GODS OF RIVERWORLD

"You mean ... kill the babies?"

"I don't like to contemplate that, it pains me greatly, but it will have to be done. The babies, as I said, are really androids, and one should have no more compunction about destroying them than about destroying androids. They look completely human and behave like human beings to a certain extent. But they are not self-conscious; they do not have that which makes Homo sapiens human. The babies can't be allowed to grow into children; they should be eliminated now before they know what's happening."

Alice knew that their death would be instantaneous and painless. They would be placed in a converter and reduced to atoms in a microsecond. Nevertheless, the idea horrified her.

No doubt the kind-hearted Nur felt horror, too. But he knew what had to be done, and he would do it. If Turpin could not get the job done, Nur would see to it.

"If we had a wathan generator," Nur said, "I would insist... I think almost everybody would agree with me ... that these two infants be the exception. We would see that they had wathans, but there would be no more children born. Any woman who used the Computer to make herself fertile would be killed and her body kept in the records until the day ... if it ever comes ... that the Computer starts resurrecting people again in The Valley. Any man who knowingly made the woman pregnant would also be slain. However ..."

"Yes?"

"Allah! That won't be necessary. I should have thought of this before. The Computer can be ordered not to make anyone fertile from now on. Why didn't I think of that long ago? Time ..."

"Time?" Alice said.

Nur waved his hand to dismiss the phrase.

"Then I see no reason to destroy the babies," Alice said. "Surely they won't be any problem."

Nur sighed with relief, though he still looked troubled. Perhaps that was because he had been so slow in arriving at the very obvious solution.

He shook his head. "There's a possibility I must check on at once. What if someone has given a command to the Computer that anybody who wants to become fertile can become so? That would be the prior command and the authoritative one. The only one who could override that would be Loga or the woman whom I killed ... if I did kill her. Just a moment. I'll check."

Alice could have listened in on him, but she would never have done that unless he gave permission. A minute later, the screen before her glowed, and Nur's face appeared. She knew at once what had happened from his angry expression.

"Someone has done just what I hoped would not be done. He ... she ... whoever ... has made it possible for anyone who wants to become fertile to so so. The Computer would not tell me who gave it the command."

"My God!" Alice said. Then, "Dick told me about that black man, Bill Williams, resurrecting Gull and the others. Do you suppose ... ?"

"I don't know. We'll probably never find out. It's possible that Wandal Goudal or Sarah Kelpin, one of the women having babies, did it. In any event ..."

Though not very often at a loss for words, Nur was so now.

"Tom will have to be told," she said. "Surely, he'll do what must be done."

"I'll call him now," Nur said.

She sat down to wait, thinking that she would hear from him in ten or fifteen minutes. However, the screen glowed on the control console in less than six minutes. She was surprised to see, not Nur's, but Tom Turpin's face. It was red under his dark skin, and his face was contorted.

"I'm contacting all of you!" he shouted.

You, she understood, would be the seven companions. But what was he doing in the central area forming the O at the tips of the pie-slice-shaped private worlds? And why were his favorite woman, Diamond Lil Schindler, his cronies, Chauvin, Joplin and other musicians, and their women there?

"OK! I see all of you there! Man, I'm mad! Mad, do you hear?"

Nur's voice, quiet and soothing, came.

"Calm down, Tom. Tell us what happened."

"They threw me out!" he screamed. "Overpowered my guards, grabbed me and my friends, and threw me out! They said I wasn't King Tom no more! I was through! I couldn't ever get back in! So long, goodbye, farewell, adieu, adios, motherfucker!"

"Who's they?" Burton's voice said. "Was Bill Williams the ringleader?"

"No, not him! He moved out two days ago into one of the empty worlds! It was Jonathan Hawley and Hamilton Biggs did it! They were the ringleaders, I mean!"

Alice had probably been introduced to the two, but she did not remember the names.

"Something like this was to be expected," Nur said. "There's little ... nothing ... you can do about it, Tom. Why don't you move into one of the empty worlds? And be very careful the next time you select someone to bring in?"

"I can't even do that!" Tom yelled. He raised his arms and brought them down violently, his hands slapping his thighs. "Can't even do that! Williams is in one of them! The gypsies have taken over another! I know 'cause I saw them coming out of it! I can't get into any of the other four! Somebody's locked them with codewords! I don't know who did it, but I think Hawley and Biggs did it! They're holding them for excess population or whatever! Maybe they did it just out of spite!"

"It could be worse. They could have killed you," Nur said.

"Yeah, Pollya

Turpin was weeping now. The big black woman, Schindler, put her arms around him. He sobbed on her neck while she smiled, exposing the twinkling gems set into her teeth. On Earth, she had been one of the most important madams of the St. Louis Tenderloin district and one of Turpin's lovers.

Alice waited until he had released himself from Diamond Lil's embrace, and she said, "You and your friends can stay at my place, Tom."

The others, Burton, de Marbot, Aphra, Frigate, and Nur, hastened to extend their invitations.

"No," Turpin said, wiping his eyes with a huge violet handkerchief, "that ain't necessary, but I thank you. We'll just move into apartments."

He raised a fist and began howling, "I'll get you, Hawley, Biggs, you other motherfucking Judases! I'll get you! You'll be sorry, you sons of bitches! Watch out for Tom Turpin, you hear me!"

She could not see the screen that must have appeared on the wall before Turpin. But she could hear the loud laughter and the triumphant words.

"Get lost, you blubbering blubber!"

Tom howled with anger and anguish and began striking the wall. Alice cut off the screen. What next?

What indeed? That was the only one of the upsetting events leading up to the party. Which, she would say later to anyone who would hear—there were few of those left—was, she was not exaggerating in the slightest, the worst party she had ever given.

3O

The morning of April the first, Burton and Star Spoon breakfasted on the balcony outside their bedroom. The sky was clear, and the breeze was gentle and cool because Burton had ordered it so. Now and then, an elephant trumpeted and a lion roared. The shadow of a roc crossed over the table, the bird with a forty-foot wingspread designed by Burton and fashioned by the Computer. Star Spoon started when it darkened them.

"It won't hurt us, it's programmed not to attack us," Burton said, smiling.

"It could be an ill omen."

He did not argue with her. Li Po and the men and women of the eighth century a.d. whom he had brought in were intelligent and much-experienced, yet they had not rid themselves of their superstitions. Li Po was perhaps the most flexible, but even he reacted now and then to something that he should by now laugh at or not even think of.

He wondered if one had to desuperstition oneself, as it were, before one could Go On. What did the holding of absurd beliefs have to do with gaining compassion and empathy and freedom from hate and prejudice? It had much to do with it if it caused fear and cruelty and irrational behavior. But could one be afraid that bad luck would come if a black cat crossed one's path and still be a "good" person? No, not if one threw a brick at the cat or treated one's friends badly because one was in an ill humor from anxiety.