Gods of Riverworld: The Fifth Book of the Riverworld Series

  "Go to hell," Alice said, and she told the Computer to cut them off. She had changed in many ways. Never, never on Earth, no matter how angered, would she have said that to anyone. Not even her husband.

  After pacing back and forth a while to allow herself to settle down, she called Nur. He said, "Greetings, Alice. It's a pleasure to see you. Could I call you back in a moment? I'm talking to Tom Turpin. There's . . ." He hesitated, then said, "Never mind that."

  "I'm sorry to interrupt," she said. "But I just . . . that's all right. I'll call back within the half-hour."

  She bit her lip as she wondered if she should invite William Gull and his fellow Dowists. He had been, after all, physician in ordinary to Queen Victoria and a baronet. Yet she had long ago rid herself of the class distinctions that had governed her on Earth and for quite a while on the Riverworld, so his high connections should not be considered. Also, he had been a murderer- mutilator. Yet he had repented and was a deacon of the DowistChurch. And she, as one who was no longer a believer in Christianity but still tried to act like a Christian, should not permit his renounced past to bother her. He could be an entertaining conversationalist as long as he refrained from proselytizing. Then he became a nuisance and a bore. But she would insist that the Dowists not push their religion if they attended the party.

  Finally, she called him. He was pleased to be asked, almost pathetically so.

  "I'm also inviting Annie Crook, Elizabeth Stride and Marie Kelly," she said, "if that makes a difference to you."

  "Oh, of course not," he said. "It is your party, and Mrs. Stride and I get along well now, though we have certain disagreements on theology. Mrs. Crook and Mrs. Kelly are rather cool, understandably so, but I hope to bring them around some day. I assure you that I will not spoil this social function by any unseemly behavior."

  Alice then called the three women, and they said they would be delighted. Could they bring their "beans" with them? Though reluctant to have them, Alice smiled and said they would be welcome. So, that made one hundred and fifty-one guests, since Gull would bring his woman and thirty-two others. Stride and Crook would each bring a man, and Kelly would, as usual, have a man on each arm.

  The second time she tried Nur, he was ready to talk to her. He thanked her for the invitation and said that he and Ayesha would be happy to come. He had just had a rather intense conversation with Tom Turpin. Both of them were disturbed because of the two women who had become pregnant. The first birth would occur in four months; the second, two weeks later.

  "Tom has told the women many times that the babies will have no wathans. Since the Ethicals did not intend to have babies here, they made no provisions for creating wathans. I asked the Computer if it had the schematics for making a wathan generator, and it said that there was no such thing in its records. That means, as you perhaps remember, that the babies, lacking wathans, will hence lack self-consciousness. For all exterior purposes, they will behave just as babies with wathans will. But they will not be self-conscious. They'll be biological machines, very superior machines, but still machines."

  "Yes, I know," Alice said. "But what can one do?"

  "If those women want to bear and raise what will be the equivalent of androids, that would be only their business, that was all there was to it. However, their example may stimulate others to imitate them, to have babies also. Eventually, this tower will be jammed with people, a good part of whom will be soulless. What happens when the overcrowding causes fights for space? War. Suffering. Death. I don't have to fill in the picture for you."

  "Yes, but . . ." Alice said.

  "Turpin has threatened to kick them out if they bear the children. They don't care. They'll just go to an apartment with their men and live there. But this little trouble will lead to great trouble. Somebody . . . we . . . will have to take drastic action to stop this and make sure that it doesn't happen again."

  "You mean . . . kill the babies?"

  "I don't like to contemplate that, it pains me greatly, but will have to be done. The babies, as I said, are really androids, and one should have no more compunction about destroying them than about destroying androids. They look completely human and behave like human beings to a certain extent. But they are not self- conscious; they do not have that which makes Homo sapiens human. The babies can't be allowed to grow into children; they should be eliminated now before they know what's happening."

  Alice knew that their death would be instantaneous and painless. They would be placed in a converter and reduced to atoms in a microsecond. Nevertheless, the idea horrified her.

