Inferno. Part 2

But he knows things I don't. And he got me out of the bottle.

Did he? He says he poured you out of a bottle the size of a fifth of rum! Leave him.

I didn't get the chance to decide. While I was thinking it over, Benito began climbing like an alpiner, using tiny cracks and b.u.mps I could hardly see. Pretty soon he got one hand on top of the wall and pulled himself up. He wasn't breathing hard, and he didn't say anything about my sitting there and watching instead of helping.

I turned to look at the countryside. After. all, this Infernoland seemed to be modeled on Dante's. A quarter of a century ago the Inferno had been a required book for a course in Comparative World Literature. I'd paid as little attention to the book as I could get away with. I remembered almost nothing, but certainly the place had not been pleasant. G.o.d's own torture chamber, very medieval.

Vague images came back to me now: devils with pitchforks, trees that talked and bled, giants and centaurs, fire, snakes... but were those from the authentic Inferno, or were they hangovers from Oz books and Disney cartoons? Never mind, Carpender. You're not going any further.

CHAPTER 4

It was lovely on the other side of the wall. I jumped down onto firm ground, gra.s.sy and pleasant. The air was clean, as at the top of a mountain, with that fresh smell you get only after a hard backpack into remote country. The gnats were gone. We walked toward the villas, lovely things, square-built, the colors of stone by twilight.

There were crowds around us. Men and women and children-- a lot of children, far too many, all watching us with big round eyes (or almond eyes; h.e.l.l was thoroughly integrated). Adults and children alike were curious, but none of them said anything.

They didn't want to be near us, either. They shrank away as we approached.

It was embarra.s.sing. I thought we must be carrying the smells of the Vestibule area, the fetid stench of roses and decay. We'd have to find a place to wash.

"I think I'm going to like it here," I said.

Benito looked at me curiously, but he only said, "Pleasant, isn't it? Here there is no punishment."

The word grated. Punishment implies authority, someone with more power and a moral position superior to yours. I couldn't accept that. We were in the hands of the Builders of Infernoland, and I'd learned all about their moral position on the other side of the black river.

But I didn't flare up at Benito. Lightly I asked, "These, then, are the privileged customers of h.e.l.l?"

"Yes." Benito did not smile. "They never sinned. They would have reached Heaven if they had known the Church."

"And the children?"

"Unbaptized."

I'd heard that about Catholic beliefs. Even, in Infernoland it seemed a little rough on the kids. "I thought they got Limbo."

"Call it Limbo if you wish. This is the First Circle of h.e.l.l." He paused, uncertain. "There are legends that say the children will be born again."

There were as many children here as there were adults! As if the Builders had gotten a discount for quant.i.ty. Hmmm. Could these creatures be androids?

It could have come down to a matter of economics. Android infants would be cheaper than android adults: smaller, fewer reflexes. Would it be cheaper to build androids than to find and capture human beings? I couldn't know, not without knowing the source: who the Builders were or why I was here-- placed here without my consent or knowledge, by an unknown hand. If me, then why not a thousand others? A billion?

Benito wouldn't be much help. He didn't seem to question anything he saw.

Robot or human, child or adult, they didn't seem unhappy. Except those near us. "Benito, what's the matter with them?"

"They sense that we do not belong here. I come from deeper in h.e.l.l, and the smell of the depths is on my soul."

"But I don't."

His smile was grim. "They will not accept you either."

I wasn't so sure of that. If I found a way to clean up, and different clothing... hmm. Knock someone on the head, steal his toga; why not? Well, partly because they'd tear me apart if they caught me. And partly because there was no privacy here. The villas, maybe. Or-- I pointed upslope toward what might have been a domed planetarium, the nearest building in sight of us. "What's that?"

He looked. "I have never seen it before."

"Come on."

He came, but reluctantly. "We might not be permitted entry. This is a public building, but we are not of the appropriate public."

"We--" I stopped because a white-bearded patriarch swathed in purple-bordered white bedsheets had grasped me roughly by the arm. He asked a rude question in gibberish.

