Riverworld Short Stories

  That surprised Davis. During the two weeks of their imprisonment, Ivar had not spoken a word to Ann. Nor she to him.

  Ann grinned then, though whether it was with despair or pain or with joy at Ivar’s words was a question. Sweating, her face even whiter, struggling hard, she pulled herself forward until her legs were no longer dangling. Then she rolled over and lay flat on her back while her breasts rose and fell quickly. Her midriff bore a wide red mark from the impact. Two minutes later, she got on all fours and crawled several feet. Then she rose and walked unsteadily bur proudly to the platform.

  Faustroll embraced her, perhaps more enthusiastically than modesty permitted, when she joined him. She wept for a moment. Faustroll wept too. But they separated to watch Ivar when again the drums rattled and the horns blared.

  The huge man, his bronze-red hair shining in the sun, stepped onto the gangplank. As the other jumpers had done, he had been bending and flexing and leaping up and down in a warm-up. Now he crouched, his lips moving counting the seconds along with the captain of the guards. Then he came up out of his crouch and ran, his massive legs pumping. The plank bent down under his weight, and it quivered from the pounding. His left foot came down just a few inches from the end. He was up, legs kicking.

  Down he came, a foot short of the end of the victory plank. His hands shot out and gripped the sides of the wood near the end. The plank bent, sprang up a little, and sank down again. It cracked loudly.

  Davis cried out, “Get on the plank! It’s going to break!”

  Ivar was already swinging himself backward to get momentum for a forward swing so he could get his leg up on the plank. Just as he did come forward, a sharp snapping noise announced that the wood had broken. Ann shrieked. Davis gasped. Faustroll yelled, “Mon dieu!”

  Roaring, Ivar hurtled out of sight. Davis rushed forward and pressed his stomach against the railing. The plank was turning over and over. But the Viking was not in sight.

  Davis leaned far out. There, thirty feet below him, Ivar was hanging by his hands from a slanting beam. His towerward swing had carried him far enough to grab one of the horizontal beams projecting beyond the main structure. Hanging from the beam with only his hands, he had managed to work closer to the building. But he must have slipped, and he had fallen. But, again, he had saved himself by clutching a cross beam slanting at a forty-five-degree angle in the exterior of the city structure. His body must have slammed hard against it, and his hands were slipping down along the slanting wood, leaving a trail of smeared blood.

  When they were stopped where another angled beam met the one he was clinging to, he strove to pull himself up. And he succeeded. After that, he had to climb back up until he got to the platform on which Davis stood. If he did not do that, he would not be freed.

  By then, Tamcar had left his throne to look over the platform and down at the Viking. He grimaced when he saw Ivar slowly but surely making his way up the outside of the structure. But even Tamcar had to obey the rules of the ordeal. No one was allowed to interfere with Ivar. It was up to him to get to the platform or to fall. Ten minutes or so passed. And the bronze-red hair of the Viking appeared and then his grinning face. After he hauled himself over the railing, he lay for a while to regain his strength.

  When he arose, he spoke to Tamcar. “Surely, the gods favor us four. They have destined us for greater things than being your slaves.”

  “I do not think so,” the Emperor said. “You will he freed, as the gods decree. Bur you will not go far. The savages just north of our state will seize you, and you will no longer be free. I will make sure of that.”

  For a moment, it looked as if Ivar were going to hurl himself at the Emperor. But the spears of the royal guard were ready for him. He relaxed, smiled, and said, “We’ll see about that.”

  Davis felt drained. The ordeal had been terrible enough. Now, after having survived it, they would again fall into the hands of evil. Here, at least, they had plenty of food. But, just beyond the upper boundary of the Kingdom of the West Sun, the land on both sides of the River was occupied by people whom it was best to avoid. They gave their slaves just enough food to keep them working; they enjoyed crucifying slaves and tying them up in agonizing positions for a long time; they relished eating them. If you were their captive and you suddenly were given much food, you knew that you were being fattened to be the main course.

