Sci-fi: Journalist Sareng is covering a scientific breakthrough that could change humanity forever

The door moves up, silent as eyelids, and merges with the roof.

Inside is an enormous, spherical room, which is four times the size of Sareng’s cabin. There is no wood on the walls, and the color is black like the deepest abyss. One probable reason could be that the artist wanted everyone’s attention to swerve towards the center of the room as soon as they entered.

No wonder, either.

In the center of the hall stands a massive tree, ten cubits tall, crooked like an old man bent with anxiety. The trunk is thin, its branches, like coiled ropes, reaching up to its peak, which nearly touches the ceiling. The tentacles spread out, forming a round awning.

On many of the branches hang small paper-cuts inspired by animals and human forms. The horrors of the long, crooked teeth and bloodshot eyes are submerged in bright and happy colors like scarlet, emerald, and amber.

However, there is no joy on the faces of the people sitting under the tree.

As far as the awning of leaves and branches goes, the same space is occupied below by a stone-made round wall. Inside the walls, the soil is dark, moist, and fertile.

Three people are using the wall as a table. Three chairs are placed in three spots in front of the round wall.

A middle-aged man is seated on the right side of the wall. Both his eyes wrinkled with long pent-up anger. He has a bun in the middle of his hair, like ancient sages, and a salt-and-pepper long beard. His dress is neat and modern.

As soon as the door opens, the man shouts: “Finge, go downstairs, NOW! Tell Prantor to observe the gravitational panel on the outer wall of the Conference Room. You will have to go to the next room to see…” Before he can finish talking, a saucer goes flying before Sareng’s eyes.

Startled, he averts his face. But the saucer does not come too fast; rather, it floats aimlessly like a feather in the air. Initially, he is captivated by the presence of the enormous tree in front of him. But as he starts looking around, he notices various small items hovering in the air, all across the room – another couple of saucers, water vessels, and dry food. It is as if these things have suddenly become alive and sprouted invisible wings, and are intently watching the room by roaming around.

“Understood.” Finge, too, answers the bearded one, and then disappears out of sight, taking the back corridor.

“Stay outside,” Sareng orders Britto. “You might have trouble inside.” While not an expert on Associates, he knows this much that their machinery fails to perform in zero gravity surroundings.

Sareng enters the room. At some distance, seated on the left side of the middle-aged man, is a lady, remarkably ugly, and at the same time having a tremendous personality. Her beaming eyes are a testament to her long experience. At the end of the right eyebrow, she wears a tiny, glittering platinum ring.

She raises her left hand, her voice refined, but every sentence pushes her inch by inch further towards the last limit of patience. “Could you please look into this once again? I understand your problem. You are telling me to consider others; obviously, you want the good of all. But there must have been a mistake somewhere. I am not saying that the mistake is yours. All of you have to function under a set of rules. Maybe someone, somewhere, forgot to obey some rule? Failed to bring you the papers? Your office said ‘no’ to most of those who applied before me, but won’t they give written permission to mine?”

Her listener is not a human.

At least, so it seems, at a glance. He is seated facing the lady on the opposite side of the tree. Sareng has never seen such pallor on human skin, somewhat like the color of old jute sacks. His round eyes are staring intensely, as if they are keen on escaping the prison of the body, and have already succeeded halfway. Even the bone in his elbow, seems to revolt against his body, and sticks out like the sharp tip of an arrow.

Sareng could not quite imagine what the voice of such a person would be like. But when he speaks, it is entirely in contrast with his looks. In a tone that is calm, deep, indeed, almost oracle-like, he stops the lady. “I am sorry. There is nothing that we can possibly do.”

The lady pauses for a moment, maybe to gather her thoughts, or maybe because the limits of her patience are tickling at her toes. And taking this opportunity, the bearded man calls out. “Come, Sankhyak Sir, be seated. Would you mind explaining the issue?”

There is an empty seat beside him. Sareng goes and sits there. “Actually. I… What have you been discussing? Your discovery?”

“Yes,” replies the bearded man. “Could you please elaborate on how the progress of science is so imperative now? Ballabh Sir,” he calls out to the thin fellow, “Do you not know Sareng Sankhyak?”

The thin man glances at Sareng. There is a momentary flicker of recognition in his eyes, but Sareng is certain that they had never met before. Might he have read his writings? Maybe. However, Sraeng has an uncle whose memory was weak, and who took whomever he came across to be an old acquaintance. Maybe this man is like that.

“Millions and millions of people read his works. And that makes his presence here somewhat problematic.” The bearded man keeps on talking, “Why is he here? If he writes about us, and about the experiment now, the cat will be out of the bag. How do you think the Sarkar, our government, will react?” His voice is threatening, but there is no conviction in the threat. He lacks the character to convince others.

Sareng breaks into laughter. The situation is not at all conducive to laughter, but he looks amused. “You think the Sarkar will retaliate? They are not interested in petty spacefaring.”

“They can board the ship and arrest me. And trust me, nothing about our experiment is petty.”

Sareng does not respond to his claim. He turns to the bearded man, “What’s this about? I thought you had the permits sorted out.”

“I don’t know,” Ballabh, the thin man, speaks at last. “I don’t have an association with him.”

“All the necessary permissions were taken,” says the lady. “I am sending you a copy to your Funnel.”

“Then there must have been some misunderstanding somewhere,” says Sareng. “Please talk to them again. It doesn’t take much time nowadays to get permission, if you don’t have that already.”

“No,” says Ballabh again. “Your line of work attracts danger. We cannot take risks with human lives.”

“What danger?” The lady’s voice holds the clinical precision of a surgeon. She refuses to get angry herself, or enrage the other. “We are observing all the safety rules here. We sent you an attachment. You must have had the time to go through it, haven’t you?”

“Are you so sure that nothing can be done?” asks the bearded man.

The lady swerves towards him, eyes flashing with anger. The bearded man says immediately, “We will go to court.” He raises a finger at Ballabh, “It is you who is breaking the law.”

Ballabh stands up slowly. “Sorry. I understand that you don’t like the news. But it’s not me who takes such decisions.” A water vessel floats in the air and passes by him. “Your work here has been quite good. That’s why I’m still here with you. But this must come to an end, like all other good things. Try some other channel; we need people like you. We will all be left behind if you are not there.”

He walks to the door without waiting for a reply. He is wearing a large blue and white loongi. His legs couldn’t be seen; Sareng cannot quite make out why he is limping. In fact, he is not exactly limping; it is as if after every step, the man is pausing to think before taking the next. As if he is unaccustomed to the concept of walking, or its practice.

He leaves the room silently.

Sareng, too, stands up. Before his eyes, three grapes fly away like lazy bumble-bees. He steps a little aside and asks the lady, “Would it be better if I came back later? Would you be keeping your businesses stalled for some time?”

The lady’s eyes are fixed on the door. She doesn’t seem to have heeded Sareng’s query. The bearded man, too, glances at the lady, then confirms to Sareng, “No, no. Such a question doesn’t even arise.”

Excerpted with permission from Null: A Novel Of Infinity, Tanzim Rahman, translated from the Bengali by Manjira Dasgupta and Soham Guha, Antonym Collections.