Free Escape From Hell by Larry Niven Page B

weren’t eager to have me. Besides, I could hardly move! So you left, and I thought about what you’d said, and it seemed like a good idea. So I got up and crawled. And waddled. I don’t know how long I walked. A long time. Charon didn’t want me on his boat, but I rolled aboard and he couldn’t move me. I got to the palace, and Minos put me here.”
    “Why here? You were no glutton!”
    “I know. I think I was supposed to learn something. And I did.”
    “What keeps you here?”
    “Nothing, now. For a long time I looked for someone to go with me. I was afraid to go alone.”
    “Oh.” I could understand that. “Then come with us now.”
    “I can’t. I have to wait for a friend. We’re running all around the circle in opposite directions looking for the best way out and trying to get more to join us. We’ll meet somewhere. I promised Jan I’d wait for him, and I will.”
    “Oh. Jan?”
    “Jan Petri. He was ready to leave when I got here, but he waited until I got in better shape. He said some people had come through and told him — that was you! And your companion, a big guy with an accent!”
    “Jan Petri. Yeah, that was us.” I remembered him from the last time I’d been here wading through the slush. It hadn’t been much fun.
    Men and women in about equal numbers, they ranged from pleasantly plump to chubby to gross. Three or four were as bad as the woman in the Vestibule. I wondered if they’d be pleased to know about her.
And once I wiped frozen slush from my eyes, cursing imaginatively under my breath. I dropped my hand and he was staring at me: a long–haired blond man built like an Olympic athlete.
“Allen Carpentier,” he said sadly. “So they got you, too.”
I looked close and recognized him. “Petri? Jan Petri! What are you doing here? You’re no glutton!”
“I’m the least gluttonous man who ever lived,” he said bitterly. “While all of these creeps were swilling down anything that came near their mouths, from pig meat to garden snails — and you, too, for that matter, Allen — I was taking care of myself. Natural foods. Organic vegetables. No meat. No chemicals. I didn’t drink. I didn’t smoke. I didn’t —” He caught himself up. “I didn’t hire you as my lawyer. Why am I bending your ear? You’re here, too. You were one of the PIGS, weren’t you?”
“Yeah.” He meant the Prestigious International Gourmand Society, whose purpose in life was to go out and eat together. I’d joined because I liked the company. “But I’m not staying. This isn’t my slot.”
He wiped slush from his face to see me better. “So where are you going?”
“Out of this place. Come along?” He’d be unpleasant company till we got him a bath, but I knew he wouldn’t slow us down. There never was a health nut to match Petri. He used to run four miles a day. I figured he’d be a lot of help building the glider.
“How do you get out of Hell?”
So they’d convinced him, too. “We go downhill for a while. Then we’ll —”
He was shaking his head. “Don’t go down. I’ve heard about some of the places downhill. Red–hot coffins and devils and you name it.”
“We’re not going very far. We’re going to build a glider and go over the walls.”
“Yeah? And then where?” He seemed to think it was funny. “You’ll just get yourself in more trouble, and for what? You’re better off if you just take what they give you, no matter how unfair it is.”
“Unfair?” Benito asked.
Petri’s head snapped around. “Hell, yes, unfair! I’m no glutton!”
Benito shook his head, very sadly. “Gluttony is too much attention to things of the earth, especially in the matter of diet. It is the obsession that matters, not the quantity.”
Petri stared a moment. Wearily he said, “Bug off,” and sank back into the freezing muck. As we left him I could hear him muttering to himself. “At least I’m not
fat
like those animals. I take
care
of myself.
”
    “Jan took care of