by Larry Niven
“Maybe for you,” Sylvia said. Then she laughed. “You novelists write so many lines you don’t pay attention to each one. It’s not like poetry.”
“You wrote novels,” I said.
“Yes, and I hated it. Even trying for a potboiler, I kept sweating blood over every damned sentence.”
Oscar had reached the edge of the pit. “I can get down that,” he said. “Don’t know about getting up on the other side, but I can always get back up here again. Allen, what’s down there?”
“Reptiles,” I said.
Carl laughed. “Why does it always have to be snakes?”
“Not just snakes. Lizards, too. Six–legged lizards. I don’t know why Dante gave them six legs. He had to know lizards only have four.”
“Poetic license?” Sylvia said. “Six legs sounds like insects. He was trying to build disgusting images.”
“Maybe he was designing aliens,” Carl said.
“Onk?”
“He was an early evolution theorist describing an alien species that evolved on a planet with shallow seas. It was drying up and they had to come out on land before they evolved the perfect fish shape, so they have six limbs rather than four and a tail.”
“You don’t really think Dante —”
“Gotcha,” Carl said, and laughed. “I suspect Sylvia is right, but maybe he was just describing what he saw. Should we look?”
“I don’t think you appreciate the danger,” Sylvia said. “The snakes bite you, but they don’t just hurt you or kill you. They steal your shape!”
“Yeah. I’ve been there,” I said. “A lizard bites you, you turn into a lizard. Now you’re a stupid lizard until you find someone else to bite.”
“Still, no one bit Dante,” Sylvia said. “He went right down into the pit. That’s where he talked to Vanni Fucci.” When we looked blank she said impatiently, “The man who made the figs at God.”
This said, the thief lifted his hands on high,
Making the figs with both his thumbs, and shrieking:
“The fico for Thee, God! Take that, say I!”
“Figs?” Eloise asked.
Sylvia sighed. She put her thumb between her first and middle fingers and closed her fist. “Behold ‘The obscene gesture known as the figs.’ ”
“Why is that obscene — oh.” Eloise smiled.
“Nobody bit Dante, but I got bitten,” I said. “He stole my shape, too.”
“How did you get out?” Carl asked.
“He let me bite him back,” I said. “He wanted to know the way out. I think I was able to tell him.”
“They always got their shapes back anyway,” Sylvia said. “It just took time. Look, we don’t have to be afraid of that place. We aren’t thieves.”
“Well, you don’t,” I said. “You got forgiven.”
Carl looked at me inquiringly.
“She confessed,” I said. “To a priest. In an ice–cream parlor. In the desert. And no, I don’t want to explain any more of that.”
Carl laughed, but there was puzzlement in his tone. “Confession. Should we go find Father Ernesto? Does that confession business work?”
“You about to convert to the Church?” Eloise asked. The capital letter was obvious in her voice.
“I’m a pragmatist,” Carl said. “If that’s what works — Come on, Allen, you must feel the same way.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Eloise shook her head.
“Rationalists,” Sylvia said. “Don’t worry about it, they’ll catch on sooner or later.”
“You sure have turned optimist,” I said.
“It’s better than being a suicidal depressive, isn’t it?”
Oscar honked his horn. “We going down that ramp or not?”
“Not, I think. It seems a very dangerous place,” Carl said. “One to avoid. We should take the bridge.”
“I’m not scared of snakes,” Oscar said. “What happens, a lizard bites me and turns into a toy car? With remote control? Come on, I’d like to see this up closer.”
“You do that,” Carl said. “The rest of us take the bridge.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said.
“Sure,” Oscar said. “We can all take the bridge. Build me a ramp, I’ll give rail walking a try. But first let’s just take a closer look. I don’t see any snakes, do you? I think the place is empty.”
“Oscar, the Seventh Bolgia is huge,” I said. “You saw that, you can barely see the other side. It’s not empty.”
“Looks empty. Come on. We see any snakes, I’ll outrun them back up the ramp. I can do that in reverse.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“I got you here,” Oscar insisted. “I’ll take care of you.”
