Marek Huberath - Nest of Worlds

He hiccoughed, swayed.

“We can take the old drunk with us,” said a policeman.

“No need. He’s depressed. He’s a good man,” Gavein said. “A night in jail would do him more harm than good. No one here is charging him with anything.”

“As you wish.” The policeman waved his hands and left.

“Gavein,” croaked Wilcox (he was the only one, besides Ra Mahleiné, who didn’t call Gavein “Dave”), “doesn’t it seem to you that we are one person, the same person?”

“We have different wives.”

But conversing with a drunk only multiplied inanities.

“Look in the mirror. The same profile. True, I’m old, but other than that…”

“I never worked on the police force.”

“Being in a used-book store, being on the beat, it’s the same thirst for power.” The mind of Wilcox was following the paths familiar to it.

Gavein tried to be patient. “If you say so, Harry.”

“My name is Hvar, and I was born in Lavath,” Wilcox went on, stubborn. “Ra Mahleiné and Ra Bharré… the manul and the she-bear, both names of beasts of the north.”

“Sleep it off, Harry. You’ll feel better,” said Ra Mahleiné, not pleased at being put in the same category as Brenda.

“Consider, Gavein… They’re both blondes, they look alike. Brenda’s put on weight, but she used to be as thin as your wife.”

“Ra Mahleiné wears glasses.”

“Brenda is nearsighted too, but she won’t wear them.”

“That’s why she squints?”

Harry nodded, but the nod might have been only a drunken sway.

“Harry, you forgot about me,” said Zef, putting his two cents in, as usual. “I too aspire to be Dave’s alter ego. We both have white wives. We both are physicists—he as a dabbler, I as a graduate student.”

“You’re a fool, Zef.” Despite his stupor, Wilcox could tell he was being mocked. “You’re red, and he’s black. Anyway, he’s Death, and I’m Fate, while you are a run-of-the-mill individual. But alter ego , that’s good. It’s exactly what I meant.”

He spoke more softly, drawn into his own thoughts.

“Was it in your book that you learned that you and Gavein are the same person?” Ra Mahleiné asked.

“Of course. That book, what an eye-opener it is.”

Gavein winked at his wife.

As soon as the police vans drove off, Edda began searching the shelves for her insurance policy. Gavein and Mass, as they had done the day before, began replacing the broken panes, because the evenings now were bitter. Fortunately there were enough extra panes in the storage room. Puttkamel wasn’t there; he had left with the police.

It was early when the phone started clattering. Gavein picked it up: Medved again.

“I’m calling on behalf of the Division of Science.”

“My congratulations on your new position.”

“Thanks. I owe it to you. The Division requests that you come in for testing. This matter has grown in importance. As a phenomenon you have come to the attention of the highest people.”

“The testing, how long will it take? You understand, my wife is ill. I need to care for her.”

“The DS will be quick. They should be done with you in a few days, a week at most.”

“And my taking off from work? My expenses?”

“The DS is a government agency. It will see to everything.”

“I guess I have no choice then.”

Ra Mahleiné asked, “Where are you going?”

He covered the receiver with his hand. “He says it’s for testing at the Division of Science.” Then, into the phone, “More are dying, Medved?”

“I’d put it this way: the dying continues. The number is still in the three digits.”

“Where do I report? What’s the address?”

“We’ll come for you. That will be safer.”

“When?”

“In an hour.”

Things were moving too quickly. Gavein didn’t feel prepared, but he didn’t refuse.

Both Lorraine and Anabel promised they would tend to Ra Mahleiné in Gavein’s absence.

They hope to stand under the umbrella of safety around David Death, he thought. The instinct of self-preservation at work.

Ra Mahleiné wiped her glasses over and over. In Davabel they put too much salt on the street, she complained, and it clouded her lenses. The reasoning she used was long and involved. When snow fell, the city authorities instantly (and maliciously) sprinkled salt. The result was slush, which passing cars in turn sprayed on her glasses, and the salt in that slush etched and pitted the glass. She spent an inordinate amount of time removing every trace of salt. Ra Mahleiné had grown even thinner. She vanished among the pillows of the sofa. It seemed that the little energy she had left was devoted to the obsessive cleaning of her lenses.

She lifted her eyes to Anabel. Without glasses they seemed larger than usual. “Very well, Anabel, I’ll take you, but you must be obedient,” she said, stressing obedient . “You’ll be under my protection, until such time as…” She hesitated. “You must listen… Any insubordination, and it’s the end for you. An end that will be as miserable as you are.”

Gavein wondered. Ra Mahleiné loathed the woman yet was choosing her. To pay back old pain, he thought, old humiliation.

“I remember how you kicked me, as a parting gift. And where you kicked, where you loved to kick.”

Gavein clenched his fists. He had not known this.

“Don’t worry, Lorraine,” Ra Mahleiné went on. “I won’t punish you as I do her. You’ll go on walks with me. I’m still weak, but it will be spring soon. The snow will melt. I intend to do a lot of walking, and you’ll help me.”

“But… I have a job.”

“Don’t you wish to live? To live, you must be near Gavein, at least near me, isn’t that so?”

Even she believes it, he thought. She accepts the role of Death’s wife.

“Mrs. Throzz is right,” Lorraine’s mother hastened to say. “That’s definitely the best arrangement. Until the business of all these deaths is made clear, you’ll take a vacation, dear. How can your employers refuse? The most important thing is a person’s safety.”

With the squeal of tires and the mewl of dying sirens, the column of vehicles came to a halt. At the head of the column were two infantry carriers of the National Guard, armored and fitted with machine guns, small-caliber cannons, and missile launchers. All the vehicles were painted in green-gray camouflage and adorned with the small white, black, and red emblems of Davabel. After the carriers came a white hospital minibus, two civilian cars, an army truck, and another armored vehicle.

A serious business, thought Gavein, if they arrive with such an entourage.

Several civilians stepped from the cars. They entered the front room. Two armed soldiers stationed themselves at the door.

Medved nodded in greeting. “This is Senator Boggs,” he said, introducing a tall, graying man. “And this is Dr. Siskin, from the Division of Science.” Dr. Siskin was small and slight, a gray.

“And Puttkamel?” asked Gavein. “He should be in this illustrious company.”

“Don’t joke, Dave. Or don’t you know? The arsonists who survived seized Puttkamel and lynched him.” Medved gestured toward a massive man whose bald spot was exactly the size of the military cap that ordinarily sat on his head. “This is General Thompson.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Thompson. “You don’t seem a monster. Any one of my sergeants looks more imposing.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, sir. I’d be happy to exchange places with any one of them.”

“Medved informed you of everything by telephone, yes? Let’s be off,” said Thompson.