Inferno: A Chronicle of a Distant World (The Galactic Comedy) Read online

  So he finally settled for sighing deeply, taking a deep breath, and walking to the front door. There was no sense commanding it to open, since there was no power, as was the case more and more often these days, so instead he reached out, grabbed the handle, and turned it—and found himself facing Susan Beddoes.

  "Arthur, are you all right?" she asked, quickly stepping inside and steadying him. "You look like you're about to collapse."

  "A nervous reaction," he said, quickly shutting the door behind her. "What in the world are you doing here, Susan?"

  "Didn't you get my message? I sent it via subspace radio two days ago."

  "I haven't gotten any subspace messages in more than three months."

  "I sent one."

  "I believe you," replied Cartright, leading her into his shabby living room. "Please, come in and sit down. How are you?"

  "I'm well, thank you. That's more than I can say for Faligor."

  "Why have you come back?"

  "Ezra and Martha Simpson died. I'm here for their funeral."

  "That was stupid, Susan, just plain stupid. They died four weeks ago."

  "I just got word of it two days ago. I sent a message asking when the funeral would be held, and they responded that it would be tomorrow."

  "Whoever you contacted doesn't even know who the Simpsons were," said Cartright wearily.

  "But why would they say—?"

  "You had to pay 200 credits for your visa, and there's a 100-credit exit fee," said Cartright. "Faligor is desperate for hard currency. You're worth 300 credits to them. More, in fact, since no other world is allowed to land commercial spaceliners here, so you unquestionably paid one of the government-owned ships at least another thousand credits to get you to Faligor." He paused. "Where are you staying?"

  "I have a room at the Imperial Remus Hotel," answered Beddoes.

  "For which they will not accept payment in local currency unless you're a jason," said Cartright. "As long as you're here, you'll stay with me. At least that's some money that Labu won't get his hands on."

  Beddoes was silent for a moment. "How bad is it here, really?" she asked at last.

  "I don't know how it can get much worse," replied Cartright. "You heard about the moles?"

  She nodded. "How could he get away with that?"

  "At least they're alive," said Cartright, ignoring her question. "He's been methodically decimating the minor tribes for the past year. There's no way to know the actual body count, and of course the government denies any responsibility, but I'd be surprised if he hasn't killed off at least a million jasons."

  "A million?" said Beddoes unbelievingly.

  "At least."

  "I knew he was insane, but I had no idea . . ."

  "For the longest time I believed what a jason friend told me, that he wasn't crazy at all, that he was just a barbarian exercising maniacal power on behalf of his tribe," said Cartright. "But now . . . I just don't know." He paused. "I do know that whether he's insane or not, he's committing genocide on a scale that hasn't been seen since the heyday of Conrad Bland."

  "How about you, Arthur?" asked Beddoes seriously. "Are you safe?"

  "Nobody's really safe, but at least he's still leaving most of the Men alone."

  "What about the Simpsons?"

  Cartright shrugged. "I don't know."

  "How did they die?"

  "Their house was broken into, and they were bludgeoned to death by the looters."

  "Then he is responsible."

  "Possibly, possibly not," said Cartright. "He's got half a million soldiers who loot so many places and kill so many beings that it's possible they murdered the Simpsons on their own. After all, it's what they've been trained to do."

  "Isn't there any way to find out?"

  Cartright shook his head. "We don't have a police state here, Susan. We have a state of terror. You don't ask questions in a police state; you don't even think about them in a state of terror." He stared at her for a long moment. "When's the next flight out of here?"

  "Three days," she replied. "Faligor's not getting a lot of traffic these days."

  "I want you on it. You can stay here until then."

  She nodded. "You get no arguments from me."

  They sat in silence for a few moments.

  "It used to be so beautiful here," she said at last, looking out a window toward the Hills of Heaven, which were shrouded in mist.

  "It could be again."

  "Not in your lifetime, Arthur."

