GODS OF RIVERWORLD

"We'll be in Theleme. They won't get in there."

"No person or place is inviolable."

Star Spoon fitted into Burton's way of life as a well-made shoe shaped itself around a foot. The analogy was not just literary. When he took his shoes off, he did not have to pay any attention to them until he was ready to wear them again. The woman seemed content to be ignored when he was busy studying or working the Computer. She often operated it when he was doing the same. She was an excellent companion, a ready and sometimes amusing talker, and she di 1 not insist on interrupting him. She was intelligent, knew Chinese poetry, could paint well, and played the Chinese lute beautifully. She was passionate, thoroughly versed in every aspect of sex, uninhibited, and yet, when Burton did not make love to her for a week because he was engrossed in his studies, she did not seem to mind.

The only thing that Star Spoon complained about was that she could not bring her parents to this place. She had located her mother, but she was alive in The Valley. Her father could not be found.

"You would not mind if I could bring them here?" she said. "Perhaps, some day, I will be able to get them here. They could have their own apartment, and they would not bother you. I would see them only when you consented."

"Not at all," Burton said. "Bring your sisters and brothers, too. Your aunts and uncles and your cousins."

He could not have stopped her if he had wanted to, but he was not going to tell her that. Why. spoil her desire to please him? She was a perfect mate for him.

When he spoke of this to Frigate, the American said, "I'm surprised that she didn't learn to be more independent while she was in The Valley. She was raised in the Chinese culture of the eighth century, but she must have lived in many others in The Valley. Usually, The Valley frees women."

"Not always by any means," Burton said. "She's had a rough life, to put it mildly. You know the sad story of her Terrestrial life. She didn't fare any better on The River. She was raped several scores of times in The Valley, but she doesn't seem to have suffered any deep trauma because of that."

"She doesn't seem to, but she's very self-controlled."

"Ah, yes, the inscrutable Oriental."

"She's very beautiful."

"Exquisite. And I must confess that I'm flattered that she wanted me so fiercely. However ... I still prefer a blonde, not-too-bright Caucasian who's devoted to me."

"If you find one and resurrect her, watch out for Star Spoon. There's more fire in her than she lets on to."

Several days after the party, Burton and Star Spoon set out to visit Frigate's world in specially built chairs designed by Burton. These were larger than the others and were completely enclosed in a three-inch-thick irradiated plastic hemisphere. Beamers projecting from the shell could be fired fore and aft, above and below.

Star Spoon, seeing them the first time, had murmured, "Whom are you afraid of?"

"I fear nobody," he said, "but I trust very few. There are too many strangers, unknown quantities, prowling the corridors. Also, we still don't have any assurance that an Ethical isn't hidden here."

They rose in their chairs above the minarets and domes made of gold alloy and glittering with gigantic jewels, and they sped over the river and the jungle to the exit. Burton pressed a Console button, which transmitted the coded open-sesame via radio. Star Spoon's vehicle lacked this because he had refused to give her access to the codeword. She had hesitatingly asked him why, and he had told her that he did not want to take the chance that she might be seized and the codeword forced from her.

"Who would do that?" she had said softly.

"Perhaps nobody. But it's a possibility."

"What if they should grab you and torture the codeword from you?"

"I've anticipated that."

She did not ask him what the precautions were. Obviously, if she knew, she could be forced to give that information.

The circular area was empty of people, though a few robots were cleaning up the litter. Halting his chair before the entrance to Frigate's world, Burton shouted Frigate's name. In a few seconds, the American's face appeared on a glowing screen. The door opened outward, and they went through in single file. The second door admitted them into a world where the sun was ten degrees past the zenith, the temperature was 85 °F and the air was wet. They shot over a very thick, lush jungle, a river and several joining streams, and some large clearings. The creatures in the streams and basking on the banks were crocodilian, vast and toothy. Now and then they glimpsed a huge reptilian head at the end of a long neck, and, once, an armor-plated saurian lumbered across the clearing. Winged reptiles swooped by them: pterodactyls. These were not from recordings, since the Ethicals had arrived on Earth seventy million years after the last of the dinosaurs had died. But Frigate had had the Computer fashion living replicas of the mighty beasts, and these reigned in the lush growths. In the center of the Brobdingnagian chamber was a rock monolith, two hundred feet high, with slick leaning-out sides impossible for anything to scale. On top was his stronghold, a flat ten acres with an antebellum Southern mansion in the center of an island surrounded by a wide moat in which swam ducks, geese, and swans. Burton and Star Spoon landed on the green lawn before it.

Peter Frigate was sitting on the verandah in a rocking chair listening to Handel's Water Music, drinking a mint julep and surrounded by three dogs. He held a Siamese seal point cat on his lap. The dogs, real dogs, not therioids, leaped barking off the verandah and ran to Burton. They bounded about and wiggled their hindquarters and whined as he petted them. One was a huge Rottweiler; one, a German shepherd; one, a Shetland sheepdog. Frigate rose, the cat jumping off his disappearing lap, and greeted them. He wore a white linen vest with embroidered Egyptian hieroglyphics and a knee-length white linen kilt.

"Welcome to Frigateland!" he said, smiling. "Sit down." He pointed to two rocking chairs. "What'll you have to drink?" He clapped his hands once, and two androids appeared from the front doorway. They wore butler's uniforms.

"You wouldn't recognize them," he said. "They look exactly like two U.S. presidents I had no love for. I call them Tricky Dicky and Ro

Burton raised his eyebrows. "Ah, you finally decided on a housemate."

"Yes. The dogs and cats are splendid companions, don't talk back to or at you. But I got lonely for conversation and other things."

The servants brought the drinks, Scotch for Burton and wine for Star Spoon. Burton took a fine Havana from his pocket, and Dicky leaped forward, produced a lighter, and held the flame steady for him. Ro

"This is the life," Frigate said. "I fly around and observe my i dinosaurs, really enjoy them. I keep the tyra