Nest of Worlds (29 page)

In the city jail he was given a double cell. It wasn’t bad. When he put the stool on the table and stood on it, he could see, through chinks in the rusty metal blinds, parts of the street, a miserable little lawn, a tree with a grate around it, and occasionally a pedestrian. If he was lucky, the pedestrian would be a woman.

His cellmate was a character called Humpty who had done time before. By two months they had discussed, in full, everything there was for them to discuss. Humpty was an income tax evader. He had received the minimum sentence—that is, to the day of his departure—which for him came to three years. In Tolz he could begin a new life. For income tax crime you didn’t lose your possessions.

But one day Humpty said something new:

“You were set up.”

It was a hot day and stifling in the cell. Humpty was fat. He sweat like a pig, panted, but never stopped eating. For a small bribe the guards brought him extra food.

Gary perked up his ears.

“Here’s how they did it,” Humpty went on. “The beatings you got were staged. You never saw your attackers’ faces.”

“Not with the stockings they wore,” said Gary. He was chewing a crust of black bread.

“Exactly. And they used names so you would think they were the Tunics.”

Gary nodded but wasn’t convinced.

“You left the door open when you barged in on the Tunics. The other guys fired from the corridor behind you.”

“The bullets were from my gun.”

“The bullets were from the same kind of gun. The Lupar has a modular barrel. They fired and then switched the barrels. You fired only once, at Eby. That was the missing bullet. After all the killing, when you were still in a daze, one of them finished Eby off.”

“But what was Eby doing on the stairs?”

“Maybe he heard sounds of the fighting and was coming to help you.”

Proud of himself, Humpty wolfed down a hamburger. He had unpleasantly humid eyes. Ketchup dribbled from the corners of his mouth.

Gary stretched out on his bunk, hands behind his head. “To help me, you say. And I . . .” He was silent for a moment. Then he sat up, the shirt sticking to his sweaty back. “But why would they go to all that trouble? To put an unimportant guy out of the way? It makes no sense.”

Humpty opened a can of Lone Sail. He chugged down half of it, gasped for breath, and with his sleeve wiped the foam and ketchup from his mouth. He burped softly and began another hamburger.

“You were not an unimportant guy,” he said, knowing that he had Gary’s attention. He gave a wink, his gaze more humid than usual. He sipped slowly at the rest of the beer.

Gary sat forward. “Come one, Humpty, tell me. You can’t spend all day on that beer. Your hamburger will get cold.”

“I think it had to do with that furniture, the Amido, the clock. Maybe they take back, from the people moving, everything that wasn’t paid for . . . The possessions remain in Mougarrie that way. The next person buys them on credit. Not a bad business to run. And of course it’s important, seeing as they went to such lengths to keep it out of the newspaper.”

“You think they killed the Bolyas?”

“I don’t know. The blood in the Amido doesn’t have to mean that. In three years I move to Tolz, but I won’t try to find out if Spig and Suzie Bolya are alive. You’re surprised?”

“Not at all. You always were a little shit, Humpty.” “Little” sounded funny, since Humpty was a head taller than him.

“Little shits live longer,” said Humpty. His blue eyes were so pale, they were hardly different from the whites. On his revolting mouth formed something that resembled a smile.

My idea, once it hatched, has become an obsession. I can’t look at reality now except as a narrative in a book. The days pass monotonously, however, as if the main action is not with me but elsewhere. At least the reading still absorbs.

Today I came across a note in the margin made by Wilcox: “Our world is a book. Dave, Zef, and I are all alter egos of the author.”

He got that right. Though the alter ego thing is an exaggeration. Wilcox was plenty smart, though he didn’t show it at the beginning.

If the book is a nested world, then its reader, by reading, moves time in it. When the reader stops, time stops. But how can time be stopped? Perhaps it becomes a semiconscious state of the world’s inhabitants, who reminisce. Because what can they experience beyond what has already been written in the book?

Another index card showed when Gavein turned the page. It was not dated. Perhaps it was out of order, stuck there randomly:

The creator of the nested world is the book’s author, whereas the reader’s role is only to set that world in motion. The Inhabitant of Superworld Minus One is immortal and omnipresent, so it is reasonable to assume there is only one. If there were more than one, they could not all be omnipresent at once. And if there is one, then He is both Author and Reader of Superworld Minus One.

Maybe the inhabitants of the higher-numbered worlds are also not people, thought Gavein. Simpler beings, like bacteria. Maybe that is how they can multiply so quickly, during their stay in a Land . . . And if there are many Lands, then the area of each must be very small. The globe would then resemble a biological tissue culture, in whose Land-cells lived the microorganisms that were the heroes of the narrative.

The Significant Name becomes a kind of thread of sequential information, resembling—as Linda said—a polypeptide chain. As if there were a Code of Death that played a role exactly opposite the role played by the transmittal of genetic information in living matter, the Code of Life.

