Riverworld and Other Stories

  As she had declared—this had been in a public record—she saw no reason why a woman should not enjoy the same liberty and privileges as a man. Though that was a dangerous sentiment in her time, she had escaped arrests for harlotry and adultery. Twice, though, she had come close to being whipped by the court flogger because she was charged with attacking women who had insulted her.

  Perhaps the isolation of the Maryland and Virginia counties in which she resided had enabled her to avoid the severe punishment she would have gotten in the more civilized Tidewater area. Or perhaps it was the fiery and pugnacious nature and the wild ways and free spirit of the Westmorelandians of her time. In any event, she had been a terrible sinner on Earth, Davis thought, and on the Riverworld she had gotten worse. His Church of Christ beliefs made him scorn and despise her. At the same time, he was grieved because she would surely burn in Hell. Sometimes, though he was ashamed of himself afterward, he gloried in the visions of her writhing and screaming in the torments of Inferno.

  So, now, the Jezebel had suddenly decided to couple with Pachacuti. There was not much more she could do to make trouble than this. Except for telling the Inca that Ivar, Davis, and Faustroll were planning to leave the kingdom. Not even she would be so low.

  Or would she?

  He wished to slip away from the court, but he did not dare to anger the Inca. He was forced to listen to the cries and moans of ecstasy from the emperor and Ann Pullen. The courtiers and soldiers had quit talking to hear them, which made it worse for Davis. Especially since they were not at all disgusted. Instead, they were grinning and chuckling and nudging each other. Several men and women were feeling each other, and one couple was brazenly copulating on the floor. Savages! Beasts! Where was the lightning stroke to burn them with a foretaste of Hell? Where the vengeance of the Lord?

  After several hours, the priest came out of the room. Smiling, he shouted that the Inca still had the virility demanded by the gods and his people. The state would prosper; good times would continue. Everybody except Davis and the man and the woman on the floor cheered.

  Presently, slave women carried in bowls and pitchers of water and towels to bathe and to dry off the Inca and Ann. When they came out, the chief priest went in to perform a cleansing ritual. After he was done, a servant told Davis that the Emperor was ready for him. Gritting his teeth, but trying to smile at the same time, Davis entered the chamber of iniquity. Despite the bathing, the two still reeked of sweaty and overly fluidic sex.

  Ann, naked, was lolling on a couch. She stretched out when she saw Davis and then flipped a breast at him. One of her chief pleasures was to flaunt her body before him. She knew how disgusted that made him.

  The Emperor, also naked, was lying on the massage table. Davis went to work on him. When he was done, he was told to massage Ann. The Emperor, after getting off the table, was clothed by his dressers in some splendid ceremonial costume, splendid by Riverworld standards, anyway. Then he left the chamber and was greeted with loud cheers by the crowd.

  Ann got onto the table and turned over on her front.

  She spoke in the Virginia dialect of her time. “Give me a very good rubdown, Andy. The Emperor bent me this way and that. I taught him many positions he did not know on Earth, and he used them all. If you were not such a holy man, I’d instruct you on them.”

  Two female attendants remained in the room. But they did not understand English. Davis, trying to keep his voice from trembling with anger, said, “What do you think Ivar is going to do about this?”

  “What can he do?” she said flippantly. Nevertheless, her muscles stiffened slightly. Then, “What business is it of yours?”

  “Sin is everybody’s business.”

  “Just what I’d expect a smellsmock fleak preacher to say.”

  “Smellsmock? Fleak?” Davis said.

  “A licentious idiot.”

  Davis was kneading her shoulder muscles. He would find it very easy to move his hands up, close them around her neck, and snap it. Though he was not a big man, he had very powerful hands. For a moment, he almost realized the fantasy flashing through his mind. But a true Christian did not murder, no matter how strong the provocation. On the other hand, he would not be really killing her. She would appear somewhere else tomorrow and bedevil others. Far from here, though.

