Gods of Riverworld (33 page)

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 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 Trupin. 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 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 lovemaking 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 forkful 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!”

“Not to mention from me and my friends,” Sophie said. She was dressed in ancient Egyptian fashion, à la Cleopatra. A uraeus headband, a naked torso exposing big shapely breasts—what would Alice think of that?—and a long skirt split in front almost to the crotch. She even had a staff with an ankh at its end. Her companions were in costumes of many periods, Asiatic and European.

“I should have been more cautious!” Frigate cried. “I should have checked on the area outside before we went through the door!”

“He’s locking the barn after the horse is stolen,” Sophie said. “Crying over spilt milk. Pardon the clichés, but crises always bring out clichés. They’re not very creative situations, verbally, anyway.”

Tom Turpin, dressed in tails and a stovepipe hat, came up to them. “It’s Thieves’ Week!” he said. “They’re doing all right, too.”

“What about those?” Burton said, pointing at the weeping and bewildered-looking blacks.

“Them? Those’re the good folks, the churchers, Second Chancers, New Christians, Revised Free Will Baptists, and Nichirenites. Boggs and Hawley threw them out a couple of minutes after Pete got his world taken from him.”

At that moment, Stride, Crook, Kelly, and their men came out of the elevator shaft. Burton left it to others to explain what had happened. He ordered a screen on the wall and called Alice. Her dark eyes widened when she saw the scene behind him and heard the babel. Burton told her what had happened, and he said, “I’m afraid that this may spoil your party.”

“Not at all,” she said. “I’m not going to allow anything to do that. I suppose it will take Tom and Peter some time to simmer down, but they can do it, I know. As for those poor people those ruffians kicked out, well, tell them they can come to the party if they wish. It might make them feel better. Of course, it’s not as if they can find no home or have to go hungry. Well, anyway, you invite them for me. I’ll be waiting.”

Burton went to the milling exiles, asked for quiet, got it, and passed on Alice’s invitation. All accepted. These had no flying chairs, but they could have them made in the converter in the anteroom to Alice’s world.

Frigate had some drinks made for his party by the anteroom converter so they could soften the shock with liquor while en route to their destination. Sophie took one, a tall glass of gin, but she said, “I’m not so sure that we should spend any time having fun now, Pete. We ought to go over the list of Computer potentialities and put in all the prohibitions we can. We have to forestall anything those scumbags might think of.”

“Good thinking,” Burton said, though he had not been addressed. “However, Alice won’t like it if you miss her party. And I am sure that the dispossessors are going to be so happy celebrating that they won’t be plotting any more trouble for some time.”

“You may be right,” Sophie said. “But I think we should all put our heads together tomorrow and try to figure out everything those assholes could do.”

“Our heads are usually not worth much the day after a big party,” Burton said. “I’ll call you and the others tomorrow about ten in the morning for the big powwow.”

Nur and his woman entered the anteroom, halted, looked around, and then made their way through the crowd to Burton. Nur introduced Ayesha bint Yusuf, a thin brown woman even shorter than Nur. Though she was not pretty, she looked quite charming when she smiled.

Burton said to Nur, “I’ll explain later. We have to get out of this noisy mess.”

As he turned to sit down in his chair, he saw Gull and a score of Dowists, all dressed in long flowing white robes, enter. They looked as if they were stunned.

Burton lifted the chair up and shot it through the wide doorway. He climbed until he was two hundred feet high and sped over the massive oak and pine forest, the Tulgey Wood, and the river Issus toward the huge clearing at the foot of the high hill on which Alice’s mansion stood. The field was three hundred yards square, perfectly flat, and covered with a bright green grass that never needed mowing. The field held a huge ferris wheel and a roller coaster on one side and a merry-go-round and a small skating rink and many tables on which were placed food and drinks and white open-sided tents and a bandstand on which androids were playing a waltz and small buildings like tiny Roman villas, which he supposed were comfort stations, and a croquet field and badminton nets and equipment and a dance floor of polished wood and many android servants, almost all of them looking like characters from Lewis Carroll’s two famous books.