The Gods of Riverworld Read online

  Burton approached the Frenchman, who backed away. “Spare my precious lungs that vile poison!” he cried.

  “A man could die happy breathing this,” Burton said. “However, as you said, non disputandum de gustibus. Did you inform Aphra that she might join us in our next venture if she wished?”

  “That, yes, I did,” de Marbot said. “Unfortunately, I could not tell her just what that venture was.”

  Burton handed him a note. De Marbot read it and looked up. “What…?”

  He came close to the Englishman and stood on his tiptoes to talk into Burton’s ear. Burton still had to lean over.

  “We will, I will, anyway, be ready. But … you can give me no indication, no clue, as to what you have in mind?”

  “It’s best not to.”

  “Ah, how intriguing,” de Marbot said. “May the realization come up to my expectation. Danger, romance, skullduggery, an open charge upon the enemy or a silent stealth, apprehension, uncertainty, a task demanding all of one’s courage and a straining of one’s steel nerves.”

  “All of those,” Burton said. “Perhaps.”

  8

  A few minutes after one in the morning, Burton parked his chair outside de Marbot’s and Behn’s apartment. The door, as he had required, was open. He went into the big living room, the shadowless illumination coming on just as he passed through the doorway. He went down the hall and knocked on the bedroom door. Sleepily, de Marbot called, “Quelle?”

  “C’est moi, naturellement,” Burton said.

  A moment later, the Englishwoman and the Frenchman stumbled through the doorway, rubbing their eyes.

  “You owe me six hours of sleep,” the Frenchman said. “How does one repay such a debt?”

  “With six hours’ loss on my part,” Burton said. “But this is for your benefit, also, so I owe you nothing.”

  De Marbot had put on a towel-kilt, and Aphra was wearing a delicate black lace bra and black panties.

  De Marbot said, “Hey, my cabbage, is that all you care to don?”

  “It’s what I always wear for midnight assignations,” she said.

  De Marbot laughed, hugged her, and kissed her cheek.

  “My wild English rose. Always the unexpected, the delightful.”

  She was, however, deceiving him. She went back into the bedroom and reappeared clad in a thin blouse, a short skirt, and ankle-length boots. By then Burton had ordered three large mugs of Brazilian coffee from the converter. They sipped while he told them that he would explain just what they would do when they got to their destination.

  “Sealed orders,” de Marbot said. “But the enemy, he is watching and listening to us. We are like the cat with a bell around his neck.”

  “By the time we get through, he won’t be able to see or hear us,” Burton said.

  De Marbot’s eyebrows rose, and he smiled.

  “Ah! I anticipate, I quiver, I revolve inside myself with excitement.”

  “There’s a lot of work involved,” Burton said. “You’ll be tired before we’re done.”

  “Not I. I am a man of iron, and Aphra, she is hard as platinum and twice the worth of that worthy metal in her weight.”

  “Which is increasing,” she said, patting her hip.

  Burton gestured impatiently, and they followed him to the corridor. They were armed with two beamers and knives, though they had no reason to expect to use them. They got into their chairs, and Burton flew in the lead. He steered the chair down the shaft to the level even with the surface of the cold dark sea surrounding the tower.

  When Burton stopped the chair, de Marbot said, “This is not far from Loga’s secret room.”

  Burton nodded and indicated that they should go into the nearest room, the laboratory that he had visited the day before. Aphra looked around it and said, softly, “He must be wondering what we’re up to. He’s no more puzzled than I.”

  “Richard is the general,” de Marbot said, “and he tells us common soldiers as little as possible. It is an ancient tradition.”

  Burton ignored their remarks. He went to the largest converter and ordered parts of stepladders, five hundred spray cans filled with black paint, a dozen powerful lamps, and a small nuclear-powered air generator.

  “Mon Dieu!” de Marbot said. “We are to be house painters! And what else?”