  “Licentious,” she said. “You hate me so much because, deep down, you would like to tup me. The Old Adam in you wants to ravish me. But you shove that down into the shadows of your sinfulness, into the Old Horny crouching down there. I say that because I know men. Down there, they are all brothers. All, all, I say!”

  “Whore! Slut! You lie! You would like to have carnal knowledge of every man in the world, and …”

  She turned over abruptly. She was smiling, but her eyes were narrow. “Carnal knowledge? You mealy-mouth! Can’t you use good old English? You wouldn’t say tit if you had one in your mouth!”

  Though he was not done massaging, he walked out of the room. The snickering and giggling of the servants followed him through the bamboo walls. They had not understood a word, but the tones of his and Ann’s voices and her gestures were easily read.

  Having recovered somewhat, he came back into the room. Ann was sitting up on the table and swinging her long shapely legs. She seemed pleased with herself. He stood in the door and said, “You know what Ivar intends for us to do tonight?”

  She nodded, then said, “He’s told me.”

  “So you had to have one last fling?”

  “I’ve done the double-backed beast with kings but never with an emperor. Now, if I could only find a god to take me as Zeus took Leda. Or the great god Odhinnr whom Ivar claims he’s descended from. A god who has the stamina to keep going forever and no storms of conscience afterward and is always kind to me. Then my life would be complete.”

  “I could vomit,” he said, and he walked out again.

  “That’s one form of ejaculation!” she said loudly.

  He climbed down hundreds of steps, wondering meanwhile why these crazy pagans built such an inconvenient city. When he got to the ground, he searched for Faustroll along the Riverbank until he found him fishing from a pier. The Frenchman’s bamboo basket held seven of the foot-long striped species known as zebras. He was describing to his fellow fishers the intricacies of the science he had invented. He called it pataphysics. Davis understood little of it. So, evidently, did the people around him. They nodded their heads at his remarks. But their puzzled expressions showed that they were as much at sea as most of his listeners. That Faustroll’s Kishwa was not very good certainly did not help their comprehension.

  3

  “Pataphysics,” Faustroll intoned, “is difficult to define because we must use nonpataphysical terms to define it.”

  He had to use French words interspersed with Kishwa, because “pataphysics” and many other terms were not in the Incan language. Thus, he bewildered his audience even more. Davis decided that Faustroll did not care deeply whether or not these listeners comprehended him. He was talking to himself to convince himself.

  “Pataphysics is the science of the area beyond metaphysics,” Faustroll continued. “It is the science of imaginary solutions, of the particular, the seeming exception. Pataphysics considers that all things are equal. All things are pataphysical. But few people practice pataphysics consciously.

  “Pataphysics is not a joke or a hoax. We are serious, unlaughing, as sincere as a hurricane.”

  He added in English for some reason Davis could not figure out, “Pataphysics is synaptic, not synoptic.”

  Apparently, he had given up on the Incans. He switched to French.

  “In conclusion, though nothing is ever concluded in the full sense of ‘conclusion,’ we know nothing of pataphysics yet know everything. We are born knowing it at the same time that we are born ignorant of it. Our purpose is to go forth and instruct the ignorant—that is, us, until we all are illuminated. Then, mankind as we unfortunately know it now will be transformed.
We will become as God is supposed to be, in many respects, anyway, even though God does not exist, not as we know it, its backside is chaos, and, knowing the Truth, we in our fleshly forms will pupate ourselves into a semblance of the Truth. Which will be close enough.”

  Now here, Davis thought, is one who truly fulfills Ann’s definition of a “fleak.” And yet … and yet … Faustroll made some kind of sense. Remove all the folderol, and he was saying that people should look at things from a different angle. What was it that that late twentieth-century Arab he had met so many years ago had said? Abu ibn Omar had quoted … what was his name … ah! a man named Ouspensky. “Think in other categories.” That was it. “Think in other categories.” Abu had said, “Turn a thing over, look at its bottom side. A watch is said to be circular. But if its face is turned at right angles to you, the watch is an ellipse.

