Smallworld (32 page)

“Suau? Is that you?”

“Doctor Ranjalkar? I’m afraid it’s not safe to be out alone. There’s been an escape from the Penitentiary.”

“That explains it. I’ve, uh, found the body of a young boy. He seems to have been stabbed in the chest. There is no pulse.”

“Where?”

“Over by young Mr. Magus’s house.”

Testament was already running, the gun held across his chest. Mr. Suau hoped the safety was on.

“Testament! Come back! SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY!”

*

The boy peered out at a street defined only by great black building-shaped bites it took out of the sky. There was no way of telling whether or not a threat existed in the dark. The only defence was to move so quietly as to be indistinguishable from the dark itself.

He scampered forward, tripped over an unseen obstacle in the dark, and fell face first into the gravel.

“
Tsk tsk, Judge-Not. Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
The voice was not coming from behind, where a leg might have been interposed to trip him.

He spat out what he hoped were splinters of gravel rather than loose teeth. “I’m, I’m going home, Uncle Anchorite.”

“
Home is back the way you came, boy. You’re headed towards the tool store. Why is that?”

Judge-Not was aware of another body standing very close by, much nearer than the Anchorite. “I need some tools to do stuff.”

The Anchorite chuckled.
“Is this stuff your mother and father would approve of?”

Judge-Not saw little point in lying. “I doubt it.”

“
Aha, you young scamp! I neither heard you nor saw you. Go to it.”

Grateful yet entirely mistrustful, Judge-Not scuttled to his feet and ran on down the street.

“
Follow him,”
said the Anchorite in a far lower and less friendly voice. A patch of darkness detached itself from the terminator and flowed off after Judge-Not, entirely silently, visible only as a slight aberration in the patterns of the night.

*

“—hey, WAIT a minute, don’t you DARE turn me off. Do you know who I AM?”

Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus flicked the switch wearily, and the blonde shiny face died in the display unit.

He looked across at his wife and down at the Bible frontispiece he had been pencilling notes on.

“That makes one
I’d demand they cloned me a new body and put me back in it,
one
I would make myself Queen of Hell in Persephone’s absence,
and two
Oh God Oh God I am in Sheol I repent my sins my God my God look not so fierce upon me’
s. I’m not sure this gives us any more to go on.”

Shun-Company was still watching the street. “In the first instance,” she said, “the personality analogue is likely to encourage Bowker even more assiduously to leave here and make for the South End Clinic, where there are medical facilities that might be of use in cloning. In the third and fourth cases, the analogue will be so confused that Bowker may may be able to get it to do his bidding and stay put while he lays down an analogue of himself. In the second case, the analogue is likely to take control and demand to see Lord Hades.”

“If Ararat is Hell,” said Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus, “who would it consider to be Hades to be?” He straightened and combed his hair with his hand. “I am the paterfamilias, I suppose.”

“Bowker would see Hell as a prison,” said Unity. “He would see the Warder as Hades.”

“Who do you think would win, in a stand-up fight between the Warden and the Anchorite’s robot?” said Shun-Company.

“I have no idea. But I suspect there would be collateral damage. I might remind you that we haven’t even warned the Warden yet.”

“We can’t,” said Unity. “We gave Mr. Trapp our word we wouldn’t till he was offworld.”

“The children’s lives are in danger, Hernan.” Shun-Company clapped her hands, and the curtain motored shut. “I am going to the Penitentiary to inform the Warden, and you will both come with me.”

“We haven’t warned Uncle Anchorite,” noted Unity. “He likes to take to his cave when the Warden’s abroad.”

Shun-Company snorted contemptuously. “It might be better for all but Uncle Anchorite if the Warden stirred abroad and found him.”

Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus did not reply, but silently took up a weapon and followed his wife. Behind him, a tiny emerald insect, black in starlight, buzzed glittering from the fretwork of a dresser and whisked through the air after him on whirling filament wings. Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus showed no awareness of its presence, but by the time it arrived at the threshold of the hallway, the door closed purely coincidentally across its path. Barely avoiding a collision, it righted itself again and flew up towards the door control.

“It’s Sodom. My foster brother.”

Dr. Ranjalkar showed as much empathy as a man who saw death regularly could. “I did think he exhibited few distinctive Reborn-in-Jesus family features.” He frowned and continued despite himself. “Such as rugged survivability, for instance.”

