Nest of Worlds

by Marek S. Huberath

“The father is me. I was the first on the scene. Earthworm tried his luck, but tried elsewhere after he got a knuckle sandwich for his efforts, and radio earphones as a consolation prize. Beanpole tried too, but with no success, so he didn’t cost me anything.”

  “She’s that much of a charmer? She seems so . . . nondescript,” blurted Gavein.

  “But mysterious, wrapped in all those white rags. She has to sit all the time, because everything hurts when she lies down.”

  “You can’t even see if she’s pretty,” Gavein protested.

  “She’s pretty. And she’ll be pretty on the top half, too, after they stick the skin back on. You can’t see it now.”

  Ra Mahleiné sniffed her disapproval. She didn’t speak, not wanting to lose count, so it wasn’t clear whether it was Zef’s notion of feminine beauty she disapproved of or his way of expressing it.

  “What will become of you two?”

  “What has to. I’ll get her written into my passport as my wife, though she’s white. Just as you did with Magdalena. You impressed the hell out of me: a black man with a white woman, unheard of in Davabel. A red man with a white woman, that’s not as biff, but it’s something, don’t you think?”

  “Definitely.”

  “But isn’t she too young to be married?” asked Ra Mahleiné.

  “A white woman is never too young.”

  Ra Mahleiné guffawed at that.

  “In Davabel, I meant,” said Zef, embarrassed. “I’ll tell old Mass that the girl’s moving in with me. He’ll be glad, because he hardly has room as it is. And my mother pays no attention to classifications.”

  “I have a problem too,” said Gavein after a pause.

  “Sexual counseling is on 5667 Avenue, a twenty-minute walk from here.” Zef had to wisecrack; it was his role.

  “It’s not personal,” said Gavein, smiling. “It’s scientific.”

  “Then chop away, man. I love scientific problems. Particularly if it’s physics.”

  The young man had been working on his leather jacket, Gavein noticed. There didn’t seem to be any more room for skulls, but somehow Zef always found a spot for another.

  “Here’s the problem, then,” Gavein said. “Ra Mahleiné told me about her voyage by sea. It appears that time on the ocean passes faster than it does in either Lavath or Davabel.”

  “How so?”

  “It was constant night, for one thing. On rare occasions the night would turn a black-blue, and without clouds in the sky. That may have been day. The women with good eyes could see airplanes overhead, not moving. Each seaplane was motionless at first, then accelerated as it descended, braking only on the water. I think that time goes faster at sea level than on land. What do you say to that?”

  “It sounds right. A guy by the name of Mill has calculated that equilibrium must be preserved, that is, if things slow down above us, below us they will speed up. In other words, Lavath and Davabel are connected only by a thin layer of real time, or common time, since both are at the same level. Determining the width of that layer is actually my homework assignment.”

  “How do we know there exists a layer of real time? How do we know that time in Lavath and Davabel is the same?”

  “I love the way you flex your cerebral biceps. No one else in this shanty does that,” said Zef admiringly.

  “All right, now it’s your turn.”

  “How can you stand the way he talks?” asked Ra Mahleiné with a groan.

  “He has no choice,” Gavein told her. “He’s wired that way.”

  “You could try ear mufflers,” advised Zef.

  “I’ll make myself a pair.”

  “To work, then. This is really not known,” said the young man, commencing. “A common layer of time appears to exist, because there is fairly good agreement among different clocks. But, you know, a pilot’s hand jerks, and say good-bye to the accuracy of time measurement taken on the plane.”

  “What about this speedup of time on the ocean? Doesn’t it contradict the common-layer idea?”

  “You’re caught in a froze.”

  “A what?”

  “A mental froze. Because it’s all beautifully logical.”

  “I’m afraid this froze won’t let go of me.”

  “The point is, why should the effect stop at the Earth’s surface? If time slows in the absence of mass, then it should speed up in its greater presence. Did you notice that the coast is a cliff of several hundred meters? How does one get to a boat? By elevator.”

  “I was never on the coast.”

