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There was a long silence before she spoke.
“You’re right. We’re certainly not in Heaven. How is your theology?”
“Not too good—but good enough to know that I should not be thinking what I am thinking. Before you arrived I did a little theological digging in the net about the Heaven concept and all the afterworlds and afterlife, to find out more facts, to get some insight as to what it was all about. I’m afraid that my early religious education was more than neglected. Here is how it goes. There are as many concepts of Heaven as there are different religions. What I did was outline the Heaven as seen by the attendees at the Temple of Eternal Truth and search for comparisons. I found a really interesting assortment of religions with a great variety of names. I narrowed these down to the ones that featured a dichotomy of Heaven and Hell, which are places that are occupied after you die. There is an object called a soul, which you can’t see or find or anything like that. It comes from somewhere unspecified. The description was pretty vague at this point. This soul, in some undescribed ma
She looked shocked. “Then you think that.. perhaps we have ended up in this place called Hell?”
“Well, until a better idea comes along—and I hope it willthat seems to be the conclusion
There was a distant rumbling roar, the ground shivered beneath my feet. A sudden weight seemed to press down and I dropped to my knees, put my hands out to break my fall. I was heavy, suddenly very heavy; Sybil was sprawling on the ground again.
Then the strange sensation passed, as quickly as it had come, and I stood again, shakily.
“What—was that?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. I never felt anything like it before. It was like, what? A gravity wave passing over us?”
“There is no such thing as a gravity wave.”
“There is now!”
She tried to smile, but shivered instead.
“Don’t,” I said. “We’re someplace strange, and it might very well be a place called Hell. But we appear to be alive—so let us get out of this cave and find out just where in Hell we are!”
She pulled away and straightened up, ru
Our little burst of enthusiasm did not last very long. As we walked on, the air grew hotter, uncomfortably hotter. We passed around a spur of rock and found out why. We recoiled from the blast of heat and looked on aghast at the scene before us. Directly ahead ran a wide river of turgid lava. Darkened slag formed on top, cracking and breaking apart as it flowed by to reveal the glowing, turgidly liquid stone below. We retreated. Retracing our steps.
“We’ll try the opposite direction,” I said, then coughed. Sybil did not answer, just nodded in agreement. Her throat must have been as dry as mine; she would have been just as thirsty. Was there any water in this parched landscape? The answer did not bear thinking about.
Something else did not bear thinking about. Angelina. Slakey must have sent her someplace just the way he had sent us. To Heaven I hoped. I hoped even harder that it was not to this terrible planet that she had gone.
We retraced our path past the cave mouth from which we had emerged and stumbled on through a landscape of rolling gravel dunes. It was still hot, but not the ovenlike furnace that we had just left.
“A moment,” Sybil said, stopping and sitting on a wide boulder. “I’m a little tired.” I nodded and sat beside her.
“Not surprising. Whatever that paralysis web was it certainly didn’t do us any good. Physically or mentally.”
“I feel beat—and depressed. If I knew how to quit I would.” Looking at the despair in her face, hearing the echo of exhaustion in her voice—I grew angry. This fine, strong, attractive agent should not be reduced like this by one man.
“I hate you Slakey!” I shouted, Jumping to my feet and shaking my fist at the sky. A rumble of a distant volcano was not much of an answer. I got even angrier. “You will not get away with this. We are going to get out of this place, yes we are. The air on this planet must have come from someplace, from living green plants. We’ll find them—and you ca
“You are wonderful, Jim,” Sybil said, standing and smoothing down her wrinkled and filthy dress. “Of course we will go on. And of course we will win.”
I nodded angry agreement. Then pointed down the valley. “That way, away from the lava and the volcanoes. It will be a lot better.”
And it was. As we walked the air became cooler. After a bit, when the valley widened out, I caught a glimpse of green far ahead. I did not want to mention it at first—but then Sybil saw it as well.
“Green,” she said firmly. “Grass or trees or something like that ahead. Or is it just wishful thinking?”
“No way! I can see it as well and it is a very cheering sight indeed. Forward!”
We almost ran as the verdant landscape opened up ahead. It was grass, knee—high, cool and slightly damp as we pushed our way through it. There were clumps of trees farther ahead, then more and more of them, almost a small forest.
“Good old chlorophyll,” I exulted. “Bottom of the food chain and from whence all life doth spring. Capturing the sun’s energy to manufacture—food…”
“And water?”
“You better believe it. There has to be water somewhere around here—and we are going to find it—”
“Shhh,” she shhhsed. “Do you hear that? A sort of rustling, like dry leaves.”
I did hear it, a light crackling sound that was coming towards us from the forest. Then something small came out from under the trees and moved hesitantly into the grass.
“Well, Hello,” I said to the tiny reddish—brown form that emerged. It looked up at me with button—black eyes and squealed with fright.
The squeal was echoed by a louder and more angry squeal from the forest. There was a thunder of ru
I smiled and cried out, “Sooooy, pig, pig, pig!” “Jim—what is it?”
“One of the most endearing and lovely creatures in the galaxy, friend of my youth, companion to man. It is aporcuswine!” She looked at me as though she thought I was going mad. “Endearing? Is it going to attack?”
“Not if we don’t threaten her swinelet.” The tiny creature had lost its fright when its monster dam had appeared and had nosed aside the protecting quills to find some refreshing milk. I moved slowly, bending over to pick up a windfall branch. Beady and suspicious eyes followed my every movement.
“That’s a good girl,” I said, stepping forward and making reassuring clucking noises. She quivered a bit but held her ground. Turning her head to follow me as I approached. A drop of saliva formed on a protruding, sharp tusk, then dripped to the ground.
“There, there,” I murmured. “Little Jimmy doesn’t hurt porcuswine. Little Jimmy loves porcuswine.” Reaching down I brushed a handful of quills slowly aside between her ears, reached out and prodded with the end of the branch, then rubbed it strongly through the thick bristles.
Her eyes were half—closed as she burbled contentedly.
“Porcuswine just love to be scratched behind the earsthey can’t reach the spot themselves.”
“How do you know about these terrible creatures?” “Terrible? Never! Companions to mankind in his quest to the stars. You should read your galactic history more closely. Read about the strange beasts and deadly creatures that were waiting for the first settlers. Monsters that could eat a cow in a single bite. They learned fear from the faithful porcuswine, let me tell you. An artificial genetic mutation between giant pigs and deadly porcupine. Tusks and hooves to attack, spines to defend. Loyal, faithful and destructive when needs be.” “Good pork chops too?”