Authors: Larry Niven
I was about to go on, when the door behind us slammed open to reveal a long corridor. A naked man slimed with blood rushed through and into the office. His hair was matted, soggy red. He took the bureaucrat’s head in both hands and tore off his ear with his teeth.
It was a strange fight. The newcomer could do anything he wanted to, and did, but the bureaucrat could only defend himself. He wasn’t very good at it.
“You killed her!” the bloody man screamed. “Anthony Glicka, you killed my daughter!”
“I was doing my duty,” Glicka howled.
My curiosity overcame me and I went back into the tiny office.
“Want to tell your story?” I asked. Then I stopped myself. “Leonard?”
The bloody man paused to look at me. “Allen. So they have you, too.”
I turned to Lebeau. “Now I know there’s no justice in this frigging place! Leonard Dowl was an English teacher. The least violent man I ever knew!”
Leonard picked up a ruler and used it to gash Glicka’s head. Lebeau looked at me curiously.
“All right. He changed. Leonard, what are you doing?”
Leonard Dowl grabbed the swivel chair and dumped the seated man onto the floor. Then he kicked him in the head. “Allen, you remember my daughter?”
“You didn’t have any kids when I died.”
“Sarah was sixteen when she got cancer. Liver cancer. Inoperable. No cures. UCLA developed a treatment. It would have saved her!”
“You don’t know that!” Glicka shouted, his voice muffled, head in a wastebasket. “It was experimental.”
“Experimental,” Leonard said. “Yeah, but it worked! A dozen people! I know a dozen people it saved!”
“A dozen possible remissions,” Glicka said. “Claims! Just claims! Anecdotes!” He turned to me. “It wasn’t approved! The FDA was doing more tests. Mr. Dowl wanted his daughter to be in the tests, but we had enough subjects.”
“There was plenty of the damn stuff!”
“It wasn’t approved! It was too dangerous!” He was trying to sit up.
Leonard threw Glicka to the floor and jumped up and down on him. “Dangerous! Sarah was dying!”
“Stop it!” I shouted. “You can leave Hell! Come with me! We can all get out of here!”
Glicka tried to get up. Leonard pushed him down again. “You’re not going anywhere, you son of a bitch! I sent you to Hell and I’m gonna keep you here!” Leonard shouted. He looked past me and down the corridor. There was terror in his eyes. “No! No, not yet!”
There were figures coming down the long corridor toward us.
Glicka crawled to a corner and sat up. “Help!” he shouted.
There were three men in white coats. They ignored Lebeau and me as they grabbed Leonard and dragged him away.
“I’ll be back!” Leonard shouted. “Every week! Forever!”
Glicka stood and brushed himself off. He carefully gathered all his scattered and bloody papers, put the chair back in place, and sat at his desk. His face was twisted in pain as he looked up at me without recognition. “May I help you?”
Lebeau led the way down one more flight. There was a door at the bottom of the stairs.
Chapter 12
Sixth Circle
The Heretics
The sepulchers make all the place uneven;
So likewise did they there on every side,
Saving that there the manner was more bitter;
For flames between the sepulchers were scattered,
By which they so intently heated were,
That iron more so asks not any art.
All of their coverings uplifted were,
And from them issued forth such dire laments
Sooth seemed they of the wretched and tormented.
T
he air was thick with smoke. It stank of burned vegetation with a whiff of burned meat. Despite the smoke I could see great distances. The area in front of us was filled with tombs, mostly marble.
The nearest tomb was about twenty yards from the door where we stood. Beyond it was a field of closed tombs and open–topped sepulchers, and between those were bright fires. There were far more sepulchers than tombs, and beside each open sepulcher was a heavy stone lid. The tombs were already sealed. Here and there were statues. One showed a warrior king, and a shield with Crusader cross. The statue’s face was concealed in an iron helmet with silver crown, and he held a large hand–and–a–half sword. The statue stood above a sealed tomb.
“I will leave you here,” Lebeau said. “Unless I can help you with anything else?”
“There’s so much I need to know!”
“And so little that I do know,” Lebeau said. “May I say I admire your determination?”
“Thank you, but I’d rather have answers.” I pointed at the sealed tomb of the warrior king. “Him. He’s sealed in there. As a heretic. Does he deserve to be in there forever? Does anyone deserve that? Awake, aware, tormented, forever?”
