Stairway to Hell

by CW Hawes

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know the words.”

  She looked into his eyes and Mostyn understood the term to mean the supreme tribunal of Tsath.

  “And why did you wish to see them?” he asked, once again using Spanish.

  “I wanted permission to be your watcher. You and the others are under a suspended death penalty. If you give the people of K’n-yan the slightest reason to do so, your stay of execution will be lifted and you will be mutilated in the most colorful and entertaining manner imaginable.”

  Mostyn didn’t find that information very encouraging. “What did they say?”

  “They agreed to transfer you to my apartment and to my care, with the understanding that if the need arises to execute you, I will be executed as well.”

  “How did you persuade them?”

  “I told them men from the upper world are very susceptible to manipulation by women. There is, of course, the situation with Pánfilo and T’la-yub and the one in your group called ‘Jones’.”

  Mostyn shook his head. Leave it to Jones, he thought, to screw things up. God’s gift to women.

  “However, Ger-Hy’la-T’la will be present when you meet with your people and with our learned ones.”

  “Why not you?”

  “One of the gn’agn expressed concern that you might be persuasive as was Pánfilo. And so Ger-Hy’la-T’la will be with you when you talk to your people and to those of my people who are in authority. Come, Mostyn Pierce. I take you to your new home. The home of your wife.”

  “What about the affection group?”

  “What about them?”

  “Won’t they be angry?”

  “Angry? No. Why should they be? They will visit and we will enjoy their companionship and then they will leave. We will simply not have sex with them.”

  “How convenient.” Mostyn muttered in English.

  “Are you okay, Mostyn Pierce?”

  “I’m fine, beautiful one.”

  H’tha-dub’s face lit up at the term of endearment. “Oh, Mostyn Pierce, my love, I am so glad you came to our world and I am so very happy we are going to yours. Come now, your new bed awaits your warmth.”

  12

  He’d learned from H’tha-dub that the day he moved to her suite was day four that he and his team were in K’n-yan. Day one being the day of capture. A day being one activity period and one rest period. The K’n-yanian method of telling time wasn’t much different than that of his world, Mostyn realized. The time of rest ended the day. And as with many Americans, the rest period, or night, didn’t necessarily mean people actually rested. K’n-yanians tended to party through most of the rest period and sleep through most of the activity period.

  And since K’n-yanians had no need to work, there being an overabundance of slaves and machinery to do that for them, Mostyn learned the hard way that trying to motivate H’tha-dub to the task of leaving was tantamount to trying to push a two-ton truck uphill with the parking brake on.

  The semi-anarchistic nature of K’n-yanian society meant habit tended to be the prime motivator to action. The typical day for K’n-yanians consisted of playing games, getting drunk, participating in sexual and gastronomic orgies, torturing slaves for entertainment, sitting around daydreaming, discussing art and philosophy, participating in religious ceremonies (often orgiastic in nature), and anything else the mind could come up with that didn’t involve work.

  In this, H’tha-dub was no different than any other member of her race. She wanted to play and, in her particular case, to spend the day in bed copulating with Mostyn. Something he chalked up to being akin to a child’s fascination with a new toy. In many ways, he saw the K’n-yanians as very childlike in their approach to life.

  After two days of eating, drinking, sex, playing a game somewhat similar to backgammon, and visiting with members of their affection group, Mostyn finally got H’tha-dub to agree to go out with him and to gather the information that he needed.

  For this day, day seven of his being in K’n-yan, Mostyn wanted to get some familiarity with the city. He needed to know how it was laid out, and what were the ways into and out of it. To that end, he and H’tha-dub spent what he figured were two or three hours walking up and down the various streets. People were about, none in a hurry. There were no street vendors, no street musicians, no homeless people, no storefronts, no factories, no vehicles. Mostyn asked H’tha-dub about this.