Or could this be only a matter of semantics? A sufficiently long Code of Death, carrying complete information about the fate of its possessor, would also contain every fact about his physical makeup. In that case, one could not distinguish between the Code of Life and the Code of Death . . . They would in fact be one and the same Code . . . I don’t know how far to take the analogy. A pity you’re not still with us, Zef. Here I’ve come up with an idea of my own, and there’s no one to share it with . . . Ra Mahleiné has commanded me to read. She doesn’t want to hear from me about anything else.

In Jaspers’s world there is no time scale common to all Lands, which means that there is no road that goes from Land to Land in such a way that time elapses at a constant rate for the traveler. The same holds for all worlds of higher number than Jaspers’s.

In the world of Gary and Sabine there are lines of common time, thanks to which one can calibrate time in separate Lands.

We
have surfaces of common time, which are determined by the altitude above the continental shelf. In a plane that flies at a constant height, time flows at a constant rate.

To sum up: in world number 3 there are points of common time, in world number 2 lines of common time, in the normal world (ours) surfaces of common time, and in Superworld Zero there is volumetric space of common time (either totally or to a great extent).

For time’s uniformity-symmetry to be increased in Superworld Minus One, it cannot flow at all. A strange conclusion yet consistent with the others, since the Inhabitant of that world is more easily immortal if no time elapses.

If the inhabitants of our hypothetical Superworld Zero are similar to us, the solitary Inhabitant of Superworld Minus One is both Author and Reader, that is to say, both Creator and Animator; is immortal, outside time; and is everywhere. With Him ends the hierarchy of authors and heroes of books. He is therefore in all respects a being apart.

When Dave returns, I will talk to him about Superworld Minus One. Laila isn’t interested, and Magdalena is too weak, too sick. Today we’re going out to renew some old acquaintances. I doubt that Earthworm, Beanpole, or Rooster will have anything valuable to say, but it’ll be good seeing them again after all this time.

That was Zef’s final note. Gavein put the book down and punched the number for the police.

Medved answered.

“Hello, Frank. Death here.”

“Stop that, Throzz. I have trouble enough as it is on your account. Spare me the jokes. What do you want?”

“Well, I think maybe I’m better than you at solving unsolved crimes.”

“No doubt, since you are their architect.”

“I’m not the architect of anything. I have a clue about the death of Laila Hougassian, NC, and Zef Eisler, R.”

“Go ahead. I’m recording this.”

“In a note from Zef I found, he speaks about going to meet with his old gang. He was reading a book and putting index cards in it, with his notes, as he went, and this is the last card. Laila went with him to this meeting.”

“All right, I’ve now pulled the gang from his file. It’s shrunk a bit. Hans Hartnung is dead . . .”

“Zef said he was going to see Earthworm, Beanpole, and Rooster.”

“I’ll send someone for the card.”

“Nothing doing. I need the card.”

“Then someone will come with a photocopier and make a good-quality copy for you to keep. Agreed?”

Gavein agreed.

Ra Mahleiné’s condition worsened rapidly. She didn’t leave the bed. In her face, grown unnaturally gray and thin, only her eyes shone. His reading the book no longer helped. An invisible force was now claiming her. He knew this.

Zef’s guesses and speculations had become certainty for Gavein. It annoyed him that Zef, despite all his powerful arguments, had left most of the conclusions in the form of assumptions only, postponing them for further discussion. Gavein could not resist the elegance and the beauty of the theory. It was clear to him, with the clarity of an obsession, that his world too was nested in another—in a greater, wider, perhaps more varied world. The sequence of worlds contained in the book did not stop with his world. He was the main protagonist of the book in which they called him Death. Events took place with particular vividness around him, while the rest, elsewhere, was shadowy, like a memory or allusion. His world continued only when it was read. Whenever the unknown reader put down the book, everything slowed and nothing essential could happen.

I am a text, he thought. Somehow I can accept this. It does not frighten me. Actually, it makes little difference.

“Take my hand,” said Ra Mahleiné quietly.

He sat beside her on the sofa and wept.

She too had tears in her eyes.

“I don’t want to die,” she said. “I waited for you so long, and we were together for so short a time.”

“And I don’t want to live when you die.”

A solution came to him. Not caring that it appeared ridiculous, he raised his head, looked in the air above him, and began:

“I’m speaking to you. You who now hold this book in your hands. Stop reading! I beg you. Put it down. Ra Mahleiné, whom I love, is dying, and there is no hope for her. When you read, my world moves inexorably toward her death. If you put aside
Nest of Worlds
, everything here will freeze into a quasi existence . . . It’s better for us that way. I want her to live. I want to be with her. Give us this chance!”

“Who are you talking to, Gavein? I see no one. I still have my eyes, my wits, at least that.” She gave his hand a feeble squeeze. Her body burned with fever.

“You’ve seen so much death in Davabel. Isn’t it enough for you?” Gavein said.

“Is it Nott you’re talking to? Has Nott come? Tell her to give me an injection. The Red Claw, I feel it again.”

Through the window fell the rays of the setting sun, but darkness had settled on the face of the woman he loved.