“Fair’s fair,” Sylvia said. She got into the passenger seat. “Carl, you want to sit in my lap?”
“No, the fender’s all right,” Carl said. “I’m used to it.”
We piled in and started cautiously down the ramp into the Seventh Bolgia.
Oscar moved slowly down the ramp.
“I don’t like this,” I said. “Last time I was here there were lizards everywhere.”
“Nothing so far,” Eloise said. We went on a few yards out onto the flats, moving a little faster, a little smoother.
Eloise shouted, “Wait! Look behind us!”
We looked back. There must have been concealed holes in the wall and the ramp. A dozen snakes and lizards blocked the way back up, and they were coming for us.
“Hang on!” Oscar shouted. He gunned away from the ramp. There were rocks. “Going to be rough!” He twisted through a slalom of head–sized rocks, then bounced hard as he hit a pothole. Carl shouted something and fell off the fender.
“Stop!” Sylvia shouted.
“Can’t stop. Hide, Carl! We’ll come back for you. They’ll follow us.”
“Maybe they will,” Sylvia said.
Oscar traced a large circle through the boulder field and came back toward the ramp. The ramp was blocked now, snakes and lizards and boulders in an impenetrable maze. We skidded through the rocks to where Carl had fallen.
“Too late,” Eloise said. “Oh, poor Carl —”
“There he is!” Sylvia pointed. “On top of that boulder!”
Oscar swerved hard to bring us alongside a house–sized rock, and stopped. “Carl! Jump in!”
He dove off the rock head first into the passenger seat. Something snapped. Oscar drove off hard. “They’re after us!” Eloise shouted.
“I think you broke my arm,” Sylvia said. She sounded like a hurt little girl.
“Sorry,” Carl said, his voice muffled, his legs sticking up.
“That ramp was a trap!” I said. “We should have known.”
“Cooperating thieves,” Sylvia said. She helped Carl to get upright. They shared the seat uncomfortably as she nursed her broken forearm. “God, this hurts. I must have forgotten to confess shoplifting a blouse!”
“I hope you’re joking,” I said. “A trap! Carl, think about it, six–legged lizards. Could they be tool users? Centaur shape frees up the extra limbs for hands. It was in your book.”
Carl studied my face uncertainly. Then he looked back anxiously. “They’re still coming.”
“Allen, where to?” Oscar’s radio demanded. I looked to Carl for suggestions but it was clear he had no ideas.
“Across the pit, maybe there’s a way up the other side.” I stood up in the driver’s seat. “Full speed ahead. It looks clear.”
“Here we go.” Oscar laughed maniacally. “I think I’ve been bitten a dozen times. Let them break their teeth on me! Hoo–hah!”
There were fewer boulders here in the center of the Bolgia. Oscar really opened up. We were across the center area, heading for the downhill wall of the Fifth Bolgia.
Oscar slowed. “Allen! It’s another damn trap! Rocks. Demons!”
It wasn’t obvious until we were well into the trap. Converging lines of irregularly spaced rocks on both sides
forced us toward something ahead. I couldn’t see what that was, so I stood on the seat, holding on to the windshield, and peered through the murk. “Something up there.”
“What?” Sylvia asked.
“It looks like demons. We’re heading for a circle of demons.”
“I’ll get us out of here,” Oscar said.
“No good!” Eloise shouted from the fender. She pointed behind us. An army of lizards and snakes pursued us. In this rock field they were as fast as Oscar, and more were constantly sliding from under rocks and boulders.
I strained to look ahead. Something in the demon circle caught my eye. Blue cloth. A sun hat with a feather. I stared again. “Oscar, go for the demons.” I stood on the seat and waved frantically.
We were rushing toward a line of ten–foot demons. As we got closer we could see that each was equipped with an enormous wooden mallet. Teeth and horns flashed. A demon swung his mallet and a lizard sailed overhead, narrowly missing me. Another demon swung. A snake flew past.
I waved again.
“Allen —” Oscar shouted.
“Keep going. At least we can talk to demons. Lizards just bite!”
