by Larry Niven
“You want me as a headhunter,” I said.
She looked annoyed for a moment, then laughed. “Takes on a whole new meaning down here, doesn’t it? But yes.”
“Thank you, but no.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You still believe you can do more good for people by leading them out of Hell entirely.”
“Benito got out,” I said.
One of the demons growled.
“They hate to lose even one,” James Girard said. “Never have learned to think in terms of scorecards. That’s why almost all the department heads are humans now.”
“I should imagine they don’t care for that, either,” Rosemary said. “Didn’t Lucifer — wasn’t His Satanic Majesty’s quarrel with the opposition over the status of humans and angels?”
“But our methods work. The old ways don’t.”
Rosemary looked back to me. “Allen, if I can’t persuade you to work with us, I am afraid I will have to ask you to leave. Can’t have you listening in on policy discussions. You understand.”
“Yes, of course,” I said. As long as everyone was being polite I wasn’t being hurt. I hadn’t forgotten the growling demon over against the wall. “I’ll be on my way, then. Sure you won’t come with me?”
“Thank you, Allen, but no. I see I am needed here.”
“You’ll need an escort,” Girard said.
“Of course he will,” Rosemary said. “Just a moment, though. James, do I have a knowledgeable clerk? I need two files.”
“Of course, Rosemary.” Girard clapped his hands. A girl who could have been twenty came in.
“Aye, me lord?”
“Arline, this is your new superior, Madam Bennett,” Girard said. “You serve her now.”
“As my lord wishes. My lady?”
“Arline, do you know the file system?”
“Well enough, my lady. I have been here four hundred years.”
“Good. I need two files. One, a Jerry Corbett, possibly Jerome, arrived sometime around the end of the twentieth century, formerly a pilot of flying machines. The other is William Bonney, formerly of New Mexico Territory in the United States, third quarter nineteenth century. Both may be associated with Allen Carpentier, with an i–e–r, if the files are up to date.”
“There may be more than one of each,” Arline said. She went to a small cabinet against one wall and opened it. One of the screens I’d seen before was in there, and she pulled out a drawer with a keyboard. There were clicks and chirps and other odd sounds. Colored lines and letters danced on the screen.
“There are a number of Jerome Corbetts, but only one listed as a pilot. Jerome Leigh Corbett vanished from Circle Two one hundred eighty–seven days ago,” Arline said. “If he was seen since it was not reported. A William Bonney escaped from Circle Seven, Round One, East Island, about the same time as Corbett vanished from Circle Two. Details have not been transferred, but it is likely I can find the file if I go and search the archives. Ah. He was later apprehended by Minos and resentenced, and is now assigned as a leader of one hundred in the guards. I would need the actual file to learn more details. Shall I seek it?”
“Thank you, this will do.” Rosemary turned to me. “Allen, you see the results of your previous efforts. Corbett has disappeared.”
“If Corbett has disappeared, maybe he got out after all.”
Rosemary looked the question to Arline.
“My lady, we know when anyone leaves our jurisdiction.”
I couldn’t help asking, “How do you know?”
One of the demons growled. “The angels cheer and taunt us,” Arline said.
“Corbett remains here, and Bonney is one of our guards,” Rosemary said. “So much for your previous companions. Won’t you join us? I will assign them to assist you if you like. And your first assignment will be to go to the Vestibule to recruit new talent.” She smiled thinly. “I think we will be able to arrange easier passage from there than you and I experienced.”
Girard laughed. “Considerably easier.”
“Thank you, but again, no.”
“Sure?”
“Very.”
Rosemary nodded and stood. “Then it is time for us to part. Farewell, Allen. Perhaps we will meet again.”
When I stood, Girard gestured to one of the men by the wall. “Henri, take Mr. Carpentier to whichever gate pleases him, and pass him through.” He turned to me. “I won’t wish you good luck, Carpentier.”
Rosemary stood. “I guess I can’t really wish you success, either, Allen, but I do wish you well. If you change your mind, get word to me. I’ll always have a job for you.”
One of the two men standing by the wall came over. He was shorter than Girard, and there wasn’t any decoration on his robe, but he appeared to be older. He held out his hand. “Henri Lebeau,” he said.
“Allen Carpenter.” I shook hands with him.
“Carpenter. As you wish. This way, please.”
As we were leaving, Rosemary and Girard fell into a deep discussion of Limbo. “The Vatican has all but driven it mythical. We may have to give it up. All of it,” Girard said.
“Why shouldn’t we? I saw it, it’s huge,” Rosemary answered. “Maintenance must be difficult. Why do we want responsibility for children? No one is being punished. What do we accomplish by keeping those places?”
“Give up jurisdiction? We never do that!” Girard insisted.
“Then have you considered reincarnation?”
Lebeau led me out of the room and closed the door behind us.
When we were out in the corridor, he stopped. “And where would you care to go?”
“Down to the tombs,” I said. “Sixth Circle.”
“Down.” He shrugged. “As you will.” He led off through the ornate corridors, down stairways, and it wasn’t long before I was lost.
