R.W. V - Gods of Riverworld

  The scan moved into Level 60 and raced up and down the corridors and into the rooms along them. It came to a corridor the inner wall of which formed a side of the wathan well. Here, he knew, was where an observer could see the surface of the mass of wathans.

  He cried out, "Stop!"

  He stared at the curving transparent wall of the shaft.

  The beautiful, bright, many- colored, swelling, shrinking and whirling entities called wathans were gone. The well was empty and dark.

  34

  * * *

  Peter Frigate was the first to enter the room. He stopped, and he looked at Burton, at the beamer on the table, and at the half-opened door to the corridor. "What's going on?"

  Li Po came in just as Burton opened his mouth to answer Frigate. Burton said, "Have some coffee first, Pete."

  "How are you, Dick?" the Chinese said.

  "I've been up most of the night. Working."

  Li Po also glanced at the weapon and the door. He raised his eyebrows but did not comment. Frigate, after pouring out coffee from a pot on the table, said, "You look awful. The dark circles around your eyes . . . you look like a debauched raccoon. What've you been doing?"

  "I feel more than awful," Burton said slowly. "I feel . . . how would you feel if you knew that the end of the world was near? Or perhaps I should say that the world has ended — for all practical purposes."

  Frigate drank the whole cup of very hot coffee without flinching. He said, "The end of the world happens every second."

  Burton did not know what he meant and did not think it worthwhile to find out. In any event, Frigate's words were just a means for putting off the bad news.

  Li Po took a sip of coffee and said, "What do you mean?"

  "Perhaps I should wait until everybody's here. I don't like to repeat."

  "Sure you don't," Frigate said. "Let's hear it."

  Burton told them that the wathan enclosure was empty.

  Li Po and Frigate paled but said nothing.

  "I checked the body-records then," Burton said. "I had to force myself to do it because I didn't want to know what had been done to them, although, of course, I already knew. But it needed doing, and so I did it."

  "And they . . . they . . ." Frigate said, choking.

  "They had all been erased. All thirty-five billion six hundred and forty-six million plus. No exceptions. All. And no wathans have come in since I made the discovery."

  Li Po sat down. "I've had too many shocks lately."

  After a long while, Frigate said, "So . . . when we die, we die for the last time."

  "Quite."

  After another long silence — only a super-catastrophe could have kept Li Po's mouth shut so long, Burton thought — Frigate poured brandy into a half-full cup of coffee and downed all of the steaming liquid. Li Po looked as if he would like to do the same, half-rose, shook his head, and sank back into the chair. This was the first time Burton had ever seen him reject a drink.

  The brandy had restored some of the American's color. He drank more, straight this time, and said, "The Snark has overridden that automatic function . . . I mean, no bodies will be recorded from now on?"

  "Right."

  "But if we can survive until the Gardenworlders get here, we can be recorded again. Otherwise, we, too, will lose our chance for immortality forever."

  "Of course," Burton said. "But when they get here, our time will be up anyway. If we're not ready to Go On, our records will be erased. And if we're not, we'll be erased."

  He got up and poured himself more coffee, looked at the brandy bottle, and decided against it. "I immediately asked the Computer about that. I was shocked, of course, and I cursed myself, railed against the fates, if you must know, because as soon as we got here from Alice's, I commanded the Computer to refuse to erase any body-records. I was forestalling that. But I was too late. I did not know that then because the Computer, the idiot, did not tell me that my command was too late. It should have, but the Snark had told it not to display that data unless it was asked for it."

  "We've all been just drifting along, doing things too late," Frigate said in a dull tone. "Sometimes . . . I wonder if the Snark has had the Computer broadcast some sort of neural suppressant field, something dampening our intelligence?"

  "I doubt it. We've just been playing with our toys . . . like children. However" — Burton lifted a napkin and revealed a yellow ball the size of a cranberry — "I've been busy while you were sleeping. This is the sphere that records a body. I had the Computer duplicate one for me. It's empty now, but I wanted to see one. And holding it in my hand enabled me to postulate something . . . a theory, but the only explanation I could come up with that was reasonable. That is, how could the Snark get into Alice's world, into Turpin's and yours . . . Netley's . . . and there arrange for operations that just could not be done from outside those worlds?"

  Alice entered a minute later. Burton had to repeat his story and to wait for her to recover enough before he could continue.

  "First, though, I don't think that the Snark did it. I mean I don't think that there's an Ethical hiding in the tower. Nur eliminated her, though we cannot, of course; ever be sure. But the murders in the little worlds were done by one of us. By one of the survivors."

  Li Po shot up from his chair, and, quivering, said, "Gull! Or Star Spoon! But why?"

  Burton nodded. "Gull may have reverted, but he would have to have gone mad to do that. Star Spoon? She would have to be insane. If either is, he or she has concealed it well. First, let me tell the rest of my theory."

  "First . . . pardon the interruption," Frigate said, "we have to consider that it may be neither Gull nor Star Spoon. What if somebody we haven't even seen is the killer? After all, Williams raised Gull and the others involved in the Ripper killings. And there are the gypsies. We don't know who raised them, but I suspect Williams did it just as a joke or just to bug us. Or maybe somebody else did. Anyway, what if someone raised a person who was destructively insane, to put it mildly, and that person is our second Snark?"

