Escape From Hell

by Larry Niven

  “Assia was a liar. But she committed suicide.”

  “You’d rescue the woman who stole your husband?”

  Sylvia pointed. “From that? I think so. I’m glad I don’t have to decide.” She laughed nervously, as people do in a graveyard. “And I don’t think I know any counterfeiters. Of course there’s Gianni Schicchi.”

  “Who?”

  “You didn’t read Dante very closely, did you? Gianni Schicchi. A Florentine contemporary of Dante’s who helped forge a will. Puccini wrote an opera about him. I don’t know what the real one was like, but Puccini’s character was likable.”

  “Oh.” I thought I’d seen the opera, but I didn’t remember any details. “I guess I don’t care,” I said. “I mean, I do care, I’d like to get them out, but Sylvia, there are so many here! I can’t do it all!”

  “Another epiphany, Allen?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Hello?” I had nearly walked on his face.

  “Angel!” he said.

  He looked like the Kilroy Was Here sigil from World War II. I could see only his ten fingers and a face with thin hair and a prominent nose. He’d climbed to the edge of the pit and run out of strength. His pale skin was mottled; his head and hands were distorted with black bubbles, some burst and runny, some intact. One last effort pulled his chin into view, and he said, “You. Angel. Help me.”

  Sylvia said, “I can’t understand him.”

  I could, but he wasn’t speaking English, not quite. It sounded, I thought, like Chaucer as my senior high school teacher had tried to speak it. Still looking at Sylvia he said, “Angel. Put me back. I gave bad advice. War. I told the king, war. Attack first. You have the right.”

  I said, “Ah.” Sylvia looked impatient. “Black plague. Medieval times. War got you too many dead bodies, bodies got you rats, rats got you lice, lice got you black plague. A lot of wars ended because of plague, before Lister and Pasteur. He says he was an Evil Counselor.”

  “Shall we pull him out?”

  He might be carrying diseased lice. We looked at each other …

  And pulled him out anyway. He knelt and banged his head on the dirt in front of Sylvia. She avoided having her feet kissed, and he staggered away upslope. On the bridge over the Ninth Bolgia he crawled like a snake to avoid Sword. Maybe he hadn’t told us everything.

  We began the ascent of the bridge over the Tenth Bolgia. It was steep enough to take slowly, and after a few yards we stopped to lean on the waist–high stone guard wall. Sylvia looked down into the pit. “Scientists?” she said. She pointed at a group of men in white laboratory coats. They stood in a circle screaming at each other.

  Movement caught our eyes. Sylvia pointed. A man was walking purposefully through the Bolgia. “Is that a toga?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “He doesn’t seem worried about catching anything.”

  As she spoke a rabid figure in a white coat went howling past. It bit a woman, then ran up to the man with the toga. It stared at him, then ran away.

  “Apparently he doesn’t need to worry,” I told her. I cupped my hands into a megaphone. “You! Sir!”

  He looked up. “More of you?” he said. “Are we coming to the last days?”

  Sylvia looked blank. “Is that Latin?” she asked.

  “I can’t tell,” I told her. “I just understand it.”

  “I wonder if I will get the gift of tongues. It seems handy.” She shouted, “Do you speak English?”

  “Well enough.”

  “We know the way out,” I shouted. “Come with us.”

  “Wait,” he said.

  “He sounds like he’s used to giving orders,” Sylvia said.

  “Does, doesn’t he? But we did invite him.”

  He made his way to the edge of the Bolgia. I couldn’t see any obvious path up the wall, but he found one. It must have been narrow, but he was walking, not climbing. He reached the top and started up the bridge.

  “Allen Carpenter,” I said.

  He gave a perfunctory stiff bow. “I have heard. I thank you for the invitation. I cannot come with you.”

  “Why not?” Sylvia demanded. “Don’t you trust us?”

  “Should I?”

  “Yes.”

  “I believe you,” he said. “But that makes no difference. I cannot leave. I must stay until I learn what is truth.”

  Sylvia frowned. “Learn what is truth?”