  Burton began removing the equipment, emptying the converter when the first consignment appeared, closing the door of the converter, waiting a few seconds until the second consignment had filled the cabinet, and then removing this. When this was done, he told the two to take out the spray cans while he put the sections of the stepladders together.

  De Marbot looked at Aphra with raised eyebrows as if to say, “What next?” She shrugged and, sweating, bent to her work. De Marbot, now sweating also, said, “Hey, my little cabbage. We must pay for all that divine food and exquisite wine, isn’t it?”

  “You pay for everything,” she said.

  Breathing hard, Aphra straightened up and looked at the wall in front of her. “The watcher is like God,” she said. “He knows everything we are doing. I only hope that, like God, he is indifferent to what we do.”

  “Unlike God, the Snark sleeps,” Burton said. “And he is limited by his body, like all us mortals. And his intelligence, though it may be great, is also limited.”

  “Perhaps, like God, he does not exist,” de Marbot said.

  “That’s a possibility,” Burton said. “There! The stepladders are done.”

  “Could we not have some androids to help us?” de Marbot said. “Perhaps to do all the labor? We shall be the supervisors who loll around, taking our ease while the helots sweat for us.”

  “I don’t want to risk using them,” Burton said. “To the task. Each of you start at a corner at the far end.”

  He had asked the Computer for an estimate of the number of cans needed to spray the area. Now he asked for two wheelbarrows, took them from the converter, and piled one high with cans. While the others stood near the tops of the stepladders and covered the ceiling corners with the paint, he wheeled the cans not needed in the room into the corridor. After four trips, he told the Computer to furnish him with twelve cans of quick-drying spray cement. Having gotten these, he took them out into the corridor. Then he ordered the number of bricks he needed, also estimated by the Computer.

  De Marbot, watching him, said, “There is nothing like using the enemy to fight him.”

  There was one thing that Burton had to make sure of before he continued, though whether or not the door to Loga’s room still opened he would complete the first part of his project. He knocked on the wall, said, “Ah Qaaq!” and watched as the entrance wheel rolled into the recess. He had not been sure that the Snark had not inhibited the operation since Burton’s first visit. Now he stuck a chair in the opening to assure that the door could not close if the Snark changed his mind and decided to shut it permanently.

  Burton had done many things on Earth. Bricklaying was not one of them, but he had often observed Arab workmen building adobe brick walls. In any event, the erection was simple. He laid a row from one wall to another a few feet from the doorway to Loga’s room. He sprayed the top of the row and set another layer on top of that. By the time he had laid the last brick of that row, the cement—it was really a glue—had dried.

  Pausing only to drink water twice, he sealed in that area of corridor from side to side, top to bottom.

  He went to the other side of the entrance to the laboratory and began laying bricks there. Aphra stuck her head out of the door and said, “We’re almost finished with the walls.” Sweat ran from down her face and soaked her garments.

  He went into the room and looked around. “Inspect what you’ve done,” he said. “Make sure that every square inch is covered. Then spray the floor. When you’re done, tell me.”

  Groaning in mock-agony, de Marbot moved his stepladder to where he had begun spraying and climbed up it. Burton returned to his bricklaying. Working quickly
and efficiently, he blocked off that part of the corridor. By the time he was done, de Marbot came to him.

  “It’s finished. Not a bit of wall, ceiling or floor is uncovered. The Snark may put all the screens he wishes on them. He’ll be as blind as I am ignorant of your ultimate intentions.”

  Burton went to the laboratory and said, “Now spray the windows in the doors of the converters. And move any furniture that can be moved, and spray the bare spots where they were.”

  De Marbot gestured at the two mobile coverters. “Under them, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you move them? We have been working like Samson at Gaza, but we are not as strong as he.”

  “Use your flying chairs to slide them from the bare spots.”

  De Marbot struck his forehead with the heel of his palm. “Of course! How stupid of me! It is that I am not used to menial labor! It has dredged my intelligence from me!”