It was getting warmer. A stench from the bog was seeping in. The rooms were getting smaller. Some didn’t even have doors. Here a clerk in a dingy loincloth and headdress was putting final touches on a skein of beadwork. In this next one a clerk was working with colored sand. Lebeau caught me looking and said, “This is the editorial section.”
A scribe was working with pen, ink, parchment, and a mirror. I watched for a minute, then said, “Tell me you’re not rewriting Leonardo da Vinci!”
“Don’t they do that on Earth?”
“I don’t … think …”
“Only records and theological matters,” he said.
“So, what’s your story?” I asked Lebeau. “You can come with me and get out of here, but I get the idea they don’t think you will.”
He laughed. “Messier Carpenter, I was sentenced, and rightly so, to be immersed in boiling pitch. Messier Girard was kind enough to rescue me and give me employment. Should I now betray his trust? It was a betrayal of trust that sent me to the pitch in the first place.”
“I’ll have to think about that,” I said. “Would you have tried to escape if Girard hadn’t rescued you?”
“Assuredly. I cannot imagine that anyone would not.” He shuddered. “It is a horrible place. Have you seen it?”
“Yes. How would you rescue someone from there?”
“I have no idea. Messier Girard merely told the demons to bring me to him. Then he sent me away to be suitably cleaned. I have been with him ever since.”
“You’re one of the New Orleans good old boys, then?”
“Yes. I was a professor of civil and canon law at Tulane University. Rather well known in my profession, actually.”
“So why did you deserve to be in the pitch?”
Lebeau shrugged. “A professor’s pay is not high, and I ran with an expensive crowd. New Orleans was a pleasant place if you had money. I seldom had enough money.”
“You must have embezzled on a grand scale.”
He frowned. “Actually, I did not. Professors rarely have opportunities to steal great sums. Newman Club funds, bribes from students and their parents, abuse of perks as a member of t
he Hospital Board, rather petty, really. Why do you say that?”
“You were in the pitch. Armand and the others, the Levee Board scoundrels, were in the Vestibule with Rosemary.”
“Ah. But you see, Mr. Carpenter, Armand, Rosemary, they had a vague sense that what they did was wrong, but they were not believers. They doubted that right and wrong made any difference at all. I knew better. I knew very well which side I should choose.”
“And that made a difference in your sentence.”
“Yes, of course, shouldn’t it? Before you came here, you doubted the existence of good and evil. You have no such doubts now. Examine your own conscience.”
I told him I didn’t really want to do that.
Lebeau laughed. “You will at least now admit that your choice is important. To you if to no one else.”
I agreed. “Something puzzles me,” I said. “When I came through Dis before, it wasn’t pleasant at all. Bureaucrats were being — well, not so much punished as made to work in impossible conditions. They weren’t accomplishing much, either. It was nothing like Rosemary’s office!”
“Of course not. Doubtless they were nasty people,” Lebeau said. “They deserved punishment. How well did you know Rosemary Bennett?”
“In life? Not at all. I only met her in the Vestibule.”
“I see. Mr. Carpenter, Rosemary Bennett was very well known in our city. She worked extremely hard, and was considered very effective. I felt privileged to know her. She did nothing to earn great punishment.”
“But she is in Hell!”
“You found her in the Vestibule,” Lebeau reminded me. “She was effective, she was not corrupt — but she never made hard choices, either. You seem to have persuaded her to do that.”
“But now she’s made the wrong choice!”
“Has she? She chooses to serve God in Hell. What have you chosen, Allen Carpenter? How will you serve Him?”
We had come to a veranda overlooking a new section of the City of Dis. I looked down at what seemed a suburb made of miniature houses. Human shapes wriggled in the houses, too big to get out through the little doors. A gibbering mouth at a bay window, a shaking fist through a door. They argued about … décor? Property lines. Paint and gate styles and garden styles and Hell–dried lawns. I thought my hearing must be going.
“The Indian Falls Homeowners Association,” Lebeau said.
Oh. “You in the wall, you’re all people who tell other people how to live their lives, aren’t you?”
“That may be, but how am I to know?”
“Try something else,” I said. “Girard mentioned Vatican Two. He wanted Rosemary to study something. Human dignity, something like that.”
“Dignitatis Humanae. A most important decree. It changes the entire definition of heresy. Among other things, it held that you need not be Roman Catholic to enter Heaven.”
“And that changed things here?”
“Of course.” He glanced around nervously. “If we must talk of this, I suppose this is as good a place as any. Mr. Carpenter, God gave certain powers to Peter and his church. One of them was a power to forgive, to let people into Heaven. Vatican Two handed that power out to a lot more than just the Catholic Church.”
“And before that you couldn’t get to Heaven unless you were Catholic?”
“No, no, there were always other ways. The Church has no power to change eternal truth, only to discover it. But eternity is long, Mr. Carpenter. There is always time. Discover and implement! Discovery and pronouncement are important! That decree from Vatican Two made wholesale changes. We’re still working out the implications.” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you were part of them.”
“Me?”
Lebeau shrugged. “Gift of tongues, wander freely exhorting people to follow you out of Hell, do you think that’s ordinary?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t the first one. Was Benito the first?”
“No. I have not been here as long as you, but I do know there have always been — agents of the Other wandering through Hell. But now there seem to be a great many more.”
