Nest of Worlds

by Marek S. Huberath

  “But only the ones Dave saw are dying. Miss Anabel de Grouvert remembers which camera he used. Unfortunately, it tallies: almost all the prisoners who were in the range of that camera are now dead. Whether by thallium poisoning or from the rigors of the voyage. Colonel Medved is swamped with work. That’s the reason he hasn’t called. They’ve put him in charge of the Register of Death. Rows of computers, a sea of data. The effect grows stronger . . .”

  “They ought to kill me. That would solve the problem.”

  Puttkamel threw him a quick glance.

  “No, kill such a nice Death?” protested Ra Mahleiné. “Another Death, not as handsome, would only take his place. People must go on dying, after all. Isn’t it better to deal with the Death you know? Are you people that stupid?”

  “Are you aware, Dave, that no one who was on the plane with you is alive now?”

  Gavein said nothing.

  “That announcer made a royal mess for us,” Puttkamel went on. “There is no more housing available on the outskirts.”

  “Why are you saying these things? Why are you telling him all this?” Ra Mahleiné asked heatedly. “What do you want from him?”

  “Me? Nothing. I am merely conveying information that is not in the papers or on television.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by the shouts of men and the sound of glass breaking. Gavein ran out, grabbing his jacket, and Puttkamel followed, holding a fake-leather shoulder bag that bounced as he ran.

  Several dozen people had gathered in the street, yelling threats. Stones rained, breaking windows.

  “Scum,” Gavein said. “A bunch of thugs.”

  The crowd grew more aggressive. A chant began:

  “Come out, David!”

  “Come out, Death!”

  “Drive him out, and we’ll have peace!”

  Several teenagers approached, one holding a can of solvent from a nearby paint shop. Gavein recognized Earthworm and Peter. They started making Molotov cocktails: rags were torn into strips and the ends stuffed into bottles as improvised wicks.

  The first bottle, thrown with an unsteady hand, broke on the sidewalk, and a puddle of flame spread. The heat forced the attackers back.

  It was then that two trucks full of armed soldiers, the Landal Guard, came around the corner. Someone had called them. The driver of the truck in front, seeing the crowd over his hood at the last minute, made a sharp left and hit a streetlamp. The truck rolled over and came to rest upside down, exactly in the center of the burning gasoline. Several of the assailants had been hit. The driver of the second truck swerved, barely missed the overturned vehicle, and plowed into the crowd standing beyond it. Scattering and crushing people, the truck smashed into the glass front of the flower shop on the other side of the street. There was a deafening noise, then an unnatural silence broken only by the groans of the wounded.

  The next moment, the crowd and both trucks were engulfed in flames. A blast of air knocked Puttkamel over and threw Gavein against a wall. In the windows of the burning trucks, one could see the guards who had been unable to free themselves from the metal trap. One man, a running human torch, escaped the zone of fire only to fall to the pavement a few meters away.

  Gavein’s first impulse was to run to help, but the heat was too intense; it seared his face, his eyes.

  He went back inside. Ra Mahleiné had got out of bed and was about to leave the room. They fell into each other’s arms. She said something, sobbing.

  “It appears that Death cannot be killed,” he said and told her briefly what had happened. “I’ll help Edda and the others. They were sitting in the front room. You stay here, you’re too weak.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  There were times when Ra Mahleiné couldn’t be argued with. She put on a sweater and a jacket and went down, leaning on him.

  The blaze was abating. Gavein circled the smoking area. Several charred bodies lay here and there. There were no moans now. Those caught by the fire had died, and those who received lesser injuries had managed to flee. The wooden flower shop had ignited when the truck hit it, and the owners stood watching their livelihood turn to ashes. People had already called for help.

  The front-room floor was covered with broken glass. The television was on full volume, a performance of some kind, modern ballerinas leaping wildly in time to discordant music. The occupants began crawling out from under the table, from behind the sofa, from various corners. No one was badly hurt. Alerted by the noise of the mob, they had had time to hide.

  Lorraine went upstairs.

  On the street, police sirens added their howl to those of the fire trucks and ambulances. What remained of the flower shop was soaked with water; the bodies were all collected. Two men in uniform entered the front room to write out their report and obtain statements from witnesses.

  Lorraine came down, in tears.

  “My father . . . He’s on the floor and won’t move. A stone hit his head. The bastards!”

  “Where is he?” asked a policeman.

  Lorraine’s mother ran down the stairs, pointing. The second policeman called for a stretcher. In a few minutes an unconscious Edgar was carried out with an IV in him. In the ambulance they gave him oxygen, tried to resuscitate him. The physician shook his head. Lorraine and a hysterical Myrna got into the ambulance with the medics and drove away.

  Wilcox shuffled up. He didn’t seem to know what was going on. He reeked of vodka and old sweat. Leaning on a window frame, he babbled: “This whole thing . . . I did the same myself. Yes, it was done by someone like me, reading. I can’t take it anymore. But I can’t stop reading either . . .”

  He hiccoughed, swayed.

  “We can take the old drunk with us,” said a policeman.

  “No need. He’s depressed. He’s a good man,” Gavein said. “A night in jail would do him more harm than good. No one here is charging him with anything.”