  “Don’t carry on so,” Burton said. “You would have thought of it!”

  “It is not military work,” the Frenchman said, as if that explained it.

  Aphra went into the corridor with Burton. “How do we get out now?”

  “The bricks are ordinary ones, made of clay.”

  Behn pointed at his beamer and looked at him. Burton nodded.

  “Then how will that keep him … the Snark … out?”

  “It won’t.”

  He looked at his wristwatch. “We’ve much to do yet.”

  Aphra shook her head and said, “I just don’t know what you have in mind.”

  “You’ll see. In time.”

  He took a stepladder, set it up by the corner of the brick wall and began spraying. When he had worked down to the door of the laboratory, having painted ceiling, walls, and floor of the corridor, he looked inside. The power cables connected to the bases of the two mobile converters had been disconnected, and the cabinets had been shoved onto the painted floor. The bare areas beneath were sprayed, and his coworkers were leaning against a wall and drinking water. Aphra Behn was also smoking a cigar.

  “As soon as you’re rested,” Burton said, “come help me paint the corridor.”

  When de Marbot came out, he stopped, his eyes widening.

  “Sacred blue! You have painted the brick wall!”

  “Yes,” Burton said. “The bricks seem to be just clay. I broke one open to examine it. But it’s possible that the Snark inserted some conductive material in it. I want to make sure that he can’t see us through it.”

  “Not very likely,” de Marbot said.

  “We take no chances.”

  “Ah, you bloody British! No wonder we lost the war.”

  De Marbot was not sincere. He maintained, furiously and with great conviction and many facts, that it was the mistakes and errors of Napoleon’s marshals—and a few by the Corsican—that had caused the downfall of the empire. If his brave countrymen had been led by men who always made the right decisions, they would have been unbeatable.

  Burton, so far, had refrained from pointing out that the same might be said for any army.

  By the time that they had spray painted the corridor and Loga’s room, it was 5:00 A.M.

  The light and air from the wall material and vents had been cut off, but the lamps and air generator replaced these.

  De Marbot said, “Voilà! C’est fini! I think.”

  “You think incorrectly,” Burton said. “Now we move the largest converter into the secret room.”

  This was done by shoving the cabinet with a flying chair, Burton standing by the chair and operating the controls. The task took ten minutes, and the top and sides of the converter scraped against the round entrance. Having, the day before, measured the dimensions of the cabinet and of the doorway, Burton knew that it would be a tight but workable fit. When he had maneuvered the cabinet from the laboratory and into the secret room, he connected the cable to the power inlet of the cabinet.

  Aphra Behn said, “You’ve covered the area that detects the entrance codeword. What do you plan to do if you want to get in again? Or will you leave the door open?”

  “The paint can be easily scraped away over the area if it’s necessary,” Burton said.

  The Frenchman gestured at the walls. “Everything is impenetrable. The Snark can no longer see or hear us. May we be permitted to know what you intend to do now?”

  The light from the lamps on the floor drew heavy shadows on their faces and made them look like masks. The masks of tired and desperate people. The blue eyes of de Marbot and Behn, however, seemed to shine with an unflagging light. Their wills were not weary.

  “The power line to the converter is tapped in to the main power line,” Burton said. “But it is not in the Computer’s schematic files, and any power through it is not recorded by the Computer. Not, that is, unless the Snark has changed things. We can make whatever we wish, and the Snark won’t have the slightest idea of what we’re doing. He’ll know we’re up to something, and he’ll be concerned about it. But he can’t find out what it is unless he comes down here. He’ll have to investigate personally.”

  “That ain’t so,” Aphra said. “He could send androids.”

  “If he’s sentient, that is, human, he’ll be as curious as a monkey. He’ll want to look into this himself.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Did you tell the others anything?” de Marbot said.

  “No. I didn’t feel it was necessary.”

  The Frenchman looked at his wristwatch.

