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

by Mike Resnick

  "Yes, it was," agreed Labu. Suddenly he was all business again. "Stand beside me and translate for me."

  Beddoes walked over to Labu's side, resisting the urge to shudder as he placed a huge, friendly hand on her shoulder.

  "Greetings, my friends," said Labu, "and welcome to Faligor. I am President-For-Life Gama Labu, and you are my guests." He waited for Beddoes to translate, then continued. "Due to a most unfortunate circumstance, you have been brought to this room by force. Since we are a neutral world that desires no one's enmity, I am unhappily not able to set you free, but I am working behind the scenes to get the Republic to release its Lodinite prisoners, and I am sure we will soon reach an accommodation. In the meantime, I will see to it that you are well-fed and that you receive whatever medical attention you require. I regret that I cannot do anything more, but it is the Republic that is indifferent to your fate, not I. You will notice that I wear no weapons; I am as much a prisoner on my own planet as you are."

  Beddoes translated all but the last sentence, and after a moment Labu turned to her. "I understand Terran better than I speak it," he told her. "Now please translate the final sentence."

  "They know better than to believe it," said Beddoes.

  "Are you calling me a liar?" demanded Labu, drawing himself up to his full height and towering angrily above the human.

  Beddoes looked at his face, contorted in fury, and felt the same fear that she had felt the first time she had seen him all those years ago at Emperor Bobby's mansion.

  "No, sir, I am not." She turned back to the hostages and said, in Terran, "I am as much a prisoner on my own planet as you are."

  The remark was greeted by sullen stares, interspersed with sardonic laughter.

  "You are fools!" snapped Labu. "Just as your leaders are fools! You will all die here, and your bodies will be left out for the scavengers!"

  Beddoes started to translate, and Labu laid a heavy hand on her shoulder and squeezed it hard.

  "Be quiet," he said.

  Labu stared at the hostages for a long moment, then forced another smile to his lips. "I am doing what I can to gain your freedom. If you government is reasonable, I am sure we can resolve this unfortunate situation in a matter of days, perhaps hours."

  Beddoes remained motionless until he prodded her with a pudgy finger.

  "Translate!"

  "I thought—"

  "The Republic will be just as happy to receive 299 hostages as 300," he said softly. "Do not test me again."

  Beddoes dutifully translated his words.

  "Thank you very much," he said in Terran. Then he smiled, bowed, and left the room.

  As the hostages began speaking among themselves in frightened whispers, a young man walked up to Beddoes and intercepted her as she was on her way back to rejoin the doctor.

  "I need to speak to you," he said softly.

  "What about?" she asked.

  He glanced quickly around the room. "Not now. Wait until everyone's gotten over Labu's appearance, and the guards are a little less attentive."

  She busied herself for about twenty minutes, then walked to a corner of the room, where the young man joined her a moment later.

  "Have you any message for me?" he asked quietly.

  "None."

  "Think hard," he persisted. "My name is Anton McCreigh."

  "No," she said. "Why should you think I do?"

  "Because I'm security, and you are not a passenger."

  "Security?"

  "Not so loud, please."

  "How many of you are here?"

  "There are four of us. Ever since the Canphorites hijacked one of our spaceliners last year, a team of security personnel is on every commercial spaceflight."

  "I don't remember hearing anything about a Canphorite hijacking," said Beddoes.

  "We got our people out before they could even make any demands," said McCreigh. "Problem is, we lost sixty-three passengers in the process. Since then, we have trained anti-terrorists flying all the commercial flights. We have a number of contingency plans, each designed to get our people out with a minimum loss of life."

  "How did you get into this fix in the first place?"

  "They took over the ship while it was on the ground, and there were too many of them," answered McCreigh. "If we'd started shooting, we'd have lost too many passengers."

  "Then what's the good of having security teams?" she asked.

  "By now, a rescue operation has been mounted," said McCreigh. "Since you aren't a passenger, I thought you might be a part of it, or a least a messenger." He paused. "Our job is to protect the hostages once the shooting starts, and to get them out of here as quickly as possible once it's over."

