GODS OF RIVERWORLD

Questioned, the Computer said that it could not do that without Star Spoon's authorization.

Finding nothing revealing in the main room or Star Spoon's bedroom, they began working the areas that the Computer refused to scan for them. Though they came across twelve such, they could not get into the rooms that they knew were behind locked doors or blank walls. At the end of three weeks they quit. There was still another place to investigate, the vast deep underground pre-resurrection chamber in which Burton had awakened so many years ago. But they could not get into this.

"Neither could Star Spoon," Burton said.

Now that the immediate major problem was out of the way, they had to consider their future. They could not get out of the tower, and they could bring in no lovers or companions. They were three men and one woman who would have only each other.

The years ahead of them, Burton thought, were not just bleak. The future was a psychic Siberia, an emotional Ice Age. It was true that the four of them had known one another intimately for many years and had gone through many hardships together and had worked as an excellent team—none better— for their goal. They were getting along now without suffering the abrasions that usually wore people out with one another's too-close and too-often contact, but, eventually, they would grow sick of one another. They must have more than a community of four. They would need lovers and good friends and the occasional new person to meet.

"Man does not live by bread alone," a wise man had once said. He could also have said that no one lives, truly lives, without others to talk to, many others.

By the time that the Gardenworlders came, the four would be twisted, cranky, eccentric. Strange. Odd hermits. Stir-crazy.

There was also the problem of sexual release. Alice would not take all three as lovers, or even one. Alice firmly believed that to be a lover, you had to be in love.

One evening, the men sat on chairs on a balcony of the castle in Burton's world, where all were living for that month. The artificial sun was ten degrees above the artificial west horizon, and they were having their drinks while they waited for Alice to join them. Li Po had said that the longer time went on, the less repulsive was the idea of making beautiful female androids programmed to be bedpartners.

"You'd know that they were not truly human, that they'd be submorons," Frigate said. "You couldn't talk to them as you would to a real woman. You'd know that their passion was simulated, mechanical and unconscious. OK, so you'd get sexual relief. But that's not enough."

"True," Li Po said, "but they'd be better than nothing."

"Would they?" Burton said.

Alice came onto the balcony then. The men dropped the subject, not because Alice would have been embarrassed by its nature but because she would have felt bad that she could do nothing to help them. They talked about what they had achieved during their studies that day, Burton with his investigations into the dialects that had formed the Urmother of the Semitic languages, Li Po in his studies of English and French, so that he could read their poetry, Frigate in his study of every motion picture that had been made (or at least preserved by the Ethicals), and Alice with her newfound passion of painting with oils.

At di

Burton pushed his chair away from the table, pulled a cigar from his shirtpocket, lit it, and said, "I'd devote most of my time to sleuthing those enigmas if I thought it would do any good. I'm convinced, however, that the Computer won't—can't— permit us to even get a foot in the door, as it were. We will never know until the Gardenworlders come and perhaps not then."

"You won't have to wait that long."

Alice screamed. Burton gasped, shoved his chair back, and rose to face the man who had spoken.

Loga, smiling, stood in the entrance to the dining room.

37

Loga had lost his fat-turkey look. His clothes, a sky-blue kilt, open yellow robe with blue dragons, and blue sandals, showed a stocky and powerfully muscled body without an ounce of excess weight.

He was unarmed.

Loga held his hand up. "Please. If you'll quiet down, I'll explain all. First, though, my apologies for startling you."

Burton had recovered enough from his shock to say, "You always did like the dramatic."

"True."

Li Po said, "How did you get in here?"

"I'll tell you all in due time. However, I had no trouble overriding the codeword. After all, I control the tower."

He went to the sideboard by the door and poured himself a goblet of cognac. Alice, a hand on her breast, sat down. The men exchanged glances the meaning of which they understood from long intimacy. If he makes the slightest move that seems dangerous to us, we'll all jump him at the same time.

Loga, however, was very much at ease, almost hail-fellow-well-met. That meant nothing. He was a superb actor. On the other hand, Burton thought, why should he have anything bad in mind for us?

"Am I right in assuming that your melting ... your death ... was a trick, a simulation by the Computer?" Burton said. "And that you've been watching us since you disappeared?"

Loga faced them, his thick legs braced as if he were on the foredeck of a sailing ship. He smiled and said, "Yes. I know that that was one of the possibilities you considered."

"So you were spying on us, eavesdropping!" Burton said angrily.

"Everywhere except in those rooms you painted. That was a clever idea, but then I've always known that you were intelligent and imaginative. That, of course, is one of the reasons why I chose you as my agents. It's not true, though, that you completely blocked my monitoring. When you used the auxiliary computers, I tapped in on those."

He sipped on the cognac while regarding them over the rim. When he moved the goblet away, he said, "It's good to have someone to talk to. Not just anyone; you are special. I feel very close to you. Though I imagine that, at this moment, you're rather furious with me. I don't blame you, but I'm sure that after you've heard my story, you'll forgive me."

"I don't think so," Alice said, her dark eyes narrowed, her lips stretched back. "I don't know what sort of game you've been playing, but you're responsible for dooming—" She stopped as if something had just occurred to her. Her cheeks became even more red.

"I repeat, I'm sorry to have had to put you through an emotional mincer. But you survived, and you would have survived even if you hadn't, in a ma

"What I had to do was to insure that you would be capable of operating the tower and could be trusted not to be corrupted by the great power in your hands. I believed that you could pass the test, but my thinking, my wishing, didn't make it so. I had to give you the practice of power. It's not what a person says but what he does that reveals his true character.

"You did fail in some things. You should have resurrected your comrades who died during the expedition to the tower. I'm sure that, if events hadn't stopped you, you would have done so soon. I was disappointed, however, because I wanted to put them through the test too."

"Most of them would have done what we did," Burton said.

"I know, but I wanted them to prove themselves in the field."

"They proved themselves along the way," Burton said. "Just as we did."

"To a point," Loga said. "But the ultimate test was how they would behave in the tower. Turpin, for instance, was not selective enough in resurrecting his friends. Nor were you, Li Po. You erred grievously in resurrecting Star Spoon."