  "My lifetime is measured from one day to the next," he said with a wry smile. "The planet will go on. Gama Labu can't live forever; from what I've seen, he's eating himself into an early grave."

  "Not early enough," answered Beddoes. "Why do you stay?"

  "It's my creation," he said. "If I don't stay, who will?"

  "No one," she replied, "and Faligor will be all the better for it."

  He shook his head. "We can't put it back the way it was, Susan. For better or worse, they have cities and roads and schools and a written language—"

  "And guns," she added.

  "And guns," he acknowledged. "If I could leave and they could all somehow magically go back to living as they did in Disanko's day, I'd be out of here on the next spaceflight. But they can't. Pandora's box is wide open."

  "But what purpose do you serve by staying?"

  "No purpose at all," he said. "But I'm the architect of their disaster, and even if I can't fix it, I can't turn my back on it and simply walk away. God may have flooded the Earth, but He never turned His back on it."

  "Need I point out that you're not God?" said Beddoes.

  "I know I'm not God. I'm not even a mildly competent human being. That's all the more reason why I can't turn my back on Faligor."

  "I don't understand your reasoning at all, Arthur. We did our best. You can't blame yourself because some madman like Gama Labu comes out of nowhere and takes over the world."

  "If it wasn't for us, he'd be the headman in a village of maybe four hundred at most. How much damage could he have done there?"

  "Arthur, you're blaming yourself for everything," she said. "The jasons have to take some responsibility for their own actions."

  He shrugged. "I can't help the way I feel, any more than you could help the repugnance you felt the first time you saw Labu. Do you remember that day?"

  "I remember it."

  He smiled wanly. "I should have listened to you."

  "Would it have done any good?"

  He considered her question. "Probably not."

  "Well, then?"

  "That doesn't change anything, Susan. I'm staying."

  "All right, you're staying." She paused. "I notice that the power's off."

  "It comes and goes."

  "And the water?"

  "If I don't boil it for coffee, I purify it."

  "Does anything work anymore?"

  "The weapons, of course—though I'm told he can't get spare parts for them. And the roads, so he can move his army quickly from one spot to another. Not much else. Mail service is sporadic at best, and the phones haven't worked in months."

  "That's what happens when you start by killing off the intellectuals and the technicians."

  "How did you know he'd done that?"

  "Eventually it's what all dictators do. Usually they build the roads first, though. The one I was on looks like it was recently resurfaced."

  Suddenly Cartright was aware of a blinking off to his right. He turned and saw that his clock was functioning again.

  "The power's back on," he announced, getting to his feet. "Let me reset the security system, and then I'll fix us some coffee."

  "How long was it out?" asked Beddoes.

  "Only five or six hours this time. They're getting better about it."

  She walked over to the holovision. "Do you get any entertainment on this?"

  He shook his head. "A couple of hours a day of government speeches, a few heavily-censored news reports, and twenty hours o
f day of Praise God commercials."

  "Praise God commercials?" she repeated curiously.

  "Every business in Romulus and Remus buys a minute or two of time to praise the Lord for blessing our world by giving us Gama Labu as our president. The ones that don't take out the ads usually aren't around a month later." He paused and shrugged. "You might as well turn it on. Who knows? Maybe we can catch a newscast."

  She activated the holovision while he finished preparing the coffee, and was treated the some fifteen or twenty "Praise God" commercials. Then suddenly the screen went blank.

  "Power failure again?" she asked.

  Cartright shook his head. "No, the coffee's still brewing. Maybe the problem's at the studio's end."

  The screen remained blank while Cartright poured the coffee, and then he and Susan sat down at the kitchen table, discussing old friends and old times. They had totally forgotten the holovision when suddenly it came to life. A slender jason, his expression somber, held a sheet of paper in his hand.

  "I have an emergency announcement," he said in urgent tones. "Last night a spaceliner registered to the Republic world of Barios IV and carrying some three hundred passengers, most of them members of the race of Man, was hijacked by a group of fourteen Lodinites."