  “Yes. I asked one who knew, but I did not wait for an answer. Now I must wait until I know.”

  Sylvia said, “You’re Pontius Pilate!”

  “Pilatus,” he said. “Yes.”

  “Then all that’s true?” I asked. “The Gospels? You crucified Jesus?”

  “I have heard the Gospels read to me. The account is not perfect but it is not inaccurate. Yes, I ordered the execution. It was my duty as prefect.”

  “Was he the Son of God?”

  “How should I know? Evidently you know the story. I had no evidence of divinity, not in my court. I saw a man of great courage and dignity, nothing more. He did not deserve death, but the elders of the city clamored for his blood. I already had ample experience of the riots they could cause! And always they appealed to Rome! After one of their riots, Tiberius Caesar commanded me to keep order. An imperial rescript directed to me!”

  “You crucified Jesus, and you’re in Hell. But there are so many worse off!”

  “Of course I had him crucified. I did my duty. I was not an evil man. What choices had I? If I had released him, there would be riots. My soldiers would suppress the insurrection. Many would be killed. The reputation of the city would suffer. Revenue would fall. Caesar would not receive his due! All that to save a country prophet whose own people denounced him? They would have stoned him if I released him!”

  “You know better now,” Sylvia said.

  “Do I? It is clear that this Jesus was important. Now they say he was the Son of God, and I can only answer that he did not seem so to me. What I do know is that I must wait until he returns to answer the question I asked him.”

  “Why here?”

  “Think about it,” Pilate said.

  “Well, this is the last place I’d come to learn what truth is,” Sylvia said.

  “Or the first,” Pilate said.

  I thought that one over. “You come to the pit of liars to learn about truth?”

  “This is where I was sent.”

  “And what have you learned?” Sylvia asked.

  “Much about lies. There are all kinds,” Pilate said. “You may not learn truth here, but you can learn all about deceit. With enough deceit — does any truth remain? Farewell, Carpenter. I resume my studies.” He strode off, proudly.

  I called after him. “Try the Virtuous Pagans!” He lifted his hand, straight–armed, but didn’t turn.

  Sylvia and I trudged upward in silence. At the top of the arch we saw a familiar figure.

  “Carl!” I said happily.

  He grinned. “Not quite in the flesh. But it is I.”

  “Recruiting? Here?” I asked.

  “In theory. Madam Bennett thought that a persuasive liar might be a good addition to our trial preparation staff. I’m waiting for my escorts to come back before I go down in there again.”

  “I hated that place,” I said.

  “It’s not so bad if you have escorts,” Carl said. “What I found were people who lied about evidence so they could support a cause. Tobacco company scientists. Eugenicists. Scientists who refused to believe in global warming. Communists who wanted government favor. Lysenko himself! Scientists who fervently believed in global warming. Scientists who had found a miracle cure for a disease, but who wouldn’t allow it to be tested until they were well paid. Scientists who claimed to have cloned various creatures, but wouldn’t tell how anyone else could do it. Science writers who published evidence they knew was false. On and on! Some were colleagues. But I didn’t find anyone we could use. I don’t think I will.”

  “Why not? I
’d think a good liar might be useful, if only to persuade sinners to cop a plea,” I said.

  “It doesn’t work that way, Allen,” Carl said. “What is the purpose of a trial?”

  “It’s a contest between lawyers to see who can persuade a bunch of people too stupid to get out of jury duty,” I said.

  “You must have had some bad experiences with the law.”

  “Bad enough.”

  “I don’t think it works that way here. Madam Bennett says it’s a search for the truth.”

  “Carl, why would an omniscient God need to have any kind of search? Won’t He know the truth?”

  “Does that make it true for us?”

  “What?”

  “Allen, I’m guessing like you are, but doesn’t God want us to know the truth for ourselves, not just accept it on His say–so?”

  “Science,” Sylvia said. “They always told us that science was a way to find truth.”

