GODS OF RIVERWORLD

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 shad-owless 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 mot, 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 1.1 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.

"Man 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, "Heh, 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-1 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. 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 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!"