Riverworld03- The Dark Design (1977) Read online

  That was a bad analogy. People used their intellect to justify the nonintellective, emotionally based phenomenon called religion. Often brilliantly. But, as far as she was concerned, uselessly.

  Piscator said, "You are going to sleep. Good. If you need me, though, feel free to call on me."

  "You're no physician," she said. "Why should you . . ."

  "You have potential. And though you sometimes act foolishly, you are no fool. Though you have fooled yourself from time to time and still are. Good night."

  "Good night."

  He bowed quickly and walked out, closing the door behind him. She started to call out, but she stopped. She had wanted to ask him what he was doing near the hut when he had heard her. It was too late. Nor was it important. Still . . . what had he been doing here? Had he intended to seduce her? Rape was out of the question, of course. She was bigger than he, and though he probably was a master of the martial arts, so was she. Moreover, his position as an airship officer would be seriously jeopardized if she were to accuse him.

  No, he would not have been here either to seduce or to rape. He did not give the impression that he was that type of man. On the other hand, no matter how nice they acted, weren't they all? No, there was something about him – she hated to use the imprecise and unscientifically founded term vibrations – but there it was. He did not radiate that length of frequency classified as "bad vibes."

  It was then she realized that he had not asked her to describe her experience. If he had been curious, he had managed not to show it. Perhaps he had felt that she would have volunteered if she had wanted to share the details with him. He was a very sensitive man, very perceptive.

  What did that horrifying attack by Jack mean? That she was afraid of him, of men in general? Of the male sex? Of sex itself when in male form? She could not believe that. But the illusion? delusion? visitation? had revealed certain feelings of hate and destruction. Not just for men in general and for Jack in particular. She had set him afire but she had also burned and raped herself – in a sense. Which made no sense. She certainly did not subconsciously wish to be raped. Only a mentally sick woman would desire that.

  Did she hate herself? The answer was, yes, at times. But who didn't?

  Some time later, she sank into an uneasy sleep. Once, she dreamed of Cyrano de Bergerac. They were fencing with epées. The circling point of his blade dazzled her, and then her weapon was knocked up and his leaped in and its point sank deep into her navel. She looked down in surprise at the blade as it withdrew, but the navel did not spout blood. Instead, it swelled and thickened and then a tiny dagger issued from the tumor.

  Chapter 18

  * * *

  The shock of cold water fully awoke Burton. For a minute, he was completely beneath the surface, and he did not know which way was up in the darkness.

  There was only one way to find out. After five strokes, he felt the pressure on his eardrums increasing. Reversing position, he swam in what he hoped was the opposite direction. For all he knew, he was moving horizontally. But the pressure eased, and just as he feared he could not possibly hold his breath anymore, he broke the surface.

  At the same time, something rammed into the back of his head, knocking him half-senseless again. His flailing hand hit an object and he grabbed it. Though he could see nothing in the mists, he could feel the thing that was holding him up. A massive log.

  Bedlam was around him, screams, shouts, someone nearby calling for help. He released his hold as soon as he had regained all his senses and swam toward the woman crying for aid. As he neared her, he realized that it was Loghu's voice. A few strokes brought him to her, close enough to see her face dimly.

  "Take it easy," he said. "It's me, Dick!"

  Loghu seized him by the shoulders, and they both went down. He fought her, pushed her away, then grabbed her from behind.

  Loghu said something in her native Tokharian. He answered her in the same tongue.

  "Don't panic. We'll be all right."

  Loghu, gasping, said, "I've got hold of something. I won't sink."

  He released her and reached around her. Another log. The collision must have torn some of the forward logs loose. But where was the boat and where was the raft? And where were Loghu and he?

  It seemed probable that they had fallen into the gap made when the lashings of the logs of the raft had been torn loose. But the current would by now surely have carried the intact part against the rock, crushing everything between it and the rock. Had they been carried around the corner of the spire and were now drifting with the current?

  If so, they were in a tangle of logs and pieces from the boat. They kept bumping against him and Loghu.

  She moaned and said, "I think my leg's broken, Dick. It hurts so."

  The log to which they were clinging was very thick and long, its ends so distant they could not be seen through the fog. They had to dig into the rough bark with their fingers. It would not be long before they would lose their grip.

  Suddenly Monat's voice tore through the greyness.

  "Dick! Loghu! Are you out there?"

  Burton shouted, and a moment later something rapped along the log. It struck his fingers, causing him to yell with pain and to slip back into the water. He struggled back up, and then the end of a pole shot like a striking snake in ambush from the fog. It grazed his left cheek. A little to the right and it would have stunned him, perhaps broken his skull.

  He seized it and called out that he was to be pulled in.

  "Loghu's here, too," he said. "Be careful with that pole!"

  He was dragged in by Monat to the edge of the raft where Kazz pulled him out with a single heave. Monat then stuck the pole into the darkness. A minute later, Loghu was drawn in. She was half-unconscious.

  "Get some cloths and wrap her up in them. Keep her warm," he told Kazz.

  "Will do, Burton-naq," the Neanderthal said. He turned and was enfolded in the mist.

