Blue skies streaked with the occasional cloud blemish ran to the horizon in every direction. Tires rolled with a low hum across the pristine, flat ground. Days from the IPT gate and they had seen nothing of note. It was two trucks, five people, and their own reflections off the strange ground that never ended.
“I was sure she liked me,” Galon said. He slouched in the passenger seat of the lead truck, feet hanging out the window. All around him, screens spit out the same dull information about air quality, temperature, ground composition, and a host of other data that told them the same thing – there was nothing here.
“She can like you and not call you back,” Belle answered. She drove with her usual composure, seemingly unfazed by the unchanging, infinite landscape. Like clockwork, she checked the compass every three minutes to ensure they continued in the same direction.
“We had four dates,” Galon continued. “Good dates. We made out a few times, and she said she was excited to see the new park on Oberon-b which, as you know, isn’t the easiest ticket to book.”
“For an accountant in Madrid, it’s not. For you, it’s a bit easier,” Belle pointed out.
“That’s not really the point.”
“What is the point?”
“I don’t understand why she didn’t call back,” said Galon. “I racked my brain for something I might have said or done that would have turned her off. But it was only four dates.”
“And even for you, that’s too early to have given away any hint of your wicked, blackened insides,” joked Belle.
“That’s what I’m saying.” Galon sighed and tapped against the dash. “But you don’t seem to have any advice.”
The driver shrugged. “Call her again when we get back.”
“I’ve already left two messages. Three strikes and you’re out,” Galon said. “Come on, you know that.”
“I know nothing of the sort.”
“You’re telling me when you go out with a girl you like, you just keep on calling until she picks up?” Galon said indignantly.
Belle laughed. “Honey, when I go out with a girl I like, she calls me.”
“Can’t imagine why,” Galon quipped in reply.
“Well… I put out,” Belle deadpanned. She checked the compass. Still on course. Still the same generic, featureless world.
This was her team’s first foray into a Blank World. It was the sixth such world the Multinational InterPlanetary Travel Agency had discovered. Each varied a little, but the basic features of the planet were the same. Mild weather and blue skies watched over an entire globe of nothing. It was as if the being that had created these Blank Worlds had begun with a basic sketch, a skeleton of a plan, then decided it wasn’t quite right and abandoned it.
In fact, that was the working theory. Each time a new Blank World had been uncovered, expeditions had mapped huge swaths of it and found the same plainness. Worlds created from a physics process (spacedust coagulating into stars and planets and such) were varied and robust, unpredictable and in a constant state of change. Worlds created by a being were generally far more ordered. There were entire worlds of desert and ocean, forest and river, ice-covered mountains or vast seas between land masses far too regular in shape to have been created by time and space.
It was that regularity of design that made the Blank Worlds a wonderful puzzle. It was evident that a being had started the process of crafting one of these ordered planets. But for whatever reason, the being had abandoned the project without leaving any sign of why. Nor had the being left clues to the original plan.
“She liked me. I know she did,” Galon said after a time. “So I don’t understand why she’d stop calling.”
“You can get other girls. You’re a good looking guy with a great job.”
“Oh stop,” Galon said with a grin, gesturing to Belle to continue. She laughed.
“And somehow you’re funny. There will be other girls.”
Galon nodded. “Yeah, I know. I’m not worried I’ll end up alone. I just… it feels unfinished, you know?”
Belle motioned with her hand out the window. “No, I know nothing about things unfinished. Please, enlighten me.”
“Fair point.” Galon flicked open a water bottle and took a long pull. “I just want to put a cap on it, so I know why it’s over.”
Still slouched, he leaned his arm forward and tapped a few screens. He scanned the results, but it was as expected. He tapped a button on the console.
“Magellan One to Magellan Two.”
“Magellan Two,” a young man’s voice answered.
“You guys getting anything back there?”
“Well my pants are getting a little swampy, and that’s with the windows down.”
“Reason number 439 I’m just fine being gay,” Belle muttered.
“Thanks,” Galon said. He flicked the radio back to standby. “I bought nice dinners. We saw a great show. We had a fun active date at a zero-g park. What do these women want?”
“Galon, I am a woman, I date women, and I still don’t have a clue what they want.”
“What is that helpful?”
Belle shrugged. “I’m saying we’re a mystery.”
Just then, one of the screens cheerfully dinged. Belle & Galon looked at it, then each other, then back at the screen.
“It can’t be…” Belle started to say, but she was cut off by another ding.
Galon swung his feet back inside the truck and starting to tap the guilty screen. His face scrunched up in confusion.
“What is it?” Belle asked.
“It’s the Geiger counter.” Galon leaned out the window, looked down. Nothing special – a wavering image of his own face sticking out of the truck looked back at him. “Stop here.”
Belle eased onto the break. The screen dinged again and again, not urgently but with unexpected regularity.
“There’s something radioactive here?” she asked.
The other truck pulled to a stop behind them. Everyone spilled out onto the flat, mirrored land.
“Something up?” Dunkan, the other truck’s driver, asked.
“Geiger counter went off,” Galon said.
“Hang on, you got a reading?”
In response, Galon leaned into the truck and pulled out the screen. It dinged enthusiastically every few seconds. Something under the truck was radioactive.
For a few long moments, the five-member expedition listened quietly to the sound of discovery. There was an unspoken agreement among them that the moment should be savored. So they listened to the steady ding and silently wondered what it might mean.
“Should we… I mean, is it safe?”
“Well let’s not build our vacation home here,” Galon said. “But for a few minutes, it’s not going to kill us.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” said one of the scientists from the other truck. “The Blank Worlds don’t have radioactive material. They don’t have anything. That’s the whole point.”
“That was the theory,” Galon replied. “I think we’re currently disproving it.”
“Is the counter broken?”
“Feel free to check,” Galon said, pointing to the array of sensors mounted on the back of the truck. The scientist did just that, carefully examining each instrument. It took him a few minutes, but nothing looked amiss.
Belle had been quiet since they’d exited the trucks. Now she rubbed her chin and presented an interesting question.
“What do we know about worlds made by a creator?” she asked. “I mean, what’s the one common thread.”
“Order,” Dunkan answered.
“Right. So why would a creator build something that cannot maintain order? Why would it input something that decays?”
“Maybe it wasn’t on purpose?” Galon said. “Once it abandoned the world, maybe it was an unintended consequence.”
“Something powerful enough to craft a planet from the vacuum of space doesn’t allow for unintended consequences.” the scientist said.
“Right. We have to assume it was on purpose,” said Belle.
“But why would a creator build something that decays and then leave the planet unfinished? Why abandon it?”
Belle smiled. “Is it abandoned? Or just unfinished?”
Her point hung in the air like a last-second shot while the clock counted down to zero. Everyone knew the implication, could feel the potential energy in the moment.
Galon pulled out the comms screen and tapped away. A moment later, two whoosh sounds came from the flat machine.
“That was to command?” Dunkan asked. Galon nodded.
“And the second message?” Belle asked, knowing Galon had sent two.
Galon grinned. “Maybe it’s not over. Maybe it’s just unfinished.”
The Tall Tale Year 