Nest of Worlds (28 page)

The pistol worked. Gary tried it out at a distant garbage dump. He applied for a gun permit at the police station. Cukurca OK’d the application: the professional opinion of a psychiatrist was needed to establish the existence of a mental disorder—such as a persecution complex—but Gary’s last beating had left clear marks on his face.

One day Daphne sent Gary down to the Tunics for some chili.

Jutta led him to the kitchen, rummaged among the shelves. Unlike Margot, she had a thick band of hair on her shaven head, from front to back. It was tied in a braid that fell to her shoulders.

“Look, Gary, what we just bought,” she said, friendly. If not for their dress and hair, both girls would have been normal, even nice.

In a corner of the living room stood a tall clock with brass columns and a blue ceramic face. He felt a chill.

“It was on discount at Morley’s,” she said proudly. “Just for us, because we’re one of their best customers. I love that blue, don’t you? It’s like the clock is smiling.”

For Gary it was the grin of a skull. And he had never heard of anyone’s receiving an exclusive discount from Morley’s. He said nothing.

With Cukurca’s approval he got his gun permit. He intended to practice at a police firing range. Unfortunately his pistol didn’t pass inspection. Although he had cleaned and polished the weapon with care, it was more a danger to the person shooting than to the person shot at. The pistol was taken from him, but Cukurca made it possible for Gary to buy a used Lupar Attac, a powerful fifteen-cartridge gun, police-issue.

Gary paid to take a course on shooting. Every day, unless he was on a run, he’d be at the police firing range. Meanwhile Daphne spent hours at his place working on an article. So he could only meet Sabine right before or right after shooting practice. Balloch, the instructor, said that Gary was making excellent progress, but Gary doubted that. Aiming wasn’t easy, since with his strabismus he had no depth perception. Also, he had difficulty concentrating at the range; he would think about his next rendezvous with Sabine, or about how much time he could spend with her without Daphne growing suspicious.

Sabine, as he got to know her better and won her over more, became more and more interesting. She had a good body: slender hips, shapely breasts. There were some freckles on her back and chest—but a lot fewer than Daphne had. She was full of life and quite intelligent. When he stopped noticing her colorless hair and pink eyes, he saw a lovely girl.

Obviously this arrangement could not go on forever: an hour here, an hour there wasn’t enough for Sabine. Gary knew what he should do, but out of laziness or cowardice, or both, he put off speaking with Daphne.

Talk about cold water in my face. My notes could be published under the title “Letters from Zef to Dave about the Book; or, The Wave Theory of Stupidity.”

Babcock informed me that my topic is an old idea. Two hundred years old. Some Bonacci Junior, professor at a university in Llanaig, came up with the series. And he did it better than I did, because mine doesn’t begin at the beginning. I should have figured that out, damn it!

The correct series is:

1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, . . .

You need two 1s at the beginning for their sum to make 2. The author of
Nest of Worlds
knew this form of the series, having had at his disposal the works of Bonacci Junior.

Daphne worked till dawn. The article had grown considerably—it could be published now in two or three hefty installments. She kept making corrections and retyped the most marked-up pages. Gary couldn’t doze off because of the clatter of the keys. But he had to stay there; Daphne wouldn’t allow him to go lie down. He spent the night in the armchair, drinking beer after beer as long as there were cans in the refrigerator. When he closed his eyes, he saw Sabine’s breasts, then stopped seeing them—only gray fatigue was left, and the beer ran out.

Daphne, bent over the machine, muttered phrases. Sometimes she crossed or whited something out and put a new page in the noisy roller. She was exhausted, but the end was in sight, so she couldn’t stop. Cold sweat covered her pale forehead.

Sunlight was coming in when she sat back with relief and said, “Finally.” She smiled at him and made a circle with thumb and finger.

Gary lifted his weary, swollen eyes and gave a weak smile. “Tomorrow it begins,” he said. “We’ll get police protection, for sure, against the gang. I’ll take this to Cukurca.”

“Day after tomorrow. It won’t make tomorrow’s paper.”

He nodded agreement. Then his head fell, and he was snoring.

Daphne put the manuscript in order, threw off most of her clothes, and wriggled under the cold blanket. She had trouble sleeping, because it was getting brighter with every minute, the night retreating to the dark corners. She shivered, first from the cold, then from the tormenting pang of hunger, then all sorts of disconnected thoughts ran through her head. At last she lost hold of reality.

