Gods of Riverworld: The Fifth Book of the Riverworld Series

  Something hit him from behind. Stunned, his sight dimmed, not knowing who he was or where, he fell to his knees. He was easy prey now for whoever had hit him, but a man he did not recognize rushed by him. He heard the thud of weapon on weapon as he fell to all fours and shook his head. Then a hand was helping him up. His senses came back slowly, the back of his head hurting abominably. The man who had rescued him was Monteith Maglenna. He was holding a bloody two- edged sword. His clothes were torn and cut, and blood was welling from a dozen wounds.

  "Close call, that," he said hoarsely.

  Burton looked at Bill the Lizard and at the reddened flat cap and the club on the ground beside his body.

  "Thanks," he said. "I'll be all right."

  "Good," Maglenna said. "Have to get that bloody Jabberwock out of the way. Come help when you feel up to it."

  The big blonde man ran off, his sword held high with both hands as if he were holding an ancestral claymore. By now, the Jabberwock was showing signs of internal bleeding from the spear thrusts and other wounds. The blood flowing from its mouth could not all be that from its victims. It was crouching on all fours, its tail still lashing but not as vigorously as before. Its head turned this way and that as it bellowed at the pestiferous men and women surrounding it. These were not, however, coming close to it; they were leaping in and out, slashing at it but not daring to come within reach of the still-dangerous head. Behind those keeping it distracted was a line of people fighting off the androids, guarding the backs of the Jabberwock attackers. They, at least, had some organization.

  He turned around, fighting dizziness and nausea. The White Knight and his horse were down, but the Red Knight, aided by some cards, Father William, some Eaglets, two White Rabbits, some toves, and a Carpenter, was bashing heads right and left. Its horse slipped several times on blood but recovered and stumbled once over a pile of bodies. He groaned, heartsick. So many human bodies. And there were many androids still standing. Some were not fighting but were killing the wounded humans. They must have had orders to finish off all those they downed before going on to do more battle.

  He caught sight of Alice. She was holding a rapier, and her clothes were crimsoned. She had broken free of the mêlée and could have fled to her house. Perhaps she had thought of that, since she looked several times longingly up the hill. But she turned away, ran down the slope, and thrust her rapier through a Carpenter's back.

  Star Spoon was climbing down from the rollercoaster. Whether she was doing so to join the fray or to run for safety he had no time to find out.

  He turned away and walked up to the back of a Dodo that was beheading wounded humans. Under its wings, it had short arms at the ends of which were human hands, just as in Tenniel's illustration. The shortness of its arms made its sword strokes ineffective, forcing it to hack again and again before it could get its victims' necks completely cut through. Burton snickersneed its head off just as it was about to deliver a final stroke to a Chinese man.

  Burton wondered where Li Po was. No sooner asked than answered. There was the tall Chinese on a big table, fighting off a trio of cards with his rapier. They kept thrusting their spears at him from three sides, but he danced around, leaping to avoid thrusts, kicking with one foot against the shafts, and flicking the rapier point at them. Then Frigate, covered with blood, ran up holding a strange weapon. For a moment, Burton did not know what it was. When it was brought up and down against one of the cards, Burton recognized it. It was the Caterpillar's hookah. In short order, Frigate had smashed down two of the cards, and Li Po had run the other through twice.

  Burton turned again to help those fighting the Jabberwock. Maglenna was running straight at it, his sword held high.

  With his vorpal blade, Burton thought.

  A dozen men and women were still harassing the monster; a dozen were protecting the attackers' backs. While Maglenna was running, the rear guard was cut down to six, and some androids immediately launched themselves at the other humans after dispatching the wounded. These caught four of the Jabberwock attackers from behind, and the rest of the humans were caught between the great beast and the other androids. Maglenna ignored all of them. He leaped from a body just as the Jabberwock dipped its head to close its jaws around the head of a man. Burton could hear the Scot's war cry from across the field. Maglenna was going to sever that thick neck, no doubt about it. Unfortunately, the corpse he used as a launching platform turned a little under his foot, and the tip of his blade only nicked the scaly neck. He fell flat on his face, his blade flying from his hand at the impact. He was up quickly, looking for his weapon, but the Jabberwock opened its mouth and dropped the lifeless body on top of Maglenna. He pushed it aside and stood up. The gigantic jaws seized his head and shoulders, and his writhing body was lifted up. It came down minus head and shoulders, which were spit out a moment later.