  “The slaves do all our work. If I want a new robe, I order one of my slaves to make it. My slaves tend my garden and my animals. If I need to buy something, which does not happen very often at all, I pay the owner of a slave who can make whatever it is I need. But seriously, Mostyn Pierce, what do I need?”

  “You have a point. You seem to have everything.”

  “We K’n-yanians don’t travel much and haven’t for many centuries. Therefore, we have little need of vehicles. Slaves grow our food and make our wine, repair our dwellings, make our clothes, and build our furniture. There is no need for factories or shops. Anything we need is made for us. We own very little. Even the Tulu metal, which we value and hold to be sacred, was distributed equally to all K’n-yanians. Over the centuries, some have acquired more to the loss of others. But no one is without the metal, everyone has some, and no one is without any of the necessities of life.”

  Mostyn thought for a moment on what she said before speaking. “Are you happy?”

  “I am now.”

  “You weren’t before?”

  “No, not before. I was tired of life. Tired of doing the same things with the same people every day for hundreds of years.”

  Almost to himself, Mostyn muttered, “So utopia has its price and it’s called boredom.”

  “I do not understand. What is ‘utopia’?”

  “More or less what you have here. No problems, no worries. Everyone has everything they could possibly need — except happiness.”

  H’tha-dub seemed to ruminate on his words for a moment, before replying. “Yes, I think this is true what you say. Do you in your world have everything you want?”

  “Far from it. Most of us work, and work hard, and don’t get anywhere near what we want. Many don’t even get what they need.”

  H’tha-dub stopped walking and turned to Mostyn. “You work? Don’t you have slaves?”

  “Nope. No slaves. I have to do the work I need done, or pay someone else to do the work, or buy a machine to do it. And the money to pay the person or buy the machine comes from the job I have to go to five, or more, days a week.”

  “A job? What is this ‘job’?”

  “It’s work I do that I get money for doing.”

  “I don’t understand. Do you mean to say I must become a slave when I go to your world? But I’ll be a slave that gets money for what slaves are just supposed to do?”

  “Something like that.”

  She started walking again, and Mostyn walked with her.

  “What a strange world you live in, Mostyn Pierce.”

  “You still want to go there?”

  She stopped and turned to him. “Yes, Mostyn Pierce. I want this new experience to be a slave who gets money for working.” Then she clapped her hands like a little child and a big smile broke out on her face. “I could live forever on all the new experiences of your world!”

  “Except I wouldn’t be there with you.”

  Suddenly her face became sad. “No, you would not. How long will you live, Mostyn Pierce?”

  “Maybe another forty or fifty years.”

  “Oh, no! That few?”

  “Yes, that few.”

  She turned and started walking, her pace slow. Mostyn had no trouble keeping up with her. She said nothing. He looked at the profile of her face. A tear slowly rolled down her cheek.

  “Still want to come to my world?”

  “Yes, Mostyn Pierce. At least my days will end with me being happy and wanting more. I think that will be much better than being tired and bored.”


  Mostyn hoped she’d still feel that way when actually facing death, knowing there was still so much to live for and that she’d never get to experience it. Everyone he knew who had died had done so filled with regret. Regret for having missed or not taken advantage of the many chances to do and to enjoy.

  Having walked through a large section of the city, they chose a path that led to the grassy area surrounding Tsath.

  “Do you know where the tunnel entrance is that leads back up to my world?”

  “The one by which you came here?”

  “Yes.”

  “No. I will do my best to find out.”

  “Do you know of any other tunnels to the surface?”

  “I do not. There are old books in the library. Perhaps they contain the information you seek.”

  Mostyn wasn’t happy with the answer she gave him. There was no concept of the notion of urgency. He took a deep breath. He was not dealing with a person from his world. She was a K’n-yanian. She lived in an isolated and static world. A world that had stopped growing. She’d probably learned all that was needed to be learned centuries ago. She was in charge of nothing. Her day consisted of nothing but one long exercise in hedonistic pleasure-seeking. And even children and teenagers get bored. A person reaches a point where no new pleasures can be thought of because one has exhausted one’s pool of knowledge.