We crossed the veranda and entered another corridor. By now I was entirely lost. “Agents of the Other. You mean — saints?”
“Some call them that.”
“But I can’t be a saint! What does it feel like to be a saint? I don’t feel special.”
“I am hardly the proper person to ask that question.”
“Assume I am a saint. Can saints command demons?”
Lebeau shrugged eloquently. “We know that some saints can command some demons. How would you generalize from that?”
“Very carefully,” I said.
“That seems wise.” He cringed. “I know that I had no authority over the demons around the pitch. Girard did.”
“He’s no saint!”
“No, I do not suppose he is,” Lebeau said. “But he certainly has power. I would not care to have him angry with me.”
“So you won’t come with me. I can understand that. It might be dangerous to betray a trust.”
“Precisely. Thanks to Vatican Two I will have an appeal. I prefer to go to that appeal with a good record.” He pointed down the corridor. “This way to the tombs.”
We went down a stairway. It was noticeably hotter on the floor below, and the stench was worse. There were more corridors here. The offices were smaller and more crowded. We passed barred cells, mostly packed. I looked into one of them. A score of faces looked up at me. “Is my trial scheduled?” one asked. He didn’t sound very hopeful. He spoke English but with an accent I couldn’t place. Another said in what I think was Latin, “Is there word from the Inquisition? Has my case been heard?”
I didn’t have an answer, so we moved on. “Court clerks?” I asked Girard.
He shrugged.
We went down more narrow stairs, to higher heat, narrower corridors, and smaller offices.
“An unpleasant place,” I said.
“Not compared to the pitch,” Lebeau said earnestly. “It’s not much farther, now.”
“Really, who are these people?”
Lebeau shrugged. “I have never asked.”
“You’re not curious?”
“I have duties. I try to carry them out without offending anyone.”
It was hot and damp here. We passed a tiny office lit by a bare bulb. A balding middle–aged man squinted at papers. He examined each one, then laid it on the desk and stamped it with enthusiasm. “NO!” he shouted. Then he took up another paper and examined it minutely. He looked up to see me watching him. “May I help you?”
“What’s your job?” I asked.
He frowned. “What is your status?”
I didn’t have an answer to that. He looked to Lebeau. When Lebeau shrugged the balding man went back to his papers, but he kept glancing nervously past us at a door across the hall.
I was about to go on, when the door behind us slammed open to reveal a long corridor. A naked man slimed with blood rushed through and into the office. His hair was matted, soggy red. He took the bureaucrat’s head in both hands and tore off his ear with his teeth.
It was a strange fight. The newcomer could do anything he wanted to, and did, but the bureaucrat could only defend himself. He wasn’t very good at it.
“You killed her!” the bloody man screamed. “Anthony Glicka, you killed my daughter!”
“I was doing my duty,” Glicka howled.
My curiosity overcame me and I went back into the tiny office.
“Want to tell your story?” I asked. Then I stopped myself. “Leonard?”
The bloody man paused to look at me. “Allen. So they have you, too.”
I turned to Lebeau. “Now I know there’s no justice in this frigging place! Leonard Dowl was an English teacher. The least violent man I ever knew!”
Leonard picked up a ruler and used it to gash Glicka’s head. Lebeau looked at me curiously.
“All right. He changed. Leonard, what are you doi
ng?”
Leonard Dowl grabbed the swivel chair and dumped the seated man onto the floor. Then he kicked him in the head. “Allen, you remember my daughter?”
“You didn’t have any kids when I died.”
“Sarah was sixteen when she got cancer. Liver cancer. Inoperable. No cures. UCLA developed a treatment. It would have saved her!”
“You don’t know that!” Glicka shouted, his voice muffled, head in a wastebasket. “It was experimental.”
“Experimental,” Leonard said. “Yeah, but it worked! A dozen people! I know a dozen people it saved!”
“A dozen possible remissions,” Glicka said. “Claims! Just claims! Anecdotes!” He turned to me. “It wasn’t approved! The FDA was doing more tests. Mr. Dowl wanted his daughter to be in the tests, but we had enough subjects.”
“There was plenty of the damn stuff!”
“It wasn’t approved! It was too dangerous!” He was trying to sit up.
Leonard threw Glicka to the floor and jumped up and down on him. “Dangerous! Sarah was dying!”
“Stop it!” I shouted. “You can leave Hell! Come with me! We can all get out of here!”
Glicka tried to get up. Leonard pushed him down again. “You’re not going anywhere, you son of a bitch! I sent you to Hell and I’m gonna keep you here!” Leonard shouted. He looked past me and down the corridor. There was terror in his eyes. “No! No, not yet!”
There were figures coming down the long corridor toward us.
Glicka crawled to a corner and sat up. “Help!” he shouted.
There were three men in white coats. They ignored Lebeau and me as they grabbed Leonard and dragged him away.
“I’ll be back!” Leonard shouted. “Every week! Forever!”
Glicka stood and brushed himself off. He carefully gathered all his scattered and bloody papers, put the chair back in place, and sat at his desk. His face was twisted in pain as he looked up at me without recognition. “May I help you?”