GODS OF RIVERWORLD

4

Two hours before lunchtime, they were settled in, though still unsettled by the morning's events. Burton had chosen not to use the control console, which could be slid from a wall recess. Instead, he had asked the Computer to simulate the screen and the keyboard on the wall. This could have been reproduced in light on the ceiling or the floor if required. The floor, however, was covered with a thick rug, which the unlearned would have thought was a very expensive Persian. Its model had, in fact, been woven on the Gardenworld, a recording of it had been brought to the tower, and the Computer had reproduced the original by energy-mass conversion.

Burton stood before the wall, the simulation at head level. If he chose to walk back and forth, the simulation would keep pace with him.

Burton gave Loga's name and ID code and asked the Computer, in English, where Loga's living body was.

The reply was that it could not be located.

"He's dead then!" Alice murmured.

"Where is Loga's body-recording?" Burton said.

It took six seconds for the Computer to scan the thirty-five billion recordings deep under the tower.

"It ca

"Oh, my God! Erased!" Frigate said.

"Not necessarily," Nur said. "There may be an override command to give such an answer."

Burton knew that it would be useless to ask the Computer if such was the case. Nevertheless, he had to.

"Has anyone commanded you not to obey an override command?" Burton 'said quickly.

Nur laughed. Frigate said, "Oh, boy!"

NO.

"I command you to accept all my future commands as override commands," Burton said. "These supersede all previous override commands."

RKJKCTKD. NOT FUNCTIONAL.

"Who has the authority to command overrides?" Burton said.

LOGA. KHK-12W-373-N.

"Loga is dead," Burton said.

There was no reply.

"Is Loga dead?" Burton said.

NOT IN IXJMAIN OF KNOWLKDGK.

"If Loga is dead, who commands you?"

The names of the eight, followed by their code-IDs, flashed on the screen. Below them, flashing: limitku authority.

"How limited?"

No reply.

Burton rephrased.

"Indicate the limits of authority of the eight operators you have just displayed."

The screen went blank for about six seconds. Then it filled with a sequence of orders that the Computer would accept from them. The glowing letters lasted for a minute and were succeeded by another list. In another minute, a third list appeared. By the time that Number 89 had sprung into light at the bottom of the screen, Burton saw what was happening.

"It could go on for hours," he said. "It's giving us a detailed list of what we can do."

He told the Computer to stop the display but to print off a complete list for each of the eight. "I don't dare ask it for a list of don'ts. The list would never end."

Burton asked for a scan of the 35,793 rooms in the tower and got what he expected. All were empty of any living sentients. Or dead ones.

"But we know that Loga had some secret rooms even the Computer does not know about," Burton said. "Or at least it won't tell us where they are. We know where one is. Where are the others?"

"You think that the unknown might be in one of those?" Nur said.

"I don't know. It's possible. We must try to find them."

"We could compare the tower dimensions with the circuitry," Frigate said. "But, my God, that would take us many months! And the rooms might still be so cleverly concealed that we would not find them."

"That sounds as interesting as cleaning spittoons," Turpin said. He went to a grand piano, sat down, and began playing "Ragtime Nightmare."

Burton followed him and stood by him.

"We'd all love to hear you play," he said—he wouldn't, he had no liking for music of any kind—"but we're in conference, a very important one, vital, you know, in the full sense of the word, and this is no time to divert or distract us. We need everyone's wits in this. Otherwise, we may all die because one didn't do his share."

Smiling, his fingers ru

"Nigger is how you was raised, how you think," he would sometimes say. "As the Good Book says, it don't do no good to kick against the pricks." He would laugh softly then, not caring whether or not his hearer understood that by "pricks" he meant "whites."

"I thought I'd give you thinkers some background music. I'm no good at this kind of thing."

"You've a good mind," Burton said, "and we need it. Besides, we have to act as a team, as soldiers in a small army. If everybody does what he wants, ignores this crisis, we become just a disorganized mob."

"And you's the captain, the man," Turpin said. "OK."

He brought his hands down, the chords crashed, and he stood up.

"Lead on, MacDuff."

Though he was furious, Burton showed no sign of it. He strode back to the table, Turpin following him too closely, and he stood by his chair. Turpin, still smiling, took his seat.

"I suggest that we wait until we have mastered the contents of those," Burton said, waving a hand at the mechanism that was piling, sorting, and collating the papers flying from a slot in the wall. "Once we thoroughly understand what we can and ca

"That'll take some time," de Marbot said. "It'll be like reading a library, not one book."

"It must be done."

"You talk of limits," Nur said, "and that is necessary and good. But within what we call limits we have such power as the greatest kings on Earth never dreamed of. That power will be our strength, but it will also be our weakness. Rather, I should say, the power will tempt us to misuse it. I pray to God that we will be strong enough to overcome our weaknesses—if we have them."

"We are, in a sense, gods," Burton said. "But humans with godlike power. Half-gods."

"Half-assed gods," Frigate said.

Burton smiled and said, "We've been through much on The River. It's scourged us, wi

"The greatest enemy is not the unknown," Nur said. He did not need to explain what he meant.

An ancient Greek philosopher, Herakleitos, once said, "Character determines destiny."

Burton was thinking of this as he paced back and forth in his bedroom. What Herakleitos said was only partly true. Everyone had a unique character. However, that character was influenced by environment. And every environment was unique. Every place was not exactly like every other place. In addition, a person's character was part of the environment he traveled in. How a person acted depended not only upon his character but also on the peculiar opportunities and constraints of the environment, which included the person's self. The self carried about in it all the environments that the person had lived in. These were, in a sense, ghosts, some of thicker ectoplasm than the others, and thus powerful haunters of the mobile home, the person.

Another ancient sage, Hebrew, not Greek, had said, "There is nothing new under the sun."

The old Preacher had never heard of evolution and so did not know that new species, unfamiliar to the sun, emerged now and then. Moreover, he overlooked that every newborn baby was unique, therefore new, whether under the sun or under the moon. Like all sages, the Preacher spoke half-truths.