Gates of Hell

by Susan Sizemore

  “You sure she’s awake?” another familiar voice asked. Familiar, masculine, and dubious; the Standard thick with a regional accent. London.

  “Dr. Callen,” she said, fitting name to voice and city of origin—and feeling very proud of herself. She opened her eyes just a bit more to check to see if her identification was correct. She knew there was another way she ought to be able to do it, but couldn’t recall right now what that was. Didn’t matter anyway; she was right, it was Callen. She smiled and hoped someone would congratulate her on her cleverness.

  The room she and a trio of people were in was dimly lit, with heavy purple curtains drawn across the long windows. She had been here before. “I’ve been here before.” The two men didn’t look like they’d moved since the last time she’d seen them in the same place. She had a moment’s panic that maybe this wasn’t a second meeting after all. Then she relaxed, realizing that they looked scruffier. They were pallid and hollow-eyed and exhausted—and probably felt a damn sight better than she did. Besides, Alice wasn’t here. Alice was—dead.

  She scrubbed at her burning eyes. “Dee?”

  Dee was standing beside her chair. Hers was the voice Roxy had found familiar, the touch she’d felt scalding her. “Yes,” Dee answered.

  “You’re feeling guilty. Don’t.” Roxy swallowed, and tried her hand at concentrating. “Have we been here long?”

  “About an hour. I brought you back to the hospital. You have to talk to the nice men about helping us synthesize Rust, Physician.”

  “I do? I am?” Physicians were very important doctors.

  “Yes. You keep drifting off.”

  “Oh.” She sighed, briefly fascinated by the feel of the air leaving her lungs.

  “She’s useless.” The words came from Dr. Callen’s associate. She recalled that his name was Rutherford.

  “Maybe,” Dee agreed with him.

  “What was it I wanted to ask Martin?” Roxy inquired of the group in general. “It was important. About Bucons. I’m sure it was about the Bucons.”

  “We want to ask you about the Sag Fever virus,” Dr. Callen said insistently. “And about this Rust.”

  “Sag Fever,” she said, and was very angry all of a sudden. Being angry helped her keep her attention on one subject, if only briefly. “Sag Fever is a lie.” She licked dry lips, and added, “A lie we all believed. Maybe believing makes it real. As a pandemic, anyway.”

  Callen ignored her words and forged ahead, looking at her with hopeful earnestness. “Between Dr. Nikophoris’s work and our own research, we’ve come to a frightening conclusion. We’re ‘oping you can ‘elp us confirm our theory.”

  “And think of a solution,” Rutherford added, skeptically.

  Roxy curbed her impulse to stick her tongue out at him. It would be highly unprofessional. She made a rude gesture at him instead. He was right to be upset about her behavior, of course, so she forgave him. “Sag Fever,” she insisted once more. “Is a lie.”

  “Millions of beings—billions—have died from it,” Rutherford reminded her.

  “I know. I didn’t say it didn’t kill. I said it was a lie.” Honestly, some people just didn’t know how to listen. “The disease—the naturally occurring virus—does not exist. I should have known.” She grabbed Dee’s hand, squeezed it hard. “I did recognize it, but I didn’t.” If anyone could understand, it was Dee. “I knew it the first time I woke up from a healing.”

  There was a chair next to hers; Dee sat down in it abruptly. “Shit. You did. You thought it was something you’d taken. A recreational substance.”

  “It’s not a disease,” Roxy said. “It’s a drug.”

  “The Bucons? No. I can’t believe that even they’d… and I’m a cynical bitch.”

  “We’ve been suspecting the virus is a construct,” Callen offered. At least he was beginning to get the picture.

  Roxy looked at the man behind the desk. “The ‘cure’ is like a goddamned quadruple dose,” she said angrily. She let go of Dee’s hand and pointed to herself. “I’m a brain-burn case from just one healing of Rust addiction.” She felt tears beginning to slide down her cheeks; it was like the touch of lava on her skin. Her eyes were not happy with this emotional development, but she couldn’t stop herself from crying at the futility of the whole situation. She also felt her consciousness trying to slip sideways and knew she couldn’t hold onto coherency for much longer. The researchers were going to ask her how she knew the difference between Sag Fever and Rust at any moment, how she’d finally recognized that all the little twists and turns of structure were not what they seemed while she slid around inside them. She might be able to explain it to them telepathically, if she could just stay awake. She might be able to do something to help, but it was more likely she was going to turn into a drooling mushroom before she could manage any positive action. She was such a wimp. And Rust was too fucking potent for her to survive too many more healings from it. “Wimp.”