  “Neither was I. But I read about it in a book.”

  “You’re right,” Ra Mahleiné chimed in. “The elevator drops through a tunnel in the rock. It goes fast, and it goes for a long time. You have to be careful not to put out your hand, because the railing is not high, and fifty, sixty people are packed inside. For the elevator back up, I had to wait a month. That was in addition to the quarantine.”

  “You see, Gavein?”

  “Miners far below the surface must get a lot accomplished,” Gavein said. It was not a brilliant observation.

  “Not necessarily. The deeper you descend into the Earth, the weaker the gravity. Calculate the gravitation of a spherical body, and you’ll see. At sufficient depth, there’s a play between the dependence of time on distance and the fall in the mass contributing to the gravitational force, and no one knows which of these wins out. So far in mines, even in the lowest, no appreciable change has been observed.”

  “In that case, why should the effect at the surface of the sea be stronger than it is beneath the ground at the same altitude?” Gavein asked, unconvinced.

  “Use integral calculus. Ever gnawed on that nut? The y-axis does funny things near the coast.” Zef wasn’t making too much sense, and his forehead was beaded with sweat, as Haifan’s face had been before.

  “Why don’t we write this Mill a letter, with the question?” Gavein suggested, as if holding out a life preserver.

  “Mill happens to be in our college. I’ll talk with him as soon as he returns. He’s out on some geodesic study.”

  Their conversation was ended by the appearance of Beanpole, who stood in the doorway, as pock-faced as ever and glummer than usual, chewing gum.

  “Let’s go, Mohawk,” he said, shifting his weight nervously. “And don’t forget your umbrella. Today it’s their turn.”

  30

  Zef returned from the movies with a foul smell and a scowl—they had tricked his side, urinating into balloons and dropping them from the balcony. He threw his splendid jacket in the washing machine. Edda grew impatient: besides the landlords, only the Throzzes were waiting in the dining room.

  Finally Haifan showed. He set a hammer and a pillow on the table in front of him. Not waiting any longer, Edda brought in the pasta.

  “We can eat,” Haifan said. “The others won’t be coming.”

  He spoke calmly, but everyone looked at him.

  “I’m done with the hammer now. It’s still wet, because I had it under the faucet. But the pillowcase needs to be laundered. Saliva got all over it, though the saliva dried. I hope the feathers inside didn’t get wet.”

  “Haifan, why aren’t the others coming?” asked Gavein. Ra Mahleiné’s fork was tapping her plate rhythmically. Gavein gently stopped her hand, its trembling. “My nervous darling. Haifan is joking.”

  “It’s not a joke. They’re not coming. Eat your dinner.”

  “I better check on the Hannings, to see what the problem is,” said Gavein.

  “Why go there now?” Haifan shook his head. “You won’t eat afterward. I finally solved the problem. They were suffering from bad incarnations, and now they’ll come back in new, better ones. No point in worrying over what they were before.”

  “Are they dead, Haifan?” Gavein asked. A delicate question, but he sen
sed that Haifan would not be violent.

  “Death doesn’t exist. They live on in the endless cycle of rebirth. Their bodies will turn into other organisms. Part of the biomass now, though they were always part of it, weren’t they? It had to be done, to help them. They could accomplish nothing good in their current forms. They insulted Magda, Fatima, and other whites. The Black Spirit and the Red Spirit ordered me to do it. They told me that the Hannings had depleted their energy, so they needed to return in another incarnation, perhaps as blacks. The White Spirit was insulted. I had to plead with it not to rule over Davabel.”

  The belief that a person passed through four incarnations had come from the fact that most people were unable to experience all four Lands, their lives being too short. But if you were born four times, each time in a different Land, you would know good and evil in equal, and therefore just proportions. It was unclear how much was recalled of previous lives or in what order a person was born into the different Lands. It was generally thought that the highest stations in life were occupied by those in their third or fourth incarnation, that is, those who had accumulated the most experience and wisdom. After the fourth incarnation you dissolved back into nothingness, preserving the symmetry of the world, for it was from nothingness that you came.

