Читать книгу A Vision of Hell - Brian Stableford - Страница 10

CHAPTER 6

Jervis Burstone, whose amusement in life was to play God rather than to play Hoh, was in the Underworld, waiting. Usually, Ermold was at the rendezvous before him, unable to control his eagerness to get hold of the gifts which Burstone brought and dispensed so magnificently. (They were not quite gifts, but neither Ermold nor Burstone knew why the pretense of trading was maintained. They both believed that what Burstone took in return for his goods was worthless.)

Burstone sighed. He knew that Ermold was not going to come. Late meant never, in the Underworld. It was a world which did not offer second chances to its people.

Ermold had been a good contact. He had been the nastiest, most vile of all the men that Burstone had had to deal with, and by virtue of that fact he had looked to have a good many years in him. But time seemed to move so quickly here. A man might pass from maturity to senility in a matter of weeks. The people of the Underworld seemed to live their lives inside a span of time which Burstone hardly noticed in passing. Burstone could remember the contact before Ermold as if it were yesterday. And the one before that. He would remember Ermold with crystal clarity when three more contacts had all fulfilled their purpose and rotted into the stinking, polluted dust from which they came. That was the way of things.

Burstone waited, unwillingly, glancing at his wristwatch every few moments, giving Ermold the time that was his due, but begrudging the filthy savage every second of it. Burstone did not like the stillness and the alienness and—more than anything—the cold, steady perpetual starlight. He sweated, and knew that he was slowly absorbing the stink and the foul taint of the Underworld. Once back on top he would have to slink home like a rat in the shadows, to bathe for an hour and plaster himself with the medicines which would save his skin from rotting away, and save his body from the vile diseases he inhaled with every breath. If only he could wear a mask—a proper mask rather than a wad of cotton wool and a piece of perforated plastic. But he had been warned against masks.

He was afraid, as well.

But the thrill of fear, and the rather less conscious thrill of pollution were almost life’s blood to him. He needed them. They gave something to him which he could not hope to find in any other way. The tainting of his body and the washing clean, the scouring of his body with the hormonal cocktail that was fear—these meant something to him. They were real to him in a way that the diversions of the Over-world were not. The ritual descent into Hell, followed by the ascent into Heaven—this was the purpose of life. It was the focal point of his existence. It was the reason that he was needed by the worlds. It was his duty, his honor, and his...joy?

Burstone was a completely sane man. His dreams never troubled him.

While he waited, he drifted on an ocean of feeling. An emotional castaway.

The creatures of the underworld would not come close. The smell of him, in their senses, was just as alien to them as theirs was to him. His sharp, chemical cleanliness was an affront to them. No predator would dare to come close, and the small creatures engaged in the business of survival detoured in order to pass him by. He saw the great ghost moths fluttering between the squabs some yards away, and heard their high-pitched screaming at the very limits of his audible range, but there was not enough light for him to see anything else. He was virtually blind down here. He had a horror of darkness, too. On this, too, his soul fed.

When the time was up, he simply picked up the suitcase and began the walk back to the cage with which he could hoist himself back to the platform. He walked with an easy, measured stride, unhurried. It took courage—genuine, completely pure courage. It took strength of mind and of character. He never looked around. The thought of finding a new point of entry, of setting up a new contact, and the inevitable risks that would be involved in so doing, did not disturb him. He accepted that part of his role.

Up on top, clean and healthy, he would still feel good, even though he had not fulfilled his mission on this occasion. He would feel the satisfaction of knowing that his part was played.

He was only an ordinary man.