Gods of Riverworld: The Fifth Book of the Riverworld Series Page 8

  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. Brick-laying 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 brick-laying. 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 converters. "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 co-workers 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 that 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 happen 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."

  Frigate talked much about proper philosophical principles but did little to act them out. Nur was also a philosopher, but he acted out his philosophy. And you, Burton? What about you?

  He had explored continents and minds, those of the legion of devils known as Burtonia excepted.

  "There is only one great adventure," Frigate had said, "and that is the descent into oneself." He was quoting or paraphrasing some twentieth-century writer, Henry Miller, whom the American greatly admired at the same time that he despised some of his attitudes.

  "The darkest Africa, the highest Everest, the deepest Pacific Abyss is your own mind. So why do so few set out to conquer it?"

  "Because it's like a fish trying to find out the nature of water," Burton had said.

  Talk, talk, talk. Parrots. Language was the plumage of human beings.

  How did one burst through the self-erected barriers?

  At that moment, something did break through. There was a crash and a roar. Burton leaped into the air and whirled toward the noise, his heart beating almost loud enough to drown out the uproar.

  When he looked around the doorway, he saw that the corridor was dark except for the lamplight coming from inside Loga's room and through the half-opened door of the laboratory. No. There was also light shining through a huge hole in the brick wall. It dimly revealed a monstrous thing, a horizontal cylinder with a conical nose, a dark mass that rolled on wheels toward him.

  9

  * * *

  Burton jumped inside the doorway, turned, and stuck his head out far enough to see the thing. It was moving slowly, though it must have been traveling Very swiftly to breach the wall, the bricks of which were held together by cement far stronger than anything on Earth in his time. The light from the corridor walls beyond the big hole showed that the monster was traveling on ten wheels.

  Burton pointed his beamer at a spot behind the nose. The end of the scarlet rod-shaped ray struck, but though it could burn through twelve inches of nickel-steel in five seconds, it made no visible impression on the gray metallic-looking surface. He pulled back into the doorway and hurled himself backward and to one side as a violet-colored ray from the side of the machine leaped over his shoulder. Other rays followed; then the conical end of the monster was passing him. Daring to look around the doorway again, he saw that its large beamers were projecting the rays at various angles from both sides and many places.

  When it was within a few feet of the other wall blocking the corridor, it stopped and began moving back. The beams were still going off and on at intervals of a few seconds. Moreover, the angles of fire were changing. Where they had struck were bare spots. The paint had been burned off.

  Burton backed up behind the wall. A ray streaked through the doorway and burned off the paint on the far wall. Another, at a higher angle, destroyed more paint.

  De Marbot called, "Dick, are you all right?"

  "I'm not hurt!" Burton yelled. "Don't expose yourself!"

  "I am not stupid!" the Frenchman screamed back.

  But he was stupid; at least, from Burton's viewpoint, he was. De Marbot ran past him and out into the corridor toward the machine. Burton cried out after him to stop. The Frenchman did not hesitate but leaped upon the back of the juggernaut and grabbed a rung near the top. Burton had expected him to be cut through by a ray, but the beams had stopped the moment de Marbot had run into the corridor. Later, Burton wondered if the rays that had been shot at him had only been to discourage him from getting close to it or following it when it left.

  Now the machine rolled backward and past the opening to Loga's room. De Marbot, clinging with one hand and smiling, waved at Burton.

  "Get off it!" Burton shouted. "You can't do anything to it! Get off before it kills you!"

  "Where it goes, I go!" de Marbot yelled.

  He lost his bravado then, because the machine, having halted, suddenly sped forward, its tires screaming as they burned on the floor. All the beams had been turned off, but now one sprang from the nose. The violet lance struck the brick wall and pierced it, and then the beam widened into a cone, the base of which melted the bricks within its area and made an opening just large enough for the machine to pass through.

  De Marbot, screaming, had, however, loosed his grip before he was hit by the bricks at the edge of the breach. He lay face down, silent.

  "That crazy frog!" Burton said. The machine was whipping around a distant corner, revealing that it was not solid but had articulations that permitted it to turn corners, though just barely. De Marbot was sitting up by then and was holding his head.

  Burton ran to
him, beating Aphra by a few steps.

  "Are you hurt?"

  De Marbot sat up, grimaced, then smiled.

  "Only my pride. I became frightened. I screamed with fear."

  Assisted by Burton, he got to his feet. "I do have a few scratches, bruises, and contusions. I have taken worse spills many times from a horse while fighting for my glorious emperor. But never, never, have I had such a short ride!"

  Aphra wrapped her arms around him and snuggled her face into his chest. "You stupid son of a bitch! You scared me to death!"

  "You are most lively and reproachful for a corpse," he said, hugging her. "Oh, my poor arm and shoulder! I cannot embrace you, little cabbage, with all my huge and accustomed strength and love!"

  She freed herself and wiped her tears away with her fingers.

  "Your little cabbage, hell! I am not a vegetable, I'm a woman! A woman who's very angry with you and your heroics!"

  "A rose with thorns, perhaps, is it not?"

  Burton looked up and down the corridor. No one in sight.

  "Why did you jump on it?" he said. "What did you expect to accomplish?"

  "I was going to ride it to its lair, where I might find its master, the Snark, awaiting it. And then I would surprise him and take him prisoner or kill him if I had to. But I forgot, in the heat of combat, that the thing would only make a hole large enough for it to pass through."

  "You were lucky that your brains, such as they are, weren't dashed out," Burton said. He shared some of Aphra's anger; he was very fond of the Frenchman. "It was magnificent, but it was not good soldiership."

  "Ah, you are just jealous because you did not think of doing it."

  Burton laughed and said, "Perhaps you're right."

  He indicated the areas where the paint had been burned off.

  "The Snark now sees and hears us."

  "Odsblood!" Aphra said. "He just showed us how weak and helpless we are. We can't even hide from him!"

  "But we did force him to act," Burton said. "He had to find out what we were doing here. He did not disdain us enough to ignore us."