Just as we reached the demon circle, it opened. Two demons stepped inward, and two more moved outward to open a narrow gap. We drove in. The gap closed behind us. We stopped in front of a white wicker gazebo. Three people sat at a table in the gazebo. One was Rosemary Bennett.
Chapter 28
Eighth Circle, Seventh Bolgia
Part Two
Deputy Prosecutor
* * *
For suddenly, as I watched, I saw a lizard
Come darting forward on six great taloned feet
And fasten itself to a sinner from crotch to gizzard.
Its middle feet sank in the sweat and grime
Of the wretch’s paunch, its forefeet clamped his arms
Its teeth bit through both cheeks. At the same time
Its hind feet fastened on the sinner’s thighs
Its tail thrust through his legs and closed its coil
Over his loins. I saw it with my own eyes!
No ivy ever grew about a tree
So tightly as that monster wove itself
Limb by limb about the sinner’s body.
They fused like hot wax, and their colors ran
Together until neither wretch nor monster
Appeared what he had been when he began …
Rosemary looked very professional in a light blue skirt suit. That’s what had caught my eye. She wore stockings and heels, and a feathered sun hat, and looked pert and cool despite the location, as if she were on an outing in New Orleans. There were two men at the table with her. One wore a light gray business suit and gaily colored necktie. The other was dressed in dirty and ragged robes. Both men stood as we came to a stop.
There were two demons guarding the steps up to the gazebo. They scowled without moving.
“Allen,” Rosemary said. “It’s good to see you again. You seem to have collected an entourage.”
I got out of the car. “Rosemary, may I present them? Carl, a philosopher from the Third Bolgia. Eloise, from the same. Sylvia from the Grove of the Suicides. And Oscar from — we call it the Valley of Desolation. Seventh Circle, runs from Phlegethon halfway into the fiery desert. Friends, this is Ms. Rosemary Bennett, Esquire, lead deputy to Chief Deputy Prosecutor James Girard.”
Rosemary bowed her head in acknowledgment. “Chief Deputy Prosecutor Bennett,” she said softly. “James is now senior chief deputy prosecutor.”
“Promotions already. I’m hardly surprised. Congratulations,” I said.
“You have met my assistants,” Rosemary said. “Professor Henri Lebeau, and Roger Hastings. And I think you have never been introduced to my protectors, Jezebeth and Sybacca, although you saw them in Dis.”
Henri Lebeau bowed slightly. Roger looked up at me briefly. The demons acknowledged my existence with snarls. I thought they might have been two I’d seen in Dis, but I couldn’t be sure.
It was peaceful enough here, no lizards or snakes. A dozen men and women stood two abreast in a line behind us. They looked displeased at our jumping to the head of the line, but they were trying hard not to. Beyond them was the circle of demons, and beyond that a wall of lizards and snakes tried to get past them.
The demons made it a sport. One would catch a lizard or snake, roll it into a ball, and drop it at the feet of another demon. That one would swing his mallet to send the reptile flying. One of the demons seemed to be keeping score on how far each sinner flew when the hammer swung.
“Recruiting interviews?” I asked Rosemary.
“Yes, Allen. Are you applying for a position?” When I didn’t answer immediately, she said, “If not, while it is always pleasant to see you, Allen, these are working hours for me, and you are using up time I can’t spare.”
“I need a job,” Oscar said. “Please, ma’am. I want to get back where I belong.”
She barely flinched when the car spoke. “Seventh Circle, I believe Allen said? Your name?”
“Oscar T.J. White.”
Rosemary turned to the man in rags. “Roger, if you please.”
Roger had what looked like a book open on the table in front of him. It had a keyboard. He typed something. Sylvia, Carl, and I stared at it. “What’s that?” I asked.
“Laptop computer,” Eloise said. “Everyone has them.”
“My apologies, Allen,” Rosemary said. “I had forgotten that you wouldn’t know. Actually, you just missed them. Laptops became quite popular not very long after you died.”
Roger looked up to Rosemary. “Seventh Circle, Sins Against Nature, madam. He agreed to herd Violent Wasters. Missing for one hundred ninety–four days now.”
