GODS OF RIVERWORLD

Frigate, when told by Burton of the results of his investigation, was intrigued. He said, "What you should do is track down those absentee landlords who made money from the horribly poor and deliver them to oblivion."

"That's Marxism," Burton said.

"I despised the practice of communism, but it had some great ideals," Frigate said. "I also despised the practice of capitalism, many aspects of it anyway."

"But it had its ideals," Burton said.

He had looked at Frigate and then laughed. "Has any social-political-economic system ever gotten anywhere near its ideals? Haven't they all been corrupted?"

"Of course. So ... the corrupters should be punished."

Nur el-Musafir had pointed out what they knew but had ignored.

"It does not matter what they ... we ... did on Earth. What matters is what we're doing now. If the corrupter and the corrupted have changed for the better, then they should be rewarded as much as those who have always been virtuous. Now, let me define virtue and the virtuous ..." He smiled.

"No, I think not. You are tired of the sage of the tower, as you sometimes call me. My truths make you uneasy even though you agree with me."

Frigate said, "About this business of wondering whom to resurrect to be our companions. Take Cleopatra, for instance. You and I would like to see her in the flesh and hear her story, find out the truth of what went on then. But she liked to stick sharp pins in her slave-girls' breasts, and she could enjoy their screams and writhings. Shakespeare ignored that when he wrote Antony and Cleopatra. So did George Bernard Shaw in his Caesar and Cleopatra. From a literary viewpoint, they were right. Could you believe in or care about the genius and greatness of Cleopatra and Caesar or sorrow over their tragedy if you saw their barbaric sadism and callous murderousness? We, however, live in the real world, not that of fiction. So, would you want Cleopatra or Caesar or Antony as your neighbor?"

"Nur would say that depends upon how they are now."

"He's right, of course. He's always right. Nevertheless ., ."

He spoke to Nur.

"You're an elitist. You believe, and you're probably right, that very few have the inborn ability to become Sufi or its philosophical-ethical equivalent. You maintain that even fewer will Go On. The majority just don't have it in them to attain the ethical level to do that. Too bad, but that's the way it is. Nature is wasteful with bodies, and she is just as wasteful with souls. Nature has arranged that most flies will become food for birds and frogs, and she has also arranged that most souls will not achieve salvation but will, even though they don't die like the flies, fail to reach the level set for them. A few Go On, but most are like the flies who become food."

"The difference," Nur said, "is that flies are brainless and soulless but human beings are sentient and are aware of what they must do. Should be aware, anyway."

Burton said, "Would Nature, God, if you will, be that wasteful, that callous?"

"He gave mankind free will," Nur said. "It is not God's fault that there is such a waste."

"Yes, but you yourself have said that genetic .defects, chemical imbalances, accidents to the brain, and social environment can influence a person's behavior."

"Influence, yes. Determine, no. No. I must qualify that. There are certain situations and conditions where a person ca

"What if the Ethicals had not given us a second chance?"

Nur smiled and held up his palms outward.

"Ah, but He did arrange it so that the Ethicals did give us another chance."

"Which, according to you, most people are blowing."

"You believe it, too, don't you?"

Burton and Frigate felt uncomfortable. They usually did when they talked with Nur about serious subjects.

That was the last conversation he had in the apartment. As soon as the screens had faded, Burton went into the corridor. He thought for a moment of canceling the codeword so that someone else could use the rooms. However, he might need a place to run to, a place where no one could find him.

Carrying no possessions except the beamer, wearing only a towel-kilt and sandals, he passed through the doorway. Immediately, a screen appeared on the wall across the corridor. Ignoring the picture — his father approaching him threateningly, for what reason Burton did not remember — Burton started to get into the flying chair parked by the wall. Then he turned away from it to face the length of the hall. A roaring was coming from that direction. His hand started toward his beamer but stopped as he recognized the sound.

Presently, a huge black motorcycle zoomed around the corner of the hall several hundred yards away. Its driver was leaning the vehicle deeply to take the turn at high speed. Then the machine straightened up, and, accompanied by a wall-screen displaying an event in the driver's past, headed toward Burton. The rider, a big black man wearing a visored helmet and a black leather outfit, flashed big white teeth at him.

Burton stood by the chair, refusing to move even though the handlebar of the cycle missed him by only an inch.

"Watch it, motherfucker!" the man shouted, and his laughter dopplered back to Burton.

Burton swore, and he had the Computer form a screen for him so that he could put in a call to Tom Turpin. He had to wait for several minutes before Turpin's gri

"How you doing, baby?"

"I'm not having as good a time as you," Burton said sourly. "Tom, I have a complaint, a legitimate one."

"We sure don't want no illegitimate gripes, do we?" Torn said, and he puffed out thick green smoke.

"You people are speeding through the halls on motorcycles and cars and God only knows what else," Burton said. "I've not only almost been hit twice, but the stink of gas and horseshit is most obnoxious. Can't you do something about them? They're dangerous and offensive."

"Hell, no, I can't do anything about it," Tom said, still smiling. "They're my people, yeah, and I'm the king here. But I don't have no police force, you know. Besides, the robots clean up the horsepoppy, and the ventilators clean up the smoke. And you can hear them coming, can't you? Just stand aside. Anyway, it must be boring and lonely down there. Don't they give you a thrill, make you feel like you ain't alone? Tell you, Dick, you been living too long by yourself. It sours your milk. Why don't you get a woman? Hell, get four or five. Maybe you won't be so bitchy then."

"You won't do anything about it?"

"Can't. Won't. Them niggers are really uppity."

He gri

The screen faded out.

Burton was seething. There was, however, little he could do about the situation unless he wanted to start a miniwar. Which he did not. Nevertheless ... He got into his chair and took off for his private world. There he would be disturbed by no one, and, when he populated it, he would make sure that his companions would be not only agreeable but sensitive. Yet he loved an argument, and he found verbally violent quarrels most satisfying.

Going around the corner from which the black rider had come, Burton almost hit the heads of five people. Startled, he jnwveis1 his chair lifted above them. They had ducked, but if the chair had been a little lower, it would have struck the group.