“He was Perfect’s brother,” said Testament woodenly.

“He died quickly,” assured the doctor. “The blow punctured the heart. See, there is hardly any bleeding.”

“Bowker must be mightily disappointed,” said Mr. Suau bitterly.

“This wasn’t Bowker,” said Testament. “It was the Devil. The hermit’s, uh, valet unit. This is how it kills.”

“Stalin Sixes aren’t programmed to do that hand-to-hand,” said Mr. Suau. “They’re supposed to twist the head clean off, for preference.” Perhaps realizing the statement was somewhat insensitive, he left it at that.

Dr. Ranjalkar’s hand flew up to his ear.

“Hello? Ah, Lipizzaner.

“One of the patients? How rich and ill is she feeling exactly?

“Have you been warned about the little problem we have here?

“Good. Yes, it is every bit as un-little as described.

“Mr. Fulop is here? Who told him to come here?

“Ah, the Pastor. I have some bad news to deliver about the Pastor.

“…well, if that’s the case I cannot stress strongly enough how right his fears were.

“No, he should turn around and go home without leaving his vehicle…no, scratch that, actually. If he’s here already, that’ll be four of us travelling back that way together; he should meet up with us. Safety in numbers.

“…no, the Pastor will not be needing a security escort. Not back to the landing field, at any rate. If Mr. Fulop could escort him to either heaven or hell, his services might be needed.

“Yes. Our little problem recently carried out a number of shockingly inappropriate incisions on the Pastor. The prognosis is theological. Be on your guard if you don’t want to be next.”

The Doctor tapped his ear to close the connection. “That was Lipizzaner at the Clinic,” he said. “It seems the Pastor suspected he was being followed back to the car and radioed the Clinic for a security escort back to the landing field.”

“The audacity of the man,” said Suau. “The Clinic security staff aren’t his personal police force.”

“Alas, he is—uh, was—fully aware that the Reborn-in-Jesuses own the Clinic. In any case, he will be audacious no more. Mr. Fulop is here with one of the utility skimmers. He’s been parked up next to the Penitentiary for the last couple of centidia. He’s also armed.”

“With one of those nine-levels-of-stun tickling sticks the Clinic arms its security staff with?” scoffed Suau. “We should get there quickly with something capable of knocking a decent hole in a man.” He patted his sidearm confidently.

“We can’t leave Sodom,”said Testament, his hands curling round the grip safety on his weapon.

“Alas, the same fallacy believed in by Lot’s wife,” said Dr. Ranjalkar. “We can carry his body to my car. I can refrigerate it when we arrive at the Clinic. The cemetery is also there. It is the best place to take him.”

Testament thought briefly on this, and nodded.

Judge-Not squeezed his way panting into the crypt chamber, his face overinflated with both acne and terror.

“You took your time,” said Beguiled.

“I bumped into Uncle Anchorite,” said Judge-Not.

“Idiot!” said Beguiled. “He has certainly followed you!”

Judge-Not opened his hands wide and whimpered. “What could
I
do about it?”

Beguiled reconsidered, and turned to the Anchorite’s robot. “On the other hand—Your Infernal Majesty, we believe Lord Hades may have secretly followed this imp here. He may even now be skulking outside this cave, listening to our conversation.”

The robot turned, its claws sparking on the marble. “YOU SPOKE, CREATURE?”

“Uh, we believe Lord Hades may be close at hand, Majesty. He or one of his demonic servants.”

“POPPYCOCK! DOES A GOD SKULK IN THE DARK? THOUGH HE MIGHT INDEED HAVE SENT A SERVANT, TO GAZE ON MY GREAT BEAUTY AND REPORT BACK TO HIS MASTER.” The robot raised a claw capable of carving lettering in concrete. “GO FORTH! LOCATE HIM!”

Judge-Not and Uncleanness, terrified of the device, required no further instruction; Beguiled was left alone with Trapp and the machine in a matter of seconds, and doubted the others would bother to return.

“The door is most likely booby trapped,” said Trapp, squatting at the edge of the door sill.

“How do you know?” said Beguiled.

