TEASEL MARCHMONT was a young man full of ideas. With the coming of spring that fateful year which was soon to herald a doomladen future for all, there was at that time for him nothing but optimism in the air.

So much optimism that Teasel decided to make full use of it.

"You want me to do what?" a young man asked on hearing the words of the ambitious promoter by way of introduction.

He had been sitting on a bench minding his own business, which consisted chiefly of making strange markings on the wooden slats with a chisel. The imaginative entrepreneur, noticing the scarf that identified him as belonging to an engineering academy which specialised in ballistics, had introduced himself as someone with an idea.

"Arrange a mail shot," the man repeated succinctly. "This is your lucky day. I am opportunity in shoes."

Stane Mallix, attendee at the Academy of Circling the Square, third year of seven, looked down at the other's shoes which appeared scuffed but otherwise unremarkable. Then he glanced around him with exaggerated care.

Teasel followed his glances with puzzlement.

"Looking for someone?" he asked, suddenly nervous.

"Only for where I parked my post van."

"Ah, ha ha, I see," came a strained musical laugh. "A joke. Engineering student with a sense of humour." He mopped his brow, checked there were no uniformed park wardens within hailing distance and then leaned closer with a conspiratorial leer.

"This," he whispered so loudly it was almost at normal voice level, "is no ordinary delivery round. This will be an out of this world, Frangea-wide scatter blast."

"Missiles?" In spite of his surprise, there was a telltale edge of interest in the student's voice and Teasel congratulated himself for the umpteenth time on his selling prowess. The boy had bought it.

"Without warheads," he said reassuringly. "No good blowing prospective clients skyhigh. What I intend they will receive is a message of a lifetime, right on their doorstep, through their window or roof and even perhaps into their swimming pool. Should make a big splash that one."

"Ah, so you want me to design, in my spare time, between lectures, at my mum's house and at every opportunity when I am not doing anything else like living the life of a popular teenage boy out socialising with a girlfriend or my mates and larking about in a park on a nice sunny spring day, a series of ballistic modules designed to hit various parts of Frangea by next Ease Off Day?"

"Absolutely. No more defacing park benches for you my lad. Do you actually have a girlfriend?"

"Of course not. I'm a bloody engineering student," Stane Mallix replied. He fidgeted with his chisel a moment and then looked Teasel in the eye. "What are the parameters?" he huffed.

The man beamed at him.

"This map here shows where I want the deliveries to be made," and he flourished a square of paper from a folder he carried and upon which all the districts of Frangea could be seen. Of course half the area was just a blank for the Big Blue Sea dominated the territory, pushing the land off to the east and scrunching it up into highlands dominated by Mount Syzywyg.

"And the starting point?"

"All in hand already. I can hire Shimmer Blane's testing yard for several days as required. He's on my sponsor list so it'll cost next to nothing."

"Shimmer Blane? That's the fireworks guy isn't it? I remember reading about when he destroyed a warehouse full of granite blocks during a period of sudden expansion. The dust cloud created some great sunsets for a few years."

"Well, that's before my time. Besides, being cross-eyed never hurt anyone," Teasel dismissed the doubts of the ballistics student.

Stane Mallix pocketed his chisel and sat back upon the bench to ponder an addition to his course thesis which might contain actual practical applications instead of very dry old theory. It was an attractive thought.

"I'll do it," he said. "On one condition."

"Name it."

"Shimmer Blaine must be off the premises during testing."

***

A SERIES OF meetings took place over the coming days in which the ballistics student dragged details from his project sponsor, as he explained matters to his course professor, on the nature of the delivery vehicles for the mail shot.

"Parachutes?" he said later.

"Why? No one's going up in them," Teasel objected, "though that would be jolly useful come to think of it. A few school kids word perfect on set speeches might make quite an impact."

"Quite a mess rather say," Stane replied, shaking his head. "The weight would be prohibitive. Keep the things light, helps with precision guidance."

"Still needs a message though."

"Simple device made as light as possible with miniature amplifiers to get the word across for your, erm, sponsors," he reassured the other. "Quite feasible with the right wind patterns. Modules like that can be purchased on-grid."

Stolen novel; please report.

"Then get cracking. Summer Pause is almost upon us and my clients need the exposure."

Thus a somewhat ambitious and probably quite illegal advertising campaign was literally launched from a somewhat remote area of Frangea, remote thanks to Shimmer Blane's reputation for destruction.

One fateful and slightly foggy morning two splendid looking rockets shot impressively into the infinite blue of the sky at the press of a button and disappeared from view sooner than even Stane expected.

"Potent stuff that chemical fusion fuel," he muttered, shading his eyes against the dazzle.

Then they waited, and waited and after a decent period when on-grid messaging remained a complete blank it started to look as if this first attempt was a complete failure, for there was not a word from potential customers.

At the very least a few sonic boom complaints might have drifted in. Bad news is good publicity, Teasel Marchmont reminded himself, but no news is bad news through and through.

"I've visited the several location sites today," he said to his project manager, as Stane was calling himself by this time, having waited long enough for results.

"And?"

"With the first, absolutely nothing. Not even a broken pane of glass, which was the very least I expected when I gave you those coordinates."