  He could hear Alice's scream through all the noise; he knew it from long experience. Turning, he saw her standing horrified, the back of her hand over her mouth, her eyes huge dark holes.

  He also saw the Red Knight on his galloping horse, charging toward him, the spike-knobbed club held high. The crimson armor and the horse- head- shaped helmet were a terrible sight. The beat of the horse's hooves was like the roll of a drum just before the gallows trapdoor was dropped.

  Burton shifted the saber to his left hand, stopped, picked up a spear, and braced himself for the throw. His target was not the Red Knight but its charger. When the armored thing was thirty feet away, he cast the spear, and its sharp broad head plunged into the horse's shoulder. It fell forward, turning over. Its rider flew through the air and landed with a crash of steel upon the grass. Burton took the saber in his right hand and ran to the horse, which was starting to get up, and he slashed its jugular. It, too, had been programmed to kill; it had bitten and kicked while its rider was swinging its club; it had to be made harmless first.

  The Knight lay prone and motionless. Burton turned the heavy body over and undid the helmet fastenings. He had to make sure that the thing was dead, not just unconscious. Seeing the face, he recoiled with shock. It was his face.

  "One of Alice's jokes," he said.

  He rose, looked at the dead features, and thought of how strange it was to see himself as a corpse. He gazed over the field between him and the foot of the hill. There were bodies everywhere, some in heaps. The only one standing in that direction was Alice, who was just pulling her rapier from a Humpty Dumpty. Her tears were washing the blood from her face.

  Then he saw Star Spoon running down the hill with a beamer in each hand. She had fled, but only to get weapons from the house that would assure their victory, though she might be the only one left alive.

  He turned. There were ten androids on their feet, not counting the Jabberwock. Three humans were still fighting, Li Po, a black man and a white woman, one of Aphra Behn's friends. The woman went down under a rain of swordstrokes as he watched.

  The Jabberwock, breathing in short unsteady gasps, waddled toward the cluster of battlers. It turned when it got near, and its tail whipped out, catching three androids and the black man. Li Po rapiered the White Queen in front of him and ran for the parking area. There were still three chairs there.

  Frigate came from somewhere and also headed toward the chairs. The remaining androids hacked at the fallen black man before pursuing the two men.

  The Jabberwock swung its head from left to right, saw Burton, and lumbered toward him.

  The field was comparatively quiet now, but, suddenly, Burton heard a motor turning over. That was followed by a series of explosions, and Bill Williams, bloody but grinning, rode his cycle from behind the little house with the chimneys like rabbit's ears and the fur- covered roof. Burton did not know what he had been doing there or how he had gotten his cycle there. Perhaps he had pushed it there during the fray, intending to get away at an opportune moment. Perhaps, and this was more likely, he was just waiting for a chance to use it. Or he might have gotten the machine hidde
n and then fainted from his wounds. Recovering, he had followed his original plan. Whatever had happened, and Burton was never to know, the fellow was now doing what only he could have thought of.

  As the monster advanced toward Burton, not turning its head to find the source of the new noise, Williams speeded up the machine. Dodging around the bodies, sometimes driving over an outstretched arm or leg, Williams sped straight at the side of Jabberwock, and he smashed his motorcycle into its ribs.

  So great was the impact, the Jabberwock was moved a few inches to one side. Williams flew headlong over its back and slammed into the ground. The monster raised its head as high as the neck could reach, gave a great bawling cry, and died.

  Burton ran to Williams and turned him over. He was dead, his face smashed and his neck broken.

