GODS OF RIVERWORLD

Burton threw his hands up.

"I wish I had all of you in the army!" he cried.

There was silence, but Burton knew that it would not last long. Not in this group.

"That," Frigate said, "may be just what we need."

"What?"

"An army. We can have the Computer make us an army of robots and androids. We'll set it up so that the unknown, the Snark, let's call him, can't override our commands to the robots. We can set them to looking for the Snark and guarding us. We'll also order them to seize or kill anyone who is not us. Non-us is the enemy. The robots and androids can do in a short time what would take us years."

Burton stared at the American, then said, "You wrote that— what do you call it?—science fiction too long. It's rotted your brain."

"It's within the capabilities of the tower," Frigate said. "If we're going to win, we have to think big. I know it sounds crazy, but we need an army, and we can get it. I'd say, oh, a force of about one hundred thousand."

Some burst out laughing. Frigate gri

"Three automaton soldiers to a room makes one hundred seven thousand, three hundred and seventy-nine. We could have a whole army in several days. The soldiers could watch every known room and keep an eye out for a stranger and also probe for hidden rooms."

Nur, smiling, said, "I admire your creativity but not your lack of restraint or your contempt for realities."

"What do you mean?" Frigate said. "Restraint is good only in situations that call for it. This doesn't. As for realities, the army could be easily realized."

Nur admitted that twice the number proposed could easily be raised. However, androids were not self-conscious and were not at all intelligent. Their actions had to be programmed. The army would have to be separated into small groups acting on their own. This required command levels of noncoms and officers, androids who could act on their own initiative when situations not in their programming arose. The leaders simply would not know what to do. For that matter, they would not even know that they had to do anything.

"Moreover," Burton said, "there's still that nagging worry. Can the unknown install in the robots and androids some sort of cha

"He's probably thinking about that right now," Alice said. "If he's watching us, he can anticipate anything we do."

She shuddered.

"My answer to your objection," Frigate said to Burton, "is that we could make some modifications in the neural systems of the androids. We could make them partly mechanical. By that, I mean that we could install mechanical devices in them. Say, something like a locker or safe combination that would set our commands mechanically but that would then transmit them electrically.

"We would set the combinations after we'd received the basic device from the Computer. That way, neither the Computer nor the Snark could control what we did. And ... oh, hell! The Snark could still put a neuron complex in the android that would tell it to override the combination command by radio or whatever."

"The hard facts," Nur said, "are that we are in the power of this Snark. He does not have to attack us. All he has to do is shut off our power, and we'll starve to death. If he intended to do that, he could have done so. He has not done so, therefore, we can assume that he isn't going to. He has set certain limits to our use of the Computer but allowed us considerable powers. There are certain things he doesn't want us to have. Otherwise, he just doesn't care. He's ignoring us."

"The question, one of the questions, is why?"

"We can't answer that. He'll have to, if he ever does," Frigate said.

"Right," Nur said. "Now, while you were all sleeping, I had the Computer locate the secret entrance that Loga arranged long ago. The entrance we used to get into the tower after we'd crossed the mountains and taken that boat to the base of the tower. I tried to get the Computer to open that. It seemed to me that perhaps the unknown might be wanting us to leave the tower and return to The Valley. He did not wish us to use the aircraft for obvious reasons.

"But the secret door would not open when I asked the Computer to do it for me.

"Therefore, the unknown does not wish us to leave the tower.

"There may come a time when he'll wish us to go, and, if so, he'll open an exit for us. Until then, we're prisoners. But this prison is vast and has, in a sense, more treasures to offer than the Earth we lived on or the Rivervalley. The treasures are physical and mental, moral and spiritual. I suggest that we find out what these are and use them. We might as well. We can't stay caged in this suite.

"Meanwhile, of course, we'll be trying to think of ways to override the unknown's overrides. What one person sets up, another may knock down. The unknown is not a god."

"What you're suggesting is that we move back into our apartments and live as if there were no unknown?" Burton said.

"I say that we should leave this particular area, which is a small prison, and go out into the larger prison. After all, Earth was a prison. So was the Rivervalley. But if you're in a large enough space to give you the illusion of freedom, then you don't think of yourself as a prisoner. The half-free man is one who thinks he is free. The really free man is one who fully knows what he can do in prison and does it."

"A Sufi's wisdom," Burton said, smiling but with a sneer in his voice. "We do look rather ridiculous, don't we? We run into a hole and then ask ourselves why we ran and decide that we didn't have to."

"We were following instinct," Nur said. "It was wrong to do so. We had to find a place where we could be safe. At least, think we were. Then we had the relative peace of mind to evaluate our situation."

"Which turned out to be no peace of mind. Well, I do feel better, I won't feel as much a prisoner. And that pile of furniture irks me. Let's tear it down."

Frigate said, "Before we do, I have something to tell you."

Burton, who had started for the door, stopped and turned around.

"Nur wasn't the only one who did a little independent investigating," Frigate said. "As you know, Monat can't be resurrected because of Loga's command, which the Snark reaffirmed. Monat's body-record is still on file. But I asked the Computer to locate his wathan in the shaft, and the Computer said that it had been there but was now gone. You know what that means. Monat has Gone On."

Tears welled from Burton, and with the grief was mixed surprise that he should feel such grief. He had not known until that moment how he really felt about Monat. One of the first people he had encountered during his first resurrection had been the strange-looking, obviously non-Terrestrial Monat. Monat had accompanied him for a long time in The Valley and had impressed Burton with his compassion and wisdom. He had seemed warm. Thoroughly human despite his appearance, that is, what humans ideally should be.

Somehow, Burton had come to regard Monat as a father, a being stronger and wiser than he, a teacher, a pointer-out of right paths. And now Monat was gone forever.

Why should he shed tears and be choked up? He should be happy, gloriously happy because Monat had arrived at the stage where he no longer had to suffer the encumbering flesh.

Was it because he suffered a sense of loss? Had he thought, deep, in the dark unconscious, that Monat would somehow free himself from Loga's lock on him and be, in short, a savior? Had he felt that Monat would come up out of the records like Jesus from the tomb or Arthur from the lake or Charlemagne from his cave and rescue the defeated and the besieged?