  “In about two and a half hours, some of our companions will be meeting for breakfast. You’re always there. Won’t they look for you?”

  “Probably. And they won’t find me. Eventually, they’ll know that you two have disappeared, too.”

  “They’ll think the Snark took us!” Aphra said. “They’ll be very worried.”

  “It’ll shake them from their lethargy,” Burton said. “They won’t be bored, at least.”

  “That’s a little cruel,” Aphra said.

  “And they’ll come looking for us,” de Marbot said.

  “There’s not much chance they’ll find us,” Burton said. “Not when they have thirty-five thousand, seven hundred and ninety-three rooms to search.”

  “But they can use the Computer, it’ll scan for them. And when it reports…”

  He stopped, smiled, and said, “Ah, I see. The Snark may, probably will, prevent the Computer from telling them where we are.”

  “They’ll be searching for us, and the Snark will have to keep tabs on them,” Burton said. “I hope they’ll provide some distraction for him.”

  “Yes, but,” Aphra said, “they could have done the same thing if you told them to do so, and they wouldn’t be upset about our being missing.”

  “The fewer know about us, the better. If they truly believe we’re missing, they won’t be acting. I’m not sure that the Snark wouldn’t detect their insincerity. After all, he can read their voices for emotion and scan their wathans. He could tell if they’re pretending.”

  “It’s like fighting God,” Aphra said.

  “You said that,” Burton said. “And I told you that the Snark is not God. Even if he was, I’d give him a run for his money.”

  “Morbleu,” de Marbot said. “What if he doesn’t come? What if he just lets us sit here like rats in a self-made trap? What then?”

  “You can see a rat in a trap. He can’t see us.”

  They were silent for a while. They had painted themselves into a dark corner, but they had all they needed to wait there for as long as they could endure it. There was a toilet in Loga’s room and several in the laboratory. They could use the converter in Loga’s hideaway to make food or whatever they wished. The converter was now tied in with a small auxiliary computer unconnected to the main one.

  Seven o’clock came. Their conversation was infrequent and uninspired. The silence, the lighting, which seemed strange and unnatural after the shadowless illumination, and the waiting for something to hap
pen wore on them. At seven-thirty, Burton suggested to the other two that they eat breakfast. They could sleep on the big bed while he stood guard.

  At eight o’clock, the two decided that they would eat and then rest. Breakfast was provided by the converter in Loga’s room. Burton ate lightly; he did not want to be sluggish if quick action was required. De Marbot and Behn got into the bed, but the Frenchman said, “I do not feel right sleeping. You might need me.”

  “It’s all right,” Burton said. “You’re a light sleeper. Besides, I don’t really expect the Snark to do anything for a long while.”

  “But you do not know.”

  “Right.”

  Burton went back to his station by the entrance to the secret room. Sleepy, afraid that he might nod off, he began pacing back and forth close to the doorway. He did not know if anything would happen but, if it did, it would be to his advantage. Whatever did come, it would probably be unexpected.

  Perhaps he was acting senselessly, stupidly. Still, it was better than doing nothing at all. If he were the unknown, would he be able to just let the unobserved three stay behind the walls? Would he not wonder what they were doing? Would he not try to think of everything they could possibly do? Wouldn’t he even ask the Computer to run off a list of everything that could be done?

  No. He wouldn’t do that. The Computer was not sentient; it had no imagination. Its output never exceeded its input. In that, it was unlike and inferior to human beings. Some human beings.

  You’re too cynical, he told himself. But am I? Aren’t millions, billions of people protein robots? They differ only in that they can feel sorrow, grief, disappointment, love, ambition, despair, frustration, irritation, amusement, rage, sympathy, empathy … well, not many could feel that … imagination … some of them … Vive la différence!

  Frigate had once said that most people were persons and a minority were human beings. “What the Ethicals are trying to do is to turn the many persons into human beings. I wish them success, but I don’t have high expectations. And I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not as yet a human being.”