why are those Valerians out there working on ridiculously easy projects?"
Twenty-One actually laughed. It was such an alien sound that I wasn't even sure that's what it was, but it was such a beautiful sound that it reminded me of mirth and joy in a way that told me it had to be laughter. I don't think I ever heard another Valerian laugh. Just him. So many things about him were special and unique. I think that's what led me to trust him. We were both outsiders in this world.
"They are playing," Twenty-One said. "Some of us aren't really intelligent enough to carry out more than just mundane tasks, so we let them. If they weren't kept busy, they would be in our way, and sometimes they do come up with some fantastic things." He looked through the one-way window at them, as if they were children, before turning back to me. "Anyway, we've wasted enough time. Tomorrow, I have to go into the Forbidden Zone to collect some samples, and I've obtained permission for you to come with me. You'll see for yourself the extent of the devastation, and maybe I can see if you have any ideas."
"What have samples so far shown?" I asked.
"No life," Twenty-One said. "None at all. Not even bacteria. It's like something's just sucking the life out of this world. It's completely baffling. Nothing will grow if planted, and efforts to enrich the soil have failed. It's like a black hole for living organisms. Nothing can thrive there."
"Nothing?" I was baffled. Now don't get me wrong, we have soil degradation problems on Earth as well, but no patch of ground is sterile. "That's unlikely."
"It's true." He waved his hand and a computer window opened before him. Widening his hands, he zoomed in on the soil sample. "Sisters, analyze this sample."
"Sample is sterile. No lifeforms indicated."
"Perhaps the sample was accidentally decontaminated," I said, searching for reasons, grasping at theories. Perhaps I was scared. The death of a world is a frightening thing when you really look at it. To see this soil sample so completely devoid of life made me think of home, the crops failing in Iowa due to the weak soil. Enrichment programs only went so far, and they took time. Time the starving didn't have. I feared finding a sample like this one on Earth, someday. It was unlikely that soil where even the bacteria had died could ever be revived. Twenty-One must have known that.
"It was not. This is the fifth sample I have taken this year. All have been the same. The dead zone continues to grow, for no reason I can fathom." He hung his head and I could feel his disappointment, his exhaustion, his fear that time was running out, both for him and for Valeria. "I need your help, Nineteen-Nineteen."
In that intimate moment, when he had relaxed and let me see inside himself, I had forgotten about the cameras. It was just us in that room, his eyes wide, his hands on the clear glass table as he pleaded for my help. It was too personal to refer to each other by numbers.
"My name is Julian. Julian Tamaris."
It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. I'm not even sure Twenty-One was breathing. He stood as still as a statue for many seconds, until I was worried I'd initiated some kind of shock in him. I heard the camera move and remembered with a sinking feeling that we were not alone. The men behind the camera knew that I had just trusted Twenty-One with my name. I had to keep my best poker face in place as I processed my sudden terror and tried to come up with a qualifying statement, something to throw the observers off the thought that there was more between us than there was.
"As I told you, we give our names freely on Earth. I thought you deserved to know mine, as we will be working together from now on. I understand you cannot reciprocate, and that's fine, Nineteen Twenty-One."
I looked back at his face and almost lost my composure when I saw the tears in his eyes. At the time, I thought he was afraid that I had said too much. It never occurred to me that my name was the first one he had ever been allowed to know.
My pod opened as the same old music greeted a new day. I pulled myself up and into the shower as the Sisters reiterated my schedule for the day. Breakfast was up first, then I would be taking a private bus into the Forbidden Zone with Twenty-One. We would return in the evening and before bed, store the samples for analysis the day after.
I'd dreamt of the Forbidden Zone as I slept. I was walking through the barren, blackened wasteland with Twenty-One at my side. A thousand electronic eyes opened in the ground, watching our every move as we walked. We dared not walk too close in case the eyes saw our friendship, yet I didn't want to let him out of my sight. I felt a sense of danger as we walked, as if the world itself wanted us dead, as if whatever was sucking the life out of the world might take Twenty-One as well.
I pondered the dream as I made my way down to the cafeteria. I could pick Twenty-One out in the elevator, his bluer skin visible against the mostly green faces. He didn't turn to look at me, but I knew he shouldn't. We would have plenty of time together out in the Forbidden Zone. Perhaps, if the area wasn't under heavy surveillance, we might actually be able to have a personal conversation without the fear of being watched. I wanted to talk to Twenty-One, to get to know him better. I knew an attachment was forming, yet at the time, I had no idea it was anything beyond simple friendship. I wondered if the feeling was mutual, or whether I was just latching onto him out of my own sense of loneliness.
I sat alone and listened to the chit-chat of others as I ate my protein bars. I had expected conversations about science, but I soon realized the talk was nothing but babble. Compliments on appearances, when most of the people looked shockingly similar. Discussions on the taste of the protein bars, which had tasted the same since the beginning of my stay and probably always had. Up or down votes on the music blaring from the speakers, tunes I must have heard repeat themselves on a loop fifteen times or more already. I didn't understand it. The Valerians conducted themselves with the intellect of children, with none of the imagination. This, from a planet known for its massive scientific advances. These were the people who had discovered most of the rules we now accept as true about space travel. These were the beings described by the Age of Discovery explorers as having "...an intellect far surpassing ours... a genius that could shape the universe."
I thought back to Twenty-One's words. "Some of us... aren't really intelligent enough to carry out more than just mundane tasks." I thought that perhaps I was just picking the wrong conversations, so I stood up and wandered around the room, but the conversations were the same no matter where I went. Twenty-One had been the only true intellect I had met so far. Could it be that a few geniuses among a world of idiots were responsible for some of the biggest advances in technology? In many ways, the same could be said of Earth, and the sliver of familiarity was almost comforting. I made a mental note of my theory, hoping I could hit Twenty-One up with it later. Tossing my protein bar wrapper in the receptacle, I awaited the buzzer with bated breath and jumped when it finally came.