  Though doomed, the androids advanced toward Burton as programmed. They never reached him. Frigate's and Li Po's chairs smashed into them and knocked them down again and again until they could no longer get up. Then the two men got out of the chairs and finished their work.

  Burton heard a gasp behind him. Turning, he saw that Star Spoon had slipped and fallen on her face. She had let the beamers loose to soften the fall with her hands. He walked up to her and picked her up. Sobbing, she went into his arms.

  Except for the weeping of Alice, Star Spoon and Frigate, the field was silent. Only he, those three, and Li Po had survived. No. The Blue Caterpillar was sitting on the giant mushroom, and the rocking- horse- fly, a creature too fragile to have been programmed to kill, was alive. They did not, however, count.

  He felt more weary, more emptied than he had ever felt in his long life. He was in shock, numb, the world around him seeming alien and drifting way.

  "Who could have done this horrible thing?" Alice wailed.

  Who, indeed?

  At that moment, William Gull groaned and sat up from the dead.

  33

  * * *

  Though covered with blood, the Englishman was uninjured except for a bump on the back of his head.

  "I was knocked out, and some of those killed fell on top of me. The androids did not see me."

  He gingerly touched his head and grimaced.

  "You were very fortunate," Burton said dully. "I think you were the only one who went down who escaped beheading."

  Why did Gull have the good luck? Why couldn't Nur or de Marbot or Behn have been spared?

  No, that did not matter, he told himself. They can be resurrected.

  And then he knew that the murderer would have insured that they would stay dead. Why bother to kill them if they could be brought back? It made no sense.

  He would have to find out about that. Just now, they must recover from their exhaustion and shock. Then the dead must be converted into ashes; the horrible mess cleaned up.

  "Let's go to the house," he said. "There's nothing to be gained by staying here."

  First, though, he must take precautions to guard himself and the others. He picked up the two beamers and said, "Star Spoon, were there any androids in the house when you got these?"

  "I didn't see any," she said. Her voice was empty of expression as her face.

  "We'll have to do everything for ourselves," he said. "We can't trust the androids."

  He stopped walking. The beamers seemed rather light. He opened the bottom of the beamer butts and looked into the receptacles for the powerpacks. He swore. They were empty.

  He showed them to Star Spoon and said, "These would have been useless."

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I was too excited to notice."

  She shuddered. "It's a good thing I didn't have to use them."

  "Yes. But whoever did this is very clever. Only . . ."

  They were trudging up the hill, every step forward seeming to be in a thick and heavy substance, as if they were walking at the bottom of a treacle well.

  "What?" she said.

  "Why didn't the killer have the androids take the beamers from the house and kill us with them? It would have been very easy. We wouldn't have had a chance."

  Li Po had been listening in. He said, "Perhaps the killer likes the sight of blood. Or it may be that he wanted us to suffer or to think that we might survive. As it turned out . . ."

  "He won't stop," Burton said.

  "He failed," the Chinese said. "All we have to do is raise our friends, and he will be . . ."

  His mouth fell open. "Ah! What if he has inhibited their resurrection?"

  "Exactly," Burton said. "Well, we'll soon find out."

  Frigate caught up with them. He looked behind, and Burton turned to see what he was staring at. Gull was far behind them, moving slowly up the slope.

  "I could be overly suspicious," the American said, "but don't you think it's funny that he wasn't killed after he fell? I have no evidence for my suspicions, but, after all, he was Jack the Ripper. Maybe he played it safe, programmed the androids to spare him. He might even have fixed it so that one would knock him out or tap him lightly on the head if it looked as if we'd win. I hate to say these things, but we can't take any chances now."

  "I've thought of the same thing," Burton said. "However, his story could be true."

  They walked the rest of the way in silence. The sky was still blue, and the sun was about where it would be at six o'clock. He thought of what the Mad Hatter had said. "It's always six o'clock here."

  The birds were singing again in the woods, and an angry squirrel was scolding something, probably one of Alice's cats. The wild animals must have been frightened into silence by the uproar, but now that that had ceased, they had resumed normal life. All the noise and the babel meant nothing to them after they had passed. Those innocent creatures lived only in the present; the past was forgotten.

