Watson, Ian - Novel 08 (19 page)

 
          
“Professor,
then Professor Ordinarius, University of Zurich, Swiss-Europa, W.Y. 192 to
196, in Department of Evolutionary Studies—”

 
          
“There’s
the switch-over on to respectable lines.” “Professor Theoretical Xenobiology, Chicago,
W.Y. 196 to 200. Author:
Evolutionary
Pathways and Psychological Archetypes
(with George Boulos);
A Model of Cybernetic Evolution: the
unfinished work of Eugene Magidoff—”

           
“Ah,” cried Denise. “That’s the name
of the man who—” “Exactly. Hence the evolution of the machines! Which are all
in Bosch’s paintings, incidentally—cyborgs and
all.
”

           
“Alien
Evolutionary Parameters: a re-analysis of the data from the Tau Ceti life-probe
‘Genesis IV’
(with Kurt Singer); author-presenter of NBC holotransmission
Life is the Language of the Universe.
Author of numerous papers, list missing.
Member of C.I.T.
analysis team for telemetry from the Delta Pavonis life-probe ‘
Genesis VII\
Volunteered colonist
(biochemistry capacity) for
‘Exodus V’
(Copernicus)
colony ship W.Y. 211.
End.”

 
          
Sean
applauded as the machine fell silent. “I’ll bet you he was a secret alchemist,
as well as a respectable scientist. He must have really believed in alchemy. He
wanted somewhere where he could be an alchemist without being laughed at!
Somewhere where no one else knew as much as he did himself about his
respectable official business of biochemistry, so that they wouldn’t notice
what he was doing on the side. He was looking for the Stone!”

 
          
“And
now he’s turned to stone,” giggled Denise.

 
          
“Oh no!
This
is
his stone. He’s away in the Gardens, watching his people being transmuted.”

 
          
“It
sounds kind of extreme volunteering for the deep freeze and a new colony
light-years away,” said Muthoni.

 
          
“He
probably pulled some strings.”

 
          
“Yeah,
but
why?
Just to be king of his
castle? Oh, he’s that now. But it’s an accident. He couldn’t know they’d meet
up with a superbeing who’d fix it all up for him! There’s something screwy
about this. I don’t suppose there’s any earthly way—and I mean earthly!—that he
could have, well, known that this God would be here?” She shook her head. “No,
this was Target Three. They weren’t even supposed to be coming here as a first
choice. This solar system was never Genesis-probed from Earth. I suppose if
Heinrich Strauss had gone off to one of the other colonies, he’d just have been
a prominent scientist tinkering around with his alembics and retorts as a
sideline. He’s been lucky.
Disturbingly lucky.”
“How
do I become more than I am?” the machine asked impatiently.

 
          
“That’s
simple,” smiled Muthoni. “You go and find more of your kind. You come together.
If there’s some kind of repulsion field or inhibition between you, well, you
use
this to shove you together. You get
the others to repel you into each other.
Coincidence of
opposites!”

 
          
Whirring,
the crossbow-machine arose on little legs and stumped away. Muthoni laughed
buoyantly.

 
          
“I
do hope you were genuinely trying to help it,” observed Jeremy.
“He
watches everything.”

 
          
“Hell’s
full of lies.” Muthoni shrugged. “Maybe when two lies collide, you get some
truth? Though I do believe, in a funny way, I
was
trying to help it. Ah, well: Muthoni Muthiga M.D., counsellor
to evolving machinery! I guess it’s no stranger than Herr Professor Heinrich
Strauss, Ordinarius in Chemistry,
master
alchemist by
appointment of God.”

 
          
They
climbed up the ladder into the tavern of the broken shell, quickly, in case the
machine should change its mind.

 
          
From inside, the
shell seemed to Sean
much larger than it had from outside. Perhaps this was because it was the first
interior he had been into in Hell? He had become hyperaware of little details,
and now experienced a magnified perception of the grain of the wooden benches
and trestle tables, the chiaroscuro stencilled out by the hanging lanterns, the
texture of casks and leather bottles and cups; and his ears were assailed by
the interference patterns of a dozen simultaneous garrulous conversations—a
gallimaufry of seduction, innuendo, levity, coarse jokes greeted with roars of
laughter; while his nostrils were flooded with the heady tang of spilled wine
and the rich smell of meat turning on a spit (what sort of meat? long pig?) . .
. then there were all the faces and gestures of the tipsy revelers to be taken
in: features haggard, florid, cyanotic, exuberant. Relatively, this could well
be the pleasantest place in Hell: a haven, inside the stone body of Knossos, a
blind spot out of sight of God or Devil. But its minutiae rather overloaded
him, dwarfing him . . .