“It’s a heavy door,” said Trapp. “A bulkhead door, made to resist heavy objects slamming into it during explosive decompression. Which means that if someone booby traps it on the
other
side, they’re going to need a whole lot more explosive. So they skimped and did their dirty on this side. I suspect at least one small explosive charge planted in the sealant round the door. You can tell because our man deliberately chose opaque sealant, a favourite choice for concealing booby traps, because someone has shone a laser hole to feed a detonator wire through the door
here
, causing a pressure imbalance pushing up behind the seal—” he pointed to a bubble in the sealant—”and lastly, and most importantly, because this door won’t open from the other side.” He rapped hard on the alloy. “Solid. The tunnel’s been sealed behind it; it’s a false entrance. My conclusions are also heavily driven,” he admitted, “by the fact that I suspect this is your Uncle Anchorite we’re talking about, and he’s an evil son of a bitch.”

“
This isn’t the way in?”
whispered Beguiled, casting a nervous glance at the robot.
“It used to be.”

“I’ll find you a way in. If he felt he needed an entrance here once, he’ll have built another close by. I need a Forward mass detector with a three-dimensional display.” He rummaged in the toolbag Judge-Not had brought. “Exactly like this one, in fact. My, this thing has been in the wars. It’s got blood on it.” He read the nameplate on the device’s side. “
PROPERTY OF THE TETSUSHURI CORPORATION, ADVANCE PROSPECTING DIVISION
. I imagine you got it cheap in a receivership sale, huh?” He turned the device on. “Luckily these things are completely passive, they don’t put out any radio or ultrasound. Detonators can be rigged to go off when they’re ultrasounded.” He wiggled switches back and forth, examining the display. “As I thought, there’s a second entrance. Probably booby-trapped too, but I’ll bet on this one being less reliably fatal. Probably just the odd finger-popping mine if that, easily bypassed. A man doesn’t booby-trap a tunnel he uses every day. Far more lives lost among trappers than trapped that way.”

The robot peered eyelessly over Trapp’s shoulder. “ARE YOU ABLE TO EFFECT A WAY IN?”

“Uh, Lord Hades is cunning,” said Trapp, raising his voice. “This is a false entrance. The real one is nearby, uh, Your Majesty.” He tugged his forelock for added effect. Lowering his voice again, he hissed
“Why is it talking like that?”

“
We put a Personality Analogue into it to take it out of Uncle Anchorite’s control.”
Beguiled looked over her shoulder in fear.
“I think it thinks it’s Helen of Troy.”

“
Couldn’t you have recorded yourself and put
that
into it?”

Beguiled held up a personality recording. “
Sodom put the wrong one in.”

Trapp stared at Beguiled in bemusement. Beguiled cringed.

“
How easy would it be to switch it back? Couldn’t you pretend to be doing the thing’s hair or something?”

“
It’s already killed Sodom. And,”
Beguiled said, biting her lip guiltily,
“and now I’ve had time to think about it, I’m not sure I trust myself to behave myself once I’m inside it.”

Trapp nodded and grimaced.
“I believe I’m with you on that one. Do you have any others? Non-violent ones? Gandhi, maybe?”

“
Mohandas Gandhi was a ruthless political operator who saw in the Second World War an opportunity to blackmail the British into leaving India,”
opined Beguiled precociously. “
He also had young women brought to his bed when an old man in order to
‘stiffen his resolve against carnal desires’.
Personally, I believe the objective to have been stiffening something rather different, and I am certainly not putting his mind into a two hundred kilo combat chassis.”

“WHY DO YOU HUDDLE AND TALK IN RIDDLES? WORK, CREATURES! OPEN THE GATES OF HELL THAT I MAY ENTER!”

“Uh, the true entrance may be in an adjoining tunnel, ma’am,” said Mr.Trapp. “It should only be the work of a few seconds to locate it.” Lowering his voice again, he said:
“There’s an easy solution to this predicament. We simply walk out of here on some pretext and tell the unit to open this door here. Badaboum, no two hundred kilo combot.”

Beguiled’s face was an odd mixture of fear and frustration.
“I don’t know if explosions will kill it. They’ve been tried before. It’s armoured. Couldn’t we just let it deal with Uncle Anchorite, then figure out what we’re going to do about it afterwards?”

“
Beguiled, you’re wheedling. Wheedling ill becomes you. Stop it.”
Trapp raised his voice. “Ma’am, I believe Her Serene and Beauteous Majesty should simply take this exit here”—he gestured gratefully toward what looked like a crack in the crypt’s masonry barely wide enough for an anorexic amoeba.