GODS OF RIVERWORLD

6

"I've been called, quite unjustifiably, a human hyena," he murmured, and he rolled out of bed. He would have to make the bed himself, though androids—protein robots—were available to do it. For the time being, no androids would be admitted into the suite. They were a potential danger because the Unknown might have ordered them to attack the eight.

Burton exercised vigorously for an hour, then ordered breakfast from the Computer. The coffee was the best that had ever been produced on Earth; the shirred eggs, the best; the brown bread toast, exquisitely heated and covered with the best butter Earth had ever known. There was also a jam to send the palate into ecstasy, and a fruit unknown to Earth but tasting somewhat of muskmelon.

He brushed his teeth and took a medium-warm shower despite the possibility that the water could be poisoned. As Frigate had said, if the unknown had intended to kill them off, he could have done it by now.

He selected a dark green kilt and a long flowing robe of green decorated with a design of yellow birds of an unknown species. Then he activated a wall-screen to see what was going on in the main room. Li Po, Nur, Behn, and Turpin were sitting in chairs and reading the lists of control limits. The furniture was still stacked in front of the door.

Burton went into the main room, greeted them, and said, "Have the others reported in?"

Nur said that they had. Burton went to an auxiliary computer and activated the screens in the bedrooms of those absent. He could not see them, but he could hear their voices as they said that they would be right out. A few minutes later, Alice, Frigate and de Marbot appeared. Alice was wearing a loose Chinese-looking robe, scarlet with green dragons, and brocade slippers with turned-up toes. Her short dark straight hair shone as if it had been brushed many times. Her only makeup was a light-red lipstick. She could have used some powder to cover the dark smudges under her eyes.

"I didn't sleep well at all," she said as she sat down in a chair. "I couldn't get it out of my mind that someone might be watching me."

"If we could trust the androids, we could have them paper over the bedrooms," Frigate said. "That'd block out the screens."

"If ... if," Burton growled. "I'm getting sick of these almighty ifs. I'm fed up with being in a cage. As soon as we find out what we can and can't do, we'll conduct a manhunt. It'll be dangerous, but I, for one, will not keep on hiding like a rabbit in its burrow. We're not rabbits. We're human. And human beings are not meant to be cooped up like pigeons."

"Rabbits and pigeons," Frigate muttered.

Burton swung around to face him. "What the devil do you mean by that?"

"The rabbits and the pigeons don't have the slightest idea why they're caged. They don't know they're being fattened up to be eaten. But we, we don't know why Loga was done away with or what's pla

"Speak for yourself," Nur said. "I would like to point out to those who may not have thought of it that this list may be incomplete. The unknown may have kept certain powers from the list. Even if he has not done so, he can eliminate almost any of those he wishes to eliminate."

There was a long silence. The Chinese rose, went to a converter, and ordered a huge goblet of rye whiskey. Burton grimaced but said nothing to him. It would have been useless, and Li Po's defiance would lessen Burton's authority.

Li Po sipped the rye, belched to indicate his appreciation, and went back to his chair. He said, "I need a woman!"

Burton had thought that Alice was past blushing, but the Victorian in her was a long time dying.

"You'll just have to keep jacking off," Burton said. "We have enough problems without resurrecting a woman just so she can drain off your lust."

Alice's face became redder. Aphra Behn laughed.

"It's u

Burton laughed because "yang" meant "human excrement" in a West African language. Po asked him why he was laughing. When Burton explained, the Chinese laughed uproariously.

"Well, if I can't have a woman, I'll work out my desire with exercise. What say we fence for an hour or so, rapiers or sabers?"

"I need it, too," Burton said, "but you're drunk. You'd be no match."

Li Po protested loudly and shrilly that he could have drunk twice as much and still beat Burton with any weapon Burton cared to choose. Burton turned away from him, and the Chinese staggered to his chair, fell into it, and began snoring. Frigate and Turpin carried him to the bedroom door. This, however, was locked with Po's codeword, which his bearers did not know. They placed him on the hall floor and returned to the big room.

"We'll all be behaving like Po if we have to stay here," Turpin said. He went to a converter and ordered a tall glass of gin with a lemon twist. Aphra, who had a glass of the same, raised it and said, "A toast to craziness! This may be a gaol, but it beats Newgate."

She knew what she was talking about; she had twice been in debtors' prison.

She could also afford her cavalier attitude, though it was not realistic. She had a lover, de Marbot, with whom she was happy, and she had every luxury she'd ever had on Earth and many more. Except freedom. That, however, did not bother this adaptable and cheery woman just now.

What was keeping some of them from studying their peril was the vast potentialities of the list. Where they should have been examining what limited them, they were considering what gratifications it offered. Though Burton could understand their excitement over this, he was disturbed by their lack of concern for the dangers that were—as it were—just around the corner.

Judging from their facial expressions, Nur was the only one thinking of the unknown enemy. Burton felt like kicking the others. Instead, he slapped his hands together sharply, jolting them from their dreams.

"That's enough of nonsense," Burton said. "The situation is serious. Deadly. There's no time to think of anything but how we're going to fight the enemy. If we defeat him, you may play all you want. Till then ... The unknown has a great advantage over us in that he can use the Computer better than we. But if we can learn how to use it against him, it becomes our ally. Let me remind you that the Computer is not just that huge protein electroneural mass at the bottom of the central shaft. The Computer is also the tower, this vast building in which we reside. The brain is the central protein organ, the clearinghouse. But the majority of circuits are in the floors, the walls and the ceilings of the tower. We're in the heart, the nerves of the enemy. And we can find ways to strike at that heart, those nerves. Or perhaps I should say, ways to seize them and use them as weapons."

"If you're thinking of belling the cat," Alice said, "we don't even know where the cat is."

"It may be another mouse who's buffaloed us into thinking it's a cat," Nur said.

"If ... if ... may be," Burton said. "No more speculations on ifs. We abandon speculation; we act."

"Fine. But how?" Nur said. "Everything we're saying now or will say may be, probably is, overheard. And perhaps seen."

"I said, 'No more if's and maybe's!' " Burton thundered.

Frigate laughed and said, "We can't help that, we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad. We must be, or we wouldn't have come here."

"What are you talking about?" Burton said.

"He's paraphrasing the conversation between the Cheshire Cat and Alice in Wonderland," Alice said.

"The mention of the cat reminded me of the Cheshire Cat," Frigate said. "In a way, the unknown is the grin without a cat."