“It wasn’t my fault!” Oscar howled. “I was carjacked! They drove me across the desert, then pushed me over the big cliff!”
“Your doing, Allen?” Rosemary asked politely.
“Yes. Well, Benito and me. We wanted transportation.”
“It was the spaceman who pushed me off the cliff,” Oscar said. “I landed on my back. Carpenter here put me on my feet again. Ma’am.”
“And in turn you agreed to serve Allen Carpenter,” Rosemary said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“A good decision. Very well. I see no reason why you should not go back to your former duties.”
The man in rags coughed discreetly.
“Yes, Roger?”
“We have a request for his transfer, ma’am. Black Talon wants him. Promised him new equipment.”
“Black Talon himself?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Rosemary looked thoughtful. “It would be helpful to have such a senior officer in our debt,” Rosemary said. “Oscar, you seem to have impressed Black Talon. Have you any objection to serving him?”
“Rather be in my old place,” Oscar said. “If it’s all the same to you, ma’am.”
Clearly it was not all the same to Rosemary, but she merely nodded. “We can discuss this another time. Allen, have you reconsidered my offer? I can use an intelligent assistant.”
Carl said, “Sounds good to me!”
Rosemary regarded him coldly. “Why should I regard you as intelligent?” she asked.
He grinned. “I wrote a book!”
A lizard’s head appeared from under the car. Belly up, the lizard wriggled out into the open and turned over. It crouched, looking from one to another of us.
Rosemary saw it and frowned. Several devils saw it, and did nothing. Sylvia and Carl began to back away.
It was just small enough to fit under Oscar: a small Komodo dragon, but with six limbs. It gathered its strength, then charged, running right past Rosemary and her entourage, straight at us. Carl screamed, “Don’t let it get me!”
I reached behind me, snatched up a fistful of Carl’s academic robe, and hurled him at the lizard.
Sylvia whispered, “Allen!”
The lizard wrapped i
tself around Carl. Carl howled.
We watched them change. A stupefied man became a lizard, a lizard became a man in a tattered academic robe. The man thrashed, rolled onto all fours, and backed away from the lizard. “It’s me! It’s me!” he shouted. “Allen! Sylvia!” He sure looked like Carl.
Oscar said, “I’ll be damned. Identity theft.”
I said, “Give me a countable infinity.”
“Rational numbers. I can show you. And real numbers are uncountable, a higher infinity. It’s me, Allen. Oscar, when you stopped for that obscene lizard I slid under the car. I was afraid you’d feel me hanging on.”
One of the devils picked up the lizard in two hands. He hurled it to another devil, who was about to swing his mallet when Rosemary said, “Hold on to that one. He might be interesting.”
The demon bowed slightly and passed the lizard to another to hold. Rosemary barked at the double line of applicants. “Will one of you do me a service?”
Four stepped forward. Rosemary said, “I need you to let that lizard bite you.”
They stared. Then two stepped back in line, and a robed man stepped toward the demon who held the lizard.
We watched the change.
The man who emerged from the lizard’s shape looked like a balding Kewpie doll. The demon was still holding him, and he wriggled. Rosemary asked, “Who are you?”
The man said, “Kenneth Lay. I ran a business. Miss, are you hiring?”
“Roger?”
“Mr. Lay is too modest. He stole billions.”
“I was never convicted. Miss, I’m good at organizing. You need me.”
“I don’t think you represent what we want in a recruiter, Mr. Lay. Hambelis, let the lizard bite him.”
Lay wriggled free and ran. The demon’s reach was amazingly long — a sight I’d remember — and Lay was thrashing as the lizard wrapped around him.
“And how did you know, Allen?” Rosemary asked me.
“I’ve suspected since we picked him up,” I said. “He didn’t react the way the real Carl would have. Carl, prove to Madam Bennett that you’re intelligent.”
“Here? All the rules are whimsical. All right, ma’am, do you know how to make a Möbius strip? I’d need paper, scissors, and glue. Or I can talk about quantum physics and how much we really don’t know because our theories aren’t unified.”
