Marek Huberath - Nest of Worlds

Their superior was a physician who obviously wanted to keep his existence a secret. Gavein was amused by the chain of command and by the cowardice behind it. All he would have to do, after all, was direct his attention to the unseen doctor.

Medved’s people had set up a clearinghouse of information on the deaths. They were looking for chains of causality between the victims and Gavein. No detail was too small to be entered into the database. The most insignificant fact, like a thread of a spiderweb, could lead to the perpetrator who sat unwitting at the center. The researchers were less interested in the cause of death than in how the death fit the victim’s Significant Name. The rest was a police matter.

The questions put to Gavein dealt with minutiae, since the basic facts had been known for some time. He repeated things that he had repeated several times already. This exhaustive interrogating made no sense to him: if you analyzed carefully enough what any citizen did, you were bound to find some link between him and the fate of any other citizen.

But the invisible leaders had faith in Medved and his statisticians. Deaths were being classified by their degree of connectedness to Gavein. The death count, broken up into these categories, was displayed daily on the DS monitors. Each time, Gavein looked for a death unrelated to him, but the number in that column—labeled Apparent Lack of Connection with GT—was always zero.

He was not allowed to use the telephone, but they promised him that every day someone would call Ra Mahleiné and speak with her. He could listen to her voice recorded on tape.

“Dr. Nott sends me pills regularly. I’m stronger after taking them and have stopped sleeping during the day,” said Ra Mahleiné in one recording. “They’ve provided me with a wheelchair. Lorraine pushes me along the streets around the house. Laila is not doing as well. Fatima asked if her daughter could push my wheelchair sometimes. Wilcox has hanged himself, and since then Brenda does nothing but drink. I never see her sober. The buildings around us are all abandoned, the stores boarded up. Our necessities, even the alcohol for Brenda, but whatever we ask for, are brought by police van.”

There was a rattling sound in the receiver.

“We don’t pay for a thing. It’s like having unlimited credit with the government bank. This is not good, not normal.” She paused, then continued. “Zef started reading Nest of Worlds . He says he’s undergoing mind thaw, because there are no lectures now to deplete his gray matter, so he’s taken up the book and the matter of Wilcox. He also says he needs to choose a topic for his thesis. Edda wanted to throw the book out, but Zef told her that since his Name is Murhred , it’s not the book that threatens him but other people. Also, he told her that he read in the introduction that the book would finish off only Wilcox. I don’t know if that convinced her, but for the time being she has stopped talking about chucking books into the fire. Zef is reading a lot, taking notes, many notes, because this will be his thesis. You wouldn’t believe how he’s changed. He cut off his Mohawk. He wears gray. He can pester me with questions for an hour, for example asking if his clothes have achieved the Lavath standard for dullness. His enthusiasm gives him energy, not at all the way it was with Wilcox. The book destroyed Harry, you could see day by day how he was falling apart, how the end was coming.”

Two days later, Ra Mahleiné said:

“Brenda slit her wrists while drunk and got into the tub. Fortunately old Mrs. Hougassian saved her. She used to be a nurse. Brenda’s hands are bandaged up now, though one finger won’t move. She and Harry must have loved each other more than they let people see. I prefer Lorraine to push me on my outings; she’s stronger. Laila can’t manage when one of the wheels gets stuck in a pothole. You can see she’s pregnant now. Maybe that’s the reason she’s weaker. In the house she walks around in nothing but her bandages and panties. She says she’s hot. I think it’s indecent, because she’s healed a lot and doesn’t have that many bandages now, so practically everything shows. Her skin is like parchment and pinker even than before. Her panties are full of holes. Zef may have screwed her once, but now all he cares about is the book. The only man in the house is old Mass, and he doesn’t get out of bed, after his attack of sciatica.

“I smacked Anabel in the mouth and pulled her hair, because the toilet was dirty. Not only that, but she also spilled coffee on the bed. You wouldn’t believe how humble she was, offering her face so I could hit it. Afraid to die, she puts up with everything, never resists. It becomes meaningless, this paying her back. Later I felt stupid. I don’t make a good torturer. I’ve decided to leave her alone unless she gets arrogant again.”

The closed-circuit television at the institute showed old films with all dead actors. They ran a lot of Lola Low and Maslynnaya. Gavein didn’t care for it.

The physical exam showed that he was a healthy man of thirty-five with the beginnings of rheumatism, was slightly anemic, and had two bad teeth. He was spreading no mysterious contagion in the form of bacillus or virus. He was permitted to take off the uncomfortable plastic suit, and his bad teeth were fixed at the cost of the Davabel taxpayer, over three excruciating visits to the dentist.

Saalstein informed him that Marius Balakian, the physician heading the research team, had suffered a fatal heart attack. The chief had been a highly secretive man. The monitors showed a picture of Balakian: bald, overweight. The first casualty at the DS after Gavein’s arrival.

There was a change in the way people treated Gavein. It was hard to pin down but palpable. The bacteriological tests all completed, exploratory surgery was suggested next, but Gavein balked at that. He agreed instead to a series of x-rays.

Nurse Winslow, old, enormous, with a jutting jaw, mixed a white powder in a small amount of saline solution, while Chechug, the radiologist, fussed with the scanner. Gavein waited for them to hook him up to the IV. Doctor Hepditch, Balakian’s successor, supervised.

“You’ll be able to see my veins, with this?”

“Please confine your comments,” said Winslow, “to what you are experiencing in the course of the procedure.”

“It’s cold here. There’s a draft coming from under the door.”

Winslow began filling the syringe.

“In my rear?” asked Gavein. He was in good humor.

“It can be in your rear,” muttered the nurse.

Chechug was preparing the plates as Winslow took the IV bottle and injected the white fluid into it.

“Aren’t those plates for tomography?”

Both Winslow and Chechug started.

“That’s right. They’re used with dye,” said the technician.

“In that case you need my permission, don’t you? Because there is risk involved in taking that kind of picture.”

Winslow dropped the little bottle with the prepared fluid. It shattered on the floor. Chechug turned abruptly to see what had happened, and the sleeve of his lab coat knocked over another bottle.

Gavein couldn’t help laughing.

“Shit,” said Chechug. “I spilled the rubbing alcohol.”

Winslow looked at Dr. Hepditch without a word, waiting for her to say something. There was the characteristic smell of alcohol.

“Nurse, take another bottle of the saline solution and prepare another dye,” said the doctor coldly. “And have the orderly come in and clean up this mess you’ve made.”

“But—”

“The bottle on the second shelf from the top.” Dr. Hepditch said, making a note on her clipboard.

Winslow took another bottle and started over. Chechug was fiddling with the x-ray machine’s transformer. The alcohol stank.