GODS OF RIVERWORLD

"Not at all," she said. "I'm not going to allow anything to do that. I suppose it will take Tom and Peter some time to simmer down, but they can do it, I know. As for those poor people those ruffians kicked out, well, tell them they can come to the party if they wish. It might make them feel better. Of course, it's not as if they can find no home or have to go hungry. Well, anyway, you invite them for me. I'll be waiting." .

Burton went to the milling exiles, asked for quiet, got it, and passed on Alice's invitation. All accepted. These had no flying chairs, but they could have them made in the converter in the anteroom to Alice's world.

Frigate had some drinks made for his party by the anteroom converter so they could soften the shock with liquor while en route to their destination. Sophie took one, a tall glass of gin, but she said, "I'm not so sure that we should spend any time having fun now, Pete. We ought to go over the list of Computer potentialities and put in all the prohibitions we can. We have to forestall anything those scumbags might think of."

"Good thinking," Burton said, though he had not been addressed. "However, Alice won't like it if you miss her party. And I am sure that the dispossessors are going to be so happy celebrating that they won't be plotting any more trouble for some time."

"You may be right," Sophie said. "But I think we should all put our heads together tomorrow and try to figure out everything those assholes could do."

"Our heads are usually not worth much the day after a big party," Burton said. "I'll call you and the others tomorrow about ten in the morning for the big powwow."

Nur and his woman entered the anteroom, halted, looked around, and then made their way through the crowd to Burton. Nur introduced Ayesha bint Yusuf, a thin brown woman even shorter than Nur. Though she was not pretty, she looked quite charming when she smiled.

Burton said to Nur, "I'll explain later. We have to get out of this noisy mess."

As he turned to sit down in his chair, he saw Gull and a score of Dowists, all dressed in long flowing white robes, enter. They looked as if they were stu

Burton lifted the chair up and shot it through the wide doorway. He climbed until he was two hundred feet high and sped over the massive oak and pine forest, the Tulgey Wood, and the river Issus toward the huge clearing at the foot of the high hill on which Alice's mansion stood. The field was three hundred yards square, perfectly flat, and covered with a bright green grass that never needed mowing. The field held a huge ferris wheel and a roller-coaster on one side and a merry-go-round and a small skating rink and many tables on which were placed food and drinks and white open-sided tents and a bandstand on which androids were playing a waltz and small buildings like tiny Roman villas, which he supposed were comfort stations, and a croquet field and badminton nets and equipment and a dance floor of polished wood and many android servants, almost all of them looking like characters from Lewis Carroll's two famous books.

Under a giant oak at the edge of the field was a house with chimneys shaped like a rabbit's ears and with a roof covered with rabbit fur. Before it was a large table set for tea-time and many chairs around it. A man-sized March Hare and Mad Hatter and a little girl sat at the table. Though she was dressed as Te

"Alice has certainly done herself proud," he muttered as he steered the chair toward the foot of the hill.

She stood there by a chair that looked like the coronation chair in Westminster Hall. There was another and similar chair by it; a tall yellow-haired man stood by it.

"Her surprise!" he said. "I knew it!"

He was hurt, and he was also angry with himself because he could be hurt. So, he had been lying to himself when he had told himself that he felt nothing for her any more.

She certainly looked beautiful. She was wearing her favorite, the flapper's garments of the 1920s. She should have been wearing a hat, since this was an afternoon affair, but Terrestrial rules did not hold now. Her bobbed hair shone black and glossy in the sun. The man, judging by Alice's height, was about six feet four inches tall. He wore the uniform of a Scots chief, kilt, tartan, sporran, and all. As Burton descended, he could make out the black and red checks of the Rob Roy clan on the kilt. The man was a descendant of the famous Scots outlaw, which made him a distant relative of Burton's. He was broad-shouldered and well-muscled, and his face was handsome but very strong. He smiled on seeing the turbaned and robed Burton, and, like a sword cutting a rope and releasing a drawbridge, the smile opened Burton's memory. He was Sir Monteith Magle

Alice, smiling—was there some malice in it?—introduced Burton and Star Spoon. Burton shook his hand and said, at the same time that Magle

They talked for a few minutes, recalling their old acquaintanceship while the line of people waiting to greet the hostess or be introduced grew longer, and then Burton said, "I say, Alice, how did you know of him?"

"Oh, I met Monty in 1872 when I was twenty years old and he was thirty, at a ball given by the earl of Perth. We danced together quite a few times ..."

"Did we ever," Monteith said.

"... and I saw him several times after that. Then he went off to the States, where he came close to dying, an outlaw shot him, quite accidentally, though, and he did not return until 1880. By then, I was married."

"I was unable to keep up our correspondence," Magle

Some androids, at a signal from Alice, picked up the chairs in which Burton and Star Spoon had arrived and carried them across the field to the east end. It would have been quicker and more efficient for them to have flown the chairs to the parking area, but Alice had not had the time or had not wished to take the time to program them to operate the chairs.

Burton listened as Alice told Star Spoon in detail how grief-stricken she had been when she had believed that Magle

"Did you know about Mr. Magle

"No!" he said savagely. "She never mentioned him in all the many years that she.was with me!"

"It's very fortunate that they've finally been reunited. Just think, if it weren't for you, they would have never found each other."

She was smiling as if she were very pleased. Was that because Alice was happy? Or, unhappy creature that she was, did Star Spoon get satisfaction from knowing that he was anything but glad about Magle