  “As you wish.” The policeman waved his hands and left.

  “Gavein,” croaked Wilcox (he was the only one, besides Ra Mahleiné, who didn’t call Gavein “Dave”), “doesn’t it seem to you that we are one person, the same person?”

  “We have different wives.”

  But conversing with a drunk only multiplied inanities.

  “Look in the mirror. The same profile. True, I’m old, but other than that . . .”

  “I never worked on the police force.”

  “Being in a used-book store, being on the beat, it’s the same thirst for power.” The mind of Wilcox was following the paths familiar to it.

  Gavein tried to be patient. “If you say so, Harry.”

  “My name is Hvar, and I was born in Lavath,” Wilcox went on, stubborn. “Ra Mahleiné and Ra Bharré . . . the manul and the she-bear, both names of beasts of the north.”

  “Sleep it off, Harry. You’ll feel better,” said Ra Mahleiné, not pleased at being put in the same category as Brenda.

  “Consider, Gavein . . . They’re both blondes, they look alike. Brenda’s put on weight, but she used to be as thin as your wife.”

  “Ra Mahleiné wears glasses.”

  “Brenda is nearsighted too, but she won’t wear them.”

  “That’s why she squints?”

  Harry nodded, but the nod might have been only a drunken sway.

  “Harry, you forgot about me,” said Zef, putting his two cents in, as usual. “I too aspire to be Dave’s alter ego. We both have white wives. We both are physicists—he as a dabbler, I as a graduate student.”

  “You’re a fool, Zef.” Despite his stupor, Wilcox could tell he was being mocked. “You’re red, and he’s black. Anyway, he’s Death, and I’m Fate, while you are a run-of-the-mill individual. But alter ego, that’s good. It’s exactly what I meant.”

  He spoke more softly, drawn into his own thoughts.

  �
��Was it in your book that you learned that you and Gavein are the same person?” Ra Mahleiné asked.

  “Of course. That book, what an eye-opener it is.”

  Gavein winked at his wife.

  As soon as the police vans drove off, Edda began searching the shelves for her insurance policy. Gavein and Mass, as they had done the day before, began replacing the broken panes, because the evenings now were bitter. Fortunately there were enough extra panes in the storage room. Puttkamel wasn’t there; he had left with the police.

  45

  It was early when the phone started clattering. Gavein picked it up: Medved again.

  “I’m calling on behalf of the Division of Science.”

  “My congratulations on your new position.”

  “Thanks. I owe it to you. The Division requests that you come in for testing. This matter has grown in importance. As a phenomenon you have come to the attention of the highest people.”

  “The testing, how long will it take? You understand, my wife is ill. I need to care for her.”

  “The DS will be quick. They should be done with you in a few days, a week at most.”

  “And my taking off from work? My expenses?”

  “The DS is a government agency. It will see to everything.”

  “I guess I have no choice then.”

  Ra Mahleiné asked, “Where are you going?”

  He covered the receiver with his hand. “He says it’s for testing at the Division of Science.” Then, into the phone, “More are dying, Medved?”

  “I’d put it this way: the dying continues. The number is still in the three digits.”

  “Where do I report? What’s the address?”

  “We’ll come for you. That will be safer.”

  “When?”

  “In an hour.”

  Things were moving too quickly. Gavein didn’t feel prepared, but he didn’t refuse.

  Both Lorraine and Anabel promised they would tend to Ra Mahleiné in Gavein’s absence.

  They hope to stand under the umbrella of safety around David Death, he thought. The instinct of self-preservation at work.

  Ra Mahleiné wiped her glasses over and over. In Davabel they put too much salt on the street, she complained, and it clouded her lenses. The reasoning she used was long and involved. When snow fell, the city authorities instantly (and maliciously) sprinkled salt. The result was slush, which passing cars in turn sprayed on her glasses, and the salt in that slush etched and pitted the glass. She spent an inordinate amount of time removing every trace of salt. Ra Mahleiné had grown even thinner. She vanished among the pillows of the sofa. It seemed that the little energy she had left was devoted to the obsessive cleaning of her lenses.

  She lifted her eyes to Anabel. Without glasses they seemed larger than usual. “Very well, Anabel, I’ll take you, but you must be obedient,” she said, stressing obedient. “You’ll be under my protection, until such time as . . .” She hesitated. “You must listen . . . Any insubordination, and it’s the end for you. An end that will be as miserable as you are.”

  Gavein wondered. Ra Mahleiné loathed the woman yet was choosing her. To pay back old pain, he thought, old humiliation.

  “I remember how you kicked me, as a parting gift. And where you kicked, where you loved to kick.”

  Gavein clenched his fists. He had not known this.

  “Don’t worry, Lorraine,” Ra Mahleiné went on. “I won’t punish you as I do her. You’ll go on walks with me. I’m still weak, but it will be spring soon. The snow will melt. I intend to do a lot of walking, and you’ll help me.”

  “But . . . I have a job.”

  “Don’t you wish to live? To live, you must be near Gavein, at least near me, isn’t that so?”

  Even she believes it, he thought. She accepts the role of Death’s wife.