  Burton sat down on the wet, smooth surface of the raft. "Where are the others? Is Alice all right?"

  "They're all here except Owenone," Monat said. "Alice seems to have some broken ribs. Frigate hurt his knee. As for the boat, it's gone."

  Before he could recover from this shock, he saw torches flaring. They drew nearer, casting light enough for him to see their bearers. There were a dozen of them, short, dark-faced Caucasians with large, hooked noses, clad from head to foot in cloths of many stripes and colors. Their only arms were flint knives, all sheathed.

  One of them spoke in a language which Burton thought was Semitic. If so, it was an ancient form of that family. He could understand a few words here and there, though. He replied in Esperanto, and the speaker switched to that.

  There followed a swift dialog. Apparently, the man on the tower had fallen asleep because he had been drinking. He had survived the fall from the tower when the raft had crashed, into the island and toppled him and the man whom Burton had seen climb up to him.

  The second man had not been so lucky. He had died of a broken neck. As for the luck of the pilot, it had run out on him. He had been thrown overboard by his enraged fellows.

  The great grinding noises Burton had heard before the boat struck came from the collision of the tip of the V-shaped prow with the docks and then the hard rock of the beach. This had crumpled the front half of the V and torn loose many of the fish-leather lashings. The V had also, absorbed much of the shock, preventing more of the raft from being ripped apart.

  A section of the northwest side had been ripped off, but it was forced on by the main body. It was this jumble of massive logs which had rammed into the Hadji II, crushing the lower half of the back part. After the torn-off front half of the boat had fallen into the water, the back half, knocked apart by the great blow, had fallen down from – and through – the log jam.

  Burton had been thrown forward by the impact against the rock, had fallen back onto the deck, and then had been tilted off it as it slid into the water.

  The crew
was indeed lucky that no one had been killed or seriously hurt. No, Owenone was yet to be accounted for.

  There were more things to find out. Just now, the wounded had to be attended to. He made his way to where the others lay beneath the blaze of three torches. Alice put out her arms to him and cried when he embraced her.

  "Don't squeeze me," she said. "My side hurts."

  A man came to him and said that he had been appointed to take care of them. The two women were carried by some raftsmen, while Frigate, groaning, hobbled along supported by Kazz. By then the daylight had increased somewhat so they could see further. After progressing for perhaps 61 meters or over 200 feet; they stopped before a large bamboo hut thatched with the great irontree leaves. This was secured to the raft by leather ropes tied at one end to pegs fitted into drilled holes in the logs.

  Inside the hut was a stone platform on which a small fire burned. The injured were laid near this on bamboo beds. By then the fog was getting thinner. The light increased and presently they were startled by a noise like a thousand cannon shells exploding at once. No matter how often they heard it, they jumped.

  The grailstones had spouted their energy.

  "No breakfast for us," Burton said.

  He raised his head abruptly.

  "The grails? Did anyone get the grails?"

  Monat said, "No, they were lost with the boat." His face twisted with grief, and he wept. "Owenone must have drowned!"

  They looked at each other in the firelight. Their faces were still pale from their ordeal; even so, they lost a shade of color.

  Some of them groaned. Burton cursed. He too felt grief for Owenone, but he and his crew were beggars, dependent upon the charity of others. It was better to be dead than without a grail, and in the old days those who had lost theirs could, and often did, commit suicide. The next day they would wake up, far from their friends and mates, but at least with their own source of food and luxuries.

  "Well," Frigate said, "we can eat fish and acorn bread."

  "For the rest of our lives?" Burton said, sneering. "Which may be forever for all we know."

  "Just trying to look on the bright side of things," the American said. "Though even that is pretty dim."

  "Why don't we deal with things as they come up?" Alice said. "For the moment, I'd like my ribs seen to, and I'm sure poor Loghu would like her broken bone set and splinted."

  The man who had conducted them there arranged for treatment of the injured. After this was done and the pains of his patients had been eased with pieces of dreamgum, he went outside. Burton, Kazz, and Monat followed him inside. By then the sun was burning away the fog. Within a few minutes it would all be gone.

  The scene was appalling. The entire V-shaped prow of the raft had broken up when its point had ridden up onto the beach and its port side had smashed into a corner of the spire. The docks and the boats of the Ganopo were smashed, buried somewhere in the pile of logs on the beach. The main part of the raft had also slid for at least 13 meters onto the shore. Several hundreds of the raftspeople were standing at the edge of the wreck, talking animatedly but doing nothing constructive.

  To the left, logs were jammed against the sheer wall of the spire by the current. There was no sign of the Hadji II, or of Owenone. Burton's hope that he might be able to retrieve at least a few grails was not going to be realized.

  He looked around the raft. Even though it had lost its forepart, it was still immense. It had to be at least 660 feet or 201 meters long with a breadth at its widest of 122 meters. Its stem was also V shaped.

  In the center was the large, round, black object he had seen floating above the mists. It was the head of an idol 30 feet or over 9 meters tall. Black, squat, and ugly, it dominated the raft. It was sitting cross-legged, and its spine bore lizardlike crests. The head was a demon's, its blue eyes glaring, its wide, snarling mouth displaying many great white sharkish teeth.