"Go peddle your papers," I informed him.

He frowned. "Recent English? I asked of you why you invade a place not meant for you."

"I'm taking a survey. Are you happy here? Do the arrangements satisfy you?"

He snorted. "No."

"Then," asked Benito, "why not leave? There is a way out."

The bearded man looked him over, while several pa.s.sersby stopped to listen. He said, "In what direction does it lie?"

"Downslope. One must travel all the way to the center. To know evil is one path to knowing good."

It was lousy dialogue. The bearded man thought so too. "I do not question your knowledge of the depths of h.e.l.l," he said pointedly. "I think you lie."

"Why would I? We plan to leave h.e.l.l--" Benito was interrupted by raucous laughter. A crowd was gathering, and it wasn't friendly.

"You can all leave." Benito seemed deadly serious. "Come with me, deeper and deeper into h.e.l.l. Learn to hate evil--"

"Hatred for salvation?" one of the oldsters asked. "A curious route to salvation."

Benito seemed to know him. "Yet, Epictatus, that is what you must learn. Not to hate men, but to hate their sins. And that you cannot do moderately. You know the truth, now. You know that reason alone is not enough. You must ask for grace..."

I slipped out during the sermon. They were standing there politely waiting for him to finish. What might have been a mob scene had become a formal debate.

How long would that last? Benito was pushing them in a direction they wouldn't even consider, and they didn't like him at all. They'd looked at me the same way; candid contempt, and the high bitter flavor of mockery. They wanted out, and they didn't believe there was any way out, and they were d.a.m.ned well not going to listen long to a man they thought didn't belong with them.

Benito was preaching hatred, and they hated him. He should have had more sense. Like me.

The dome: it couldn't be a planetarium. There was no sky here. Conceivably it was a bathhouse where I could wash off the stench and possibly find an unguarded toga. I climbed toward it.

There were no guards. I walked between Doric pillars, up black marble steps to an expanse of black marble floor. Half a dozen people were talking in a circle. They seemed lost in distance, but as far away as I was, when they caught sight of me they turned their backs firmly and continued talking.

The language wasn't familiar at all.

The place was as empty as anything I'd seen since I left the area of the bottles. Six rude sons of b.i.t.c.hes, and a thing in the center of the black marble floor. It might have been a sculpture, it might have been a machine. A thick silver ring twelve feet tall, standing on edge, and a control board at its base.

The console looked operational. There were labels, in English. A switch (marked ON, OFF), a joystick, and a notch with a k.n.o.b in it. The notch ran the whole length of the console.

I tried the joystick. It went in all six directions: left, right, forward, back, push down, pull up. When I used the switch the s.p.a.ce within the ring clouded, then became starry s.p.a.ce.

It was a planetarium.

When I pushed on the joystick nothing happened.

I took a closer look at the markings along the notch. They were logarithmic, labeled in pa.r.s.ecs/second. The k.n.o.b was all the way to the left.

I moved it hard right and tried the joystick again.

The universe came up and hit me in the face. Whoosh! Stars shot past and around me; a sun came at me and exploded into a fraction of a second of intolerable brightness and was gone. And I was flat on my back a couple of yards from the console.

That was some planetarium!

The half-a-dozen natives were watching me with some amus.e.m.e.nt. Screw 'em. I went back to the console, moved the k.n.o.b down to one pa.r.s.ec/second, then to a tenth of that. Tried the joystick.

This time the motion was just obvious. I steered toward a blue-white star; moved the k.n.o.b to slow as I approached it. Moved into it.

The brightness should have burned my eyes out. It wasn't even painful. Odd...

I went through the center of the star (X-ray blue) and came out the other side (tremendous prominences leaping out ahead of me) and into s.p.a.ce. What now? Find a planet? A different star? Stars were easier to find in this sparkling emptiness, but I'd love to dive into an Earthlike world. To search out the layers of it, to see the glowing nickel-iron heart. Let's see, that not-too-brilliant white fleck could be a yellow dwarf. I moved the k.n.o.b-- A large hand fell heavily on my shoulder.