  In addition, the Davabel order of incarnations said that the number of your life was knowable. The category in a citizen’s identification papers always increased upon his arrival in a new Land; when he achieved a three, however, the number would be erased in the next. The more the erasure of category was postponed, therefore, the higher the person. (Not everyone reached a ripe old age, so those who were higher had a greater chance of avoiding erasure.)

  Gavein had never given thought to how many times he himself or Ra Mahleiné had been incarnated.

  “There is no White Spirit or Red Spirit, Haifan,” he said.

  “You are mistaken, Dave. There are many spirits. Every street, every avenue, every phenomenon has its spirit. That is why things can happen. It is the spirits who make cars go, turn on the television, lift the sun from the horizon. Who else could manage these things? The spirits confide in me. They tell me of their work, of their cares, and that certain people make their work difficult. They come to me every night. In Davabel, the White Spirit is indignant. It told me that it may rule in Davabel to teach the blacks a lesson. Why shoot your mouth off at those who are better than you? All you need to do is look at the passports to see whose incarnation is higher and whose is lower. It’s misfortune enough that an individual is born white—why humiliate him even more?”

  Ra Mahleiné, usually composed, was horror-struck. Her hands were clammy.

  “Do I look paranoid, Dave?” Haifan asked, addressing Gavein only, perhaps because Gavein had spoken first.

  “You don’t. Your eyes aren’t wild. You speak coherently, in whole sentences.” Which was the truth.

  “Then eat, eat . . . I don’t want dinner to be as unpleasant as it was yesterday.”

  “Haifan, tell us what happened. We’re a little frightened,” said Gavein.

  No one else spoke.

  “Fine, but eat. Then I must call the police, because the law, though it makes no sense, should be respected. A person needs to believe in something. That’s why we have the law. Don’t you think, Dave?”

  “I too respect the law, though sometimes respecting it takes effort.”

  “Exactly. You put that well.” He nodded. “I’ll tell you everything, but eat. I want to share it with you, explain my mission.”

  The people at the table raised no objection, though the spaghetti was cold and stiff in their mouths.

  “It was after three, when it’s darkest. I lay in bed and looked at the ceiling. I hadn’t been able to sleep for several nights. In the next room slept that abomination, the fratricide.”

  “Him too?” gasped Edda.

  “Yes. And serves him right if he comes back as a white. For burning Aladar.” He cleared his throat and continued. “And the White Spirit entered. It always comes from the closet. It was bright, had blue eyes and yellow hair, and it said: ‘Why did the Hannings do this thing to me? It is bad in Davabel, and now I must step in.’ I felt that I couldn’t sit by and watch either. Then the Red Spirit came out from behind the curtains. It had flaming hair and eyes that glowed green, and it said: ‘Go thou and do it.’ I asked it what exactly I should do, and it said: ‘The Black Spirit will tell you.’ The Black Spirit joined them and said: ‘You must silence them, so they do not anger the other spirits. Else they will take Davabel from me, and the blacks will have a zero instead of a three on their passports. Therefore take Edda’s hammer, the hammer you use to hang pictures, and take a pillow also.’ The spirits of the hammer and the pillow came to me and gave me the details. I went to the Hannings. The door was open. Ian must have had a premonition that his hour was up, because he wasn’t trying to hide. He slept on his side and had his vile mouth open. His wife slept on her back, snoring like a pig. A breast hung out of her nightgown, pale and long. I thought that she might toss and wake her husband, so I started with him.”

  They all listened to Haifan’s account, forks frozen at various places between mouth and plate.

  “I had brought a handful of long nails. That was to make sure, because his Significant Name was Myzzt. The first went in with one blow.”

  Edda gave a shuddering sigh.