  What a dismal world to live in. No wonder she was excited to be with him and wanted to leave K’n-yan for his world, Mostyn thought. The risk of a hideous death was worth the attempt to escape the stultifying and death-odored boredom of her life. He’d just have to figure out a way to light a fire under her butt to get her moving.

  “H’tha-dub?”

  “Yes, Mostyn Pierce?”

  He barely suppressed a laugh. Her eyes and face made him think of a puppy filled with anticipation as to what her master was going to say or do next. “If you want to help me get to my world—”

  “I do, Mostyn Pierce, because I know this is a very important thing to you who come from the world above. You are like the dor’tlin that must always return to the same cliff to mate and bear their young. You will never be satisfied living in my world and will even suffer the amphitheater just as long as you get the chance to make an attempt to escape. It was so with Pánfilo and I know it will be so with you.”

  “You are right. That is how it is with us from the world above. Therefore, we must work quickly. Time is very important. The longer I and my people are here, the more difficult it will be for us to escape.”

  “Tell me what I must do. I shall try to be a slave. Yes! I’ll pretend I am a slave and you are my master and I must do your bidding. Tell me, oh my master, what I must do.”

  Mostyn did everything he could to not burst out laughing. Never in a million years could he have imagined this scene ever taking place. He took a deep breath and repeated the things he needed to know before he could do any more planning. H’tha-dub responded by telling him she’d get the information to him as speedily as was humanly possible.

  While they walked and talked in the grassy park surrounding the city, Mostyn carefully observed every detail. Nothing at this point was extraneous information. Everything was important. Like, for example, the repulsively horned gyaa-yothn he saw scattered throughout the grassy park. Their rudimentary intelligence was undoubtedly sufficient to make them reliable observers. And that they were observing him, he had no doubt.

  The park was about a mile wide. Farm fields lay beyond it, according to H’tha-dub. There were a few trees in the wide expanse of the grass. Mostly, though, the land was open. A giant meadow. The park was considered common land, she told him. Privately held lands were beyond.

  When they returned to H’tha-dub’s apartment, they were visited by members of their affection group and the afternoon vanished in eating and drinking, dematerializations, discussions over the purpose of life, and speculations as to whether any of the upper worlders would be able to live beyond one hundred years.

  Mostyn, his mind on other things, found the afternoon a waste of time. Twice he was approached by members of the group asking if he’d have sex with them. He politely turned each one down. When one woman became insistent, he told her he found her repulsive-looking, and that put an end to her advancements.

  When the last of the affection group departed, to continue the party elsewhere, Mostyn asked to be taken to the library. H’tha-dub protested, wanting to enjoy the pleasures of the bed with her own private affection group. Mostyn, however, prevailed and they set off for the central city. Once they got to the building housing the library of the great city of Tsath, he hoped she was up to the task of translating old books for him. Otherwise, he had a feeling he might be staying in K’n-yan a lot longer than he wanted.

  13

  The next morning did not start well for Mostyn. After the slave took away the breakfast dishes, H’tha-dub wanted to play in bed and Mostyn got short with her.

  “I am not spending the rest of my life in this hell hole!” he mentally shouted at her. “You have to get that information for me and I need to review the notes I made from last night.”

  “But Mostyn Pierce—”

  “Now! Get me that information! If you don’t, I’m going to die a lot sooner than in forty or fifty years.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “If you don’t get your butt out that door, I’m going to go on my own and—”

  “Oh, no, Mostyn Pierce!” She threw her arms around him, kissed him, and dematerialized.

  Mostyn walked over to the drawer in his wardrobe where he’d put his notes and the maps they’d taken from the library, although stolen might be a touch more accurate. He took out the sheaf of notes he’d written with a dip pen, using the liquid green ink the K’n-yanians favored. On seeing the antique writing implements, he’d expressed amazement that such an advanced people hadn’t invented the ballpoint pen.

