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“It certainly does not. That’s about the most flaky theory I have ever heard.”
“You bet it is—and more than that. Absolutely impossible. But we are here, aren’t we?”
“Living in another man’s Hell?”
“Yes. We did that when we first came here. But we didn’t like it and wanted to leave it. I remember thinking that the barvolcanic world was just about the opposite of the one where I grew up.
It was my turn to wonder if this whole thing wasn’t just institutionalized madness. But Sybil was more practical.
“All right then—let us say that was what happened. We arrived in this Hellish place because Slakey had come here first and everything…—what can we say—lived up to his devilish expectations. We didn’t like it and you wished very strongly we weren’t there but in a place with a better climate. You got very angry about that, which may have helped shaped what we wanted to see. Then we walked on and came to it. We drank, but we were still hungry. Rather I was, so much so I must have thought of my earliest gustatory delights. Which just happened to be in Hometown. Given that all this is true—what do we do next?”
“The only thing that we can do. Go back to Hell.” “Why?”
“Because that is where we came in—and where we must be if we want to get out. Slakey is the only one that knows how to pass between these places. And another thing. My voice was suddenly grim.
“What, Jim? What is it?”
“Just the sobering thought that Angelina may have been sent to this place before we were dispatched. If so, we won’t find her in my youth or your youth. She would have to be in Slakey’s particular Hell.”
“Right,” she said, standing and brushing the grass from her dress. “If we are thirsty we can always find our way back here. If we are hungry—”
“Please save that thought for awhile. One step at a time.”
“Of course. Shall we go?”
We retraced our steps back through the field and into the forest. A distant, happy grunting cheered me up a good deal. As long as there were porcuswine in existence this galaxy would not be that bad a place. Out of the trees and across the field of grass. That grew sparser and shorter until it disappeared. Volcanic soil again and more than a whiff of sulfur about. The mounds were getting higher as we walked and we labored to climb an even higher one. When we reached the summit we had a clear view of a smoking volcano. It appeared to be the first of very many. And behind it the red sun, which was hovering just above the horizon.
The dunes ended in foothills of cracked and crumbled stone. Red of course. The cleft of a small canyon cut into them and we went that way. A lot easier than climbing another hill. We both heard the scratching sound at the same time; we stopped.
“Wait here,” I whispered. “I’ll see what it is.”
“I go with you, diGriz. We are in this together—all the Way.”
She was right of course. I nodded and touched my finger to my lips. We went on, as slowly and silently as we could. The scratching grew louder—then stopped. We stopped as well. There was a slurping wet sound from close by, then the scratching started again. We crept forward and looked.
A man was standing on tiptoes, reaching above his head with a shard of rock, scratching at something gray on the cliff face. A piece of it came away and he jammed it into his mouth and began chewing noisily. This was most interesting. Even more interesting was the fact that he was bright red. His only garment a pair of ancient faded trousers with most of the legs torn off. There was obviously a hole in the seat of these ragged shorts because his red tail emerged from them. That was when he saw us. Turned in an instant and gaped open a damp mouth with broken black teeth—then hurled the piece of rock in our direction. We ducked as the stone clattered into the stone wall close by. In that instant he was gone, swarming up the sloping cliff face with amazing agility, vanishing over the rim above. “Red,” Sybil said.
“Very red. Did you notice the little red horns on his forehead?”—
“Hard to miss. Shall we go see what he was doing?” “Doing—and eating.”
I picked up a sharp fragment of stone and went over to the spot where he had been working. There was a gray and rubbery looking growth protruding from a crevice in the canyon wall. I was taller than our rosy friend and could easily reach it; sliced and chopped at it until a piece fell free.
“What is it?” Sybil asked.
“No idea. Vegetable not animal I imagine. And we did see him chewing it. Want a bite?”
“I wouldn’t think of depriving you.”
It tasted very gray and slimy, and was very, very chewy.
With all the taste and texture of a plastic bag. But it was wet. I swallowed and a piece went down. And stayed down. My stomach rumbled a long complaint.
“Try some,” I said. “It’s pretty foul but it has water in it and maybe some food value.” I tore off a chunk and held it out. Very suspiciously she put it into her mouth. I looked upjumped and grabbed her and pushed her aside.
A boulder thudded into the spot where we had been standing.
“Angry at losing his di
We had a quick glimpse of him climbing higher still and finally moving out of sight.
“You stay here,” I said. “Keep an eye out for Big Red. I’ll get more of this gunge.”
The sun did not seem to be appreciably higher in the sky when we had finished our meal. Stomachs full enough, and thirst slaked for the moment, we rested in the shade because the day was growing measurably warmer.
“Not good, but filling,” Sybil said, working with her fingernail to dislodge a gristly bit that had lodged between her teeth. When it came free she looked at it disparagingly, then dropped it to the ground. “Any idea what we do next?”
“Put our brains into gear for starters. Since we woke up in this place we have been stumbling from one near—disaster—to another. Let’s cheek off what we know.”
“Firstly,” she said, “we’ve gone to Slakey’s version of Hell. We’ll call it that until we learn better. We are in another placeon another planet—or we have gone mad.”
“I can’t accept that last. We are someplace else. We know that machines are involved in this—because they were carefully destroyed in the building on Lussuoso. Angelina was sent someplace from that temple. We were sent someplace from the one on Vulka
“Which means that we need some intelligence—in the military use of the word.”
“You bet. Which in turn means we have to find Big Red with the horns and tail and find out all that he knows. About Angelina, about this place, how he—and we—got here. And how we are going to leave..” —
A sound intruded, a soft, shuffling sound that grew slowly louder. Coming up the canyon floor towards us. Then we could hear the susurration of muttered voices.
“People—” I said as our recently departed devilish friend walked intoview. He was followed by a small group of companions, at least twelve of them. Men and women. All bright red. All carrying sharp rocks. I had never seen any of them before—and one glance told me that Angelina was not in this motley crowd. They stopped when they saw us—then started forward when their leader waved them on.
“You can flee, should you wish, but we’ll come after you. Run or stay, it makes no difference.” He shook the rock at us.
“We are going to kill you. Kill you and eat you.
“Hell is a very hungry place.”