"Or speeded up. Yes. I've thought much upon these matters. It has been-oh yes, when did you die?"
Markham wiped the drizzle from his face and shivered. It didn't seem right, being chilled in Hell.
"In 1998."
"It doesn't seem so long a time-some twenty-eight years have elapsed since I died. Perhaps time is malleable here, in much the same way 'they' managed to give me my body as it was when I was fifty, despite the fact that I died at age 98."
"Mine's the same as when I died-fifty-two."
"Evidence of some pleasant intention, then, or else we would all be dragging about as cadavers."
This struck Markham as an unexpected shaft of light "Yes, and we don't seem to get sick, either.
I probably won't even get a cold from this rain we're in, and-"
A hideous shriek split the air. Through the roiling fog that Shrouded the trees they saw a yellow thing like a huge hornet swiftly zoom into view, wings beating like some gargantuan hummingbird. Its beak was long and pincerlike, and in it a man wriggled, screaming.
The long twisted body of the beast wriggled as if in a vast sensual orgasm of anticipation. It jerked its head eagerly, steam spouting from holes in the beak, eyes fevered and flashing red.
Wails of torment shook the man in helpless delerium. The hornet-beast eagerly reared its head back and with quick, convulsive gulps bit the man into thirds.
Its muscled throat knotted and swallowed and in ten seconds the man was gone.
"So much for the theory of a kindly providence," Russell said mildly.
The contorted yellow thing did not hear them, for which Markham was thankful.
It hovered, eyes rapidly scanning the terrain, and then darted away on humming wings.
"This ditch seems quite homelike, compared to the open," Russell said.
"I'm afraid we're going to have to move," Markham said, pointing. From the nearby fog emerged a line of men, rifles and machetes at the ready.
"If we can see them, they'll see us when we leave this ditch," Russell said.
"If we-"
Something big and bile-green fluttered down from the clouds. Its grasping claw plucked one armed man up by his head, and called like a shrill bluejay. The bloated thing was all feathers and foaming hunger, with a mouth like a cut throat and five feet that clutched at the Soldier with hot purpose. It tore a leg free and stuffed the blood-gushing morsel into its grinning mouth. The man screamed once, hopelessly, and then went Slack
"Come on!" Markham leaped over Russell and ran swiftly down the ditch.
They went fifty meters before shots began to snap and buzz above them. Markham reached a stand of trees and lunged for cover, scrambling among the wet aromatic leaves. They were out of sight of the men behind and he ran faster, watching the sky above for something awful to descend.
Instead, he ran into a tall man in fatigues who slugged him casually in the stomach with the butt of a submachine gun.
They huddled among a ragged band of other prisoners and tried to stay out of the rain. Gunfire cracked nearby and flights of ornate flying demons scudded across the sky. Anti-aircraft rounds exploded among them like dark flowers blooming, making distant hollow thumps. Some of the chunky blimp-types took hits. They wheeled and veered and tumbled out of the sky, trailing smoke.
"At least Guevara's giving them something to think about," Markham said.
"Meaningless." Russell sniffed disdainfully. Thinking is exactly what isn't going on. And surely the Devil can conjure up an infinite supply of such creatures.
"Nothing's infinite except to mathematicians, Markham said pointedly. Russell had spent decades in the pursuit of perfect. Immutable knowledge by plumbing the foundations of mathematics, only to find that such certainly was impossible. Godels proof that there were unprovable axioms in any mathematical system had law to rest this splindly man's quest. Russell ignored this jibe and pursued his lips. Did you ever wonder why die Devil permits rebellion!"
"Boredom?"
"Perhaps ... but equally likely, he likes its distraction value."
"Throwing us off the scent of something?"
"Ummm." A mirthful expression flashed across the wrinkled face. "Give mankind's nature, if you ever try to get people to not think, you will surely succeed."
"You think this fighting is a sideshow?"
"Hell doesn't seem a place designed for learned reflection, does it?"
Markham looked at their bedraggled lot, squatting in ankle-deep mud. Another of the silvery aircraft, apparently used by the Devil for observations, lay smashed nearby. In the cockpit tolled a wizened monkey-man, head caved in on impact. On impulse Markham inspected the wreck, pulling it apart to see how it flew.
"Standard piston engine," he murmured in the drizzle. If there were no physical laws, and everything ran by devilish intervention, why bother with cam shafts and carburators?
Cables for the TV cameras and electrical controls spilled out like shiny intestines. An idea flickered. Markham coiled up some cabling and wiring, tying them around his waist. In the somber gloom of the rain their guards, laughing in a shack nearby around a roaring fire, took no notice;
"I must say, I don't like the look of those," Russell said tightly.
Markham saw approaching them the fate he had been dreading. Horsedrawn carts lurched up the hillside, bringing the field generator and two of the mindwipe booms.
"That's our little Lenin, is it?"
On horseback, riding with a clear air of authority, came Che Guevara. He shouted directions at the troops in a harsh mixture of Spanish and English.
Uniformed men and women scurried to set up the booths.
"Amazing, the types you see here," Russell said bemusedly. "I ran into a crazed scribbler of popular fictions a while back who drought this was all run by some primordial God named Cthulhu." Russell pronounced the name as though it were an involuntary prelude to active nausea. "Poor chap was keeping a diary. He said that when he returned to the real world he would publish it and become rich and everyone would at least know that he had been right." He shook his head.
Markham whispered, "Here, if you want to keep on trying to understand, take this."
Russell watched as Markham snaked a cable down his pants leg and into his shoe. Beneath his locks he affixed the cable to some bands of bare wire.
"Thoughtful of the Devil, giving me this long hair."
"I don't-"
"Quick!" Markham whispered instructions as Russell slipped the cable around himself, the etherial philosopher all elbows and fussy bother when confronted with a real-world problem.
Markham stepped between Russell and the others to shield his movements.
Scowling troops were pulling the prisoners together, prodding them toward the booths. "This means they're falling back," Markham whispered. "They'll mindwipe us to keep information from falling into the Devu's hands.''
"Typical," Russell said ascerbically. "That Guevara is armed to his mad teeth and stupid as a stump. This isn't the way to cause real damage to the Devil.
Only by-" An impatient guard applied his boot to Russell's backside, sending him in an abrupt trot downhill. Markham moved along quickly, watching for an opportunity to escape. But Guevara was near the booth crew and they were on the alert. If Markham bolted they would simply catch him, beat him, and shove him into the booth anyway. In the scuffle they might well find the cabling, too.
He stepped forward when his turn came. A woman in fatigues and looking bored roughly attached the wire cage to his head. She seemed completely unconcerned, as though these bodies were mere meat to be processed. The banality of evil, Markham drought. Far more chilling than all the technicolor monsters of this place. Far more ... human.
She jabbed him in -the side with a dull knife and shoved him onto a metal platform. A thin mist began settling through the trees. He smelled the pungent taste of pine and thought of his childhood, when he had run through southern woods and sucked in that wonderful smell and knew he would live forever. They tied him securely. Elementary circuit theory, with Markham as the resistor.