A Knife in the Dark

The music in the elevator is an old jazz standard played on clarinet. It sounds like it was recorded inside a tin can. When gravity stops trying to push me into my shoes, the doors roll open. I tug on my necktie, but it's as tight as it will go. I step out trailing rainwater from my coat and hat, leaving wet footprints in the carpet. The foyer is something. It's like the front of a countryside mansion yet somehow still looks right at home here, 300 stories above the streets of Amber City. The only element I find unforgivably garish are the wooden double doors. They belong on a castle, not in a skyscraper. Emblazoned across the wood in gold is the word Harland. The doors swing open, splitting Harland between the r and the l. Out steps a straight-backed little man with white hair, dressed in a perfectly pressed tuxedo with peaked lapels. "Mr. Tarelli, I presume," says the little man. His voice echoing through the hall sounds like an opera singer. "That's me," I say. My voice echoes, too, but more like rusted gears than an opera. He takes my coat and hat with a professional flourish. "Mr. Harland is expecting you in the observatory," he says. "I didn't catch your name," I say. "Hennessy, sir." "You smoke, Hennessy?" "No. Right this way, sir." Following Hennessy over the threshold, I find myself in the kind of place I've only ever seen in old films. It's a massive main hall with overhanging balconies, black marble floors, and accents of onyx. The doorways are flanked by larger than life white busts of figures from mythology and religion. My face is probably priceless as Hennessy leads me to a wide center stairway with ornately carved banisters. The hallway at the top has carpet the color of blood, and I pass beneath the painted gazes of a dozen giant portraits of men and women I feel like I should know. Hennessy opens another set of doors leading into a very dark room. He steps to the side. He does not go in. "Just through here, Mr. Tarelli," Hennessy prods. I reach up to tip my hat, forgetting that he's holding it. When my hand touches bald scalp, I tug on my earlobe and nod to him as I enter. The doors shut behind me with a boom. I stand still for a second, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. The room is every bit as big as the grand hall but lacks any of the classical style. No pomp here. The only furnishings are a small dining table and chairs. The far wall is transparent-a single giant window, with Amber City laid out before and below like a sprawling, moving picture, blurred by the buckets of rain snaking over the glass. The sun has just gone down, and black clouds hang over the skyline, sparking with silent, horizontal lightning. "I trust you found the place all right?" squeaks a voice. The skeletal framework of a balcony runs along the midsection of the window-wall, connected to the floor by a switchbacking ramp. At the center of the balcony, a man sits in a chair. "Hard to miss," I say. The man gestures toward the dining table. "Please, help yourself." On the table, I find one bottle, one glass, and a wooden box of long cigars. I only sniff the cigars, but I pour myself a drink and take a sip. It's got that uncommon aftertaste I've come to associate with good, expensive scotch. I drain the glass in a few sweet gulps, then refill it, thus aborting yet another honest attempt to quit drinking. Can't blame me. It's not every day a guy gets a free sip from the top shelf. And it's not every day a guy gets called on to visit with Rutherford Harland in person, either. Yet here I am, a stranger invited into his personal home-just hours after the murder of his only son. One last try at tightening my tie, and I approach the window-wall. I ascend the ramp with footfalls that clank and ring through the room. For the life of me, I don't know how someone could stand to live in a place that echoes so much. Then I'm at the top. With him. Some colorless hair still clings for dear life to the back of his head, and a thin mustache droops from his upper lip. He'd be taller than me, standing, but it's been a long time since he's done that. Slumped in the metal frame of a wheelchair, a woolen blanket over his lap, Rutherford Harland casts an unassuming figure for one of the most powerful men on the planet. He turns his gaze away from the city to study me with brown, red-rimmed eyes. "Mr. Tarelli," he says. "A pleasure." "Likewise, Mr. Harland," I say. "Beautiful place you've got here." "I'm glad you think so. Rarely do I get the chance to entertain guests... Isn't the view marvelous?" "It's very lovely." It's more than that. Not even from an airship viewport have I ever seen Amber City quite like this. Through the haze of rain, the city is rolled out before me like a living map. The skyscrapers are radiant towers. The streets are rivers of flowing light, and the headlamps of gridlocked airships hovering along in their exact, geometric paths high above the streets create spider-webbing, synthetic constellations. "Dreadful night," Harland says. "Is the rain very cold?" "A little. Nothing a stiff drink can't cure." "I despise the rain," Harland says. "I was born and raised on Jannix, and I was almost middle-aged by the time I had the means to do any real traveling. It wasn't until then that I realized there are places in the star system where it doesn't constantly rain. It's not normal. Had I learned that at a younger age, I may never have stayed here." "When you're right, you're right," I say. "It does rain too much." He makes a noise in his throat. I can feel myself squirming, and I hope he doesn't notice. "About your son, Mr. Harland," I say. "For what it's worth, I'd like to offer my condolences." Harland turns back to stare out into the night again, hands folded in his lap. "Thank you," he says. After what feels like a long time, he says, "How old are you, Jack? Sixty?" "Fifty-eight," I say, "but who's counting?" "Who's counting, indeed. Everyone who has ever lived has died, and yet we all still think ourselves immortal. We always think we are the exception. These days, every time that sun sets, I can't help but wonder if I'll ever see it again." I slurp down the last of my drink, lean against the railing, and look out at the city. It feels like I'm hanging over a precipice. The last of the brown dwarf sun's light has faded away completely, leaving a black canvas dotted with a billion pinpricks of white light. Harland's not alone in his anxieties. Night falls hard on Jannix. With a synodic day of sixteen standard days, night lasts one hundred and forty-five hours here. We go almost an entire week without sunlight. It's enough to make any man wonder if he'll see another dawn. "Help yourself to another glass," Harland says. "I'd better not." "Come now. You're young." A little chuckle escapes my lips. "Been a long time since anyone called me young." "All a matter of perspective, Jack. Take my son, one moment the pride of the Harland family name, on the cusp of inheriting my empire. The next, dead on some factory floor in East Amber... You know why I asked you here tonight." My lips are dry, and I wish I'd left something in my glass to wet them. "You want me to find out who killed your son."