At the publisher, she spoke to the man who had temporarily replaced the editor-in-chief. Her article was rejected—that is, it was accepted, but only on the condition of so many changes that she would have had to redo the whole thing.

The basic thesis, of a gang who murdered and robbed people who moved, was well substantiated, carefully argued, so there was no chance of a lawsuit. The editor’s criticisms concerned smaller matters: the style, the vocabulary.

Gary said that this was the typical fault finding crap you got from editors. Daphne threw the papers to the floor in a fury and said she couldn’t look at the article anymore. But they had to fix it without delay, because the substitute editor had given them only three days, and they had a run scheduled soon. Gary took the manuscript to his place. He put it on an end table and dropped into bed. After a night without sleep, he slept like a stone.

He was woken by people moving around suspiciously and a burnt smell. It was evening. He jumped up, and immediately his chin met with a fist. A flash of yellow, and he was on the floor. When he tried to get up, someone grabbed him by the collar, and another blow followed.

“You’re a truck driver, you shit, not a writer.” The words reached him between blows.

The Tunics again, he thought. This time they’ll finish me off . . .

They were thorough. Each time he fell, he was kicked in the ribs and thighs. As with the last beating, the pain deprived him of the will to fight. Someone kept pulling him up by his pajamas, and there was another burst of yellow, and he lost consciousness.

“Where’s the copy?”

“No copy,” he said, which was true, though it brought another blow. “There isn’t any.” It was too bad that Daphne hadn’t made one. A carbon copy would have satisfied the thugs.

“Stack, he’s telling the truth,” said a muffled voice. “Let’s take it and get out of here.”

A lot of footsteps.

He came to his senses quickly and ran to the dresser for the pistol. He had to get the manuscript back. The pistol was there—the attackers hadn’t found it. Running out, he removed the safety.

Eby was coming toward him up the steps. Apparently he had forgot something. He wore no mask. Gary shot him in the stomach. Eby waved his arms and made a face, as if astonished. Gary elbowed him aside and ran downstairs. He kicked open the door to the apartment on the ground floor. Stack and the third guy turned. They had managed to get rid of their masks.

“You sons of bitches!” Gary roared. “Give me that manuscript! The article!” Aiming at Stack.

“What article? What are you talking about, Gary?” Stack turned as green as his tunic. He stood rigid, at attention.

Gary’s finger must have moved on the trigger, because a shot rang out. Not a shot, a series of shots. Stack clutched his chest and dropped to his knees. Then he was facedown on the floor.

Margot ran in from the kitchen. A bullet caught her as she ran. More bullets flew, whistling. Jutta tried to crawl behind an armchair but didn’t make it. The last of the Tunics took three bullets: in his head, neck, and arm.

Gary looked down at his gun. It was too easy. When had he pulled the trigger? When had he aimed? The weapon was not completely recoilless—he would have felt himself shooting. He remembered one shot, on the stairs, at Eby, but only that one.

He stood, stunned. A police siren sounded in the street. Soon after, someone pinned his arms, someone else took away the pistol, and a third someone put handcuffs on him.

He waited in the cell until evening. Cukurca conducted the interrogation. He didn’t believe Gary’s story, because, as before, Gary had been beaten professionally, without marks. The notes and materials for the article were gone. The manuscript itself had burned, ignited by a cigarette. A charred hole in the upholstery was all that remained of it.

Cukurca expressed doubt that Gary had the ability to gun down his neighbors so efficiently, but he was withholding judgment until he heard from the ballistics expert. Gary’s story did not seem very likely. Fortunately most of the fired bullets were recovered. Gary claimed he had shot Eby only once, but three bullets were found in the body: in the stomach, the middle of the forehead, and the ribcage. Eleven bullets in all had been fired. The magazine of the police-issue Lupar Attac held fifteen rounds, and there were indeed four left in Gary’s pistol.

Gary asked to speak to Daphne, but that turned out to be impossible. Apparently, after his arrest, Sabine had called her, unaware that he and Daphne were a couple. The affair came to light, and Daphne would have nothing more to do with him.

I couldn’t sleep because of Bonacci Junior’s series. The author of
Nest of Worlds
made use of it, so he must have had some concept of Superworld Zero and Superworld Minus One. Superworld Zero doesn’t present that much of a problem, but Superworld Minus One (required by the first 1 in Bonacci’s series) seems totally absurd. From the formulas you get nonsense: the number of Lands in Superworld Minus One equals zero. The number of Significant Names is 12
-1
= 1/12. Nonsense too. From this I draw the simple conclusion: the author of
Nest of Worlds
devised his laws so that Superworld Minus One would constitute a breach of logic!