 
          
Hands
plucked at the four newcomers. A wench broached & cask. Thumping a beaker
of wine down on the table, she plumped herself into Sean’s lap. A grizzled,
grinning man slid his arm around Denise’s waist. A tall black man—whose
features, however, were oriental—bowed tipsily to Muthoni. Jeremy slipped
gladly on to a bench and drained a flask, having apparently forgotten his own
warning about the wines of Hell.

 
          
The
tavern was expanding subjectively to occupy the whole of their attention, only
the broken entrance with its glimpse of burning gloom and starlit wastes
reminding them of the torrid winterscape of war and futility and caprice
outside. At the far end of the tavern—but how far?—a narrow ladder led up and
out of a hole in the roof. This seemed to serve mainly as a chimney, bearing
away the reek of vinous breath and the fumes of basted meat.

 
          
“So
you made it,” grinned the wench on Sean’s lap. She was rosy, plump and merry.
“Welcome to Last Stop Inn!” She kissed him fulsomely. It tasted like a
perfectly genuine, friendly kiss. Everything about the tavern seemed convivial,
if rather overdone.

 
          
“What
are you people doing here?” he asked her, foolishly.

 
          
She
winked.
“Getting drunk.
Making love.
Feeding our faces.
Having a gay
time.”

 
          
Bagpipe
music wailed down the vent from the roof, prompting a few people to a vigorous
stamping dance.

 
          
Sean
tasted the wine. Even this sip made his senses reel. His throat ached for more.
He quaffed deeply, and a few moments later found
himself
partnering the wench in a body-rubbing, smoochy glide around the room. Denise
and Muthoni had partners too. No one seemed
put
off by
their bruises or baldness; Denise no longer seemed to notice her missing toe.
Soon the separate couples fused into a conga line of people winding their way
around the tables, butting and prodding each other, till eventually everyone
collapsed upon the benches or the floor. Some copulated openly, others crawled
under the tables. Voices gasped for madder music and for stronger wine.

 
          
Sean’s
head buzzed. There seemed to be nowhere else he could possibly be, any longer.
Though why was he lying on the floor? Someone’s lips and hot mouth engulfed his
penis.
Rosy the wench?
He engorged, but didn’t look to
see.

 
          
“Trapped,
trapped,” mumbled Denise plaintively, nearby; then she began to groan with
pleasure.

 
          
“Whazamatter?”
slurred a winsome blonde girl, her fingers working between Denise’s legs, her
cheek upon her chest.
“All friends here.
All good friends.
No enmity. Nobody feels any pain ...”

 
          
Shortly
after climaxing Sean fell asleep, deliciously.

 
          
Somebody
trod upon his hand.
Which woke him up, some time later.
The revelers lay about snoring. The fire had gone out under the remains of the
roast. He raised his head, but immediately let it sink back on to the floor to
give his skull and eyeballs some sense of definition. He squinted sideways
instead. The girl who had trodden on him was stepping unsteadily between the
sprawled bodies towards the distant ladder—impossibly remote from where he lay.
Presently she began hauling herself up to the hole in the roof.

 
          
“Hey,”
he called vaguely. The call gonged in his head.

 
          
But
apparently she heard him. The bagpipes were no longer playing; the air was
still. She paused in mid-rung. It was the same blonde girl who had been goosing
Denise.

 
          
With
some difficulty he hauled himself up into a sitting position, propping his head
against a bench.

 
          
“Where
are you off to?” he whispered loudly. She could hardly have made out the exact
words, even though the room was silent. With a rueful smile, she waved and
disappeared through the roof.
Up the chimney.
What was
supposed to be up there?

 
          
“The
revels are over for that one,” muttered the oriental
negro
who had been squiring Muthoni the ‘night’ before, and who now batted a bleary
eye. “This is Last Stop. Of course, you can stop at Last Stop for ever.” The
man grabbed vaguely for a table top but only managed to bark his knuckles.
“I’ve a powerful thirst. Pass me some, there’s a good fellow. Devil’s Ruin, we
call it.” Sean groaned at the prospect of more drink, even the mention of it;
as Jeremy had warned, he had a Hell-sized hangover—but presumably Jeremy would
also have one when he woke up. “This stuff sets you up in no time.
Sets you off on the round of joy.
Up and
away.
Well, up but maybe not away.” The man’s fingers encountered a
beaker this time. As he drew it toward him, Sean caught his wrist feebly.

 
          
“Where’s
she going?” he croaked. “Why are the revels over for her?”

 
          
“Why,
she’s drunk and guzzled and fucked her way through all this. So will you, so
will you! You’ve got to be well set up to meet the Devil. Kindly let go of my
wrist? I ask you sweetly. Please. We’re all friends here. I ask you, who else
is friends in Hell?”