I twitched like a man electrocuted. I turned, and there was the mob scene I thought I'd left behind me: fifty-odd large, heavy men surrounding me and Benito and the Anywhere Machine.

The white-bearded man who spoke, English said, "You are leaving."

I said, "Dammit! Why? n.o.body else is using the d.a.m.n machine. I've waited all my life for something like this!"

"We do not want you here," he said. "We waited because we hoped a messenger of the G.o.ds would come to remove you. We might have asked him questions... but we have tolerated you too long. As for the machine--" One side of his mouth twitched upward. "If you can carry it you may take it with you."

I cursed him. I stopped when his wide-shouldered friends converged. Several of them wore armor! They moved away in a tight circle with Benito and me in the center.

I whispered, "Benito, can't you stop them?"

He looked at me. "How?"

Yeah.

But if I'd known what waited below, I'd have fought them.

CHAPTER 5

Even while they marched us toward the wall, Benito never gave up.

"You may leave this place!" he shouted. "Hector! Aeneas! You are not cowards, to stay where it is pleasant when there is everything to gain elsewhere! Come with us!"

They ignored him.

They were compact and tough inside their armor-, too tough to fight, even if they were men, which I doubted. Hector, Aeneas: I knew the names. I remembered the Abe Lincoln robot at Disneyland. Could the armor be part of them? With inspection plates-- "Where is Vergil?" Benito raved. "He is no longer here, is he? And the Emperor Trajan?"

"We had our chance," said the taller, broader one. "We didn't take it. There will be no other."

"Have none come here since?" Benito demanded.

The soldiers barked bitter laughter. "Many."

"Is it reasonable to suppose that they will never have the opportunity to leave?"

We had come to the wall. "We'll think about it," one said. "Now out with you. Go where you belong." The gate slammed shut behind us.

I went for the wall on the other side. I examined it without joy. The footholds Benito had used would better have fitted a spider.

Benito watched with a wry smile. "You never give up, do you?"

"No."

"Perseverance is commendable. You will need it, but you must develop other virtues, such as prudence. What will happen if you enter the First Circle again?"

"Maybe they won't catch us this time. I won't go near anyone until I've changed clothes and taken a bath."

"Do not tempt the angels," Benito said. He was quite serious. Yeah, and why not? I was expecting devils in Infernoland. Why not angels?

"That messenger they hoped to see. They wanted him to come."

"They did, yes. But we are fugitives, Allen."

There were no handholds. This time Benito wouldn't help. I was still trying to climb the wall when a flash flood of people spilled into the far end of the alley. As they foamed toward us in dreadful silence I made one last attempt to go up the wall. Then they swept us up and floated us away.

We were in a marble palace. It was enormous, without furniture. The walls were covered with frescoes of bulls and dolphins and pretty girls wearing flounced skirts and little jackets that opened in front to show bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The palace was lit with torches in bronze holders along the walls, and there wasn't any sign of modern technology at all.

Except for the palace itself. It wound on and on, chamber after chamber, huge staircases with great pillars inscribed in languages I couldn't read. It was too big; it must have been prestressed concrete or something better. I would have liked to stay and look around, but we were embedded in the flow of the crowd. n.o.body spoke or paid us any attention. I was glad for Benito's company. Crowds of strangers bug me, and this one was worse than New York commuters, everyone wrapped up in himself.

We spilled into an enormous room open at the far end. I had a good view through the pillars. The ground sloped sharply away into the bleakest landscape I'd ever seen. The castle was perched on the side of an enormous bowl, a world-sized bowl. Far down into it were the glimmers of fires and the shadow of smoke. I couldn't see far into the smog that hung over everything.

There was a throne at the far end of the audience chamber. An alien occupied it. He was vaguely bovine, but I'd have taken him for an oversized man if it hadn't been for his tail.