  "How will you know which contingency plan to use?" asked Beddoes.

  "We'll be given a signal—if we can spot it. We've already targeted which Lodinites we ourselves will take out."

  "Are you armed?"

  He shook his head. "Had to leave the weapons aboard the ship. There was no way we were going to be able to get them past the spaceport scanners."

  "There are fourteen heavily-armed Lodinites," noted Susan. "Are you telling me you plan to take them out with four unarmed Men?"

  "We'll ignore those who are positioned to prevent a rescue attempt and those who are guarding the parameters of the area. Our concern is disabling the six or seven who might be tempted to turn their weapons loose on the hostages as soon as they figure out that the Republic is trying to rescue them rather than trade for them."

  "It sounds suicidal."

  "It's dangerous," he corrected her. "Suicidal is a woman who refuses to translate what Labu wants us to hear."

  "Touché," she replied. "How soon do you expect the rescue?"

  He shrugged. "There's no way of knowing. The Republic could march in here and blow Labu and his whole army away if it wanted to, but that wouldn't save the hostages. Labu's probably got three thousand men or more guarding the spaceport right now. If they see us land and start shooting, it could result in the death of every person in the room. So our rescue team will have to figure out where to land, and how best to make their way to the spaceport, and how to avoid any conflict until after they've secured this room and protected the hostages." He grimaced. "That's why I was hoping you were working for us. Any kind of information at all might save a few lives."

  "I'm sorry I'm not able to help you," said Beddoes.

  "Then what the hell are you doing here?" said McCreigh. "I was watching you before: you're no nurse, you obviously aren't working for Labu, and you're not a hostage. So who and what are you?"

  "I used to live on Faligor," she replied. "I left before Labu took over. I came back for a friend's funeral, and there is every chance I may be stuck here—especially if your rescue succeeds. Labu will be so furious with the Republic that my guess is he'll cancel all exit visas and start killing every Man he can find."

  McCreigh smiled. "So you're hoping to be mistaken for a hostage and rescued with the rest of them?"

  Beddoes nodded. "Something like that. At the very least, I want someone who is going back to the Republic to report what's going on here."

  "What's going on is that Labu is helping his Lodinite friends try to blackmail the Republic into releasing terrorist prisoners," answered McCreigh.

  She shook her head. "That's the least of it. He's already killed off more than a million members of his own race. He's got to be stopped before he wipes out every last living being on Faligor."

  "What he does to his own people isn't the Republic's business."

  "Then it had better become our business!" snapped Beddoes. "We created the conditions that allowed him to come to power. He's our responsibility."

  "Convincing me won't do you any good," said McCreigh. "I'm just a soldier."

  "That's why I want the story to get to someone who can act on it," said Beddoes. "And since most of the hostages have more immediate concerns, that's why I want to leave the planet with them."

  "Well, t
his much I can promise you," said McCreigh. "Everyone in this room is leaving one way or the other."

  "One way or the other?" repeated Beddoes.

  "On a ship or in a box—or maybe both."

  Just then a man clutched his stomach and started moaning. Beddoes hoped that this was an act being performed to help her preserve her medical persona, since the doctor had fallen into an exhausted sleep, and she began tending to him. It turned out that the man had collapsed from nervous exhaustion, but his condition wasn't life-threatening, and she did what she could to make him comfortable. His wife joined them, and in low whispers Beddoes spent the next fifteen minutes telling her what she wanted them to convey to someone in authority in case she herself did not live long enough to leave Faligor.

  The rest of the night and most of the next day passed in much the same manner, with Beddoes doing what she could to help the handful of men and women who were either sick or pretending to be. By sunrise the condition of the wounded woman had stabilized, and the doctor had gone off to a corner to sleep. In midafternoon Labu again appeared to explain that negotiations were continuing, and to apologize for not being able to supply the hostages with food after all, and claiming once again that he could be of use in the negotiations only if he maintained a strict neutrality, which he had now decided meant refusing to lift a finger either to free them or make them more comfortable. An hour later he was back, this time with a pair of jasons operating a holographic camera. They trained it on the dead and wounded women, and on a man who had spent most of the night crying and now simply sat, catatonic, staring off into space.