  “The only way, I’d have said.” Carl looked puzzled. “Now I’m not so sure of that, but one thing I am sure of, science is a way to find some truths, and it can’t work if you lie about the evidence! And down there I found thousands of scientists who lied all the time. Make the experimental results fit the theory.” His voice rose. He was clearly furious.

  “You never did that?”

  “No! I never came close to that. Oh, I got passionate about some causes, and maybe I was overly skeptical about some data, and overly sure of some conclusions, but I never faked an experiment.”

  “No matter how important the cause?” Sylvia asked.

  “No! Don’t you see, once you do that, science isn’t a way to find truth at all! And it’s the only reliable way we have. And here come my escorts. Farewell, Allen. I wish you well.”

  We shook hands. I could see two misshapen figures approaching up the bridge. Carl turned and walked toward them.

  And we crossed over the Tenth Bolgia and into nothing.

  Chapter 32

  Eighth Circle

  Beyond The Tenth Bolgia

  * * *

  And when I’d gazed that way a little more

  I seemed to see a plump of tall towers looming;

  “Master,” said I, “what town lies on before?”

  “Thou stri’st to see too far amid these glooming

  Shadows,” said he: “this makes thy fancy err,

  Concluding falsely from thy false assuming;

  Full well shalt thou perceive, when thou art there,

  How strangely distance can delude the eye:

  Therefore spur on thy steps the speedier.”

  We walked on loose stones: ankle–breaker country, like a lot of Hell. The smells had diminished. We heard no screaming. Shadows at the horizon might have been restlessly shifting mirages. By and by Sylvia asked, “What is this empty place?”

  “I wondered if this was a place for sins that don’t exist yet.”

  Sylvia frowned. “Genocide?”

  “Genocide is old, maybe as old as the Neanderthals. I thought wireheading, or playing with your body shape, or … suppose you knew all about kinetic energy and the death of the dinosaurs —”

  “Dinosaurs? You know how they died?”

  “Giant meteoroid impact.”

  “Oh, wow. Allen, I grew up knowing we’d never know that.”

  “When I died we had no more defense than the dinosaurs did. I hope we’ve got better spacecraft than we did in the 1970s. Anyway, Corbett talked about a search program for near Earth objects, called Spaceguard. Suppose you knew all about asteroids and comets and impacts and megadeaths. What if you still ignored the space program, or blocked it, or siphoned money from it? You could destroy the whole human race. Maybe this place … well. Just a thought.”

  Sylvia looked around. “It’s so big. So empty. Waiting for something.”

  And there he was.

  He’d come out of nowhere, an ordinary man sitting at a desk. A little screen in front of him, a keyboard like typewriter keys, reminded me of the magic computers Rosemary’s people used in the walls of Dis, though the box was much bigger. His head came up; he gaped, then laughed in delight. “Oh, wonderful! What are you?”

  Sylvia asked, “Do you know you’re almost out?”

  “I was afraid my imagination had just plain quit. I was trying to write a story, but I keep nodding off. Out of what?”

  “Hell,” she said.

  “Hmm. Hell. Nah.”

  “You’re a writer. So was I,” I said. “And Sylvia’s a poet. How did you die? What was your sin?”

  “I’m just making it up as I go along. You, tell me about yourself. What did you write?”

  Was he listening, or just babbling? “Anything I liked. Science fiction, fantasy, TV scripts, once a script for a circus —”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  “But what are you doing here?” I looked around. We were on a cheap gray rug, and nothing was around us, not even the horizon with its distant shadows. “You don’t seem to have a here here.”

  “My fault. I think my imagination is going. You’ll be gone in a second. Hey, tell me a story first.”

  I took a wild–assed guess. “Once upon a time there was a solipsist. Of course he had to invent time first —”

  Sylvia asked, “Solipsist?”

  I told her, “It’s a legitimate philosophical position. I think, therefore I am, but nothing else is real except my imagination. Every decent fantasy writer tries it on for size at least once. It’s a sin, of course. You’re claiming to be God. And the penalty would be to be all alone. Nobody else exists.”

  He was nodding. “Good, good. What’s the way out? How do you end the story?”