  Roxy heard Dee say, “They must be trying to addict whole star systems. The Bucon bastards have been taking Trin lessons.”

  She knew it must be the truth, and tried to hide from it, shrinking in her chair and hugging herself tightly. She dug her short nails into her bare upper arms in the hope that the pain would help her stay alert. Instead, she just concentrated in digging little holes in herself for a while.

  When she got back to the conversation, Callen was saying, “MilService is so blasted paranoid. Perhaps… an experiment that went wrong?” He was answered by a harsh laugh from Dee’s direction. Roxy looked that way and noticed for the first time that Dee was surrounded by the glow of an environmental belt, as were Callen and Rutherford. She was glad to see that her friend was no longer taking the chance of being reinfected.

  “If this is some sort of Bucon conspiracy, we need to alert the authorities,” Rutherford said.

  “On Bonadem?” Dee sneered. “There isn’t any authority left. The dead are rotting in the streets. Power’s been cut all over the city. . There’s rioting.” She shook her head. “Absolutely no one to go to, gentlemen. The Evac ships are even leaving for Nightingale tomorrow. We’re supposed to be on them, remember?”

  “The other koltiri have already disappeared in a puff of smoke,” Callen added.

  This was the first Roxy had heard of the medical team’s leaving. “Why?”

  Callen answered. “The plague’s spreading too rapidly through the Systems for a small operation like ours to be supported. Somebody’s decided to ‘centralize’ the research effort. Whatever the ‘ell that means.”

  “Spreading through the Systems? How many worlds now?” Why hadn’t somebody told her—not that she’d remember if they had, which they probably had. Whoever they were.

  “Question is, who do we trust with this glorious news?” Rutherford questioned.

  “Systems Security,” Dee promptly and firmly spoke up.

  “Where’s Martin?” Roxy wondered. “I think I finally remembered what I wanted to ask him.”

  The conversation went on without her.

  “I’m not sure I want to put that much faith in any Service branch right now,” Rutherford said, a tendril of paranoia entwining the words.

  Belligerence from Dee. “Why not?”

  “The plague—the drug causing the plague—is being spread far more rapidly than independent traders could manage. Service ships have the freedom to go anywhere without question. The Service has been pursuing its own paranoid agenda under the guise of Special Powers and secret orders. You people don’t want to give up your crazy crusade. Maybe you’re manufacturing excuses.”

  “We do what we must for the defense of the Systems. As someone in MedService should know. Or maybe it’s someone in MedService synthesizing this fake virus. “

  “Dee,” Roxy warned.

  “A few underpaid chemists, maybe?” Rutherford asked.

  Roxy wondered if Dee was armed. Or if the MedService people knew much about MilService weapons—or recalled the
nasty reputation of the crew of the Tigris. Weaponry would probably be optional, Roxy decided, far too aware of the angry energy crackling from Dee. “Strike ‘em down with lightning,” she suggested. “All you have to do is want to.”

  “The people we can prove are dealing Rust are Bucon,” Callen pointed out.

  “Martin’s Security,” Roxy said to herself, since no one was paying any attention to her. “Why is he on Bonadem? Why is he with Glover? He did mention Glover, didn’t he? Or did I just pick up the thought?” Dee had definitely mentioned Glover. “I have to talk to Martin.”

  She would have stood up if she could have, but her legs weren’t ready to work yet… or her brain wasn’t willing to acknowledge her legs existed. Whatever the cause of her immobility, all she could do was stay put for now and fume while the people around her continued to bicker.

  Chapter Eleven

  “What about the koltiri?”

  Martin was holding his head wearily in his hands. Upon hearing Glover’s voice, he lifted it and said, “What about her?”