  "Your wonderful race has always been known for its compassion," announced Labu as Beddoes translated his words. "It is perhaps your most admirable quality. Once these holographs of your unfortunate state reaches your leaders, I am sure that they will redouble their efforts to secure your release." He paused. "Unfortunately, since the crisis has caused the cancellation of all incoming and outgoing spaceflights, I have had to charge them for Faligor's lost revenues, but it is a small price for such an immensely wealthy race to pay, and I'm sure it will present no problem in the negotiations."

  Then he and the camera crew were gone, leaving the hostages to contemplate their fate.

  Beddoes went back to tending to the truly sick—there seemed to be more of them every hour—and finally, exhausted, she walked over to a wall, sat down, and propped her back up against it. A moment later McCreigh sat down next to her, leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes.

  "Are you awake?" he whispered.

  "Yes."

  "It'll be tonight."

  "They've signaled you already?" she asked. "How?"

  "No, they haven't signaled anyone yet."

  "Then how do you know?"

  "It's our experience that once the kidnappers realize that we're not negotiating in good faith, that we're stalling for time, they tend to disperse the captives so that a rescue operation becomes an impossibility—so we're geared to go into action a maximum of 48 hours after capture. That'll be sometime tonight."

  "Why are you telling me all this?" asked Beddoes.

  "Because you've been staring at me all day, and as the others fall asleep and the guards spend more time watching the rest of us, I don't want them putting two and two together."

  "I wasn't aware that I was looking at you," said Beddoes.

  "So far I don't think the Lodinites are aware of it either," said McCreigh. "Let's keep it that way."

  "What do I do when the rescue begins?"

  "Nothing."

  "Surely I can help in some way," she said. "Cause a distraction, perhaps, or—"

  "Just hit the deck and scream a lot, like everyone else. You start running around, you'll probably get yourself shot. At the very least, you're as likely to distract the good guys as the bad guys."

  She sighed. "Whatever you say."

  "That's what I say." He paused. "Just believe me when I tell you that I'm good at my job."

  He stood up, stretched, walked to a darker section of the room, and lay down.

  Beddoes realized that she was becoming drowsy, that she hadn't slept in close to forty hours, and she shut her eyes. She could sleep for an hour, perhaps an hour and a half, she decided; then she'd be fresh for the danger that would follow. An hour and a half, that would do it; perhaps two . . .

  She awoke with a start to the hum of laser guns and the screams of dying Lodinites. McCreigh was standing over the body of one of their captors, whose head was twisted at a grotesque angle, and she saw another man and two women also making swift work of three Lodinites. Then armed men were bursting in through the windows, Lodinites were entering with blazing weapons through a pair of doors, jasons were firing aimlessly in the semi-darkness of the room, hostages were screaming, and the air resembled a fireworks display.

  Beddoes saw a small boy start to run across the room, screaming for his mother, and she leaped up to intercept him. Suddenly she became aware of a burning sensation in her knee, and her leg buckled under her. She rolled once and tried to crawl toward the boy, screamed as her knee touched the ground, tried to slither toward a wall, felt a laser beam burn into her shoulder, screamed again, and lay perfectly still, eyes closed.

  The madness went on around her for another four minutes, and then a human voice rang out: "The area is secured!"

  The lights were turned on, and some fifty armed men and women began walking through the room. Half a dozen of them made sure that the Lodinites and jasons lying on the floor were truly dead, while the rest helped the hostages to their feet. Beddoes was one of four who couldn't rise, and a moment later the doctor was examining her and sealing the wound as best he could.

  "Well?" asked McCreigh, coming over to join him.