  “Mrs. Throzz is right,” Lorraine’s mother hastened to say. “That’s definitely the best arrangement. Until the business of all these deaths is made clear, you’ll take a vacation, dear. How can your employers refuse? The most important thing is a person’s safety.”

  46

  With the squeal of tires and the mewl of dying sirens, the column of vehicles came to a halt. At the head of the column were two infantry carriers of the National Guard, armored and fitted with machine guns, small-caliber cannons, and missile launchers. All the vehicles were painted in green-gray camouflage and adorned with the small white, black, and red emblems of Davabel. After the carriers came a white hospital minibus, two civilian cars, an army truck, and another armored vehicle.

  A serious business, thought Gavein, if they arrive with such an entourage.

  Several civilians stepped from the cars. They entered the front room. Two armed soldiers stationed themselves at the door.

  Medved nodded in greeting. “This is Senator Boggs,” he said, introducing a tall, graying man. “And this is Dr. Siskin, from the Division of Science.” Dr. Siskin was small and slight, a gray.

  “And Puttkamel?” asked Gavein. “He should be in this illustrious company.”

  “Don’t joke, Dave. Or don’t you know? The arsonists who survived seized Puttkamel and lynched him.” Medved gestured toward a massive man whose bald spot was exactly the size of the military cap that ordinarily sat on his head. “This is General Thompson.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Thompson. “You don’t seem a monster. Any one of my sergeants looks more imposing.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, sir. I’d be happy to exchange places with any one of them.”

  “Medved informed you of everything by telephone, yes? Let’s be off,” said Thompson.

  “I have a phone call to make, then we can go.”

  “I’m afraid there isn’t time.”

  The soldiers standing by the door both took a step forward.

  “I’m a prisoner?” Gavein asked, turning to Medved. “This you didn’t tell me.”

  “Make your call,” said Senator Boggs. “Of course you are not a prisoner. We are simply in a great hurry, since this matter is so grave.”

  Gavein nodded and picked up the phone. He told Dr. Nott that he was leaving to be tested.

  “I will be in contact with your wife,” the doctor assured him. “She is weak now but will regain her strength before the operation. Do not worry.”

  Gavein hung up. “I am free now. May my wife accompany me?” he asked.

  “Unfortunately, no,” said Siskin. “The testing facility is off-limits. A military installation, you understand.”

  Gavein had expected this answer, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  “I’ll be gone for how long?” he asked.

  “Six, seven days,” said Boggs. “I give you my personal word it will not be longer.”

  “Then let’s go. And may the seven days pass as quickly as possible.”

  Gavein started for one of the cars, but it turned out that he had been assigned a place in the ambulance. Inside were two men wearing helmets and airtight plastic suits. They wanted him to lie on the stretcher, but he preferred to sit. That way he could look out the window as the ambulance drove, its siren on. The two medics began to take readings. As if performing a rite of magic, they ran a sensor over his body.

  “Radiation normal. No higher than background.”

  The other confirmed it.

  On the empty streets Gavein saw burned cars, broken windows, litter. The convoy passed a military cordon.

  “It would be better if you lay down now,” said one of the scientist-medics. “There could be rocks thrown.”

  In the distance was a mob.

  “Why are they doing that?” Gavein asked, taking his place on the thick foam rubber.

  “The infection spreads. People want to fight the germ. Even people you saw only on television, glimpsed accidentally out of the corner of your ey
e, are now dying. If it’s not known whose fate is sealed, then naturally everyone wants to remove the cause.”

  “And you two, why do you wear masks?”

  “We’re volunteers. They tell us to put on masks, so we put on masks, but it makes no difference, does it?”

  “I wouldn’t think so.”

  A couple of stones thumped against the side of the ambulance. The convoy accelerated. More sirens went on. A couple of tear-gas canisters were fired at the crowd.

  “At least they’re not shooting,” said one of the medics.

  “Not shooting yet, Yull. Who knows when they’ll start?”

  “They will be prosecuted if they use weapons. That will make them think first.”

  “For now.”

  The crowd dispersed, and then there was hardly anybody out. The convoy sped down streets that seemed normal.

  “Mr. Death,” said Yull, nudging Gavein with an elbow. “You can sit up now. We’re out of it.”

  Gavein looked around. Once in a while they passed rows of the curious standing along police barriers. No one threw anything at the convoy. Some turned their backs at the last moment or hid their faces.

  They pay me tribute, thought Gavein, as if I were a head of state. Which is no surprise. How else does one welcome Death?

  “The madness was only in Central Davabel,” said the other scientist, Omar. “A lot of people settled private scores behind the pretext of dealing with David Death.”

  “How is the country managing?” Gavein asked.

  “A depopulated Central Davabel is now surrounded by a cordon of soldiers. It’s a tight line, but here and there desperate people break through. Soldiers too have lost members of their families. Sometimes they look the other way. Hence that band of attackers.”

  “What do the attackers want?” Gavein asked, thinking of his wife.

  “To kill you,” Yull answered simply. “In my opinion, it’s not possible. One proof of which was that crack-up on the street in front of your house. The cordon is really to protect people from their own stupidity.”