  He noticed it was morning as he glanced out the bare windows at a steel-gray sky. He must’ve nodded off for a couple of minutes. A couple of hours? It had been a long night, in which he’d been unable to argue Dee out of taking Roxy back to the hospital where they worked. There’d been shouting about whose duty was more important and his refusal to explain why he wanted Roxy and there had been defiance of his direct orders as well. Roxy had not been involved in any of it, other than to make the occasional strange comment, and he’d been too wiped after a while to do anything other than let them go. It was safer for them off the streets, anyway.

  “Viper?” Glover came into the room and leaned against the door after he’d closed it. Bucons always leaned, lounged, and draped. Bucons were never bolt upright or stiff. Nor did they ever droop wearily the way Martin was doing right now. He hated Bucons, Martin decided sourly. If Glover hadn’t had the grace to look disconcerted at seeing him alive, Martin might have walked out on the whole Bucon business. The man doesn’t look disconcerted, Martin decided after they silently looked at each other for a while. He looks scared. Bucons didn’t do scared as a rule. I must look like hell. Hope I’m not catching that shit again. Should take at least thirty-six hours before another exposure takes. If Glover had been telling him any kind of truth about Sag Fever.

  Glover eased away from the wall and his expression returned to a more normal variation on cheerful arrogance. “Sting’s been here. Hasn’t she?”

  “I’m not dead,” was Martin’s cold answer. “Did you get the Rust?”

  “Not enough for two.” Glover shrugged. “Sorry, Mart. You don’t seem to need it anymore.”

  At least not yet, Martin agreed silently. Glover was nervous underneath the casual attitude. It didn’t do Martin’s nerves any good. “Not too popular in the neighborhood, Mr. Ambassador?” And hoarding every orange capsule he could get his hands on because of it, Martin guessed. He couldn’t blame the man for wanting to live.

  Martin got to his feet and stretched; he was a long, lean man. He felt good, too good for a person who’d been near death just a few hours before. He could use a shower, a cup of coffee, and a hot meal, but other than those minor details he felt better than he had in years. The girl did good work. As a man with a koltiri wife, he knew what it felt like to be kept in the peak of health, and this felt better. Maybe it was simply in contrast to having felt so bad not so long before. He yawned, and added a good night’s sleep, totally satiated and surrounded by his spouses, to his list of wants. Since hooking up with Glover on Terra two weeks before, he hadn’t exactly gotten either rest or satisfaction. Then the Sag Fever hit him just as they’d finally found what they’d been looking for. Maybe they should have directly called the Tigris and asked… but for various reasons to do with security and family relationships, they’d relied instead on a reference in a communications transmission log to track Roxy down. Then they’d smuggled themselves onto the quarantined planet where she was working. Not an easy place to get to, officially, openly, secretly, or any other way. Though getting here hadn’t been easy, staying, at least in a corporeal state, was proving even harder.

  Glover swaggered toward him. He looked closely at Martin in the pale morning light before reaching out and running a finger along the Terran’s jawline. Martin frowned as Glover grinned suddenly, looking like he’d just found his long lost love—which Martin was pretty sure he wasn’t. He’d known the Bucon for a long time, and he’d never seen Glover take an interest in anyone not certifiably female, at least by his own peoples’ reckoning. “You look good,” Martin was informed.

  He took a step away. “Natural beauty. What is with you? Rust burning your brain?”

  Glover shook his head. “No. After the first five or six hits, the high isn’t there anymore. My body just needs it to stay alive. Proof,” he added, “that it isn’t Bucon.”

  Glover had this need to convince himself that this whole monstrous situation hadn’t been initiated by his people. The normally pragmatic, cynical businessman had gotten idealistic, or something. He’d come looking for his former associate on Terra Prime while Martin was passing through on an assignment away from the Odyssey and enlisted him in this unofficial crusade.

  Martin didn’t mind playing devil’s advocate for the Bucon. “Oh? Why not?”

  “Doesn’t make you feel good,” Glover promptly asserted. “Ever known one of our recreationals that didn’t make you feel good?” Glover was thoughtful for a moment, then added, “Funny thing about Rust—it seems to work the same on everybody. Every humanoid sub exposed to Sag Fever has been able to use Rust to counteract the fever’s effect, despite genetic drift and environmental adaptations.”