“My world, it’s a crime novel pure and simple,” Gavein exclaimed. “What more do you require? The crime has been solved now, hasn’t it? The epidemic of deaths was a consequence of the fact that you read; when you stopped, no one died. That’s the answer to the mystery. And I didn’t go mad like Wilcox!”

Ra Mahleiné grew extremely pale.

“Gavein,” she said. “I’m alone. Speak to me. I need you.”

“This is not my paranoid creation of reality, no, this is, must be, a book!” When he shouted it, all his doubts were stilled. “And for the plot, the rules have been broken. Ra Mahleiné is an
Aeriella
, yet she’s dying like an
Intralla
, of cancer.”

He held her weakening hand.

“And you,” he continued. “Isn’t your world also a book in the hands of an unknown Reader? When He reads, the fate of your world unfolds, history unfolds. And sometimes Death hovers, taking those near and dear. And the Main Hero has passed you only at a distance.”

“It helped. The injection helped. The pain is going.” Ra Mahleiné fixed her large blue eyes on him. Regret, reproach remained in them.

“If this is a book, put it down now, don’t turn the page . . . She will owe you her life, and I all my happiness.”

“Gavein,” whispered Ra Mahleiné, “I love you.”

Her eyes clouded over, her hand grew cold. He kissed her on the lips one last time and closed her eyes gently with his fingertips.

“You want to know how this ends? Very well . . . There will be one more piece of action for you.”

He went to the red telephone and lifted the receiver. “Give me the president. This is David Death.”

After a moment came the rough voice of the president. “Yes? I’m here.”

“My wife is dead. I was unable to keep her alive.”

“I am sorry, Mr. Throzz.”

“Yes. I solved the puzzle of the epidemic of deaths.”

“What was the cause?”

How do you tell the world that it is a crime novel read by a stranger? A crime novel, moreover, that is too easy to figure out? He smiled bitterly. No, it would be doing a kindness to them to keep this secret.

And if it isn’t true? A game of numbers described by Zef, only his little joke, one of the dozens that he made? And I took it seriously and fell into madness, like Wilcox, after all?

“Throzz, are you there?”

“Yes. The cause is Fate.” Wasn’t Fate the name Wilcox once gave to the main protagonist?

“You mean, a random fluctuation of probability?”

“This fluctuation isn’t random. The epidemic of deaths ends when I stop living. That is the solution.”

And if, in Superworld Minus One, there is a Library that houses all the
Nests of Worlds
, and they sit on the shelf equally, without regard for degree of nesting? And beside them, on a shelf of its own, is a Catalogue. A complete index of characters. A list of the characters from all the books.

If a book can be a world, then why can’t an Index be a happy place where everyone meets and converses? (Or at least they do when the Librarian leafs through the Catalogue.) A place where Jaspers and Sabine and Gary drink beer, and the cat Roan dozes on the table beside their mugs. That is where I’ll find Ra Mahleiné.

He wiped his brow. This is not insanity, he thought. It’s no more insane than what Zef discovered.

A Catalogue was entirely possible. The Rule of Names was broken, because Ra Mahleiné died as an
Intralla
, not as an
Aeriella
. So perhaps there is not the perfect symmetry of nothingness, four incarLands, nothingness.

“Mr. Throzz!”

“Yes.”

“There’s a problem with the line.”

“The phone’s working. No, I have decided to commit suicide.” (Thinking: That’s the only way to get around the reader in Superworld Zero. To go straight to the Index.)

“We can’t argue with you. But please don’t ask that you be killed. The disastrous experience of the Commission of Defense proved that that is impossible. Death cannot be killed.”

“I will do it myself, but I need your help. The help I need is technological. My name is
Aeriel
. (Thinking: But what difference does that make, now that the Rule of Names has been broken?)

“No one will bomb you or shoot at you from the air,” said the president. “Even if you ask. I will not permit it.”

“I have a better idea. Give me a copter. One of the last three left in Davabel’s air force.”

“We have three new copters from the factory. There’s a squadron of them now.”

“It doesn’t matter. The copter will drop a rope ladder, because there is no place here to land. I will climb on board and jump from the highest altitude.”

“The copter is taking off now. Please wait in the middle of the street, so the pilot can see you. I’ll send an ambulance for your wife’s remains.”

“I’ll wait. I have one more request.”

“What is it?”

“I’d like her body to be frozen, kept frozen forever.”

“You make this a condition of your suicide?”

“That’s right. It’s a condition.” Gavein understood the president’s putting it formally, for the record.

“Very well. This conversation is being recorded, and my decision has the force of law: government funds will be allocated and placed in the Bank of Davabel. They will cover the cost of preserving your wife’s body. Your remains are to be placed beside hers?”

“Yes. Have the copter come at once. I don’t want to be here when they take her away.”

“It will be there in minutes.”

“My regards to Colonel Medved.”

“Medved is no more. He suffered a stroke. Please wait for the copter.”

Gavein sighed. “He too. Did he like beer?”

“I have no idea, Mr. Throzz,” snapped the president.