  Davis thought that he would have been better off if he had fallen to his death. At least, that way, he would have had a fifty-fifty chance to rise again far north of here.

  He was still downcast when the boat carrying them brought them within sight of what the Incans called the Land of the Beasts. The two crewmen were starting to haul down the lateen sail. He was sitting with the other captives in the middle of the vessel. Their hands were bound before them with thin cords of fish-gut. They were naked and possessed only their grails. On both sides of them stood guards with spears.

  The captain of the guards said, “Within minutes, you will all be free.” He laughed.

  Apparently, the Emperor had sent word to the Beasts that they would soon have slaves as a gift. A group of dark-skinned Caucasians stood at a docking pier on the right bank. They waved flint-tipped spears and big clubs while they danced wildly, the sun flashing on the mica chips inset in their flaring, light-gray, fish-scale helmets. Davis had heard that they were supposed to be a North African people who lived sometime in the Old Stone Age. Seeing them made him swear and sick at his stomach. But, so far, they had not put out on boats to meet them.

  Ivar, sitting close to him, spoke softly. “We are four. The guards are ten. The three sailors are not worth considering. The odds favor us. When I give the word, Faustroll and I will attack those on the sternside. You, Red-Hair, and you, Ann, will attack the others. Use your grails as hammers, swing them by the handles.”

  “The odds favor us!” Faustroll said, and he laughed softly. “That is a pataphysical view!”

  Ivar bent over and strained to separate the cord securing his hands together. His face got red; his muscles became snakes under the skin. The guards jeered at his efforts. Then their mouths dropped open as the cord snapped, and he shot up, roaring, his grail swinging out. The hard lower edge caught a guard under his chin. Ivar grabbed the man’s falling spear with his other hand and drove it into another guard’s belly.

  The Incans had expected no resistance. If they did get it, they were certain that the handicapped slaves would be easily subdued. But the Viking had removed two guards from the fight seconds after it had started.

  Davis and Ann swung their grails with good effect. His came up and slammed into the crotch of the nearest guard. After that, he had no time to see what his companions were doing. A spearhead gashed the front of his thigh, and then the man who had wounded him dropped when Davis’s grail smashed into the side of his head.

  It was all over within five seconds. The sailors leaped into the water. Ivar ran toward the steersman, who jumped overboard. Following the Viking’s bellowed commands, the woman and the two men hoisted the sail. A great shout went up from the savages on land, and they immediately manned boats. Drums sounded, apparently signaling those farther up the River to intercept the slaves’ boat.

  They came close to doing it. But Ivar, a consummate sailor, evaded them and then left them behind. They sailed northward, free for the time being.

  5

  Eighteen years had passed since the flight from the Land of the Beasts. They had fought much, been imprisoned a few times, and had suffered several hundred mishaps and scores of wounds. But they had lived in this state, Jardin, for seven years with relative tranquility and content.

  Andrew Davis’s hutmate was Rachel Abingdon, a daughter of an American missionary couple. He had converted her to his belief that the Redeemer had been born again on the River and that they must find him someday. Meanwhile, they had preached to the locals, not very successfully, but they did have a dozen or so disciples. Materially, Davis thrived. Many men and women
came to him daily to be massaged or manipulated osteopathically. They paid for their treatments with artifacts which he could trade for other goods, if he so desired, and with the gourmet foods their grails delivered. Life was easy. The citizens were not power-hungry, at least not politically. The days passed for Davis as it he were in the land of the lotus-eaters. Golden afternoons fishing and happy evenings sitting around the fires and eating and talking merged one into the other.

  Ivar the Boneless was general of the army, which was organized solely for defense. But the neighboring states for a thousand miles up and down the River were nonbelligerent. Militarily, he had little to do except keep the soldiers drilled, inspect the boundary walls, and hold maneuvers now and then.