  No doubt the kind- hearted Nur felt horror, too. But he knew what had to be done, and he would do it. If Turpin could not get the job done, Nur would see to it.

  "If we had a wathan generator," Nur said, "I would insist. . . I think almost everybody would agree with me . . . that these two infants be the exception. We would see that they had wathans, but there would be no more children born. Any woman who used the Computer to make herself fertile would be killed and her body kept in the records until the day . . . if it ever comes . . . that the Computer starts resurrecting people again in The Valley. Any man who knowingly made the woman pregnant would also be slain. However . . ."

  "Yes?"

  "Allah! That won't be necessary. I should have thought of this before. The Computer can be ordered not to make anyone fertile from now on. Why didn't I think of that long ago? Time . . . "

  "Time?" Alice said.

  Nur waved his hand to dismiss the phrase.

  "Then I see no reason to destroy the babies," Alice said. "Surely they won't be any problem."

  Nur sighed with relief, though he still looked troubled. Perhaps that was because he had been so slow in arriving at the very obvious solution.

  He shook his head. "There's a possibility I must check on at once. What if someone has given a command to the Computer that anybody who wants to become fertile can become so? That would be the prior command and the authoritative one. The only one who could override that would be Loga or the woman whom I killed . . . if I did kill her. Just a moment. I'll check."

  Alice could have listened in on him, but she would never have done that unless he gave permission. A minute later, the screen before her glowed, and Nur's face appeared. She knew at once what had happened from his angry expression.

  "Someone has done just what I hoped would not be done. He . . . she . . . whoever . . . has made it possible for anyone who wants to become fertile to do so. The Computer would not tell me who gave it the command."

  "My God!" Alice said. Then, "Dick told me about that black man, Bill Williams, resurrecting Gull and the others. Do you suppose . . . ?"

  "I don't know. We'll probably never find out. It's possible that Wandal Goudal or Sarah Kelpin, one of the women having babies, did it. In any event . . ."

  Though not very often at a loss for words, Nur was so now.

  "Tom will have to be told," she said. "Surely, he'll do what must be done."

  "I'll call him now," Nur said.

  She sat down to wait, thinking that she would hear from him in ten or fifteen minutes. However, the screen glowed on the control console in less than six minutes. She was surprised to see, not Nur's, but Tom Turpin's face. It was red under his dark skin, and his face was contorted.

  "I'm contacting all of you!" he shouted.

  You, she understood, would be the seven companions. But what was he doing in the central area forming the O at the tips of the pie-slice-shaped private worlds? And why were his favorite woman, Diamond Lil Schindler, his cronies, Chauvin, Joplin and other musicians, and their women there?

  "OK! I see all of you there! Man, I'm mad! Mad, do you hear?"

  Nur's voice, quiet and soothing, came.

  "Calm down, Tom. Tell us what happened."

  "They threw me out!" he screamed. "Overpowered my guards, grabbed me and my friends, and threw me out! They said I wasn't King Tom no more! I was through! I couldn't ever get back in! So long, goodbye, far
ewell, adieu, adios, motherfucker!"

  "Who's they?" Burton's voice said. "Was Bill Williams the ringleader?"

  "No, not him! He moved out two days ago into one of the empty worlds! It was Jonathan Hawley and Hamilton Biggs did it! They were the ringleaders, I mean!"

  Alice had probably been introduced to the two, but she did not remember the names.

  "Something like this was to be expected," Nur said. "There's little . . . nothing . . . you can do about it, Tom. Why don't you move into one of the empty worlds? And be very careful the next time you select someone to bring in?"

  "I can't even do that!" Tom yelled. He raised his arms and brought them down violently, his hands slapping his thighs. "Can't even do that! Williams is in one of them! The gypsies have taken over another! I know 'cause I saw them coming out of it! I can't get into any of the other four! Somebody's locked them with codewords! I don't know who did it, but I think Hawley and Biggs did it! They're holding them for excess population or whatever! Maybe they did it just out of spite!"

