GODS OF RIVERWORLD

"You, too, are afraid," Star Spoon said.

"What?" He stared at her.

"You knocked on wood three times. On the table."

"No, I didn't."

"I'm sorry to have to contradict you, Dick. But you did. I would not lie."

"I really did?"

He laughed uproariously.

"Why do you find that fu

He explained, and she smiled. That, he thought, was the first time in days that she had lost her blank expression. Well, if he had to pull her out of her soberness by making a fool of himself, he did not mind.

"I did not ask you how you are," he said.

"I am well."

"I hope that you will be happy soon."

"I thank you."

Burton was thinking about proposing to her that the Computer locate in her memory all her experiences of brutality, especially the rapes. The Computer could excise them as a surgeon could a rotting appendix. Though the erasing would eliminate much from her memory, perhaps many years if the time of events were totaled, she would be free of painful thoughts. On the other hand, though the memories would be gone, their emotional impact would still be there. The Computer could not remove that. Star Spoon still might be repulsed by love-making but not have the slightest idea why.

The mind had to operate on itself, but it was seldom a skilled surgeon.

Burton silently cursed Dunaway and wished that there was a hell to which the man could be sent.

Star Spoon lifted a fork of trout to her mouth, chewed while staring out over the gardens below the castle, the jungle river, and the desert beyond. Having swallowed, she said, "I want you to bring in another woman, Dick. One who can take care of your needs. A woman who can laugh and love. I do not mind, I not only do not mind, I would be very pleased."

"No," he said. "No. That is most generous of you—also very Chinese. I admire the culture and wisdom of your people, But I am not Chinese."

"It's not just Chinese. It's good common sense. There's no reason why I should be—what did you say the other day?—a dog in the ... ?"

"A dog in the manger. One who owns something he can't use but won't let anybody else use it because he's selfish."

"A dog in the manger. I am not that. Please, Dick, it would make me less unhappy."

"But I wouldn't be happy."

"If it would embarrass you to have another woman here, put her in an apartment and visit her. Or ... I could leave."

He laughed and said, "Human beings are not androids. I couldn't just raise a woman and imprison her for my own pleasure. In the first place, she might not like me. In the second, even if she did, she would want the company of others. She'd want to be free, not a caged odalisque."

She reached across the table and put her hand on his. "It is too bad."

"What? What we've just been talking about?"

"That and much more. Everything." She waved a hand as if to take in the whole universe. "Bad. AH bad."

"No, it's not. Part is bad, part is good. You've just had more than your share of the bad. But you have time, a long, long time, to get your share of the good."

She shook her head. "No. Not for me."

Burton pushed his plate, still half-full, away. An android silently took the plate away.

"I'll stay and talk with you, if you like. I have work to do, but it's not more important than you."

"I, too, have work," she said. He rose, went around the solid gold table to her, and kissed her cheek. He was curious about what she was doing with the Computer, but, when he asked her about it, she always said that it was uninteresting and she would prefer to hear about his studies.

However, when they left the castle in the armored flying chairs, she seemed to be excited about the party. She chattered away about some amusing incidents in her childhood, and she even laughed several times. Burton thought that it was no good for her to be alone so much or just with him. Yet when they had gone to the weekly meetings, she had been subdued and withdrawn.

During flight, Burton spoke over the transmitter to Star Spoon. "I tried earlier this morning to call Turpinville. Which I suppose will have another name by now. I got no answer. Apparently, whoe'ver's ru

"Why did you call them?"

"I was curious. I wanted to find out if whoever's in charge intends to be aggressive. It's possible, you know, that he ... they ... won't be content with just ruling Turpinville. He might have some plans for taking over the entire tower."

"What sense would there be in that?"

"What sense was there in ousting Turpin and grabbing the seat of power? I also called Tom to determine his mood. It was black. Or perhaps scarlet is a better description. He is still vowing vengeance, but he knows that he has no chance of getting that. All they have to do is stay shut up in their world."

They floated through the doorway into the central area. Burton was surprised by the crowd and the uproar there. Turpin was with Louis Chauvin, Scott Joplin and other musician-friends who had two days ago been in Little St. Louis. Evidently, these had also been hurled out from the little world without anything except the clothes they were wearing. There were also about a hundred other blacks, some of whom he recognized. And something had also happened to Frigate and Lefkowitz and her friends. They were gesticulating angrily and shouting words unintelligible in the great noise. This was added to by the blaring voices from the wall-screens showing each one his or her past.

Li Po and his comrades left their world just then, and their questions swelled the volume of sound.

Burton and Star Spoon eased the chairs onto the floor. He got up and yelled, "What's going on?" but only those very near him could hear.

Frigate had put on an outlandish costume for the party. A huge scarlet bowtie, a lemon-yellow vest with enormous silver buttons, a big sky-blue belt, tight white pants with scarlet seams, and lemon-yellow Wellington boots. His skin color almost matched that of the bowtie.

"We came out of my place," he said, "and found Netley and a dozen others there. They had beamers and guns, and Netley told me that if I didn't give him the codeword, he'd shoot all of us! So I gave it to him! I had to, nothing else I could do! He and his gang went inside and closed the door ... and ... and that's that! We're locked out! Dispossessed! My beautiful world taken away from me!"

"Not to mention from me and my friends," Sophie said. She was dressed in ancient Egyptian fashion, a la Cleopatra. A uraeus headband, a naked torso exposing big shapely breasts— what would Alice think of that?—and a long skirt split in front almost to the crotch. She even had a staff with an ankh at its end. Her companions were in costumes of many periods, Asiatic and European.

"I should have been more cautious!" Frigate cried. "I should have checked on the area outside before we went through the door!"

"He's locking the barn after the horse is stolen," Sophie said. "Crying over spilt milk. Pardon the cliches, but crises always bring out cliches. They're not very creative situations, verbally, anyway."

Tom Turpin, dressed in tails and a stovepipe hat, came up to them. "It's Thieves' Week!" he said. "They're doing all right, too."

"What about those?" Burton said, pointing at the weeping and bewildered-looking blacks.

"Them? Those're the good folks, the churchers, Second Chancers, New Christians, Revised Free Will Baptists, and Nichirenites. Boggs and Hawley threw them out a couple of minutes after Pete got his world taken from him."

At that moment, Stride, Crook, Kelly and their men came out of the lift shaft. Burton left it to others to explain what had happened. He ordered a screen on the wall and called Alice. Her dark eyes widened when she saw the scene behind him and heard the babel. Burton told her what had happened, and he said, "I'm afraid that this may spoil your party."