  “Well, they were always short stories. Never a novel. The stories, they always end when … when the solipsist follows his own logic and everything goes away.”

  “Like waking the White King in Through the Looking–Glass.” He tapped briefly at the keyboard; I heard the tapping, but not the click of keys. “Brilliant.”

  “Solipsism isn’t an idea you can hang on to,” I mused. “Sooner or later you break your toe on a doorjamb, or sneeze, or your doctor tells you you’ve got cataracts: something nobody would make up for himself.”

  “Cancer,” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t go to the doctor in time. A brown patch on my neck. Maybe I just didn’t believe it. Stupid. It was only skin cancer, but now it’s in my lungs. Nobody would make up a thing like that.” He stood up. The desk and chair and computer were gone. He coughed, and looked around in some dismay. “What’s this?”

  A vast plain with a tilt to it; empty. Huge, vague shadows along the downhill horizon.

  I said, “Cancer can rob the oxygen from your brain. You might not remember dying.”

  “Dying. You said Hell?”

  “We know the way out.”

  “So do I,” he said, and was gone. I heard a ghostly tapping.

  Sylvia asked, “How do we get him out?”

  “He’s gone too deep into his own navel. A writer can do that. He’ll have to imagine Hell, I guess. We gave him enough hints.”

  We went on. We didn’t see more solipsists. “It must be rare,” Sylvia said presently.

  “Yeah,” I said, “now. But computers were getting better at giving you artificial realities. There was an adventure game that everyone working in aerospace played. Role–playing games were getting really good … and this is a big place.”

  The shadows grew larger, and the murk that blocked them cleared. They moved seldom, but they moved. Soon we could see giant human shapes, three in view, standing behind a rocky wall. Waist high the wall was to them. It stood three stories above us, and the giants stood another three stories above that. The nearest giant held a curved horn thirty feet long.

  He raised the horn as we neared, then reconsidered and lowered it. “What point?” he murmured, in a bass that thrummed against the wall. “The lice swarm ever more thickly. Why tell the other lice?
”

  “That must be Nimrod,” Sylvia said. “He speaks gibberish, and he’s got the horn.”

  “Wish he’d learn manners,” I said, and raised my voice. “Hail, Nimrod!”

  He jumped as if struck by lightning. Rock sprayed as his horn hit the wall. “You know my speech!”

  “I do. Can you give us a boost over that wall?”

  “Stay and talk! My senses are starved here! I cannot even talk to the other Titans — No, wait, wait!”

  “What for? There are plenty of giants,” I said as we turned away. I wanted to see more of these wonders.

  The next giant was wrapped in chains. He said, “That one called you lice.”

  “You understood him?”

  “I understand Nimrod’s speech. He has nothing to say. It’s all whining. Louse, will you scratch an itch for me?”

  “Depends on where it is.”

  “On my back, along both shoulder blades, and on my soul. Are Titans gone from the world? Were any of us permitted into Heaven, or did any force their way in? What’s happening on Earth, that so many run loose across Hell? We’ve seen near a score.”

  Sylvia said, “We haven’t reached Heaven yet. There aren’t any Titans on Earth. Lift us to your shoulders and bend over so we can walk your back.”

  He writhed. “I’m bound! I can’t lift anything!”

  From far around the curve came a bellow. “Me! I can do that!”

  So we went on. I was thinking that whatever we told one would spread to the others, even if it took ages of gossip.

  “I am Antaeus,” the next one said. He wasn’t bound. He offered us a hand, and we stepped aboard together. I couldn’t help picturing how it could crush us; but he lifted us more or less gently and set us on his bowed back.

  I had no faith in my fingernails being big enough, so I used the pick. Sylvia took up the chain. We scratched while we talked. It was kind of fun. Antaeus was fascinated by my tales of skyscrapers and oil tankers and the Saturn moonships, any artifact larger than himself. Weapons got his attention, too. He wanted to know the fates of various countries. Sylvia recognized more of them than I did. I vaguely remembered the Acadian Empire, but no details.

  “This is crazy,” I said.