  “If everybody were to think in other categories, especially in emotional, familial, social, economic, religious, and political areas, human beings would eliminate most of the problems that make their lives so miserable.”

  “It didn’t happen on Earth,” Davis had said.

  “But here it may,” Abu had said.

  “Fat chance!” Davis had said. “Unless all turn to the Lord, to Jesus Christ, for salvation.”

  “And were truly Christian, not the narrow-minded, bigoted, selfish, power-hungry wretches which most of them are. I will offend you when I say that you are one of them, though you will deny it. So be it.”

  Davis had come close to punching the man, but he had turned away, trembling with anger, and walked off.

  He still got indignant when he thought about Abu’s accusation.

  “Faustroll!” Davis said in English. “I must talk to you!”

  The Frenchman turned around and said, “Commence.”

  Davis told him about Ann and the Emperor. Faustroll said, “You may inform the Boneless about this delightful situation if you care to. We do not wish to be in his neighborhood when he hears of it.”

  “Oh, he’ll hear of it, though not from me. This area is a lava flow of rumor and gossip. Are you still willing to escape from this place tonight, as agreed?”

  “With or without Ivar or Ann or you.”

  He pointed past Davis, then said, “Someone has already told him.”

  Davis turned around. The city proper, the towering skeleton city, began a half-mile from the Riverbank. The Viking was striding on the ground toward an entrance to a staircase. He gripped in one hand the shaft of a big stone ax. He was also carrying a very large backpack. Davis supposed that Ivar’s grail was in it. It bulged so much, however, that it had to contain something else. Even from this distance, Davis could see that Ivar’s face and body were bright red.

  “He’s going to kill the Inca!” Davis said.

  “Or Ann, or both,” Faustroll said.

  It was too late to catch up with him. Even if they did, they could not stop him. Several times before, they had seen him in his insane rages. He would smash in their skulls with the ax.

  “He’ll not get through the Inca’s bodyguards,” the Frenchman said. “I believe that the only thing we can do is to follow our plan and leave tonight. Ann and Ivar won’t be mere. You and I must go without them.”

  Davis knew that Faustroll was deeply upset. He had said “I” instead of “we.”

  By then, the Viking had reached the third level and crossed over on it. For a moment, he disappeared behind a translucent wall formed by a lightweight sheet of dragonfish intestine.

  “I feel as if I’m deserting him,” Davis said. “But what can we do?”

  “We have changed our mind, which is the prerogative, indeed, the duty, of a philosopher,” Faustroll said. “The least we can do is to follow him and determine what happens to him. We might even be able to aid him in some way.”

  Davis did not think so. But he would not allow this cuckoo to show more courage than he.

  “Very well. Let’s go.”

  They put their grails in their shoulder bags and hurried to the city. After climbing up staircases and ladders, they reached the level on which were the Inca’s quarters. They saw many people running around and very noisy about it. From a distance came a hullabaloo that only a large crowd could raise. At the same time, they smelled smoke. It had a different odor from the many cooking fires in the dwellings. Following the direction of the noise and sidestepping people running toward the staircases and ladders, they came out onto a small plaza.

  The buildings around this, mostly two-story bamboo structures with half-walls, were government offices. The Inca’s “palace” was the largest building, three stories high but narrow. Though it had a roof, its exterior had few walls. Its far side was attached to the main scaffolding of the city.

  The odor of smoke had become stronger, and there were more men and women running around. The two men could make no sense out of the shouts and cries until Davis caught the Kishwa word for “fire.” It was then they realized the commotion was not caused by Ivar. Or, perhaps, it was. Davis thought of the huge bulging bag on Ivar’s back. Had that contained pine torches and an earthen jar of lichen alcohol?