"Ah yes, you wanted to notify the greenhouse manufacturers of an unbreakable substance one of your client's was offering. Perhaps they already employed the new discovery," the lad suggested. "And it just bounced off."

"Impossible. It hasn't been made yet. Merely meant as an investment option. I'm good at those. Then there was the safety gas device just to the north there," and he flourished his location map again.

"Not so much as a flare up?" the ballistics expert said. Though serious about the project from an engineering standpoint, the actual advertising methods left him bemused.

"Quiet as a drowned mouse in a block of ice," came the curious comparison.

"Passing strange," the other replied. "Leave it with me and I'll do a bit of rejigging on the next batch. I can assure you the programmed coordinates were accurate to a hair on that frozen mouse of yours. The figures in Damnation Mole's gravity adjustment tables for Gridmarks have been in use for over a hundred years and I've the latest copy too of Algorithms For A Fun World, printed specially by the Academy of Sure Things Press." He waved a fat book reassuringly.

"Which is really good to know," Teasel responded flatly. "Check, double-check and triple-check all your figures before pressing that button on these three beauties," he added, giving to his project manager without a social life a swatch of guidance notes for the next three mail shots. "Make sure with that one a sultry female voice is used on the delivery message. Believe me, it'll make all the difference."

"Inflatable pillows for a men's hostel? Guaranteed sweet dreams? Well, that's not my area of expertise," Stane admitted with a shrug. "I just send them up and bring them down."

"In the right place," Teasel reminded him.

"Of course."

***

TIME AND AGAIN however as each rocket went up there was no sign they ever came down again, anywhere near where they were supposed to, or anywhere at all actually.

"No! Don't say it," Stane interrupted his sponsor as the other looked at Foam in the Frangean sky. "Not enough fuel to hit the moon, ever."

"Then a mystery is brewing," Teasel said with a frown of disappointment, for the idea of sending sponsorship deals to the great moon acquired a romantic interest briefly.

"A mystery this engineering student is determined to solve," Stane said bravely. "Leave it with me."

"I wish I had," were the parting words of the advertising genius with out of this world ideas to change the face of sponsorship forever. "I will be back, one way or another," he added ominously.

Stane shrugged and began making his own investigations and found at all ten sites everyone remained oblivious of the mail shot that was meant to be a life changer for each of the targeted potential investors.

He went through all his design calculations, gathering together a nondescript bundle of paper scraps, used envelopes and even re-examined some park benches where his chisel had been busy.

The theory was sound, the mathematics appeared correct. Unless...

"I'm not sure about this zero here," he said as he showed Teasel the recalculated thrust capabilities of the delivery vehicle prototype.

"What's wrong with it?" Teasel replied none the wiser. It looked like every other zero he had so far encountered in his young life thus far, including the big fat zero he was currently contemplating regarding returns from his adventurous ad campaign that was supposed to electrify the whole of Frangea that summer.

"I don't think it should be there," the man replied, fidgeting a little.

"And that's a problem, how?" Teasel said, still none the wiser. "It's nothing, isn't it?"

"Nothing has a way of becoming something," the other replied, a nervous tick beginning to distort his face as he contemplated such a phenomenon as a ten-fold increase that looked so inconsequential on paper.

"That's right," Teasel finally said, gathering to himself the only way he could understand what had happened. Something had gone wrong with the campaign. His contribution was flawless, right down to the careful and clever lure of the messaging when the mail shot landed and delivered its good news to the intended recipients. He had cranked up that lure to the max as all good advertisers were taught to do. Buy this product or it would be like the end of the world otherwise.

It was all right. Only there was a wrong in there somewhere.

A wrong which very much lay in the lap of the young gentleman with the increasingly intense nervous tick.

"Nothing certainly becomes something when a fault occurs," Teasel said in his best management lambasting the minions voice. "Failure to achieve a result becomes culpability." He took a deep breath. He did not like doing this but reputations were hard to find in a place like Frangea and once found they were even harder to keep. One had to apply severe levels of dignity at all times to keep face. "This matter is not over, my friend," he added with a shake of the head and with that Teasel marched out of the workshop and away to somewhere he could hide while avoiding creditors and await a payout that should hopefully put matters right, eventually.

Stane Mallix did not worry himself about any such legal action that might arise for the whole matter seemed to him a little more off the record than otherwise. Students were in a severe learning phase and so exempt from disaster menace, or so the Academy guide assured him. Collapsing bridges or disintegrating funfair rides were matters for the authorities to take the blame over. If they had been foolish enough to employ an untried engineering undergraduate as their project manager then more fool them.

No.

Another matter more concerned Stane as he gathered his stuff and kissed his practical thesis on ballistics goodbye.

Damnation Mole had stated in the preface to the three hundred and fifty third edition of his classic work that what goes up must eventually come down, even the great moon Foam.

So then, where did all those splendidly designed mail shot rockets actually land. Or had they not done so yet?

Stane suppressed a nervous twitch as he pondered these matters while spring slowly drifted into summer, a summer replete with a hint of doom.

Then came an autumn which promised a cataclysm of very real proportions for the problem of that zero would not go away. It was increasing in size and significance, as if nothing could stop it.