  The doctor shook his head. "Her knee's been blown off, and she's sustained a serious burn on her left shoulder."

  "Will she live?"

  "There's a burst artery here," said the doctor. "She's lost a lot of blood. She needs a transfusion, and she needs it pretty damned soon."

  "What about the other three?"

  "Two are mobile, one won't last out the hour."

  "All right," said McCreigh. "Let me see the map."

  "You have to take me with you!" mumbled Beddoes.

  "You'll never make it," said McCreigh, studying a map someone had handed him. "We're going to drop you off at a hospital on the way to our ships."

  "I'll take my chances," mumbled Beddoes. "Just get me out of here."

  "You're already going into shock," said the doctor, injecting something in her arm. "Just lay back and try to relax."

  "He'll kill me!"

  "He won't lay a finger on you," said McCreigh. "Trust me."

  She was about to ask him why she should trust him about anything, let alone her life, when the ceiling started spinning and everything went black.

  15.

  Beddoes was aware of voices, some near, some distant, none of them speaking to her. Then she realized that the sun was shining on her face, and she turned her head away from it.

  "I think she's coming around," said yet another voice. "Susan?"

  "Go away," mumbled Beddoes.

  "Susan, this is Arthur. Open your eyes."

  Beddoes tried to reach her pillow to put it over her head; the pain of moving her arm was agonizing and severe, and suddenly she heard a scream. It took Beddoes a moment to realize that the sound had come from her.

  "Welcome back," said another voice. "I thought we were going to lose you for awhile there."

  She opened her eyes, flinched from the brightness of the sunlit room, and things slowly came into focus.

  Arthur Cartright was sitting on a chair next to her bed, and Anton McCreigh was leaning lazily against a white wall.

  "Where am I?" asked Beddoes.

  "You're in the Boris Petrovitch Memorial Hospital in Remus," answered McCreigh. "Do you remember anything about how you got here?"

  She closed her eyes again and concentrated. "I reme
mber the rescue, and then everything goes blank." She paused. "Wait! I remember getting shot in the confusion. My shoulder, I think."

  "Your shoulder was the least of your problems," said McCreigh.

  "My knee!" she exclaimed, and then frowned. "I don't feel anything there."

  "I'd be surprised if you did," said McCreigh. "We've got a brand new one on order for you."

  "They amputated my leg?" she asked, horror-stricken.

  "No choice," said McCreigh. "Even if they could have rebuilt the knee, the rest of your leg was hanging on by just a couple of threads of muscle. There was no way to get any blood circulating down there."

  "I'm sorry, Susan," said Cartright. "You'd lost an enormous amount of blood; they were more concerned with saving your life."

  "Besides, the new one will be prettier than the old one," added McCreigh lightly. "No varicose veins."

  "How can you joke about it?" demanded Beddoes furiously. "I've just lost my leg!"

  "You'd be surprised what they're doing with prosthetics these days," replied McCreigh.

  "That's easy for you to say!" snapped Beddoes.

  McCreigh smiled. "Easier than you think. Or would you like me to remove my right arm for you?" He held up the appendage, wiggling the fingers. "Works better than the original."

  "The doctors assure us that you'll be walking within a few weeks, without any noticeable limp," said Cartright soothingly.

  "I'll believe it when I see it," said Beddoes bitterly.

  "Believe it," said McCreigh. "The current holder of the 3,000 and 5,000 meter track records is a fellow with two artificial legs. They're trying to get him disqualified and his times disallowed." He paused. "And now, if you're all through thanking me for saving your life, is there anything else you'd like to know?"

  "I don't think much of your bedside manner," muttered Beddoes.

  "Well, if push comes to shove, I don't think much of your notion of 'Hit the deck,'" he answered pleasantly.

  "Why are you still here?" demanded Beddoes.

  "Because of you," said McCreigh.

  "Because of me?" she repeated, frowning.

  "Someone in the Republic decided not to leave you to the tender mercies of your President-For-Life."