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

  Sometimes, when you live side by side with an alien, when you share your house and your meals with him, you begin thinking of him as just another human being in an odd-looking body. Then something happens, something like Maliachi's last statement, and you suddenly realize just how very alien his race is.

  "Why in the world would you say a thing like that?" I demanded.

  "Because he has promised that we will be Faligori, and not imitation Men."

  "You will be dead Faligori," I pointed out.

  "Even so."

  "You don't understand."

  "No, Captain Papagolos," he replied. "It is you who do not understand."

  "Then enlighten me."

  "Once, within the memory of some still alive, this was a rich and beautiful and abundant world. One by one each of Faligor's treasures was taken from us, sometimes with the best of intentions, sometimes with the worst. But throughout it all, the one thing no one could take was our pride in our identity. If Gama Labu and William Barioke and Sibo Dushu could not make us ashamed to be Faligori, neither can the SLIM disease."

  "It's not a matter of shame, but of survival," I said.

  "We have survived worse."

  "There is nothing worse."

  "Certainly there is," said Maliachi. "We could become Men."

  36.

  When the medical team was absolutely certain that we had pinpointed the source of the SLIM disease, we went to work on a vaccine and an antidote—and ran into a stone wall. The only thing we found that killed the virus was so potent that there was no question that it would also kill the patient.

  We consulted, via subspace tightbeam, with the finest specialists in the Republic, but while a number of them volunteered to work on a solution, they all agreed that there was no quick or easy way to limit the disease except for the obvious one: change the coming-of-age ritual.

  When we were finally ready to make our findings public, I requested an audience with President Krakanna, who instantly granted it, and within three hours I was ushered into his office and was sitting across his desk from him.

  I explained the situation to him and he listened patiently, his golden face betraying no emotions. When I was through with my presentation, he interlaced the fingers of his hands and stared at them for a long moment, then finally looked over at me.

  "I thank you for the work you have done, Doctor Papagolos," he said. "Faligor is indebted to you." He paused. "I hope you will remain here and keep working on a cure."

  "That will depend on my commanding officer, sir," I said. "Scientists all across the galaxy are working to find a cure. But I must point out again that there is a way of avoiding the disease right now."

  "It's not that simple, Doctor Papagolos," he said.

  "Sir, I don't wish to contradict you, but it is precisely that simple."

  "You are very young and very idealistic," he said with a wistful smile. "You remind me of another of your race when I first encountered him: Arthur Cartright. He also had only our best interests at heart—but it was his idealism and his meddling that led to Labu and the rest."

  "I'm not meddling, sir," I said heatedly. "I am telling you how to avoid millions of deaths."

  "I know, Doctor Papagolos," he said. "And I appreciate it. Now it is essential that we develop a cure."

  "In time I'm sure we will, sir," I said. "But in the meantime, it's essential that we mount a re-education campaign and put it into practice as soon as possible. We'll have to get word to every remote village and—"

  "Just a moment, Doctor," he interrupted me. "I thanked you for your work—but this is a Faligori ritual and a Faligori problem. The government will decide what actions, if any, must be taken."

  "But if you know how to save them . . ."

  "I have not told you how to be a doctor," he said, and there was a hint of steel in his voice. "Do not tell me how to be a president."

  I considered telling him that if he didn't make the announcement regarding our findings, I would . . . but some instinct told me that I had pushed him as far as I could, that if I protested or threatened any further that I could very well be looking at the inside of one of Remus' notorious prisons before the day was over. So, puzzled and frustrated, I stood up, thanked him for his time, and left his office.

  That night Krakanna addressed the entire planet via the holo and radio. He told them exactly what I had told him. The leaf was the cause of the disease, there was at present no vaccine or antidote, nor were any likely to be developed in the near future. The only way to be certain of avoiding the disease was for males not to smoke during the ritual, and for females not to prepare the leaf. But he stopped short of prohibiting the ceremony; he merely relayed what I had told him, and stopped.

  "He's utterly irresponsible!" I muttered as Maliachi deactivated the holo.

  "Why?" asked the Faligori. "Because he trusts his people to make their own decisions?"

  "But if they decide wrong, they'll die!"

  "And if they die, it will be because of their own actions. It will be a pleasant change."

  "You're as crazy as he is," I complained.

  "You cannot take away a people's entire culture without replacing it with something of equal value, Captain Papagolos," said Maliachi. "All President Krakanna has done is put the choice back into the hands of those who are most affected by their actions: the Faligori themselves. I assume that many of the urban Faligori will change or eliminate the ritual from their lives; I suspect that the rural Faligori won't, but at least they will have chosen their fate. It will not have been chosen for them. Is that so wrong?"

  "You're dealing with children who don't have the experience to make that decision," I said.

  "They are Faligori, and you are not. What gives you the right to make it for them?"

  I got up and walked out of the house for a breath of fresh air before he could say any more, because I knew what was coming next, and I was getting sick and tired of being compared to Arthur Cartright.

  37.

  My admiration for Krakanna didn't increase during the next two weeks, as one news item after another came to my attention.