  "I asked the Computer to scan the tower for other people. It reported that it could find none. I asked for a rundown of all those who'd been raised, and the number corresponds exactly with my calculations. Still, the Computer could be reporting only what it's been told to report."

  Frigate threw his hands up. "Nothing's certain!"

  "It never has been. However, I think that we don't have to consider a third party or parties."

  He held up the yellow sphere. "Here is how I think he . . . or she . . . did it."

  The killer had ordered a number of his body-recordings made in an e-m converter.

  "Nobody had inhibited this action until I told the Computer not to allow that, but I was too late. The deed was done."

  The Snark, Snark the Second, as it were, had been given an opportunity to enter the worlds of Turpin, Frigate and Alice. Perhaps all the worlds and some apartment suites, too.

  "There the Snark put the recording-spheres in converters that were out of the way, seldom if ever used. And the Snark also concealed them in other places for easy access and probably carried them around in his clothing."

  The Snark then killed himself in the privacy of an unused apartment. By prearrangement with the Computer, the Snark was resurrected in a converter inside a world.

  "The converter in which the Snark died would then disintegrate the body. The Snark did not want anybody finding it, though that possibility was remote."

  Once inside Alice's world, Snark II did what had to be done. The androids were verbally programmed when they were out of sight of Alice and Maglenna or perhaps they were programmed before Maglenna showed. Since the Snark had to be furtive about the process, it undoubtedly took weeks to complete it.

  The flooding of the two worlds, though, was ordered from the outside.

  "The Ethicals thought that they were one hundred per cent safe when they were in their private worlds. Of course, they were not nearly as security-conscious as w
e since they believed the tower to be an impregnable fortress. They knew that one of them was a traitor, but they still could not conceive that he would actually personally endanger them.

  "But an ingenious person could flood the little worlds by ordering the liquid supply to pour into it until it was completely filled or its inhabitants had been drowned."

  "That may be true," Alice said, "but how could the Snark shut the doors to the worlds? And how could he see what was going on in the worlds when the flooding began? The Computer had commands to open the door only to authorized codewords, and it would not transmit pictures or any communications except as ordered by the tenants. No one could override those."

  "But they could be bypassed by various means. The Snark made cameras in the worlds he had gotten into via the recording- spheres, flew the cameras to the ceilings, probably at night, and attached them there. You see, the Computer had orders not to transmit wave frequencies through the circuits of the walls except through certain channels, but the Computer interpreted those orders literally. It did have orders to transmit the frequencies through the wall circuits to the converters and the computer auxiliary and communication devices. It did not distinguish between those computers installed and authorized by the Ethicals and any installed later. It would assume that the additions were authorized."

  "But the doors?" Alice said.

  "The Snark sealed the exterior of the door with a substance that hardened and so resisted the operating mechanisms of the doors, which open outward."

  That meant that the Snark had sealed the doors while Alice's party was going on. The Snark had killed himself or herself, had been resurrected in an apartment, and then had flown in a chair to the central area and applied the substance to the exit doors of two of the worlds. Then the Snark had ordered the liquid supply to convert to bourbon and gin and started the deluging. After which, the Snark had committed suicide, been resurrected in an apartment, and returned to Alice's place as a guest. There the Snark had waited until the androids had started their predetermined attack. During the battle, the Snark had made sure that he was not harmed by the androids. His or her plans had not been completely successful, but the Snark was not dismayed. There would be other opportunities.

  Li Po said, "Ah! Only those at the party could be suspects! So . . . Gull or Star Spoon!"

  "Not necessarily," Frigate said. "The Snark could be someone else, if that someone had had an opportunity to get into the worlds. It would have to be one of those raised, someone we know or ought to know. It could be many people. After all, we haven't seen all the bodies in Turpin's or Netley's . . . my . . . world. We should find out if anyone is missing from there."

  "First, we put Gull and Star Spoon through the grinder," Burton said.

  If one of them was so infernally clever, he thought, wouldn't he or she have anticipated that one of the others might be Sherlock Holmes enough to narrow the suspects to two?

  If that was so, the Snark would know that his or her identity would soon be revealed.

  Li Po, as if he had been reading Burton's thoughts said, "That accounts for the beamer on the table? You'll be ready for the Snark?"

  "Yes. If one of them walks through the doorway with a weapon in hand, I won't be caught surprised."

  "It seems to me," Alice said, "that they . . . one of them . . . could kill himself . . . or herself . . . and be resurrected elsewhere. What's to keep the Snark from coming through there?" She pointed at the open door to the corridor.

  "Ah, that," Burton said. "Well, you see, I copied the killer's modus operandi. Very early this morning, I sealed Gull's and Star Spoon's doors."

  Burton did not have to tell them what would happen. The guilty one would be unable to get out, and it would not be long before he or she knew why. The only escape was the route the Snark had often taken. Commit suicide and be resurrected elsewhere.

  "What if the Snark pretends innocence and asks us to let him out?" Frigate said.

