Nest of Worlds

by Marek S. Huberath

  39

  Laila turned on the TV. She said that with the itching she couldn’t sit in one place. She scratched and scratched, loosening the bandages. Zef caught her hands, but even so she managed to draw blood on the new skin of her face.

  “Enough. I want to see that puss of yours someday, and you won’t let it heal.”

  “You forgot it already?”

  “It was different before the fire.”

  The news anchor read the news:

  . . . when Gaisa Maslynnaya, R, died in a plane crash this afternoon. She was flying her private Equite 90 to the funeral of Lola Low, scheduled for tomorrow. An engine caught fire. Instead of taking the plane up to the altitude of minutes and waiting there for firefighting aircraft to arrive, she descended, and the plane went down in a municipal park. Two people on the ground were badly burned. One Hans Hartnung, B, was killed. He was unemployed and sleeping on a bench.

  It has been decided to postpone Lola Low’s funeral for a day so that these two great film stars can be buried together. After the news there will be a special program devoted to their work.

  “See, an R. She had a low category,” Zef said. “That was why she shaved her head.”

  “She must have got special permission to remove the strip.”

  “In her line of work, the law can be bent.”

  “She didn’t go to a higher altitude,” said Gavein, “because she wanted to make it to the funeral.”

  “She will make it now,” said Ra Mahleiné.

  “That Hans, he was in our gang. A dopehead, but all right,” muttered Zef.

  In connection with the brutal beatings of two individuals named Dave, who recently arrived from Lavath, the Division of Hierarchy and Classification categorically denies any truth to the article that appeared in the Courier. No correlation yet has been found between the deaths taking place in Davabel and any one individual.

  After the news there was an hour-long tribute. Film clips were shown in which the two stars appeared together and with other actors: Clinton Prado, G; Miriam Ohindee, B; Eddie Davis, R; and Lopez de Gabriel, B.

  Zef remarked that no scenes were included in which Maslynnaya and Lola Low removed their clothes.

  “Obviously,” said Gavein. “We’re seeing only the nonnude scenes from their films. An hour contains them all.”

  As Gavein and Ra Mahleiné were preparing for bed, Gavein said, “The teeth, that was an exaggeration. The ones in front are okay, but I have only a few molars left.”

  “They’re enough for me,” answered Ra Mahleiné, brushing her hair before the mirror. She was trying to sit very straight and with her chest out.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off her. “So what do you say to Anabel as a maid? A little revenge. Why should we ruin our hands scrubbing the toilet when that bitch can do it?”

  “Even then I would be better to her than she was to me. If you want, you can give her a child. I won’t be able to do that now. She can stand in for me.”

  He could say nothing for a moment. Such a thought would never have entered his head.

  “Are you crazy? I would hate the child, as I hate her. You also.”

  “I don’t know. I might not live long enough to hate it.”

  40

  The next day, Walter Ravitzer died. The death toll now, from the airport explosion, was fifteen. That evening Laila ran another fever; she had scratches now all over her body.

  Gavein questioned Zef about some of the mysteries of physics. He didn’t learn much that day but earned, from Zef, the rank of “physicist honoris causa, who chops with his brain a lot better than the morons taking the same course that I do.”

  “You’re so boring, Dave,” said Lorraine.

  Gavein turned. She rarely appeared in the dining room, having gone back to work and her late shift.

  “I mean, it’s always your wife, your wife. Then you go to work, and then you come home, and it’s your wife again. Your only recreation is talking with this punk.”

  “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t love to take Magdalena’s place,” said Zef. “The white woman has beat you to it.”

  “I can’t stand these wise-mouth red brats, with their beady eyes and squirrel teeth.”

  “I would have thought I was an object of interest,” answered Gavein. “My teeth, aren’t they sharp and white? And when my hair goes, the entire skull will emerge. I won’t be boring then.”

  “You made that joke already.”

  “I’m getting old.”

  They were interrupted by a phone call from Medved.

