A Vision of Hell. Brian Stableford

didn’t know whether he ought to be scared or not. No one had ever interfered before. He was scared.

      One of them took the key from his hand. Gently. Then he put it back into the lock, and turned it. The door eased open when it was pushed. The dim light of the machine room filtered out, throwing vague shadows across the faces of the two men.

      Burstone overcame his momentary paralysis.

      “Do you want something?” he asked.

      “The suitcase,” said the man who held the key. He was a tall man, but that was all Burstone could be sure of. The glimmer of light wasn’t enough to let him see any facial details. It was much darker here than in the Underworld. The real stars were so faint.

      He could hear the keys being clicked back and forth in the tall man’s hand.

      “We just want to talk,” said the other man. Burstone became conscious that he was being held by the arm. He wrenched slightly, and felt himself released. But they still stood in his way, pinning him in the corner of the blind corridor. The door oozed shut, and the darkness became total save for the pale silver sheen of the sky, high above.

      “Who are you?” he asked.

      “Suppose we were the police?” countered the tall man.

      “Suppose you were?” said Burstone.

      “That’s right,” said the other man. “You don’t have anything to fear from the police. Nothing to hide. You’re doing nothing illegal. Any man in the world is perfectly entitled to take cases full of...whatever...into the Underworld. The police wouldn’t be interested. Surprised, but not interested. So who would? Who’d be insterested, Jervis? You tell us that.”

      The calmly threatening tone somehow eased Burstone’s mind. This wasn’t right. Of course it wasn’t right. They had no right. They had nothing against him. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. The way the man spoke restored Burstone’s confidence in himself. The surprise was fading. The situation was becoming known, and therefore controllable.

      “What do you want?” he asked, in a cool tone which said clearly that they weren’t going to get it.

      “You’ve been followed before,” said the tall man quietly.

      Burstone said nothing.

      “We know about that,” said the other. “He didn’t come back, did he?”

      “Suppose,” the tall man said again, “we were the police.”

      “I didn’t do a thing,” said Burstone, once more on the defensive, once more crawling back into a shell of fear. “Nothing.”

      “He didn’t come back.”

      “No,” said Burstone.

      “What did you do?” demanded the tall man.

      “Nothing,” repeated Burstone.

      “Suppose we knew what happened to him,” said the other. “We know his name. Joth Magner. Did you know who it was? You must have, of course. You could hardly miss him, could you?”

      “I never heard of him,” said Burstone.

      “You heard of him.”

      Burstone pushed himself out of the corner. One man—the tall one—stepped back, to remain in front of him, barring his way. The other slipped in behind him. Burstone liked the new arrangement even less than the old. He had the ridiculous idea that at any moment the man behind might crouch, so that the tall one could push him back, make him fall over, like a small boy.

      “What are you trying to say?” asked Burstone.

      “Briefly,” said the man behind him, speaking close to his ear, “and without all the veiled threats, that Joth Magner followed you through that door a while ago, and he didn’t come back. We want to talk to you. Because we know about Joth Magner and the police don’t, we think you want to talk to us. All right?”

      “I didn’t kill him,” said Burstone.

      “What’s in the case?” asked the tall man, ignoring the protest. “And why?”

      Burstone considered the situation. He hadn’t killed Joth Magner. Not quite. But he had wound up the cage, knowing that someone had gone down, and that the someone would inevitably be trapped. He knew what the Underworld was like. He knew what would happen to him if he came back one day to find that the cage had gone, and that there was no way home. He knew.

      The worst thing was, he hadn’t an answer to his own question. He didn’t know why he’d done it. He’d been scared. He knew he’d been followed and he knew he was being watched. He could have just gone away and left it, but he was too frightened even to do that. He’d wound up the cage and solved the problem by elimination. He hadn’t known it was Joth Magner. He’d never seen the man who followed him. He hadn’t known. It was a momentary decision—almost a crazy decision. He regretted it now as he’d regretted it for a long time. He’d almost been expecting it to catch up with him. He knew that he was responsible for Joth Magner’s death. He felt it. He only wished that feeling it would tell him why.

      “Who are you?” whispered Burstone.

      “Does it matter?” asked the tall man.

      “Does it have to be here?”

      “No. You want to go home?”

      “Yes.”

      “Okay,” said the other man, still behind him, still mouthing into his ear. “Let’s go.”

      Burstone moved forward. The tall man stopped him by jabbing a key gently into his chest. “I’ll take the case,” he said.

      Burstone surrendered the case. Then they went back to the cars, and he led the way home.