Escape From Hell by Larry Niven

himself,” I said.
    “He helped me, I was in terrible shape when I got here.” Dr. Woznak chuckled. “I hadn’t been a glutton in life, but I sure looked like one! Jan worked with me to change that.”
    “And you’re leaving together?”
    “We are.”
    “Allen, we’re not going to stay here, are we?” Rosemary demanded. “I’m freezing!”
    “No. Dr. Woznak —”
    “Catherine.”
    “Catherine. Do you still think we’re in the hands of infinite power and infinite sadism?”
    “No. I mean, I don’t know,” she said. “How can I know? But I don’t feel helpless now.” She shrugged. “Sometimes you just have to have faith.”
    •    •    •
    “F aith and hope,” Sylvia said. “And don’t forget charity. She was waiting for her friend. All three of the theological virtues. What happened to her?”
    “I don’t know. We didn’t leave her, she left us. Last I saw she was running.”

Chapter 9
    Fourth Circle
    The Hoarders And The Wasters
----
     
    Crying “Why keepest?” and, “why squanderest thou?”
Thus they returned along the lurid circle
On either hand unto the opposite point,
Shouting their shameful metre evermore.
    I helped Rosemary get across the slush. We found a steep path down toward what looked like a wider ledge below, but there were obstacles. First there was an old man sitting there. He wore a crown, and jeweled rings, but his robes were worn out and full of holes. He got up and blocked our way. He was babbling something —
    Sylvia was excited. “Papë Satàn, Papë Satàn, Aleppë!”
    “Yeah, that sounds about right,” I told her. “And a bunch of other stuff, too, but it didn’t make any sense.”
    “Interesting,” Sylvia said. “I was quoting Dante, of course. Plutus said that. You have the gift of tongues, and you still didn’t understand him. It must be nonsense. I wonder if Cellini was right?”
    “Cellini?”
    “Benvenuto Cellini. He did that eighteen–foot–high bronze Perseus in Florence, and —”
    “Sure, Cellini the sculptor. What’s he got to do with this?”
    “He wrote about Dante, Allen. He admired him. No one has ever figured out what Dante thought Plutus was saying, but when Cellini was in Paris, he got tied up in lawsuits, and he said Dante must have learned this language from the babble of the judges and magistrates in the French courts. Of course he didn’t think much of the French. How did you get past him?”
    “Same way Dante did. I used the formula. ‘This has been willed where what is willed must be.’ ”
    Sylvia giggled. “That’s not what Dante did! Virgil threatened Plutus with Michael the Archangel.”
    “Plutus.”
    “Yes. Mythical god of wealth.”
    “A mythical god in a monotheist Hell,” I said. “Does that make sense?”
    “It might. Before God revealed Himself, this world was fair game for everyone. Angels, devils, angels who wouldn’t choose sides and liked to play at being gods. Maybe even gods. In Arabia they were known as djinn.”
    “And you believe that?”
    She laughed. It was a cheery sound in an awful place. “I remember believing it when Jack Lewis was explaining it to me,” she said.
    “Plutus. You have a better memory than I do.”
    “Allen, I’ve had a long time to think about this place. I remember a lot of Dante, especially his best scenes. All right, you got past Plutus. What else did you find in the Fourth Circle?”
    •    •    •
    I noticed the woman first, from old habit. An amply endowed blond woman, she sat with her back against a big spherical boulder. She stood as we approached, and smiled at me. She’d been a beauty once.
    The boulder loomed above her, glowing with a blue translucency. The woman stood as if she could hide it.
    Rosemary knew her. “Vickie Lynn.”
    The blonde looked puzzled. “They don’t call me that anymore.”
    Rosemary laughed. “Anna Nicole, then.”
    “Where did you know me?”
    “Wal–Mart. We were both clerks. Before you got