  “Before he could wake up, I quickly hammered in a second, third, fourth, and fifth nail. Some brain spattered, but not much. The nails went in all the way, and when I put in a new one, a little brain came out the other holes. Then I hammered only halfway and moved the nail heads in circles, to tear the brains up more. He began to jerk his arms and legs. I was afraid Phyllis might wake up, so I started on her, not waiting for Ian to finish. I put a pillow over her face and my left knee on her neck. Holding her head in place with my thighs, I pressed the pillow into her face. She fought, scratching my left leg. It hurt, but I pressed with all my strength. The pale breast outside her nightgown jumped in every direction. Finally she weakened, and the twitching started. Meanwhile Ian fell out of bed and was trying to crawl, but his arms and legs didn’t work together. He made a little noise. It wasn’t until Phyllis stopped completely that I could get to him again. I hammered the other nails in the back of his head, at the base. That did the trick. He stopped scraping, only shook off and on. I sat down on a chair in their room and waited more than an hour, to make sure they got cold. They did.” He nodded. “I put Phyllis’s breast back in her shirt, so she would look neater. Then I cleaned my hands and the hammer in their bathroom. I thought to put Ian in bed beside his wife, but he was heavy and spattered with brain, and I didn’t want to get dirtier than I had to.”

  “His Name was Yacrod, not Myzzt,” Edda said, breaking the silence.

  “Yacrod?” Haifan was surprised. “Then the nails were unnecessary. I had a good knife. It would have worked just as well.”

  Yacrod meant: “From sleeping.”

  “Haifan, and your son?” asked Ra Mahleiné.

  “The fratricide? I knew that this night was to be the cleansing of Davabel, so I had to deal with him also. Unfortunately he woke when I began to tie him, and he struggled. But the Spirit of Sleep didn’t let you hear it, because my cause was just. I tied his hands and feet and put his head in a bucket of water, because he was a Flued. He didn’t even kick that much. Then he got properly cold and stiff. I fell asleep just as the sun came up, the first sleep I had in a long time. I’ve told you all this, leaving nothing out, because the spirits required it. Davabel is now purified. Do you know the number of the police station, Dave?” he asked, lifting the receiver.

  “Four nines,” Edda said.

  Haifan calmly reported the triple murder to a dumbfounded official, then ate his portion of pasta with great appetite, not bothered by the fact that the tomato sauce had congealed.

  �
��Edda, bring the pizza quickly, before they come. The interrogation will take a long time, I’m sure, so I’ll need my strength to tell them everything.”

  The police sirens started just as he finished his pizza. Edda went and opened the door. Haifan got up, identified himself, and asked that handcuffs be put on him. The policeman in front just blinked.

  But they put the cuffs on Haifan after they found the mess and bodies in the Hannings’ apartment and then Tad’s bedroom. A plainclothes detective asked the preliminary questions. The man’s name was Bharr Tobiany. He was over six feet tall and massive.

  His children must be clumsy hulks, Gavein thought. Even if Mrs. Tobiany is small and energetic, the father’s genes can’t be ignored.

  In charge of the investigation, Tobiany sat at the table behind a cold pizza tray that had only one piece missing. The bodies were carried out. Then the policemen left. Tobiany asked the tenants not to go anywhere. The Hanning and Tonescu apartments were sealed.

  When the last police car drove off, it became as quiet as it had been while Haifan was telling them about the spirits that moved the world. Edda’s eyes never left Gavein.

  “I’ll make everyone some bitter tea,” said Ra Mahleiné.

  “I’ll help you,” said Helga.

  Edda bored through Gavein with her eyes.

  Zef turned on the television. It was an old film starring Lola Low.

  “Thin as a toothpick,” he said. “She has more voom now.”

  “More voom and fewer clothes,” Gavein remarked.

  The telephone clattered. It was Wilcox. He knew that at this hour Gavein would be sitting in Edda’s dining room. He had taken a book home with him, unable to stop reading it. He asked for two days off, Monday and Tuesday, so he could finish it. Gavein said yes. He was surprised by Wilcox’s request. The man could easily have hidden himself behind the pigeonhole desk during work hours.

  “We should move,” Ra Mahleiné said when they were in bed. “Edda looks at you as if you were the murderer of those three. I felt like giving her hair a yank.”