Astronomy(13)

Schopenhauer walked up and down the bridge with his pathetic load, teasing the bloodlust of the dead into high frenzy. When they were leaping and swiping their hands at him, Schopenhauer flung the boy into their midst. The one she called Crosby went right after him.

Alexander Schoenberg had just enough life in him to grab at the handrail as he fell past. It took a moment of prying and biting before Hegel got his hand loose.

Susan saw the darkness come to life around the three of them. She saw small, unidentifiable body parts appear momentarily, and then swirl away on the sea of arms.

A long wail of excruciation preceded a loop of intestine. It spurted up through the heads, caught about necks, wrapped over shoulders. The screaming stepped up a notch, and then another.

Malmagden stepped aside to let her leave. “Go,” he said. “Make your way back home.”

“You son of a bitch! I swear to Christ, I’ll find you—”

“All those children and old people down here—this is how they will die. This is how many of them are dying at this moment. Help me now. Before this horror is compounded a thousandfold.”

The screaming went on and on. Susan thought they would die within a few moments, but the dead were hungry, or clumsy, or too stupid to know they were eating the flesh of live human beings.

One of her former guards was saying something—pleading in a loud voice. He was begging for one of them to find a gun.

“Bastard,” she wept. “Bastard.”

Malmagden wedged his shoulder close to the head of the wrench. He put a hand over it, to steady the drive as they both leaned into it.

The screaming became a chorus. She recognized the voice of Schoenberg. She took her place behind Malmagden. She could hardly see for the tears in her eyes.

The valve looked untouched and rusted over, but no—she rammed her shoulder into it once, twice, and water began roaring beneath her feet. It turned with surprising ease.

How many thousands of gallons per second? It spread in a wide green wall that washed all the horror down the sewer, out of sight.

Abruptly, the screaming ceased. The lowing of the dead went on another moment or two, and then they disappeared into the darkness.

Malmagden looked on as his army was swept off into the sewer system. He shook his head in amazement. “They don’t even know they’re drowning,” he said.

“What makes you sure they are drowning?” It occurred to her to ask—just how does one kill a dead man?

“Oh, they don’t like water,” Malmagden assured her. “Don’t like water at all.” He shook his head. He smiled a wistful smile. “They would have made a fantastic weapon of defense. Unlike Herr Kriene and his astronomical phantoms, my dead would have been simple and cheap. Perhaps they lacked something in fine controllability, but if we’d had time . . .” Malmagden sighed. “If only we’d had time.”

He stepped out from under the key. It slipped easily toward its shutoff position.

Susan found herself staring. He had to pull the key out of the gearbox before it slumped all the way down and closed off the valve.

Malmagden looked at her. He frowned, as if surprised she should notice anything wrong. She pressed her thumb against the gear where the key had just been. It moved easily to the pressure of her thumb.

She removed her thumb, and it was covered in fresh grease.

A sick, cold feeling gripped the bottom of her stomach. She looked at Malmagden. She couldn’t even ask—what is this? What have you involved me with?

Malmagden had lost some of that silken demeanor. He would not meet her gaze. That worried her.

“I did not lie to you about the most important thing,” he said. “The dead would have multiplied in horrendous fashion. Had they reached the surface, the world would have been transformed.”

“And you would have been to blame.”

“You and I performed a terribly cruel responsibility. You should take some comfort in that.”

“ ‘You and I,’ ” she said. “You talk like we’re partners.”

“Oh, but we are. Ask any prosecutor at the coming war crimes tribunal. They would tell you as much.”

She reached for the key. Malmagden danced away with it. He flung it into the green murk, out of her reach.

Susan pulled herself over the top of the rail. She had some idea she would follow it down. Malmagden took her by the shoulders and hauled her up the ladder.

“Suicide,” he chided. “That is the one crime God cannot forgive. Would you spend all eternity in Hell?”

Spend all eternity in Hell? God forbid, certainly. Susan had never been one to spend an afternoon with a toothache, let alone all eternity in Hell.

The water had filled the cavernous room halfway up by now. She could no longer hear the rushing of it. That turgid lick on the surface was the only sign that a river was sweeping away hundreds of lives.