Deathworld

He shivered. Oh, that's a sick idea. This is making me morbid.

Besides, you would need evidence that they were able to make people do something like that… and you don't have any.

Charlie sighed. Just paranoia, he thought, and walked among the 'exhibits' for a few moments more. Too many clues… not enough hard data for a real theory. For any kind of theory.

I need harder data. I need those autopsy reports.

He sat down on one of the benches and looked out across the Pit.

But how am I going to get them?

He sat there thinking for a long time, while outside, eighteenth-century London started (finally) to go to bed, and the sky showing high up in the Royal Society's windows started to pale toward dawn.

And suddenly Charlie sat up straight. Mark!

'Time check,' Charlie said.

'Twenty twenty-nine.'

'I want to make a virtcall,' he said. 'Mark Gridley.' 'Trying that connection for you now…'

In another part of the virtual realm entirely, it was raining fire, and Nick was standing under an asbestos golf umbrella and wondering just where to go from here.

The patter of ash and live cinder on the umbrella over his head would have been strangely soothing had it not been for the brimstone smell in the air and the shrieks and wails of those in torment. All the cries were wordless, here. The Damned in this circle had been deprived of the only thing that had marked them as human while they lived on earth, the gift of speech. In all other ways that mattered they were judged to have abandoned their humanity, and so they ran forever under the fiery rain, with demons scourging them through the black, blasted, ash-strewn landscape. In the distance, on the lowering horizon, a volcano was erupting, belching ash and fumes and fountains of lava into the air, and the ground rumbled constantly, crevasses always ready to open up and swallow the Damned as they ran.

Nick started forward cautiously. It was difficult to see where you were going, and those crevasses were very much on his mind-naturally you couldn't really get hurt down here, but until you knew what the crevasses entailed in terms of gameplay, it was wise to be cautious.

'Going somewhere?' someone said from behind him.

Nick turned and saw a shadow of someone about his height standing there and watching him, with folded arms. At least he thought they were folded. She was more a silhouette against the deeper darkness than anything else, apparently wearing a long dark 'shellcoat' with its three draped layers-though the hood was pushed back to show a head with shoulder-length hair, held at what looked like a somewhat arrogant angle. She was eyeing him, finding him amusing.

'Are you real?' Nick said. Down here, it was a fair question.

'I'm another Banie, if that's what you mean,' she said, tossing her hair out of her eyes, flicking away a couple of burning ashes. 'You just get here?'

'Uh, yeah.'

'Come on, then, and I'll get you oriented. You know where you're going?'

Nick pointed toward the only light he could see, the volcano.

'Mount Glede,' she said, 'that's the spot. Come on. it's a bit of a walk.'

She set out, and Nick went after her. 'Not used to doing this with a friendly guide,' he said.

'Don't mistake me for anything friendly,' said the dark shape next to him, sounding annoyed. 'I'd as soon leave you to your own devices. But that's not how this. Circle works. We have to help each other.' The expression in thegirl's eyes was sullen and bored, as if she thought Nick was a waste of her time.

The opinion was mutual, but Nick had come far enough by now, and spent enough time and money in Deathworld, that he wasn't going to let mere bad temper, hers or his, interfere with his conquest of this environment. 'You never did tell me what to call you,' he said.

She didn't quite grit her teeth, and Nick could just hear her thinking, I didn't intend to. But finally, 'Call me Shade,' she said.

He smiled slightly, though he turned away so she wouldn't see it. Every Banie knew that Joey himself, or the surrogates of him which were part of the program, sometimes walked the circles in disguise, pretending to be just another Banie, and if you mistreated someone else who was working their way down, or went against the House Rules, the House could very well use it against you. Chances that might otherwise have been offered to you would be withheld; luck wouldn't go your way.

'So what do we do now?' he said.

'You didn't tell me your name, either,' Shade said, eyeing him.

'Nick,' he said. It was how the system knew him. He didn't see any point in establishing a handle just now.

'Well, Nick, mostly we head for the Mountain, and try to keep from getting distracted, or falling into any crevasses. That's gonna be a full-time job, so stay close and don't go running off after the inmates.'

He followed her as she set off. It was difficult going until your eyes got used to it. The constant fall of ash produced an effect like black snow, a dead, soft, soot black with no highlights, no features you put your feet down without any real sense of when they would hit anything solid. The only light was that dim red glow from the volcano, the swift-fading glimmer of the flakes of burning ash as they fell, and the burning whips of the demons that chased the Damned across the plain through the shin-high, fluffy blackness.

'Look,' Nick said as he struggled to keep up with her, 'Shade, aren't we supposed to ask these guys here any- thing?'

She laughed at him. 'Not much point in that,' Shade said. 'They can't do anything but scream. They could speak once, but it was taken away from them after they became murderers and wound up down here. According to Joey, they're no better than animals.'

Nick opened his mouth, but she flung her hand out to stop him. 'There,' she said, and pointed right down in front of them. Slowly, softly, and silently, the earth was yawning open. He would have missed it until it was too late, and would already have been falling down into what he could just now make out as a dim, red, angry glare.

'Uh,' Nick said, swallowing.

'Yeah, `uh,' ' Shade said, scornful. 'Game over, if you fall into one of those. Big waste of time. No recall from that, either. No 'save' from a crevasse. So watch yourself.'

Together they sidetracked a long way to their left to get to the point where the crevasse narrowed enough to be stepped over. 'I was going to say,' Nick said, 'if they can't talk-what's the point of them being here?'

Shade looked at him with amusement. 'It's not like seeing the guilty get punished for murder isn't worth something by itself. Wouldn't you say?'

Far away across the dark landscape, Nick thought he could hear something like an electrolute tuning up. His heart leaped. 'That's a new `lift'-'

Shade sighed. 'Yeah, it's the warm-up for 'Strange Fruit.' Not a bad cut, that one.'

' 'Strange Fruit'-'

'It's a cover,' Shade said. 'Joey doesn't do many covers. A lot of people down here think it's a tribute to the Angels of the Pit.'

Nick shook his head, confused.

'You really haven't talked to a lot of people down here, have you,' Shade said.

'Uh, no.'

There was another long sigh. 'I guess it's understandable,' she said, rather more softly, as they went forward. 'The upper circles aren't much about talking to real people. The 'Angels of the Pit' — those are the kids who died after being down here.'

'The ones who committed suicide-'

'We don't usually put it that way,' Shade said, pausing again as another crevasse started to open up in front of them, and leading Nick off to the right this time. ' 'Death wears many faces… ' That's what the song says. They left us before they were finished. Whatever made them do it, they're gone now, but we remember them… '

This was so unlike what Nick had been thinking about the suicides that he was startled. 'Didn't any of them make it… you know… all the way down?'