  Ann had long ago quit living with Ivar. To Davis’s amazement, she had gotten religion. If, that is, the Church of the Second Chance could be called a religion in any true sense. The missionaries he had talked to and heard preach claimed to believe in a Creator. But they said that all Earth religions were invalid in stating they were divinely inspired. The Creator—they avoided the word “God”—had made a being superior to man shortly before the great resurrection of the Earth dead. These were a sort of flesh-and-blood angels, called Makers, whose mission was to save all of humanity from itself and to raise it to a spiritual level equal to that of the Makers. The man or woman who was not so raised was, after an indeterminate length of time, doomed. He or she would wander the void forever as conscious matterless entities without will.

  “The Chancers’ ethics are very high,” Davis had sneered one day while talking to Ann. “They pay no attention to sexual morality as long as no force or intimidation is involved.”

  “Sexual mores were necessary on Earth," she had answered, “to protect the children. Also, venereal disease and unwanted pregnancies caused great suffering. But here there are no such diseases, nor do women get pregnant. Actually, the largest, the most powerful element of sexual morality on Earth was the concept of property. Women and children were property. But here there is no such thing as property, no personal property, anyway, except for a person’s grail and a few towels and tools. Most of you men haven’t absorbed that idea yet. To be fair, a lot of women haven’t either. But all of you will learn someday.”

  “You’re still a slut!” Davis had said angrily.

  “A slut who doesn’t desire you at all, though you desire me. The day you realize that, you’ll be one more step closer to true love and to salvation.”

  As always, Davis, teeth and hands clenched, body quivering, had strode away. But he was unable to stay away from her. If he did not talk to her, he could never bring her to the true salvation.

  Faustroll, two years ago, had declared that he was God. “You need look no more, our friend,” he said to Davis. “Here before you is the Savior. The fleshly semblance of a man that we have adopted should not deceive you. It is needed to prevent you and the rest of us from being blinded by our glory. Accept us as your God, and we will share our divinity with you.

  “Actually, you are already divine. What I will do is reveal to you how you may realize this and how to act upon the glorious realization.”

  Faustroll was hopeless. His philosophy was blather. Yet, for some reason, Davis could not help listening to him. He did not do so for amusement, as he had once thought, or because he might make Faustroll see the Light. Perhaps it was just that he liked him despite his infuriating remarks. The Frenchman had something, a je ne sais quoi.

  Davis had not seen Ivar for months, when, one day, Ivar hove into his view. “Hove” was the appropriate word; the Viking was a huge ship, a man-of-war. Behind him was a much smaller man, a tender, as it were. He was short and thin, black-haired and brown-eyed. His face was narrow; his nose, huge and beaked.

  Ivar bellowed in Esperanto, “Andrew the Red! Still dreaming of finding the woman who gave birth to a second Christ? Or have you given up that quest?”

  “Not at all!”

  “Then why do you sit on your ass day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year?”

  “I haven’t!” Davis said indignantly. “I have made many converts to people who had rejected Christ! Or who had never heard of Him, who had not been in a state of grace!”

  Ivar waved his hand as if dismissing their importance. “You could put them all under the roof of a small hut. Are you going to be satisfied with hanging around here forever when, for all you know, your Jesus is up-River and waiting for you to appear so that he may send you forth to preach?”

  Davis sensed a trap of some sort. The Viking was grinning as if he were ready to pounce on him.

  “It makes better sense to wait here for Him," Davis said. “He will come someday, and I will be ready to greet Him.”

  “Lazy, lazy, lazy! The truth is that you like to live here where no one is trying to kill or enslave you. You make feeble efforts to preach, and you spend most of your time fishing or tupping your wife.”

  “Now, see here!” Davis said.

