Inferno Read Online Free PDF Page A

the switch the space within the ring clouded, then became starry space.
    It was a planetarium.
    When I pushed on the joystick nothing happened.
    I took a closer look at the markings along the notch. They were logarithmic, labeled in parsecs/second. The knob was all the way to the left.
    I moved it hard right and tried the joystick again.
    The universe came up and hit me in the face. Whoosh! Stars shot past and around me; a sun came at me and exploded into a fraction of a second of intolerable brightness and was gone. And I was flat on my back a couple of yards from the console.
    That was some planetarium!
    The half-a-dozen natives were watching me with some amusement. Screw ’em. I went back to the console, moved the knob down to one parsec/second, then to a tenth of that. Tried the joystick.
    This time the motion was just obvious. I steered toward a blue-white star; moved the knob to slow as I approached it. Moved onto it.
    The brightness should have burned my eyes out. It wasn’t even painful. Odd . . .
    I went through the center of the star (X-ray blue) and came out the other side (tremendous prominences leaping out ahead of me) and into space. What now? Find a planet? A different star? Stars were easier to find in this sparkling emptiness, but I’d love to dive into an Earthlike world. To search out the layers of it, to see the glowing nickel-iron heart. Let’s see, that not-too-brilliant white fleck could be a yellow dwarf. I moved the knob—
    A large hand fell heavily on my shoulder.
    I twitched like a man electrocuted. I turned, and there was the mob scene I thought I’d left behind me: fifty-odd large, heavy men surrounding me and Benito and the Anywhere Machine.
    The white-bearded man who spoke English said, “You are leaving.”
    I said, “Dammit! Why? Nobody else is using the damn machine. I’ve waited all my life for something like this!”
    “We do not want you here,” he said. “We waited because we hoped a messenger of the gods would come to remove you. We might have asked him questions . . . but we have tolerated you too long. As for the machine—” One side of his mouth twitched upward. “If you can carry it you may take it with you.”
    I cursed him. I stopped when his wide-shouldered friends converged. Several of them wore armor! They moved away in a tight circle with Benito and me in the center.
    I whispered, “Benito, can’t you stop them?”
    He looked at me. “How?”
    Yeah.
    But if I’d known what waited below, I’d have fought them.

5
    E
    ven while they marched us toward the wall, Benito never gave up.
    “You may leave this place!” he shouted. “Hector! Aeneas! You are not cowards, to stay where it is pleasant when there is everything to gain elsewhere! Come with us! Come and learn the Truth!”
    They ignored him.
    They were compact and tough inside their armor: too tough to fight, even if they were men, which I doubted. Hector, Aeneas : I knew the names. I remembered the Abe Lincoln robot at Disneyland. Could the armor be part of them? With inspection plates—
    “Where is Virgil?” Benito raved. “He is no longer here, is he? And the Emperor Trajan?”
    “We had our chance,” said the taller, broader one. “We didn’t take it. There will be no other.”
    “Have none come here since?” Benito demanded.
    The soldiers barked bitter laughter. “Many.”
    “Is it reasonable to suppose that they will never have the opportunity to leave?”
    We had come to the wall. “We’ll think about it,” one said. “Now out with you. Go where you belong.” The gate slammed shut behind us.
    I went for the wall on the other side. I examined it without joy. The footholds Benito had used would better have fitted a spider.
    Benito watched with a wry smile. “You never give up, do you?”
    “No.”
    “Perseverance is commendable. You will need it, but you must develop other virtues, such as prudence. What will happen if you enter the First Circle again?”
    “Maybe they won’t