  Item: His children's army, which had been dispersed to keep order across the planet, including the game parks, had shot and killed a Faligori woman for poaching a redbison in the Ramsey National Park. The woman was the mother of five children, her husband had been killed during one of Barioke's purges, and she needed the meat to feed them.

  (When I complained to Maliachi that Krakanna seemed to value the life of a dumb animal above that of a sentient being, he replied that at this moment in Faligor's history, the dumb animal was indeed more valuable, for if the parks weren't protected long enough for the animals to recover their numbers, there would be no tourist industry, and tourism had always been Faligor's second most lucrative source of hard currency, after its mining exports. And Faligor needed hard currency.)

  Item: Gama Labu, who everyone thought had been consigned to the history books, decided in his madness that he was the only Faligori capable of saving the planet, put his ship in orbit around Faligor, and radioed his intention of landing and taking back the presidency that he had "temporarily relinquished," Krakanna could have blown him out of the sky, but instead merely refused him permission to land, and after a week of threats, during which he ran through most of his food supply, Labu flew off to Domar or wherever he had come from.

  (I couldn't imagine why Krakanna hadn't killed the architect of so many of Faligor's troubles. Maliachi asked me what purpose it would serve. When I said revenge and justice, he replied that the Faligori didn't believe in the former, and that for Labu to live while others ruled his empire was justice enough.)

  Item: Sibo Dushu, once more ensconced in the Great Northern Desert, attacked a pair of local villages, robbing them of their food and killing all the inhabitants. Instead of mobilizing the army and wiping out these last remnants of the Labu/Dushu military machine, Krakanna merely posted guards at the other northern villages.


  ("You should appreciate the motive behind it," Maliachi told me. "Until Krakanna can improve conditions on Faligor, the people need an enemy to vent their hatred and frustration upon. If he killed Dushu, they might turn their eyes to Men next.")

  Item: With the help of the Botany Department on the university planet of Aristotle, I devised an herbicide that would affect only the deadly leaf that caused the SLIM disease. When I offered to make it available to Krakanna, as a means of solving the problem once and for all, without forcing the people to choose between their own culture and any other, he refused it.

  It was at that moment I finally knew that for the good of the Faligori, Krakanna had to go.

  38.

  A week later President Krakanna decided to award medals to "heroes of the revolution", and when the list of recipients was announced, I was surprised to see that Arthur Cartright's name was among them.

  The next morning I received word from the government that a Susan Beddoes was flying to Faligor to accept the medal. And since she was the owner of my house, would I please make some arrangement to stay elsewhere during the day or two that she would be on the planet.

  I sent Maliachi into Remus to deliver my written agreement, and also to find out when her flight would be landing, so that I could be out of the house before she arrived. For once Maliachi made a mistake (or perhaps, in retrospect, he didn't), and as a result, I drove home from the lab after yet another fruitless day of looking for a cure to the SLIM disease, opened the door, and found myself confronting a woman who appeared to be in her early sixties.

  "Who are you?" she demanded as I walked into the living room.

  "My name is Milton Papagolos, and this is my house," I said irritably. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

  She grimaced. "There seems to have been a foul-up somewhere. The government told me I would be able to stay here while—"

  "You're Susan Beddoes?" I interrupted.

  "Yes."

  "There has been a foul-up," I said. "I wasn't expecting you until the day after tomorrow. I'll pack an overnight bag and be out of here in ten minutes. Please accept my apologies."

  "The hotel is full. Have you some other place to stay?"

  "No, but I'm sure I can find one."

  "That's ridiculous," she said. "There are three bedrooms in this house. You will sleep in your own room, and I'll take one of the guest rooms."

  "Are you sure you don't mind? I can always drive over to the barracks."

  She smiled. "At my age, the only thing gossip can do to my reputation is enhance it."

  "How did you get in?" I asked. "I've reprogrammed the security system."

  "Your jason servant let me in," she replied. "Maliachi, I think his name is."

  "We call them Faligori these days, not jasons."

  "That's a step in the right direction," she said approvingly. "He said that he had business in town, and that he'd be back later."

  "His business probably consists of hiding from me," I said with a chuckle. "He's the one who fouled up the dates."

  "Well, Mr. Papagolos," she said, "I was just fixing myself some dinner when you came in. Why not join me in the kitchen, and I'll make another portion?"

  "Sounds good to me," I said, following her to the kitchen and sitting down on a wooden chair. "When is the medal ceremony? Sometime tomorrow?"

  "So they tell me. But I picked up Arthur's medal today. This was a victory of the jasons—excuse me: the Faligori. They don't need any Men sharing the spotlight." She paused. "I'm still trying to decide whether to take the medal home with me, or place it on poor Arthur's grave."

  "What did he do?" I asked.

  "Arthur? Oh, a little of everything. Cartography, social planning . . ."

  "I meant, what did he do to win the medal?"

  "Nothing very much, to be quite honest," she replied. "I believe he manned a subspace transmitter and kept your commanding officer informed about Krakanna's position. At least, that's what he told me he would be doing. Personally, I think they gave him the medal to show that we're forgiven."

