Marek Huberath - Nest of Worlds

Then, for a while, things quieted down. At the bookstore Gavein tried sitting in the back so he wouldn’t come into contact with any more customers. Wilcox was annoyed to be driven from his hiding place. If Gavein had been less preoccupied with his own problem, he would have noticed that Wilcox was coming to work dirty, unshaven, pale from lack of sleep, with bags under his eyes. Again the retired policeman was reading obsessively in that book, Nest of Worlds .

One evening Gavein and Ra Mahleiné were visited by a thin, little man with a luxuriant handlebar mustache. Some little men grew a mustache like that. Perhaps in the mirror, while shaving, it made them feel they had more substance. In reality it made them look like beetles. Theodore Puttkamel was a psychologist who worked for the Division of Science. He had recently joined the team investigating the phenomenon of Dave Throzz. He said that he was made leader of the group because no one else wanted the honor.

“Such fear has fallen upon the professors,” he said. “They want to save their skins by remaining in the background, in the shadow, unknown…”

“And you?” Gavein asked wryly. “Are you using a pseudonym?”

“No, my name is really Puttkamel. A pseudonym makes no sense. If Medved and I aren’t struck down, it doesn’t matter whether you know my name or not.”

“Psychologists,” said Ra Mahleiné, “don’t ordinarily engage in research that puts their lives at risk. It’s the physicists, biologists, chemists who do that. How do you feel in this new situation?”

Puttkamel sat down on the rug, arranged his legs in a half-lotus position, and took a swallow of thin Davabel coffee. Ra Mahleiné had taken pity on the man and didn’t brew the Throzz tea.

“I feel fine,” he said comfortably. “It’s warm and cozy here. And if I’m successful and survive”—he said with a smirk—“then the publications will flow as from a horn of plenty. Unless, of course, it’s all nonsense, in which case I’ll be a laughingstock.”

“You won’t get the better of him,” chuckled Gavein. “He’s a psychologist, an expert at talking… and getting others to bare their souls while saying not a thing about himself.”

Puttkamel shrugged and smiled wanly. Then he got down to work, with his questions. He gathered all the information he could from Gavein and his wife—about Gavein’s life, childhood, education, work history, health. When they were done, he admitted that he had hit on nothing remarkable. He drew up a list, as Medved did before, of the people Gavein had come in contact with. His visit lasted until late at night.

The television was silent on the subject of Gavein, but news traveled quickly. Proof of that was the statement, on the newscast, that many were moving from Central Davabel to the outskirts. The most expensive apartments downtown grew cheap, while dwellings at the edges of the city-continent shot up in value.

Edda lowered the Throzzes’ monthly rent to thirty packets, including dinner. Helga Hoffard was hospitalized, on suspicion, it was said, of a cerebral hemorrhage. Medved informed them that Helga’s name was Intralla , which means “From the inside,” so they could probably add her to the list.

In the night someone threw a stone through the dining room window. The broken glass cut Massmoudieh’s face.

Immediately Gavein put in a new pane, working in the light of a lamp held by Edgar Patricks. The air was damp and cold, and the sidewalks were becoming covered with slush.

He saw movement in the darkness.

“Ah, I’d hate to be in the shoes of the fool who threw that stone,” he sang out. “We all know what’s in store for him when he comes to the attention of David Death. The terrible David Death can kill without knowing the name of his victim or even seeing his face. All he has to do is think, ‘I’ll get the one who threw that stone.’”

Not another stone was thrown.

“Was that the truth or were you just putting fear into him?” asked Edgar.

“I don’t know.”

The next day, the papers said that an enraged crowd stoned to death a certain David Lanu, B, suspected of being David Death. In the following edition, David Coles, B, was killed by his wife with a razor while he slept, and David Bharozz, B, was dropped from a window. In each case, the reason given for the crime was that the people wished to rid themselves of a monster.

“I don’t know what to think or what not to think,” Gavein said to his wife. “These deaths, were they caused by my thoughts? My subconscious? The idea of other black Davids might have been in my mind.”

He straightened the sheets for her.

Ra Mahleiné was too weak to get up today. Dr. Nott had scheduled the operation for next month, but in two weeks Ra Mahleiné would have to begin taking medication in preparation for it. There was no reason for haste, Nott said, but neither should they put off the operation.

Wilcox smelled bad. He sat in dirty socks on the floor behind the pigeonhole desk, sweaty, his hair unwashed and greasy, as he gazed upon his prize. His eyes were glued to the pages of the book. He didn’t read, he devoured, oblivious to his surroundings. Sometimes he would absently rub his nose or scratch himself.

When Gavein took the book from him, Wilcox looked up with relief in his eyes. Gavein phoned Wilcox’s wife to come take her husband home. Unfortunately, even though it wasn’t noon yet, Brenda was drunk, so Gavein took Wilcox home in his own car.

That evening, in the dining room, he found Zef bent over a book.

“What are you reading?” he asked, turning on the TV.

“You meant to say, what am I packing in?” Zef said.

“I stand corrected.”

“You have a persistent froze when it comes to contemporary terminology.”

“Alas.” Gavein gave a Puttkamel shrug.

“The natural sequence is as follows,” Zef instructed him. “First you pack in, then you chuck off. With science, too, you pack in, but then instead of chucking off, you chop with your brain.”

“I see. So what are you packing in?”

“A piece of garbage. A mystery. You read one, you’ve read them all. Everything’s normal, going fine, then zap, bap, and for the rest of the book they pretend they’re figuring out who and why. Emptiness and cliché. The only one who can’t be the murderer is the reader, and the characters… the author pulls them out of a hat. A throw of the dice, no more. Yet it’s better than not reading,” he added philosophically. “Today in class they spoke about you, Dave. It’s public now. No doubt the work of that asshole Puttkamel, shooting his mouth off to further his career.”

“What did they say?”

“Corbin maintains it’s a string of pure coincidences that will end any minute. He says the fate of a human being is determined only by the Significant Name. But Vodov… This was an open discussion, you understand. The seminar moved to one of the lecture halls, and a bunch of people came, not just from the college. They sat in the aisles and around the speaker too, but there were so many that the rest were left standing. Anyway, in the region of Davabel that Vodov marked out, there were more deaths from the beginning of the series, from the death of Bryce, than in the course of the entire preceding year. You can imagine what an egg that was to lay.”

“Do you remember what the region was?”

“A chunk of the city. From the airport to our district. I can’t describe the exact shape.”

They were interrupted by the news of the death of the television anchor who had covered the funeral of Maslynnaya and Lola Low.

“In a minute Medved will call to tell me this. And he’ll suggest that I killed the anchor too. Well, it’s true; I’ve been watching those damned newscasters every day.” Gavein stopped. “And what conclusions came out of the seminar?”