  “I am here, and I see. What I see is a man who was once on fire, has cooled, and is now afraid to dare hardship and suffering.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “I reproach you, but I also reproach myself. I, too, had the dream of going up the River until I came to its mouth. There I expected to find the beings who made this world and who brought about our resurrection. It they would not answer my questions willingly, they would do so under duress. I say that though it would seem that they are immeasurably more powerful than I am.

  “But I forgot my dream. To use your own phrase, I was at ease in Zion. But this place is not Zion.”

  Davis nodded to indicate the man with Ivar. “Who’s that?”

  Ivar’s large hand pushed the little man forward. “His name is Bahab. He’s a newcomer. Bahab the Arab. He was born in Sicily when his people held that island. I do not know when he lived according to your reckoning, but it does not matter. He has an interesting tale, one that reminded me of what I had forgotten. Speak, Bahab!”

  The little man bowed. He spoke in a high voice and in a heavily accented Esperanto. Though some of his words were not in local usage, Davis figured out their meaning from the context.

  “You will pardon me, I trust, for such an abrupt approach and possible intrusion. I would prefer sitting with you and having coffee and getting to know you before beginning my story. But some people are barbaric or, I should say, have different customs.”

  “Never mind all that!” Ivar said loudly. “Get on with your story!”

  “Ah, yes. Some years ago, I was up-River a long way from here. I talked to a man who had the most amazing news. I do not know if it was true or not, though he had nothing to gain from lying to me. On the other hand, some men lie just for the pleasure of it, sons of Shaitan that they are. But sometimes, if the lie is merely for amusement’s sake…”

  “Are you going to make me regret bringing you here?” Ivar shouted.

  “Your pardon. Excellency. The man of whom I spoke said that he had a curious tale. He had wandered far, up and down this Valley, but had never encountered anything so wondrous. It seems that he was once in an area where a certain woman, who claimed to be a virgin, conceived.”

  “Oh, my God!” Davis said. “Can it be true?”

  Bahab said, “I do not know. I did not witness the event, and I am skeptical. But others who had been there at the time swore that what the man said was indeed true.”

  “The baby! The baby!” Davis said. “Was it a boy?”

  “Alas, no! It was female.”

  “But that couldn’t be!” Davis said.

  Bahab paused as if he were wondering if Davis had called him a liar. Then he smiled. “I merely tell you what the man and his fellows, actually, five in number, told me. It does not seem likely that all would be conspiring to lie to me. But if I offend you, I will say no more.”

  “Oh, no!” Davis said. “I’m not insulted. On the contrary. Please continue.”

  Bahab bowed, then
said, “All this had happened years before I came to that area. By now, the baby would be fully grown, if there was such a baby. The woman may not have been a virgin, as she claimed, and some man might be the father. But that would be miracle enough since all men and women seem to be sterile.”

  “But a baby girl?” Davis said. “That’s…can’t be!”

  “I have talked to wise men and women of the late twentieth century, by Christian reckoning, scientists they call themselves,” Bahab said. “They told me that, if a woman could be induced to conceive by chemical methods, the child would be female. I did not understand their talk of ‘chromosomes,’ but they assured me that a virgin female can conceive only a female. They also said that, in their time, this had never happened. Or in any time before theirs.”

  “They leave God out of their science,” Davis said. “It happened once…when Jesus was born.”

  Bahab looked incredulous, but he said nothing.

  “What you think should happen,” Ivar said, “and what does happen are often not the same. You still do not know the truth. The only way you can find that is to venture forth again and determine for yourself. Surely, you can’t be uninterested because this child was female? There were women goddesses, you know.”

  “God does what He wishes to do,” Bahab said.

  “You are right, Ivar,” Davis said. “I must search out this woman and her daughter and talk to them. You are also right, I confess, in that I have let sloth and peace lull me to sleep.”

  “We go! I, too, have been asleep! But I am tired of this purposeless life. We will build a boat, and we will take it up the River! “

  “Rachel will be pleased,” Davis said. “I think.”

  Rachel was eager to go, though she also was disappointed that the Savior was a woman.