  “Ravitzer died,” he told Gavein.

  “I’m not surprised. They shouldn’t have shown him on television. Anyone else?” Gavein was in a black-humor mood, expecting fresh confirmation of his powers.

  “Yes. But I don’t see a connection.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Dr. Alfe Bode. Heart attack.”

  “From the hospital where Ra Mahleiné was?”

  “Another hospital. A surgeon.”

  “I did see another doctor. When I was coming back from Port 0-2. It was, hold on . . . the twentieth of December. He took the minibus driver who had suffered a heart attack. I don’t remember what street the hospital was on.”

  “That may be important. I’ll check.”

  “It may.” Gavein smiled. “One more thing, Captain: I watched a television show about Maslynnaya and Lola Low. A lot of people were in it, Miriam Ohindee and others. You can view the tape.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “Nothing. Just that I saw them.”

  Gavein hung up.

  Lorraine turned pale, and the comb on Zef’s head jutted so stiffly, it seemed to want to jump free.

  “It appears I am indeed Death,” Gavein told them. “Stray not one step from us, Lorraine. Sleep like a dog at our threshold, if you wish to live. And the same for you, Zef. Stick close instead of hanging out with your fellow delinquents.”

  “So you’re starting to believe that article,” said the young man. “But there could be laws at work here other than what was written in the Courier. One must learn what they are.”

  41

  That night, Ra Mahleiné had a hemorrhage. When she tried to take a shower, she fell in the stall. Gavein carried her wet to the bed and revived her, as he had done when they first brought her. She scolded him for getting the bed wet. He should have at least toweled her off first . . .

  It began early in the morning. Medved called to say that a mutiny had broken out in Port 0-2, in the quarantine area for whites. Before the desperate women were subdued, three people died—namely, Ross Berg and Linda Newton, who had transported Ra Mahleiné to her apartment, and Agippa Melyanz, chief of the guards during voyage 077-12. Also among the dead was Cyril Pruh, who drove the van that delivered Ra Mahleiné. Gavein knew these people either from meeting them personally or from the accounts of his wife, and he didn’t regret their deaths.

  A special news bulletin was devoted to a bomb that went off at the cemetery. The explosion took place during the interment of the two film stars. The attack was the work of a deranged fan, who in a letter to the police revealed that his intention was to hasten the arrival of a new and better incarnation for his favorite actors.

  “Frank,” said Gavein into the phone, “some names to add to your list.”

  “What!?”

  “If you have a TV set there, turn it on.”

  “I don’t.”

  “. . . in the blast perished Clinton Prado, G; Miriam Ohindee, B; and Lopez de Gabriel, B,” Gavein recited, after the television announcer. “Eddie Davis, R, died in the ambulance on his way to the hospital. Several dozen people suffered lacerations. The bomb had been placed in a funeral wreath. You’re right, this is simply too much coincidence, Frank,” he said.

  Then, for a while, th
ings quieted down. At the bookstore Gavein tried sitting in the back so he wouldn’t come into contact with any more customers. Wilcox was annoyed to be driven from his hiding place. If Gavein had been less preoccupied with his own problem, he would have noticed that Wilcox was coming to work dirty, unshaven, pale from lack of sleep, with bags under his eyes. Again the retired policeman was reading obsessively in that book, Nest of Worlds.

  One evening Gavein and Ra Mahleiné were visited by a thin, little man with a luxuriant handlebar mustache. Some little men grew a mustache like that. Perhaps in the mirror, while shaving, it made them feel they had more substance. In reality it made them look like beetles. Theodore Puttkamel was a psychologist who worked for the Division of Science. He had recently joined the team investigating the phenomenon of Dave Throzz. He said that he was made leader of the group because no one else wanted the honor.

  “Such fear has fallen upon the professors,” he said. “They want to save their skins by remaining in the background, in the shadow, unknown . . .”

  “And you?” Gavein asked wryly. “Are you using a pseudonym?”