  "Why does that make the news here?" asked Beddoes.

  "The ship landed at the Remus spaceport thirty minutes ago. The Lodinites, through the good offices of President-For-Life Labu, have contacted the Republic and offered to exchange their hostages for the release of some forty-two hundred Lodinite currently being incarcerated on various worlds of the Republic. There has been no response as yet."

  "Here it comes," muttered Cartright.

  The announcer paused for a moment and peered into the camera.

  "Until this situation has been resolved, the spaceport has been closed and all transients will have to remain on Faligor."

  14.

  During the first few hours of the crisis, Cartright and Beddoes sat in front of the holo set, waiting impatiently for details that were not forthcoming. Finally, in early evening, another announcer reported that there was still no answer from the Republic, and that a man and two women had been shot attempting to escape from their captors. The man had died, and the two women were back with the rest of the hostages, their condition unknown. President-For-Life Labu intended to maintain strict neutrality, and therefore would not offer any medical assistance, but if any Men on the planet wished to help the hostages . . .

  "Arthur, have you got a medical kit here at the house?" asked Beddoes when the bulletin was finished.

  "Surely you're not thinking of going to the spaceport?" demanded Cartright. "We have human doctors here. They'll take care of the hostages."

  "It's an excuse to get in there," replied Beddoes.

  "Why do you want to get in there?"

  "Sooner or later the hostages are going to be released or rescued," said Beddoes. "Probably sooner. I think there's every chance they'll get off the planet before I do, and I want some of them to know what's been going on here and carry the story back, just in case I'm stuck here. Showing up with a med kit will at least give me access to them."

  "But you're totally untrained!" protested Cartright. "They'll never let you through."

  "I have a doctorate in entomology," she replied. "It's on my passport and all my identification cards. And just between you and me, I don't think the guards around the spaceport will know one type of doctor from another." She paused. "Have you got one?"

  "An identification card?" he asked, confused.

  "A medical kit."

  "Yes," replied Cartright. "I suppose as long as you're going there, I might as well drive you there myself."

  "Thank you, Arthur. I appreciate it." She paused. "I don't think it would be a wise idea for you to try to enter the spaceport, though. They know who you are, and they'll know you don't have any medical experience."

  "You might need me," he said. "Most of Labu's soldiers don't speak Terran."

  "It's all right," she assured him. "I used to live here, remember? My Maringo is a little rusty, but I can make myself understood."

  Cartright went upstairs and came back down a few minutes later, carrying a lightweight medical kit.

  "How long do you think you'll be there?"

  She shrugged. "I have no idea. If the hostages' wounds are superficial, possibly no more than an hour. If it's serious, or if some misguided local Men make an ill-considered protest, it could be a few days." She smiled. "Which is a roundabout way of saying: don't wait for me. If they're ransomed or rescued and I see a way to leave with them, I won't be back at all."

  "They won't be ransomed," said Cartright. "That would just encourage half a hundred other races to start taking hostages. You could be in for a long stay."

  "I won't be any worse off there than stuck out here, waiting for the situation to be resolved so I can go to the spaceport. At least I'll be right there if some opportunity to leave should present itself."

  Cartright walked to the door. "All right," he said. "I suppose we might as well be on our way."

  They came to the first road block a mile out of the city, Beddoes displayed her medical kit and explained that she was answering President-For-Life Labu's request for help, and they were waved through. The process was repeated at five more road blocks, and finally they reached the gate of the spaceport, where the interrogation was more aggressive and extended, but finally one of the guards told Beddoes to get out of the vehicle. He frisked her, then told her to follow him, and began leading her toward the main lobby of the spaceport while Cartright waved to her and turned his vehicle toward home.

  She was escorted through the entrance, then down a broad corridor past rows of jason soldiers to a large waiting room. Here, after an extended conversation between two jasons and a trio of heavily armed Lodinites, she was turned over to the latter, who took her into the room.