  “Live, you mean.”

  “I said that. Bucons are the best drug tailors there are, but…” Glover shrugged. “I can’t believe we’re that good.”

  Martin left Glover to his thoughts while he went to look out the window. Heavy clouds obscured the green sky. It would rain soon, and it would be hot and sticky. He supposed summer was this continent’s rainy season. While the Bucon fretted over his peoples’ involvement with the pandemic, Martin looked out at the deserted street and worried about Sagouran Fever reaching his own world. It was just a matter of time. Then the Rust would follow, and the drug would be able to do what the Makacheyn and the Trin had not: destroy the civilization he was sworn to protect. Martin wasn’t going to let it happen, and Glover’s plan was all he had to work with right now.

  Martin noticed people in the street below as the first large drops of rain began splatting against the thick oval windows. Just a handful of people, no air or surface traffic anywhere within his view of this side of the wide, slow river. It was hard to tell if the people on the street were just wandering aimlessly, or if they had somewhere to go—there were no food shelters, no outbound ships at the port, only the one open hospital in the city. They’re probably just walking, he decided, because it’s better than lying down and dying. He couldn’t make out details through what had become a thick curtain of rain; what he got was an impression of skeletal figures shuffling along.

  “Ever heard of Samhain Eve, Glover?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s a time of year on Terra when the dead walk.”

  “How inconvenient for Terra,” Glover drawled.

  Martin turned from the window. Behind him, the rain was running down the pane in silent gray-green sheets, all noise muffled by the insulating glass. Martin shrugged, and wondered if he’d made the gesture quite so often before he’d taken up residence with a Bucon. “Samhain’s just an old ethnic legend. Not even one of my ethnic legends. No one on Terra’s been frightened by the idea for hundreds of years. It’s a kid’s holiday these days. No need to placate ghosts anymore, I guess.”

  “Your world doesn’t seem to need its primitive customs. I’ve always thought Terrans to be quite sensible.”

  “Placating ghosts might not be such a bad idea. Not the way they’re
walking around here.”

  Glover looked briefly puzzled. “You are a Terran with a primitive mind, Viper. It helps you survive. Don’t change. Now, tell me about Sting. Where is she?”

  The Bucon obviously didn’t want to hear about Samhain, and Martin didn’t know why thoughts of the Wild Hunt were preying on his mind. He gestured toward the windows. “She’s safe.” He didn’t mention Dee’s involvement in the whole business, and he didn’t want to think about how disoriented and weak his sister-in-law had been after healing Dee’s Rust addiction. He couldn’t let himself be sentimental, not after coming this far.

  “The hospital?” Glover did not look pleased. “It would have been so much easier to start from here. The hospital’s probably being watched. Persey’s making sure none of the Systems scientists get their hands on any Rust.”

  “We’ll get her from the hospital. We’ll just have to risk Persey knowing about us. He knows you’re here, anyway.”

  “You’ll be the one going to the hospital,” Glover told him. “I’m not showing my face in the same place as a koltiri. The idea is to keep this quiet.”

  “Right.” Martin looked over the Bucon cynically. “And what does Persey think of your presence here, Mr. Ambassador to the United Systems?”

  Glover took a seat in the middle of the living room floor and pulled Martin’s blanket around him. Martin found the abandoned apartment to be hot, the air far too dark, still, and stifling without power. Martin took a seat in front of the ambassador. He felt Glover’s forehead and grabbed a wrist from under the covering. He wished he had a diagnostic scanner on him. “What are you on, Glover?”

  Glover’s eyes lit with tired amusement. “A little of this, a little of that. I’ve got to keep functioning,” he reminded Martin.

  True. The man was not in very good shape; even a cursory look told Martin that. But whatever the Bucon was taking, it was no casual indulgence. Glover was actually trying to accomplish some good with this risky jaunt they were on. “What’s with Persey?” Martin liked to be kept up on the shifting—connections—around him. Loyalty was too strong a word to use among Bucons just now.