GODS OF RIVERWORLD

31

They took a ride on the rollercoaster, but Star Spoon got sick during the up-and-down-and-arounding and threw up in the seat. The android operating the ride called two others to clean up thei mess after Burton had told him to do so.

"You seem even more nervous today," Burton said.

"It's all those strange creatures," she said, waving her hand.

She was not; of course, familiar with the beings with which Carroll had populated the Alice books and which the real Alice had brought to life. They made her uneasy, because she had not been conditioned to them through the books. What made her especially nervous was the Jabberwock, which looked exactly like Te

"It frightens me," Star Spoon said.

"You know that it's been programmed not to hurt anybody."

"Yes, I know. But what if something went wrong in it? Look at those terrible teeth. It has only four, two above and two below, but think what those teeth could do if they bit down on you."

"You need a drink," he said, and he steered her toward a table. The androids serving there were a Fish-Footman, a Frog-Footman and a White Rabbit. The former two wore the eighteenth-century garments and white powdered wigs Te

"Excellent," Burton said, gri

"I don't like them," Star Spoon whispered, as if it made any difference if they heard her. "Those huge goggly eyes."

"The better to see you, my dear."

He looked up as a shadow passed over him. It had been cast by the chair of de Marbot, who was leading a flight of thirty or more of his friends. He was dressed in a Hussar's uniform; so were some of his friends. Others wore field marshals' uniforms, though none had ever attained that rank. Most of the ladies were dressed in the style of the 1810s.

A few minutes later, Aphra and a dozen others arrived. Everybody who had been invited was here, Burton thought. He was wrong, though. Shortly after the last of Behn's group had left the host and hostess, a motorcycle roared onto the field. Sitting in the front was Bill Williams and clinging to him was the black woman Burton had seen with him in the corridor. Williams wore a black astrakhan hat, very Russian, but his face was painted like a witch doctor's, his torso was bare except for a necklace of human hand bones, and he wore black leather pants and boots. The woman had come-upped Sophie; she wore nothing except a necklace of huge diamonds and a complex painting of many bright-colored figures, which covered her front and back and her legs.

Burton had not known that Alice had invited Williams. Judging from her expression, she was sorry that she had. However, she smiled as a hostess should and introduced the couple to Magle

Frigate strolled up to Burton and pointed at the late-comers. "Quite a sensation, right. The last shall be first."

"Quite," Burton said.

"Sophie doesn't know if she should be delighted or furious." The White Knight rode by on his sorry white nag. His helmet was off, revealing a face that looked exactly like Carroll's except for the very long drooping white moustache. A scabbard holding a huge straight two-edged sword was attached to a belt, and a big club with a wooden shaft and a knobbed end with spikes was stuck shaft down in a boot hanging from the saddle. Attached to the back of the armor was a box, upside-down, its lid hanging. This was, in Through the Looking-Glass, supposed to have been the White Knight's invention, a container for his sandwiches and clothes. But it was upside down to keep the rain out of the box, and so its contents had fallen out.

Behind him rode the Red Knight on a roan stallion. It was a sinister figure with its crimson armor, horse-head-shaped helmet, and big spiked club.

A Walrus and a Carpenter in its paper hat and leather apron walked by, conversing. Trailing them on thin spindly legs were forty or so oysters, each with long ante

"This must have taken Alice a long time to prepare," Frigate said. "Think of all the details she had to put into the Computer."

"Oh, look," Sophie said, pointing at a tree. "Can you believe it? The Cheshire Cat!"

As they walked towards the tree, the cat, which was the size of a large lynx, began to disappear. The tail vanished, then the hindquarters, then the front quarters, then the neck, then the head. Except for a cat's grin hanging in the air above the branch on which it had sat, it was invisible. They walked underneath it, looking for a mechanism of some sort, but could find none.

"Have to ask Alice how this is done," Burton said. "Probably, though, she won't know. The Computer would've taken the order and done its scientific magic, no explanations needed."

The Gryphon and the Mock Turtle walked by conversing. The Gryphon was a lion-sized creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. The Mock Turtle had the body of a giant tortoise, weighing perhaps six hundred pounds, and the head and back legs of a cow. It crawled slowly but, once, halted, and pushed with its short but immensely powerful front legs, causing it to spring upright. While it teetered on the end of its shell, its bovine legs braced, the hoofs digging into the ground, tears flowing, it sang in a magnificent contralto, "Beautiful soup, so rich and green, Waiting in a hot tureen!"

But when it reached the chorus, begi

Star Spoon said, "I think I'll go sit down for a while, Dick. I'm tired, and these animals" —she nodded at the Gryphon— "look so dangerous. I know they're not, but ..."

"Very well, I'll check on you later," Burton said.

He watched her walk to the west end of the field and sit down in a very comfortable chair. A very fat, bald-headed and old-looking android—it had to be Father William—came to her side. It must have asked her if she wanted anything, because she nodded and her mouth moved.

Burton walked around and looked at the Queen of Hearts and the other androids fashioned to simulate the living pack of cards. From the front, they looked exactly like Te

"Marvelous!" Burton said.

Aphra Behn happened to be standing near him. She said, "Yes, aren't they? It's such a childish conceit, however. Not that I disparage Alice for all this. We've struggled so hard to get here, endured so many dangers and tribulations, that we've relaxed and become children again for a while. We have to play, don't you think?"