  H’tha-dub didn’t see the need for such an invention, since few of her people bothered to do any writing. And hadn’t for at least five or six centuries. “I certainly haven’t,” she quipped.

  To which, he’d replied, “Try it. It’ll a be a new experience.” And that made her eyes light up.

  He settled on the couch only to hear a knock at the door. In K’n-yanian, he shouted, “Go away!”

  The past few days hadn’t all been spent screwing around. Mostyn had gotten H’tha-dub to teach him basic K’n-yanian words and phrases.

  His tone of voice, however, did nothing to chase away the visitor. For a moment later Ger-Hy’la-T’la materialized in front of him.

  Mostyn sent a blistering wave of thoughts to the K’n-yanian, and in return he asked the reason for Mostyn’s hostility.

  “I think you know why,” Mostyn thought back. “Let me mutilate your affection group and see how you feel about it.”

  The K’n-yanian’s face remained impassive. “We did not ask you to come here. Now come with me. It is time for your first interview with one of your people.”

  “It’s about time. I was wondering how long it would take for you people to get your collective act together. Who’s the lucky person?”

  “The one who is named Doctor Candy Slezak.”

  A feeling of relief passed over Mostyn. He wasn’t ready to face Dotty, and seeing Slezak would give him the opportunity to see how she was holding up, being, in his estimation, the weak link on his team.

  “Give me a minute,” was the thought Mostyn sent to the K’n-yanian. He got off the couch, set the thin vellum sheets aside, and went looking for his sandals.

  When he came back to the living room, he found Ger-Hy’la-T’la holding the papers and looking at them. Mostyn walked up to him and snatched them out of his hand.

  In Spanish, knowing the language was something of an irritant to the K’n-yanian leaders, he said, “Where I come from, what you did just now is considered rude.”

  Ger-Hy’la-T’la bowed, and in Spanish replied, “Please accept my
apology. I was curious. Writing is something of a novelty, since few of us write anything anymore.”

  Mostyn thought to himself, thank God the words were in English. To the K’n-yanian, he sent his thoughts, “Too bad. Writing is a wonderful experience.”

  Ger-Hy’la-T’la raised his eyebrows in response. “I may have to try it again. Follow me.”

  Mostyn followed him out of the apartment and out to the street. They walked several blocks and then turned into another building, took the stairs to the second floor, walked down a hallway, and turned into another apartment. Once inside, Mostyn saw a female K’n-yanian and Candy Slezak.

  When Slezak saw him, she said, “Hi, Pierce!”

  And he greeted her in return. Although to his ears her voice had an odd quality to it.

  Ger-Hy’la-T’la informed Mostyn the apartment was his home. The woman was from Slezak’s affection group and was her escort, her name being N’ga-yub.

  Mostyn replied he’d like to speak with Slezak alone.

  “That is not possible,” Ger-Hy’la-T’la replied. “However, since you will speak in your own language, we won’t be able to understand you.”

  “Very well,” Mostyn conceded. He turned to his teammate. “How are they treating you, Candy?”

  “Wonderfully!” she replied. “My affection group is so nice. They took me in right away. It’s been nothing but party central.”

  Mostyn looked at her eyes. The pupils were mere pinpoints. “Are you high?” he asked.

  “Man, they have the best shit here. Pierce, if we could take this stuff home we’d be millionaires overnight. I haven’t been straight for days. And these people are so horny. My God, I’m so fucked out.”

  “Slezak. This is a new experience for them. Once they get used to you, things will change. You’ll just become the same old stuff.”

  “Stuffy ol’ Pierce Mostyn. You need to lighten up, man.”

  “Plan Epsilon, Slezak.”

  “I don’t know, Pierce. I didn’t want to come here and you made me. Now that I’m here, I kind of like it. I don’t think I want to go back.”