  These, Burton assumed, had been removed from a dragonfish and set within the scarlet gums.

  In the middle of its huge paunch was a round hole. Inside this was a stone hearth on which a small pile of wood blazed. Its smoke rose within the body and curled out of the batlike ears of the idol.

  Forward, near the edge of the raft, the watch tower lay on its side, its supports broken off at the base by the force of the collision. A body still lay near it.

  There were some large buildings here and there with many smaller ones among them. A few of the smaller ones had collapsed, and one of the big constructions leaned crazily.

  He counted ten tall masts with square-rigged sails and twenty shorter ones with fore– and-aft rigs. All of the sails were furled.

  Alongside the edges were a number of racks holding boats of various sizes.

  Behind the idol was the largest building of all. He supposed that this was the house of the chief or perhaps a temple. Or both.

  Presently wooden trumpets blew and drums beat. Seeing the people streaming toward the great building, Burton decided to join them. They congregated between the idol and the building. Burton stood behind the mob where he could hear the proceedings but at the same time examine the statue. A little discreet scratching with a flint knife revealed that it was adobe covered with a black paint. He wondered where the paint for the body, eyes, and gums had been obtained. Pigments were rare, much to the sorrow of artists.

  The chief, or the head priest, was taller than the others though still half a head shorter than Burton. He wore a cape and kilt with blue, black, and red stripes and an oaken crown with six points. His right hand held a long shepherd's staff of oak. He spoke from a platform at the building's entrance, gesturing often with the staff, his black eyes fiery, his mouth spewing a torrent of which Burton understood not one word. After about half an hour he got down from the platform, and the crowd broke up into various work parties.

  Some of these went to the island to clear away the logs which had broken from the prow and piled onto the main body. Others went to the starboard rearside, where the V-shaped stern joined the main part. These lifted huge oars and fitted them to locks. Then, like a gang of galley slaves, working to a rhythm beat out on a drum, they began rowing.

  Apparently, they were trying to bring the stern around so that the current would catch it on one side and then swing the entire raft. As soon as the vessel presented enough of its starboard side to the current, it would be turned around enough to be free of the island.

  That was the theory, but the practice failed. It became apparent that the log jam would have to be cleared first and then leverage applied to push the front part from the beach.

  Burton wished to talk to the headman, but he had gone around to the front of the idol and was bowing rapidly and chanting to it. Whatever Burton had learned or not learned, he knew that it was dangerous to interrupt a religious ritual.

  He strolled around, stopping to look at the dugouts, canoes, and small sailboats in racks or on slides along the edge of the raft. Then he poked around the larger buildings. Most of these had doors which were barred on the outside. Making sure that no one was noticing him, he entered several.

  Two were storehouses of dried fish and acorn bread. One was crammed with weapons. Another was a boatshed containing two half-finished dugouts and the pine framework of a canoe. In time the latter would be covered with fish-skin. The fifth building held a variety of artifacts: boxes of oak rings for trading, spiral bones and the unicornlike horns of the hornfish, piles of fish – and human – leather, drums, bamboo flutes, harps with hornfish guts for strings, skulls fashioned into drinking cups, ropes of fiber and fish-skin, piles of dried dragonfish intestines, suitable for sails, stone lamps for burning fish-oil, boxes of lipstick, face-paint, marijuana, cigarettes , cigars, lighters (all doubtless saved up for trading or tribute), about fifty ritual masks, and many more items.

  When he went into the sixth building, he smiled. This was where the grails were kept. The tall grey cylinders were stacked in wooden racks, waiting for their owners. He count
ed three hundred and fifty. One grail for each of the approximately three hundred and ten raftspeople meant that there were thirty extra grails.

  A few minutes' inspection showed him that all but thirty were tagged. The others had cords tied around the handles of the tops, the other ends of which cords were connected to baked clay tablets bearing cuneiform writing. These were the names of their owners. He examined some of the incised marks, which looked like those he had seen in photographs of Babylonian and Assyrian documents.

  He tried to raise the lids of a number of the tagged cylinders but failed, of course. There was some sort of mechanism preventing anyone but its owner from opening it. There were several theories about the operation, one being that a sensitive device inside the grail detected the electrical field of the owner's skin and then activated an opening mechanism.

  However, the untagged grails were of a different kind, called "freebies" by some English speakers.

  When over thirty-six billion of Earth's dead had awakened whole and young along the immense stretch of The River, they had found a personal grail at their side. At the same time, each of the grailstones bore in its central depression one grail. This apparently had been provided by the resurrectors to show the new citizens just how their grails worked.

  Each stone had vomited noise and light, and when the thunder and lightning had ceased, curious people had climbed onto the stones to look into the grails left there. The lids were raised, and the contents were revealed. Wonder of wonders, joy of joys! The hollow interior held snap-down racks on which were dishes and cups full of food and various goodies!

  The next time the stones discharged, the private grails were on the stones, and these, too, supplied everything they needed and more, though human nature was such that many people complained because there wasn't more variety.'