Marek Huberath - Nest of Worlds

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.”

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.”

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.