  "It could be worse. They could have killed you," Nur said.

  "Yeah, Pollyanna, it could have been worse!"

  Turpin was weeping now. The big black woman, Schindler, put her arms around him. He sobbed on her neck while she smiled, exposing the twinkling gems set into her teeth. On Earth, she had been one of the most important madams of the St. Louis Tenderloin district and one of Turpin's lovers.

  Alice waited until he had released himself from Diamond Lil's embrace, and she said, "You and your friends can stay at my place, Tom."

  The others, Burton, de Marbot, Aphra, Frigate, and Nur, hastened to extend their invitations.

  "No," Turpin said, wiping his eyes with a huge violet handkerchief, "that ain't necessary, but I thank you. We'll just move into apartments."

  He raised a fist and began howling, "I'll get you, Hawley, Biggs, you other motherfucking Judases! I'll get you! You'll be sorry, you sons of bitches! Watch out for Tom Turpin, you hear me!"

  She could not see the screen that must have appeared on the wall before Turpin. But she could hear the loud laughter and the triumphant words.

  "Get lost, you blubbering blubber!"

  Tom howled with anger and anguish and began striking the wall. Alice cut off the screen. What next?

  What indeed? That was the only one of the upsetting events leading up to the party. Which, she would say later to anyone who would hear — there were few of those left — was, she was not exaggerating in the slightest, the worst party she had ever given.

  30

  * * *

  The morning of April the first, Burton and Star Spoon breakfasted on the balcony outside their bedroom. The sky was clear, and the breeze was gentle and cool because Burton had ordered it so. Now and then, an elephant trumpeted and a lion roared. The shadow of a roc crossed over the table, the bird with a forty-foot wingspread designed by Burton and fashioned by the Computer. Star Spoon started when it darkened them.

  "It won't hurt us, it's programmed not to attack us," Burton said, smiling.

  "It could be an ill omen."

  He did not argue with her. Li Po and the men and women of the eighth century A.D. whom he had brought in were intelligent and much- experienced, yet they had not rid themselves of their superstitions. Li Po was perhaps the most flexible, but even he reacted now and then to something that he should by now laugh at or not even think of.

  He wondered if one had to desuperstition oneself, as it were, before one could Go On. What did the holding of absurd beliefs have to do with gaining compassion and empathy and freedom from hate and prejudice? It had much to do with it if it caused fear and cruelty and irrational behavior. But could one be afraid that bad luck would come if a black cat crossed one's path and still be a "good" person? No, not if one threw a brick at the cat or treated one's friends badly because one was in an ill humor from anxiety.

  "You, too, are afraid," Star Spoon said.

  "What?" He stared at her.

  "You knocked on wood three times. On the table."

  "No, I didn't."

  "I'm sorry to have to contradict you, Dick. But you did. I would not lie."

  "I really did?"

  He laughed uproariously.

  "Why do you find that funny?"

  He explained, and she smiled. That, he thought, was the first time in days that she had lost her blank expression. Well, if he had to pull her out of her soberness by making a fool of himself, he did not mind.

  "I did not ask you how you are," he said.

  "I am well."

  "I hope that you will be happy soon."

  "I thank you."

  Burton was thinking about proposing to her that the Computer locate in her memory all her experiences of brutality, especially the rapes. The Computer could excise them as a surgeon could a rotting appendix. Though the erasing would eliminate much from her memory, perhaps many years if the time of events were totaled, she would be free of painful thoughts. On the other hand, though the memories would be gone, their emotional impact would still be there. The Computer could not remove that. Star Spoon still might be repulsed by love- making but not have the slightest idea why.

  The mind had to operate on itself, but it was seldom a skilled surgeon.

  Burton silently cursed Dunaway and wished that there was a hell to which the man could be sent.

  Star Spoon lifted a fork of trout to her mouth, chewed while staring out over the gardens below the castle, the jungle river, and the desert beyond. Having swallowed, she said, "I want you to bring in another woman, Dick. One who can take care of your needs. A woman who can laugh and love. I do not mind, I not only do not mind, I would be very pleased."