  "We won't let either out. Sooner or later, the Snark will leave."

  The immediate excitement had lifted them from the shock of finding out that the wathans were gone and the records erased. They were not concentrating on the numbing realization that they would be dead forever the next time they died. Or that those still alive in The Valley would not be raised again after they had died. Or that all that they had suffered to get here had been in vain.

  No, he thought. It was not in vain, not wasted time. We have lived far longer than we thought we would when we died on Earth. Our youthful bodies were restored, and we fought and loved with the full vigor of youth and perfect health. We lived fiercely, we were active, and we worked hard for a goal. It has been worthwhile. And if we can live until the Gardenworlders come, we . . . no. This phase of the project will be over, and we must die to make room for the resurrected in the next.

  He would worry about that when the time came. Just now, the only thing to consider was the Snark.

  "There's the screen," Frigate said. Burton got up and walked to the console in the corner. Gull looked out from the display. Seeing Burton, he said, "Good morning. I don't know what the matter is, but the door won't open for me."

  "That's strange," Burton said. "Have you asked the Computer why?"

  "Of course, but it says that it does not know."

  "We'll see what we can do about it," Burton said. "Meanwhile, you don't have to starve. Get yourself breakfast, and we'll investigate."

  When the screen had become blank, Burton asked that the screen in his bedroom be activated. It showed the room at once — Burton had not been sure that it would not have been cut off — and he saw that the bed was unoccupied. Star Spoon was not in sight, but she could be in the bathroom. He verified that his voice could be transmitted, and he called her loudly. Though he repeated her name several times, he was not answered.

  "She's gone."

  Frigate said, "Where's her body?"

  "I don't know," Burton said. "We'll have to find out."

  They went down the bedroom hall, all armed with beamers. Burton and Li Po used them to burn the sealing agent off. Since the smoke had an acrid odor, which made them cough, they had to slow down the burning to give the air-conditioning time to suck the smoke away. When the last of the glossy violet substance was gone, Burton gave the codeword, and the door swung open. Cautiously, he entered first, the beamer ready. The bedroom and bathroom were empty.

  "She must have killed herself by stepping into the converter cabinet and having it incinerate her," Frigate said.

  "That would make her disappearance more mysterious," Burton said. "I wonder where she could be"

  Alice said, "You don't seem surprised, Dick."

  "No. I didn't think that Gull had had time to learn how to operate the Computer well enough to do all the Snark has done."

  "For God's sake!" Frigate said, "Why would she do that? What did she have against us? She must hate us! Everybody! Why?"

  "I think," Li Po said, "that she has always been very sad behind that merry face she put on. She has had a bad life, many bad times, anyway, so many that she thinks of her life as all bad, too horrible to endure any longer. She has suffered so much, been raped and abused so much, and the attack by Dunaway was just too much. I think — I could be wrong, though I doubt it — that she decided that we would all be better off dead. She'd be better off dead. Everybody would be. She told me more than once that she was sorry that we had been resurrected, that it was horrible that no one could take refuge even in death. Did she ever say anything like that to you, Dick?"

  "Several times."

  "There has to be more than that to it," Frigate said. "If she wanted to be dead forever, all she had to do was erase her own recordings."

  "She's not sane," Burton said. "She may have it in her mind that she's doing everybody a favor by making sure that they don't have to suffer as she did. Also, I suppose, she wishes to insure that those who made others suffer could no longer do that."

  He was appalled, more shaken
by her deeds than by anything he had ever experienced. But he did not hate her. Though she had committed the greatest sin in the world, the irrevocable and unforgivable sin, he could not hate that demented sufferer. He pitied her. Grieved for her, in fact. But he would have to kill her. No one would be safe until she was dead, and he would be doing her the greatest kindness by putting her out of her wretchedness.

  He was sure that she planned to end herself eventually but not until after everyone left in the tower was dead. She would, he supposed, have liked to dispose of all in The Valley, too, but that she could not do. She would have to be satisfied knowing that they would finally pass away.

  35

  * * *

  "Nonsense!"

  "What?" Alice said.

  "We don't have the slightest idea of what's really going on in that twisted mind. It doesn't matter if we do or don't. What does is that she must be stopped."

  A loud pinging began. Burton started, though he had been expecting the noise, and he went to the console. The screen was displaying a diagram of a tower level section and a tiny but bright orange light was moving along one of the-corridors. In the corner of the screen was: LEVEL 4, CORRIDOR 10.

  The others had crowded behind him. Frigate said, "What now?"

  "She must have just left the room in which she was resurrected," Burton said. "The room would have been painted, of course, so that her past- display would not be visible to her, and I suppose that the Computer shows it only when it can be seen by the subject. What I did, I told the Computer to show me where her past- display is. Star Spoon has undoubtedly commanded the Computer not to reveal her presence by allowing us to scan the halls near where she is. But one thing she cannot do is to prevent the past-display from accompanying her as soon as she leaves her room."

  "She's intelligent," Li Po said. "She'll soon realize that you may be tracking her through the display. What we can do, she can do. She'll ask the Computer to show her our displays."