Lebeau shrugged. “I would think not, but it is not for me to say.”
“So how do I get him out? Him or anyone?”
“Perhaps that one can help you.” Lebeau pointed to one of the big open–topped sepulchers. A man dressed in black robes with a black sash stood watching us. There was a large fire next to his sepulcher. Flames licked around him, but he didn’t seem particularly affected by them. He began shouting through the flames.
“Heretics! I was condemned as a heretic, and you are the heretics! You, Lebeau!”
“Who is that?”
“Monsignor Bruno did not accept the Vatican Two decrees,” Lebeau said. “I did accept them. I knew Monsignor Bruno well, and we argued the merits of the decrees. Because he would not accept the Vatican Two decisions, a papal order deprived him of office and authority. He would not accept that, or any of the other decrees. That indeed made him a heretic. He accepts that, but does not repent.”
“You’ve talked to him since he came here?”
“A few times. He is very bitter.”
“Do you blame him?”
Lebeau looked pained. “I try not to think of such things. I am not a judge. I do not sit in judgment. I do hope to continue in the work of creation.”
“Creation? Here?”
“Why not? John Paul the Second issued an encyclical. A papal bull called
Laborem Exercens, On Human Work.
God expected humans to assist in continued creation on Earth. If mankind is expected to aid in the creation of the universe, why not here?”
“Popes are important here. But Dante put some of them in the Inferno.”
Lebeau grinned. “He did indeed. But they are also the keepers of the keys. What they say is important even if they are not all good men.” He seemed very earnest. “And now I must leave you. Unlike my superiors, I do wish you good luck and success, Carpenter. I would follow you if I did not think myself bound by my promises of service to Girard.”
I said, “Girard seduced Rosemary into staying.
I
sure don’t owe him anything.”
He smiled. “No.”
We shook hands. “I wish you well at your trial,” I told him.
“Thank you.” He went back inside the wall and closed the door.
“Run away, Lebeau! Coward! You will not stay to dispute with me!”
I made my way over to the shouting man. His sepulcher was adorned with a carved coat of arms. The fire was close to the sepulcher, and the stone sides radiated an uncomfortable heat. Uncomfortable, but not unbearable. I could see over the edge, to where scores of prone human shapes formed a slumberous carpet; but when I got that close, heat flared and drove me back.
He regarded me coldly. “How do you wander freely in Hell? Have you joined the demons, like Lebeau?”
“No,” I told him. “You could come with me. What keeps you in there? It can’t be much fun. Jump out. I’ll help you.”
I think he considered it for a moment, but his answer was prompt enough. “I was placed here as a heretic. It is a monumental act of injustice.”
“So come out. Follow me! If it’s unjust for you to be there, there’s sure no crime in escaping.”
“It is unjust that I be here at all!”
“In what way?”
“I have —” He frowned at me with suspicion. “Just who art thou?” he said. Those weren’t his exact words, but it’s what I heard.
“I be Allen Carpenter.”
“Hast thou gone by other names?” Again that wasn’t what he said, but it’s what I understood. I realized he had changed languages with each question.
“I called myself Carpentier when I was an author,” I said. “But Carpentier wasn’t a very nice man. He’s gone.”
“And are you an educated man?”
“No. I understand you because I have the gift of tongues,” I said.
“You are a saint in Hell?”
“I think the gift of tongues is distributed a lot more widely than we all thought.”
“Apparently.”
“So come with me,” I said. “It can’t be comfortable in there.”
He scowled at me. He reached for the rim of his prison, and the metal flared orange–white. We both fell back from the heat. His palms smoked.
Frustrated anger leaped in me. Girard had seduced Rosemary back into Hell, and what had I done to stop him? This man was trapped because he held a different opinion from the Catholic Church on matters I didn’t even understand. How could this be justice?
I looked at the stone lid propped against Bruno’s sepulcher. Slide that into place as a bridge … but it must weigh as much as a small car. I’d need an army. There was an army
in
the sepulcher …
“Leap out,” I said. “Vault over the edge. It will hurt, God knows it will hurt, but you’ll be able to bear it and you’ll heal.”
“I am afraid.”
“I don’t blame you,” I said. “I won’t lie to you, getting out of there may not even be the hardest part of getting out of Hell. But you can do it!”
