GODS OF RIVERWORLD

What was discouraging was that, if she was killed, she would be resurrected elsewhere in the tower. Any victory by her enemies was only a half-victory for them and a temporary setback for her. Yet they had to keep fighting and hope that they would catch her before she could kill herself or be killed. Or that her record-spheres would be found out and, eventually, she would be in the same situation they were. The next death would be the final death.

Burton had expected her to appear in an armored vehicle, and he hoped that its armor would absorb just enough of the explosive shock to knock her out. That was why he had lined each entrance with only 3.57 pounds of the explosive. As it was, he was not sure that he did not have more than he needed for his purpose.

He said, "Go on! Go on! What're you waiting for?"

The moment the vehicle moved from the center of the shaft toward the opening, he would step back, and, pressing his fingertips into his ears, would stand by the wall out of the way of the direct shock waves. So would the others.

At last, Star Spoon made up her mind. She had looked down the corridor straight ahead and seen that all the doors to the apartment suites were open but one. She would know that the door was Burton's, and she would, he hoped, believe that all five were holed up in it. Her survey of the corridor at right angles to the one straight ahead had shown her that all the doors on both sides were open. That was as it was almost everywhere in the tower.

Satisfied that she was headed toward the exit, Burton backed away a few feet from the door. Then he lost consciousness; he never heard the explosion.

When he came to, his smitten senses not yet fully recovered, he was coughing on the burning fumes pouring around him. He sat up, his back against the wall, and tried to get up but failed. His strength had gone for a walk and his wits had scattered like picnickers before the sudden appearance of a bear. When he did manage to get up, he staggered across the room, the air of which was getting somewhat clearer as the air-conditioning sucked the smoke away. The screen still glowed, showing the orange ball down the corridor around the corner. He dimly realized that this was where Li Po and Gull were stationed.

At least, he knew who he was and where he and the others were. His movements were slow, though.

"Got to get out there, get her," he *aid. His lips had moved with the thoughts, but he could not hear his own voice any more than he could hear the voices of himself and Isabel, his Earthly wife, from the past-display on the wall near the door.

By the time he had reached the door, he could think clearly enough to know that something had gone wrong. The explosion had been far more violent than it should have been. Could he have miscalculated so much, or had something unforeseen happened? He looked around the side of the doorway, realized then that he had dropped the beamer, went back to retrieve it, and returned to the doorway. The smoke was a thin veil now. He could see the far-strewn pieces of the vehicle on the floor. The sphere had been made of some shatterable material. The explosive lining the opening nearest Burton had gone off. Probably, a piece of the machine shot through this opening had activated the fuse. The additional explosion had doubled the effect of the shock waves, but even that was not near enough to account for the violence that had knocked him out.

The vehicle must have contained a large amount of explosives, and this had gone off when Burton's trap had erupted. Or perhaps it was a coincidence that the explosives in the vehicle had gone off just as the vehicle cleared the entrance shaft.

The thing operating the vehicle had been an android, the exact duplicate of Star Spoon, who had sent it ahead as a sacrifice.

Burton's head still hurt. His thoughts had been climbing a steep hill, struggling to get to the top, where they could re-form and become a potent force. Most of them had gotten up the hill, but they were not yet organized enough. Why had the past-display accompanied the false woman and not the real one?

Slowly, it came to him that she must have sent the android out first. And the idiot Computer, identifying her as the real Star Spoon, had sent the past-display along by her side. Then the real woman had emerged from her hiding place ... she must have muffled her features in a hood or masked them ... and she had come up an unmined shaft.

There she was, coming around the corner of the intersection from the corridor where Li Po and Gull were stationed. She was, as he had expected, inside a spherical armored flying machine, the duplicate of the android's. If she had been masked, she was not now. Unlike the android, her face was expressive, set in a demon's smile except for the lips, which moved as she talked to herself.

The machine came to the middle of the corridor just past the walls of the shaft—he could see through its openings—and it stopped, then made a quarter-turn so that she faced down the corridor. What had happened to Li Po and Gull? Were they still groggy from the explosion? Or had they foolishly attacked her as she passed them? He had no way of knowing; he would have been deaf to any cries.

The machine, moving six feet above the floor, came to the one closed door. It stopped and turned. A barrel slid out from the box beneath the seat, went through a hole in the sphere, and shot out a violet liquid. His mental processes were still sluggish; he should have recognized the fluid at once as the sealant. She was entombing the people that she believed were in the suite. Or, if she was not sure they were in there, she had to carry out this operation anyway.

He saw Alice's dark head stick out from the half-open door. She ducked back after a very quick look. Star Spoon, intent on moving the vehicle along the sides of the door of Burton's suite, had not seen her.

He could distinguish a glowing patch on the wall beside Star Spoon. That had to be the display of her memory. The Computer, after the android had disappeared in the explosion, had switched the display to accompany the real woman. Now that she was closing in for the kill, she did not care if they knew where she was. Perhaps she wanted them to know so that they would venture out to attack her.

Li Po, a beamer in his hand, stepped out into Burton's sight. Seeing the woman, he stepped back. He was fortunate that Star Spoon had not noticed him or his past-display, which would have appeared on the wall of the bay opposite him.

A small TV set was mounted on her left. She would be in communication with the Computer and would be using it to find out if the five were loose, and, if they were, to track them down.

By now, the violet liquid had hardened over the door and the wall area around it. He expected her to turn the machine down, but she did not. Instead, she started to repeat the sealing process. Evidently, she wanted the door to be doubly unmovable.

He had a minute, perhaps two minutes, before she began searching. He strode to the e-m converter and gave instructions to the Computer. He was not worried that Star Spoon would be listening in or be able to learn anything of his activities or location at this moment. He had long ago told the Computer that it was not to reveal anything about himself or his companions to her. She could scan all the rooms in the tower, and she would not be shown this room. However, the refusal of the Computer to scan would give her negative knowledge. If he was not in the rooms sca

He opened the converter, stooped, and picked up with one hand a gray doughy mass, 3.75 pounds of the plastic explosive. After carrying this to the doorway and putting it on the floor, he went back to the converter. He shut its door; two seconds later, he opened it. The proximity fuse lay on its floor. Going back to the doorway, he inserted the long, thin metal rod protruding from the small metal box into the center of the mass.