 
          
Sean
had no strength in his grasp, anyway. He let go. The oriental
negro
swallowed half a beakerful of wine and brightened
almost instantly. “We’ve all come through, is
what.
That’s why we’re all friends. We’re all on the brink.” Struggling erect he went
to carve a last slice of meat for his breakfast.

 
          
He
talked as he munched. “You see, this Devil’s got a massive intellect. Brainy
type, he is. He’ll tie you up in knots, analyzing this and that. He’s the big
brain inspector. Stagger up to him drunk with a kingsize hangover, that’s the
neat way. Slip through his gob while he’s trying to ask you questions. He wants
to know what it’s all about as much as the next bugger. Keen as mustard, that
lad is. Of course, you can try to beat him on his own terms.
Tried
that myself last time round.
The old syllogistic
caper.
I tell you, that bugger tied me up in knots.
Different
strategy this time.
You don’t get through by thinking about it.”

 
          
The
man hiccuped, raked his teeth with a fingernail, and burped. Raising his cup,
he swigged from it then topped it up. “This is holy drinking, man.
Communion.
Time to start the revels.
Yow-oooh!”
he yodeled. The sprawled
sleepers began opening their eyes.

 
          
At
least, thought Sean, this was genuine conversation of a kind with somebody in
Hell—other than machines—who didn’t seem entirely entranced by monotonous
rituals in the way of the musicians or the warriors. At least the man seemed to
have some notion of what he was doing, however crazy his rationale.
Unless his revels were another orbital ritual.

 
          
The
man brayed with laughter and upended his beaker over Sean’s head, drenching
him. The fumes of spilled wine intoxicated him; and Sean felt his head begin
to clear ... at least of pain, though not of the merry sense of revelry which
now returned, full-blown.

 
          
Denise
blinked at him from the untangling heap of bodies.
“J'ai la gueule de bois,”
she groaned, holding her head.

 
          
“Sniff
some wine, Denise.” Sean fetched a beaker. “It’ll clear your head.”

 
          
The
eastern
negro
chuckled. “So Dionysus is a lady! What a
party we’ll have today!”

 
          
The
bagpipes began to bleat tentatively overhead: the first post at Last Stop.
Soon, people were drinking and singing in a breakfast party . . .

 
          
The
negro
squeezed on to the bench between Muthoni and
Denise, embracing the both of them while grinning grandly at Sean.

 
          
“If
this isn’t love it’ll have to do till the real thing comes along. Now, I
propose a toast!
To the fair lady Dionysus.
And the
fair, or rather half-fair . . . what
was
your name, darling?”

 
          
“Muthoni.”
(Still subdued, she was beginning to bounce back.)

 
          
“The only Muthoni.”
His fingers
tickle-walked across her skin.
“Me, I’ll play on the black squares.”

 
          
“You
said the Devil is an intellectual?” asked Sean.

 
          
“Oh very.
Unless I’m lying.
But I
never lie, ha ha. Here’s to the Devil. May he have joy of
us.
May we be a tasty
bite.
” He leered. “He’s smelly,
though. The way out’s a real cesspool. Keep your nostrils well washed in wine.
We’re his shit—and that’s our final adjustment to the whole organic beast we
are! Ah, the old anal delights!”

 
          
Sean
tried to say something more, but words slipped and slid about his tongue. His
lips would rather have let loose a stream of scabrous anecdotes.
So much easier.
Schiaparelli
,
he mouthed to himself: a one-word prayer, invocation. To the wrong God, though
. . .

 
          
Here
is revel, he thought. And it
is
holy
revel, once you could see that it is. It’s only a membrane away from the
pleasures of the Gardens. It’s only the negative of those pleasures, waiting to
be turned into a positive. And here are the people who have reached the last
stage: of Dionysiac laxity, close by the laxative Devil. Here in this tavern
they suppress the intellect deliberately.
Because
the Devil is an intellectual.
This is the route, perhaps, of those who have thought overmuch, who have
ratiocinated about these unconscious events. Now they choose to drown their
thoughts, to dizzy them with liquor.

 
          
Perhaps,
thought Sean drunkenly (this intuition arriving like an afflatus from the
wine), it’s the Devil who is dutiful, not the capricious, though Knossos-indentured
God. The Devil is the legalistic, analyzing side of God, alienated from Him
because the whole God is paradox. So the Devil sits in Hell, gobbling,
digesting and evacuating person after person, puzzling his brains about them
like one of those valiant machines . . .

 
          
Sean
staggered to his feet.

 
          
“Come
on,” he ordered Denise and Muthoni. Catching

 
          
sight
of Jeremy smirking vacantly, he called to him too,
“We’re on our way.”

 
          
“Go
to the devil,” laughed Muthoni. “I’m having fun.” “That’s just where I intend
to go.
To the Devil.
Up, Doctor Muthiga. We’re only
passing through.”