Bruno said, “Why must I endure a terrible ordeal to escape this sepulcher? I was unfairly put in this place. I have remained true to the Church. I do not belong in Hell. Or if I do, it should be for deeds, for lapses in chastity, but never for heresy!”
“Monsignor, it’s unfair for
anyone
to be in Hell for heresy!”
“As I have told him often enough.” A tall and distinguished man walked around the far corner of the sepulcher. He bowed his head slightly. “Charles Francis Adams, at your service.”
“Son of John Quincy Adams?”
“Yes. You’ve heard of me?”
“Sir, there was a time when every American schoolkid had heard of you,” I said. “But what in Hell — excuse me. What in the world are you doing in Hell?”
“Heresy,” Adams said. “But in fairness, I had to insist.”
“Insist? Now I really am confused,” I told him.
“I was originally placed with the Virtuous Pagans,” Adams said. “I insisted that I was no pagan. I was of that branch of the Unitarian Church that held Christ in special esteem —”
“But not as Son of God!” Monsignor Bruno insisted.
“Perhaps as Son of God. Not as God Himself. I take monotheism seriously.”
“Arianism!” Bruno shouted. “The Arian heresy almost destroyed the Church!”
Adams shrugged. “What I do not take seriously is narrow religious rules,” Adams said. “Surely it is enough that one lives a good life? Follow the Golden Rule. Surely that is more important than believing some point of doctrine? Even one as important as the nature of Jesus Christ.”
“You won’t get me to argue with that,” I said.
“I could find no one to argue against that. Eventually I left the Virtuous Pagans and insisted that Minos judge me,” Adams said. “I even questioned his authority to do that, but he was convincing: he had the power, and he had it from God. So I submitted.”
“And he sent you here?”
“Rather reluctantly,” Adams said. “He actually suggested that I go back among the pagans, but I refused to do that.”
“So where is your tomb?”
“I have none. When I arrived it was clear there was no impediment to my traveling on. I am not confined.”
“Do you have the gift of tongues?”
Adams looked puzzled. “I never thought about it.”
“Ha! Dost thou comprehend this speech?” Monsignor Bruno demanded.
“Why, yes —”
“And this palaver, as well?”
“Yes.”
“Then I would say you have the gift,” Monsignor Bruno said. “Latin I know that you learned in school —”
“I did. Latin and Greek.”
“But I never thought to see if you understood Farsi or Aramaic,” Bruno said. “Both of which you now comprehend. It is apparent that you have the gift of tongues.”
Adams frowned. “But that was a mark of the Apostles!”
“And of saints,” Bruno said.
“I never believed in saints,” Adams said. “People aren’t perfect and never can be! Surely I have not become a saint? Tell me, Monsignor Bruno, are there languages you do not comprehend?”
“I have no gift of tongues,” Bruno said. “I understand only the nine languages I knew before I departed Earth.”
“We’re saints and you’re not?” I said. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Well.” Adams looked inquiringly at me. “Sir, you have the advantage. I am Charles Francis Adams —”
“Allen Carpenter. Author. I died in 1975.”
“Almost a hundred years after me. Much has happened in those hundred years. Mr. Carpenter, could it not be that it makes perfect sense? Let me explain. Do we not all agree that this world is governed by reason?”
“I’d like to believe that,” I said. “But I’m not sure the evidence is in favor of it.”
“God’s will does not conflict with right reason,” Bruno said. “It cannot. But we do not always understand what is God’s true intent.”
“I will take that as agreement,” Adams said. He turned to Bruno. “You assert that the Roman Church is infallible, but when it decided against your views, you did not accept that. Certainly that makes you a heretic, and you have your place here, by your own choice.”
“And you?” I asked.
“I choose to be here. I do not believe I am a heretic. I believe that reason governs, reason reigns supreme. It is not reasonable to confine men and women to eternal torment! Therefore there is a way to leave this place, a way for all. If there is not, I deserve confinement as a heretic!”
“But you aren’t confined,” I said.
“I see that you understand me. Nor is Monsignor Bruno confined, any more than was his predecessor in that sepulcher.”
“There was a predecessor there?” I demanded.
“Yes. Another monsignor, who dissented from the Vatican Council of 1870. He would not accept that the Pope is infallible. The monsignor arrived not long after I insisted that Minos judge me. I persuaded him to leave.”