  “No, my name is really Puttkamel. A pseudonym makes no sense. If Medved and I aren’t struck down, it doesn’t matter whether you know my name or not.”

  “Psychologists,” said Ra Mahleiné, “don’t ordinarily engage in research that puts their lives at risk. It’s the physicists, biologists, chemists who do that. How do you feel in this new situation?”

  Puttkamel sat down on the rug, arranged his legs in a half-lotus position, and took a swallow of thin Davabel coffee. Ra Mahleiné had taken pity on the man and didn’t brew the Throzz tea.

  “I feel fine,” he said comfortably. “It’s warm and cozy here. And if I’m successful and survive”—he said with a smirk—“then the publications will flow as from a horn of plenty. Unless, of course, it’s all nonsense, in which case I’ll be a laughingstock.”

  “You won’t get the better of him,” chuckled Gavein. “He’s a psychologist, an expert at talking . . . and getting others to bare their souls while saying not a thing about himself.”

  Puttkamel shrugged and smiled wanly. Then he got down to work, with his questions. He gathered all the information he could from Gavein and his wife—about Gavein’s life, childhood, education, work history, health. When they were done, he admitted that he had hit on nothing remarkable. He drew up a list, as Medved did before, of the people Gavein had come in contact with. His visit lasted until late at night.

  The television was silent on the subject of Gavein, but news traveled quickly. Proof of that was the statement, on the newscast, that many were moving from Central Davabel to the outskirts. The most expensive apartments downtown grew cheap, while dwellings at the edges of the city-continent shot up in value.

  Edda lowered the Throzzes’ monthly rent to thirty packets, including dinner. Helga Hoffard was hospitalized, on suspicion, it was said, of a cerebral hemorrhage. Medved informed them that Helga’s name was Intralla, which means “From the inside,” so they could probably add her to the list.

  42

  In the night someone threw a stone through the dining room window. The broken glass cut Massmoudieh’s face.

  Immediately Gavein put in a new pane, working in the light of a lamp held by Edgar Patricks. The air was damp and cold, and the sidewalks were becoming covered with slush.

  He saw movement in the darkness.

  “Ah, I’d hate to be in the shoes of the fool who threw that stone,” he sang out. “We all know what’s in store for him when he comes to the attention of David Death. The terrible David Death can kill without knowing the name of his victim or even seeing his face. All he has to do is think, ‘I’ll get the one who threw that stone.’”

  Not another stone was thrown.

  “Was that the truth or were you just putting fear into him?” asked Edgar.

  “I don’t know.”

  The next day, the papers said that an enraged crowd stoned to death a certain David Lanu, B, suspected of being David Death. In the following edition, David Coles, B, was killed by his wife with a razor while he slept, and David Bharozz, B, was dropped from a window. In each case, the reason given for the crime was that the people wished to rid themselves of a monster.

  “I don’t know what to think or what not to think,” Gavein said to his wife. “These deaths, were they caused by my thoughts? My subconscious? The idea of other black Davids might have been in my mind.”

  He straightened the sheets for her.

  Ra Mahleiné was too weak to get up today. Dr. Nott had scheduled the operation for next month, but in two weeks Ra Mahleiné would have to begin taking medication in preparation for it. There was no reason for haste, Nott said, but neither should they put off the operation.

  43

  Wilcox smelled bad. He sat in dirty socks on the floor behind the pigeonhole desk, sweaty, his hair unwashed and greasy, as he gazed upon his prize. His eyes were glued to the pages of the book. He didn’t read, he devoured, oblivious to his surroundings. Sometimes he would absently rub his nose or scratch himself.

  When Gavein took the book from him, Wilcox looked up with relief in his eyes. Gavein phoned Wilcox’s wife to come take her husband home. Unfortunately, even though it wasn’t noon yet, Brenda was drunk, so Gavein took Wilcox home in his own car.

  That evening, in the dining room, he found Zef bent over a book.