  The strong wind was carrying the clouds to the south, which explained why the smoke stink had not been so detectable in the lower levels. Getting to the palace would be dangerous. By now, the bamboo floor of the plaza was burning swiftly and they would have to go around the plaza. For all they knew, the floor on its other side was also ablaze. Near them, a crew was working frantically hauling up big buckets of water from the ground on six hoists. Through the many open spaces among the rooms and the levels, Davis saw lines of people passing buckets of water from the river.

  It had all happened very swiftly.

  Now Davis smelled the distinctive odor of burning flesh. And he could see several bodies lying in the flames. Several seconds later, a corpse fell through the weakened floor to the one below it.

  It did not seem possible that one man could wreak all this.

  “Will you go now?” Davis said. “Ivar is doomed, if he’s not already dead. We’d better get down to the ground before we’re caught in the fire.”

  “Reason does not always prevail,” the Frenchman said. “But fire does.”

  They retreated, coughing, until the smoke thinned out enough for them to see. The exterior of the building was a few yards from them. Nearby were a staircase and several openings in the floor for descent by ladder. But they could not get to them because of the crowd surrounding them. The staircase and the ladders were jammed with a snarling, screaming, and struggling mob. Several fell off onto the heads of the refugees on the floor below.

  “It is possible to climb down on the beams of the outer structure!” Faustroll yelled. “Let us essay to escape via those!”

  By then, others had the same thought. But there was enough space for all. When Davis and the Frenchman got to the ground, they were shaking with the effort and their hands, bellies, and the inner parts of their legs were rubbed raw. They worked through the crowds until they were close to the River.

  “Now is the time to appropriate a small sailing vessel and go up-River,” Faustroll said. “No one is here to object.”

  Davis looked at the skeletal structure and the people swarming around it and still coming out of it. By then, the bucket brigades had done their work, though he would have bet a few minutes ago that the entire city was doomed. The smoke was gone except for some wisps.

  He and Faustroll still had their grails. And a fishing vessel anchored a few yards out contained poles and nets and spears. That would have to be enough.

  When they waded out to the boat, they saw a man, dark-skinned, black-haired, eyes closed, lying face up on the floor. His jaw moved slowly. He was not chewing a cud.

  “Dreamgum,” Faustroll said. “He is now somewhere in Incan Peru, his mind blazing with visions of the land he once knew but that never really existed. Or, perhaps, he is flying faster than light among the stars toward the limits of the limitless.”
>
  “No such splendid things,” Davis said disgustedly. He pointed at the man’s erect penis. “He dreams that he is lying with the most beautiful woman in the world. If he has the imagination to do so, which I doubt. These people are crude and brutal peasants. The apex of their dreams is a life of ease and no obligations, no masters to obey, plenty of food and beer, and every woman their love slave.”

  Faustroll hauled himself aboard. “You have just described Heaven, my friend—that is, the Riverworld. Except for the masters to obey and every woman being a love slave, as you so quaintly describe the velvet-thighed gender. Get rid of the masters and accept that many women will scorn you but that there are many others who will not, and you have the unimaginative man’s ideal of the afterworld. Not so bad, though. Certainly, a step up from our native planet.

  “As for this fellow, he was born among the poor, and he stayed among them. But the poor are the salt of the earth. By salt, we do not mean that excretion made by certain geological phenomena. We mean the salt left on the skin after much labor and heavy sweating, the salt accumulating from lack of bathing. That stinking mineral and the strata of rotting flaked-off skin cells is the salt of the earth.”

  Davis climbed onto the boat, stood up, and pointed at the man’s jetting penis. “Ugh! Lower than the beasts! Let’s throw the ape overboard and get going.”

  Faustroll laughed. “Doubtless he dreams of Ann, our local Helen of Troy. We, too, have done so and are not ashamed of it. However, how do you know that he is not dreaming of a man? Or of his beloved llama?”

  “You’re disgusting, too,” Davis said. He bent over and clutched the man’s ankles. “Help me.”