Gavein bent back the second half of the card.

Zef had taped on another card: notes written later, perhaps that same day, or else he had taped it to continue his reasoning then and there.

Babcock allowed me access to the division’s computer. That is, to the library of programs available only to the sharks. Though I am a lowly graduate student!

In less than three-quarters of an hour I had the formula for length of time spent in a Land.

The number of years spent in a Land = 140/(N + 1)
2
.

With good accuracy this accounts for the time one must live in each Land, for each degree of nested world. For us, it’s thirty-five years. As it should be in normal reality!

But in the Superworlds?

In Superworld Zero you get 140 years, which isn’t ridiculous, because if you spend your entire life in one Land, then the duration of stay must equal your lifespan. And whoever heard of anyone living longer?

In Superworld Minus One the duration of stay is infinite.

And yet two ones sit at the beginning of Bonacci Junior’s series—so that the 2 that follows can follow. I can’t dismiss the first 1.

Therefore I repeat my analysis. Maybe I’ll have better luck the second time. The number of Significant Names comes to 1/12, but a Significant Name cannot have a fractional number. Do we then approximate, going to the nearest integer? That would mean zero Names, no Name, for the Inhabitant of Superworld Minus One. This is pure speculation, but I’ll write down what I think.

First: A Significant Name gives the path that death will take toward an inhabitant of a world. In Superworld Zero, the name is one: “You must die.” Or, in other words, the inhabitant is mortal. The absence of a Name for the Inhabitant of Superworld Minus One means that he is not mortal, since no Name hangs over his head. Which tells us nothing about whether or not he was born or has always existed. I write “Inhabitant” with a capital letter and not “inhabitants,” and this conclusion too I owe to a sleepless night.

Second: The number of Lands in which the Inhabitant of Superworld Minus One must live equals zero. I reasoned this out in the same way. Normally, we live in four Lands in turn; only death frees us from that obligation. Each inhabitant of Superworld Zero can stay in the whole world at any age, unconstrained by the obligation to travel to any Land, which is a subworld, because there are no subworlds in Superworld Zero. But the number of required Lands in Superworld Minus One equals zero, and therefore its Inhabitant does not necessarily dwell in the world; He may dwell outside it. This goes hand in hand with the infinite time passed in a Land.

(Zero Lands may suggest that the Reader of Superworld Minus One Himself fills the Universe, is the Universe. But no, surely a universe can be no more than a passive collection of objects . . .)

I can’t figure out why the author made the number of Significant Names fractional but also greater than zero. Could it be that the Reader of Superworld Minus One, though immortal, had some brush with death?

To the card was glued one more piece of card, scribbled over. Gavein squinted to decipher the tiny scrawl:

Final conclusion: In both Superworlds there is only one version of the book that contains nested worlds. A solid trunk for the Tree! From this it follows that the world in which I live has no nested counterpart.

Gary was informed that Daphne Casali perished in a run. He had lost his only witness. Cukurca could testify only to the beatings Gary had received; the rest he didn’t believe. All the documentation that had been gathered to write the article was missing, and the manuscript had gone up in smoke. Eight bullets were found in the apartment, two on the stairs. All had come from Gary’s pistol.

The trial proceeded in a predictable way. The court ruled that Gary had fired all the shots. His excellent aim? He had developed that on the police firing range. Balloch’s testimony there was decisive. The newspaper editor-in-chief stated that Daphne had submitted no article, though he did remember a conversation about it some time ago and her proposal to write it. He had never had a temporary substitute at work, he said.

Even Gary’s lawyer doubted the existence of the lost manuscript. But manuscript or no manuscript, Gary had taken the law into his own hands.

He was found guilty of five counts of murder in the highest degree. The court gave no credence to the story that Gary had been beaten by his neighbors. There could be but one verdict: five consecutive life sentences. He would travel to Tolz after one sentence was served, by prison transport after he had served his fifteen years, six months, and twenty days. His possessions were all auctioned off; the money from their sale would cover some of the cost of his punishment. The loss of his possessions meant that he would have no means to appeal. The fivefold life sentence meant that he would sit in prison for the remainder of his days. Any mitigation of his punishment could do no more than reduce the number of his life sentences.