  "Forgiven?" I repeated. "For what?"

  "For what we did to a perfectly beautiful, tranquil world," she answered.

  "What you did to it?" I said, puzzled. "You brought it literacy and medicine and civilization."

  "And if it's lucky, it may survive," she said. "How do you like your steak?"

  "I don't know. Medium, I suppose."

  She smiled.

  "What's so funny?" I asked.

  "Oh, nothing," she replied. "For just a moment there, you made me think of dear Arthur."

  "How?"

  "He was always willing to make huge galactic commitments," she answered me, "but he could never make the little personal ones. Like having his steak rare or well done."

  "Tell me about him," I said.

  "There's very little to tell," said Susan Beddoes. "He was a sweet, decent man who wouldn't hurt a fly. Faligor was his idea." She shook her head. "Pity."

  "What went wrong?"

  "Oh, it's a long, long story, and I've probably forgotten a lot of the details. Besides, I was early in and early out. I missed Barioke and Dushu, thank God."

  "You're a lucky woman," I said. "You'll miss Krakanna, too."

  "He asked me to stay."

  "He knows you?" I asked.

  "Indirectly. His uncle was the first friend I made here. A warrior named Tubito." She paused. "I suppose I must have met Krakanna a couple of times, but for the life of me I can't remember him."

  She set my plate down in front of me, then carried another plate to the other end of the table, set it down, and returned a moment later with a bottle of wine and two glasses. Finally she sat down.

  "I haven't thought about Tubito in, oh, it must be thirty years," she said. "He would be proud of his nephew."

  "Not if he knew all the facts," I said. "James Krakanna isn't much better that his predecessors."

  "Really?" she said without looking up. "How many thousands has he slaughtered?"

  "None directly," I said.

  "Directly?"

  I explained his position on the SLIM disease, and his refusal to accept the herbicide.

  "He really refused your help?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  "Well, good for him!"

  "I don't think you understand what I've been saying, Miss Beddoes," I said.

  "I understand exactly what you've been saying."

  "Then—"

  "You've been saying," she continued over my objection, "that Faligor is all through accepting our help, which is what got it into this mess in the first place."

  "We had nothing to do with the SLIM disease," I said.

  "No, but having delivered them into the hands of three successive genocidal maniacs, you would now rob them of the last vestige of their cultural traditions."

  "But he's condemning a million or more of his people to death!" I protested.

  "Oh?" she said, arching an eyebrow. "Has he ordered them to kill themselves?"

  "No, but—"

  "So he left the choice up to them?" she continued. "And you just know that they're going to make the wrong decision."

  "Look," I said. "If I see a way to save even one Faligori, don't I have an obligation to do so?"

  "That's what our traditions would have you believe," she agreed.

  "Well, then?"

  "I wonder what the Faligori bible says?"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Milton, everything bad that has happened to this planet—and that encompasses more tragedy than you'll find in the work of twenty Shakespeares—happened because we wanted nothing more than to help them."

  "Maliachi says that, but that's to be expected—he's one of them. I don't see how you can say that." I paused. "Did Man create Gama Labu?"

  "No," she said. "We didn't create him." She paused. "But we created the conditions that allowed him to come to power." She stared at me across the table. "You're a doctor, Milton. You of all people sh
ould know that no matter what hideous symptoms a patient may exhibit, you're looking for a germ or a virus that either created the condition or so weakened the patient that the condition was able to exist. Well, we're Faligor's germ, and the best way not to bring any further harm to it is to leave it alone."

  "But we can do such good here," I said. "We can eradicate such suffering."

  "I know we can," she said. "But we exact too high a price for it. Krakanna seems to know that, even if you don't."

  "Krakanna," I said, grimacing. "Sometimes I wonder if he cares as much for his people as I do."

  "Why? Because he refuses to let them use you as a crutch? Because he knows from past experience the cost of letting us help, of not allowing his people to solve their own problems?"

  "Look, I don't want to spend the night arguing with you, Miss Beddoes," I said. "Let us just agree to disagree."

  "Perhaps that would be best."

  We finished the meal in silence. Then, later, after I'd spent a couple of hours reading through some medical texts, I saw a motion outside the back door and immediately went to investigate. It was Susan Beddoes, sitting on a porch swing, looking off to the west.

  "This was such a beautiful world once," she said. "I wish you could have seen it as it was when I first saw it, Milton. It was truly a diamond in the rough." She paused. "Each time I come back, it is less and less recognizable."

  "Did Arthur Cartright invite you here?" I asked.

  She smiled. "I was the first. I opened this world."

  "You did?" I asked, surprised.

  She nodded. "That was my sin."

  "If you truly feel it was a sin, why do you keep coming back?"

  She looked sadly off across the plains. "That is my punishment."

  A few moments later she went off to bed. The next day she hunted up Cartright's grave and placed some flowers on it, and the morning after that I drove her to the spaceport.

  To tell the truth, I was relieved to see her go. For reasons I couldn't explain, she made me feel very uneasy when I was in her presence.