  “What are you reading?” he asked, turning on the TV.

  “You meant to say, what am I packing in?” Zef said.

  “I stand corrected.”

  “You have a persistent froze when it comes to contemporary terminology.”

  “Alas.” Gavein gave a Puttkamel shrug.

  “The natural sequence is as follows,” Zef instructed him. “First you pack in, then you chuck off. With science, too, you pack in, but then instead of chucking off, you chop with your brain.”

  “I see. So what are you packing in?”

  “A piece of garbage. A mystery. You read one, you’ve read them all. Everything’s normal, going fine, then zap, bap, and for the rest of the book they pretend they’re figuring out who and why. Emptiness and cliché. The only one who can’t be the murderer is the reader, and the characters . . . the author pulls them out of a hat. A throw of the dice, no more. Yet it’s better than not reading,” he added philosophically. “Today in class they spoke about you, Dave. It’s public now. No doubt the work of that asshole Puttkamel, shooting his mouth off to further his career.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Corbin maintains it’s a string of pure coincidences that will end any minute. He says the fate of a human being is determined only by the Significant Name. But Vodov . . . This was an open discussion, you understand. The seminar moved to one of the lecture halls, and a bunch of people came, not just from the college. They sat in the aisles and around the speaker too, but there were so many that the rest were left standing. Anyway, in the region of Davabel that Vodov marked out, there were more deaths from the beginning of the series, from the death of Bryce, than in the course of the entire preceding year. You can imagine what an egg that was to lay.”

  “Do you remember what the region was?”

  “A chunk of the city. From the airport to our district. I can’t describe the exact shape.”

  They were interrupted by the news of the death of the television anchor who had covered the funeral of Maslynnaya and Lola Low.

  “In a minute Medved will call to tell me this. And he’ll suggest that I killed the anchor too. Well, it’s true; I’ve been watching those damned newscasters every day.” Gavein stopped. “And what conclusions came out of the seminar?”

  “Nothing. A complete group plop. It’s an epidemic of death, but each death in the epidemic has a rational explanation. The causes vary. This can’t be any disease. Nevertheless, only those die who have, in one way o
r another, crossed your path.”

  Lorraine said, “I remember you, Dave, when you got off the plane. You weren’t like the other passengers. I mean, you were pale, tired, and, like everyone else from Lavath, all in gray, but your eyes . . . sharp, penetrating, they bore into me.”

  “And the three on his passport helped,” Zef laughed.

  “I thought of Ra Mahleiné the whole way,” Gavein said. “It might have been that in my eyes.”

  Lorraine’s mother switched to the news. The list of victims was being read:

  Early this morning, David Rottman, B, was killed, David Rao, B; David Kopecho, B; David Zolt, B. They all recently arrived from Lavath.

  Then the announcer’s voice rose:

  Only one remains . . . Now we know the identity of David Death! The man’s name is Throzz! David Throzz! And he lives on 5665 Avenue. Kill him, kill him! I’ve done it, I’ve saved Davabel!

  Some violent commotion stopped the announcer, and the camera was blocked. The screen became a blank.

  “The guy went nuts,” said Zef.

  “He may have lost someone dear to him,” said Gavein.

  “For inciting to murder on the air, he’ll go to jail.”

  “You won’t be able to move now, Dave,” said Edda, standing in the doorway. “I was right from the beginning. And that newspaper article, which they tried to hide from me, it told the truth.”

  44

  Gavein, having his fill of this, went upstairs. But Puttkamel was waiting for him. Again the psychologist asked questions about people met, names, personal relationships—trying to squeeze out some new detail.

  “I’ve told you everything twice over,” Gavein said, exasperated.

  “We need specific, very specific information.” Puttkamel wiped the sweat from his forehead. “The whites who traveled with your wife are dying like flies, one after another.”

  “I’m not surprised!” exclaimed Ra Mahleiné. “After years on the prison ship and then that quarantine, they were not people, they were ruins.”