  Three hundred men and women and a handful of other races were standing and sitting around the room, most of them looking terrified and shellshocked, and two women lay on the floor while a young male doctor worked on their wounds.

  "Thank goodness you've come!" said the doctor, looking briefly at Beddoes. "I don't think this one"—he indicated one of the women—"is going to make it. Massive internal hemorrhaging, and she's lost an awful lot of blood. Do what you can for her, while I keep working on the other one."

  Beddoes walked over and knelt down next to him. "I'm not a doctor or a nurse," she said in low tones. "Just tell me what to do."

  He turned to her, his eyes wide. "You're part of a rescue team?" he whispered.

  She shook her head. "No."

  "Then what are you—"

  "Keep your voice down," said Beddoes, "and just tell me what to do."

  "There's nothing we can do under these circumstances," replied the doctor. "Just do your best to make the patient comfortable, and if you know how to take a pulse, give me a reading every four or five minutes."

  Beddoes nodded and did as she was instructed. After a few moments, she gestured to a bystander, a middle-aged man who was watching her intently, his tunic soaked with sweat.

  "Are you related to this woman?" asked Beddoes.

  "No."

  "All right. The Lodinites won't know it for a while yet, but she's dead. Don't react!" she whispered harshly. "It's essential that I remain here. I want you to circulate among the hostages, and see to it that someone faints, or comes down with stomach cramps, or in some other way demonstrates a need for medical attention, every hour or so. Do you understand?"

  "Yes," whispered the man excitedly. "Are we being rescued?"

  "I have no idea," said Beddoes. "I just know that I need to remain here. Will you help me?"

  "Yes," repeated the man. He soon began walking among the hostages, stopping to speak to those he knew.

  A moment later the doctor looked at Beddoes' patient, sighed, and placed a towel over her face.

  "Damn it!" snapped Beddoe
s. "It would have been another half hour before the Lodinites knew she was dead."

  "You didn't want them to know?" asked the doctor, confused.

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  "I don't want them to send me away."

  "Who are you?" demanded the doctor.

  "Just someone who wants to get off the planet—or at least get some information off it."

  "You willingly put yourself in the Lodinites' hands?" he asked incredulously.

  "The Lodinites are the least of your problems," replied Beddoes. "Now tell me what I can do so it will look like I'm helping you."

  He instructed her on how to care for those hostages who were less seriously ill while he labored over the wounded woman. After half an hour had passed, she became aware of a sudden silence, and turned to see that Gama Labu himself, clad in his now-familiar military uniform, had entered the room.

  "Good morning," said the President-For-Life, ignoring the fact that it was still the middle of the night. "I am President-For-Life Gama Labu, and I bid you welcome. Thank you very much."

  Overwhelming silence greeted his statement.

  "Thank you very much," he repeated. He looked quickly around the room. "Maringo?" he asked.

  Beddoes stood up. "I speak Maringo," she said.

  Labu stared at her curiously. "Don't I know you?" he asked in the native dialect.

  "I do not believe so, Mr. President," she answered. "I am just a visitor to Faligor."

  "Then how did you learn Maringo?" he asked. "And my title is not President, but President-For-Life."

  "I lived on Faligor many years ago," answered Beddoes.

  He continued to stare unblinking at her. "And we have never met?"

  "Not formally," she said. "I was there the day you defeated Billy Wycynski."

  Suddenly Labu smiled. "Ah! Then we are old friends!" He chuckled. "I was quite wonderful that day, was I not?"

  "You were, Mr. President-For-Life."

  He hunched over in an ungainly crouch. "Right-right-left-right," he said happily. "And that was the end of the human champion."

  "It was a memorable performance," agreed Beddoes, aware that none of the hostages could understand a word that was being said, and wondering how they would interpret Labu's shadow-boxing.