  "No," he said. "No. That is most generous of you — also very Chinese. I admire the culture and wisdom of your people, But I am not Chinese."

  "It's not just Chinese. It's good common sense. There's no reason why I should be — what did you say the other day? — a dog in the . . . ?"

  "A dog in the manger. One who owns something he can't use but won't let anybody else use it because he's selfish."

  "A dog in the manger. I am not that. Please, Dick, it would make me less unhappy."

  "But I wouldn't be happy."

  "If it would embarrass you to have another woman here, put her in an apartment and visit her. Or . . . I could leave."

  He laughed and said, "Human beings are not androids. I couldn't just raise a woman and imprison her for my own pleasure. In the first place, she might not like me. In the second, even if she did, she would want the company of others. She'd want to be free, not a caged odalisque."

  She reached across the table and put her hand on his. "It is too bad."

  "What? What we've just been talking about?"

  "That and much more. Everything." She waved a hand as if to take in the whole universe. "Bad. All bad."

  "No, it's not. Part is bad, part is good. You've just had more than your share of the bad. But you have time, a long, long time, to get your share of the good."

  She shook her head. "No. Not for me."

  Burton pushed his plate, still half-full, away. An android silently took the plate away.

  "I'll stay and talk with you, if you like. I have work to do, but it's not more important than you."

  "I, too, have work," she said. He rose, went around the solid gold table to her, and kissed her cheek. He was curious about what she was doing with the Computer, but, when he asked her about it, she always said that it was uninteresting and she would prefer to hear about his studies.

  However, when they left the castle in the armored flying chairs, she seemed to be excited about the party. She chattered away about some amusing incidents in her childhood, and she even laughed several times. Burton thought that it was no good for her to be alone so much or just with him. Yet when they had gone to the weekly meetings, she had been subdued and withdrawn.

  During flight, Burton spoke over the transmitter to Star Spoon. "I tried earlier this morning to
call Turpinville. Which I suppose will have another name by now. I got no answer. Apparently, whoever's running Turpinville now is not taking calls."

  "Why did you call them?"

  "I was curious. I wanted to find out if whoever's in charge intends to be aggressive. It's possible, you know, that he . . . they . . . won't be content with just ruling Turpinville. He might have some plans for taking over the entire tower."

  "What sense would there be in that?"

  "What sense was there in ousting Turpin and grabbing the seat of power? I also called Tom to determine his mood. It was black. Or perhaps scarlet is a better description. He is still vowing vengeance, but he knows that he has no chance of getting that. All they have to do is stay shut up in their world."

  They floated through the doorway into the central area. Burton was surprised by the crowd and the uproar there. Turpin was with Louis Chauvin, Scott Joplin and other musician-friends who had two days ago been in Little St. Louis. Evidently, these had also been hurled out from the little world without anything except the clothes they were wearing. There were also about a hundred other blacks, some of whom he recognized. And something had also happened to Frigate and Lefkowitz and her friends. They were gesticulating angrily and shouting words unintelligible in the great noise. This was added to by the blaring voices from the wall-screens showing each one his or her past.

  Li Po and his comrades left their world just then, and their questions swelled the volume of sound.

  Burton and Star Spoon eased the chairs onto the floor. He got up and yelled, "What's going on?" but only those very near him could hear.

  Frigate had put on an outlandish costume for the party. A huge scarlet bowtie, a lemon-yellow vest with enormous silver buttons, a big sky-blue belt, tight white pants with scarlet seams, and lemon-yellow Wellington boots. His skin color almost matched that of the bowtie.

  "We came out of my place," he said, "and found Netley and a dozen others there. They had beamers and guns, and Netley told me that if I didn't give him the codeword, he'd shoot all of us! So I gave it to him! I had to, nothing else I could do! He and his gang went inside and closed the door . . . and . . . and that's that! We're locked out! Dispossessed! My beautiful world taken away from me!"