  He envied them their innocence and unawareness of time.

  They paused to catch their breaths in the large and beautiful garden of flowers at the top of the hill. Burton scanned the sky, wondering if the chairs were pressing against the blue wall somewhere out there. They would keep doing that until their power supply weakened, and then they would settle down slowly into the trees.

  They entered the huge empty house — he hoped it was empty — and they searched every room, their weapons ready. Satisfied that no one, human or android, was hiding in ambush, they showered. After putting on new clean clothes, simple robes, they met in the large library. By then the antishock pills given by the Computer were doing their work. They were still very tired and dispirited, however. The drinks did not seem to help much. Nor was anybody hungry.

  "Well, there's no use putting it off," Burton said, and he seated himself in front of the computer console. Though he dreaded to ask the question, he did so. And what he did not want to hear was what the Computer, through the computer, told him.

  The dead, Nur, Turpin, Sophie, de Marbot, Aphra, all the slain, could not be raised. Someone had inhibited the raising, and the Computer would not say who that person was.

  "Oh, my God!" Alice said, and she moaned. "I had Monty for six days, and now he's gone forever!"

  "I wouldn't say forever," Burton said. "We'll find a way to cancel the overrides. Some day."

  "We should warn the others," Alice said.

  "The others?" Burton said. "Oh, you mean those in Turpinville. And Netley and his people and the gypsies."

  "Tell the gypsies," Frigate said. "Never mind those who threw Tom and me out of our places. They don't deserve to be warned. What they do deserve . . . well . . ."

  "I understand your feelings," Burton said, "but, in a way, they're our allies. The Snark or whoever the killer is won't be attacking just us."

  "How do you know that?" Frigate said.

  "I don't know that, but we must warn them."

  He tried Turpinville first. Though the screen was activated, there was no reply, and they could see only a dim diffuse dark amber light.

  Burton was about to try Netley when Li Po said, "Wait! I thought I saw something!"

  "What is it?" Burton said,
squinting his eyes — as if that would help.

  "Something dark. Moving," Li Po said.

  The others crowded around the console. They, too, squinted.

  "I don't see anything," Burton said.

  "You don't have my eagle eyes," Li Po said. He pointed. "There! Can't you see it? It's dark, and it's moving, though very slowly. Wait."

  Presently, Burton could see a dark vague bulk. It swelled almost imperceptibly, taking a near-unendurable time to float nearer. Minutes passed, and then the outlines became more distinct. Alice gasped and said, "It's a man!"

  Burton asked the Computer to make the area .brighter if it could. The fluid — it had to be a fluid since the man was floating in it — was illuminated a little. More minutes passed, and then they could see the face of a black man, eyes staring and mouth open.

  "I don't know what's happened," Burton said, "but something horrible has. The screen for receiving messages from outside Turpin's world is in the room next to Turpin's office. Obviously, it's filled with water or some kind of liquid."

  "That can't be!" Star Spoon said.

  "Oh, yes, it can. The Computer can do almost anything."

  "Try Netley's," Frigate said.

  Burton did so. This time, the screen showed them a clearer fluid. They could not see very far into it, but they could distinguish a shadowy bulk that looked like a sofa. Near it was a small dark object too fuzzy to be identified. But it was floating. It could be a plastic bottle of some sort, partly full, perhaps, and buoyed by the air in it.

  "Definitely another flood," Burton said.

  "Ask the Computer if it knows what happened," Frigate said.

  Burton glared at him. "Don't be a stupid ass. Whoever did this would command the Computer not to tell us anything."

  "You don't know. Maybe the Snark doesn't care. Maybe he'd like us to know. Anyway, if he thought that we'd all be dead, no one around to question it, why conceal anything?"

  "Anything is possible. Sorry about the remark."

  Burton asked the Computer if it had made recordings of the recent events in Turpinville and Frigate's world. It replied that it had. Burton then ordered it to run off the pictures of Turpinville, starting from the moment that the liquid had poured into that world.