Something struck Burton on the back of his head. Stunned, he released his grip. Göring pushed him down on the ground and dived toward the spear. Seizing it, he rose and stepped toward the prostrate Burton. Burton tried to get to his feet, but his knees seemed to be made of putty and everything was whirling. Göring suddenly staggered as Alice tackled his legs from behind, and he fell forward. Burton made another effort, found he could at least stagger, and sprawled over Göring. Again, they rolled over and over with Göring squeezing on Burton’s throat. Then a shaft slid over Burton’s shoulder, burning his skin, and its stone tip drove into Göring’s throat.
Burton stood up, pulled the spear out, and plunged it into the man’s fat belly. Göring tried to sit up, but he fell back and died. Alice slumped to the ground and wept.
Dawn saw the end of the battle. By then, the slaves had broken out of every stockade. The warriors of Göring and Tullius were ground between the two forces, Onondaga and slaves, like husks between millstones. The Indians, who had probably raided only to loot and get more slaves and their grails, retreated. They climbed aboard their dugouts and canoes and paddled across the lake. Nobody felt like chasing them.
17
The days that followed were busy ones. A rough census indicated that at least half of the twenty thousand inhabitants of Göring’s little kingdom had been killed, severely wounded, abducted by the Onondaga, or had fled. The Roman Tullius Hostilius had apparently escaped. The survivors chose a provisional government. Targoff, Burton, Spruce, Ruach, and two others formed an executive committee with considerable, but temporary, powers. John de Greystock had disappeared. He had been seen during the beginning of the battle and then he had just dropped out of sight.
Alice Hargreaves moved into Burton’s hut without either saying a word about the why or wherefore.
Later, she said, “Frigate tells me that if this entire planet is constructed like the areas we’ve seen, and there’s no reason to believe it isn’t, then The River must be at least twenty million miles long. It’s incredible, but so is our resurrection, everything about this world. Also, there may be thirty-five to thirty-seven billion people living along The River. What chance would I have of ever finding my Earthly husband?
“Moreover, I love you. Yes, I know I didn’t act as if I loved you. But something has changed in me. Perhaps it’s all I’ve been through that is responsible. I don’t think I could have loved you on Earth. I might have been fascinated, but I would also have been repelled, perhaps frightened. I couldn’t have made you a good wife there. Here, I can. Rather, I’ll make you a good mate, since there doesn’t seem to be any authority or religious institutions that could marry us. That in itself shows how I’ve changed. That I could be calmly living with a man I’m not married to…! Well, there you are.”
“We’re no longer living in the Victorian age,” Burton said. “What would you call this present age…the Mélange era? The Mixed Age? Eventually, it will be The River Culture, The Riparian World, rather, many River cultures.”
“Providing it lasts,” Alice said. “It started suddenly; it may end just as swiftly and unexpectedly.”
Certainly, Burton thought, the green River and the grassy plain and the forested hills and the unscalable mountains did not seem like Shakespeare’s insubstantial vision. They were solid, real, as real as the men walking toward him now, Frigate, Monat, Kazz, and Ruach. He stepped out of the hut and greeted them.
Kazz began talking. “A long time ago, before I speak English good, I see something. I try to tell you then, but you don’t understand me. I see a man who don’t have this on his forehead.”
He pointed at the center of his own forehead and then at that of the others.
“I know,” Kazz continued, “you can’t see it. Pete and Monat can’t either. Nobody else can. But I see it on everybody’s forehead. Except on that man I try to catch long time ago. Then, one day, I see a woman don’t have it, but I don’t say nothing to you. Now, I see a third person who don’t have it.”
“He means,” Monat said, “that he is able to perceive certain symbols or characters on the forehead of each and every one of us. He can see these only in bright sunlight and at a certain angle. But everyone he’s ever seen has had these symbols—except for the three he’s mentioned.”
“He must be able to see a little further into the spectrum than we,” Frigate said. “Obviously, Whoever stamped us with the sign of the beast or whatever you want to call it, did not know about the special ability of Kazz’s species. Which shows that They are not omniscient.”
“Obviously,” Burton said. “Nor infallible. Otherwise, I would never have awakened in that place before being resurrected. So, who is this person who does not have these symbols on his skin?”
He spoke calmly, but his heart beat swiftly. If Kazz was right, he might have detected an agent of the beings who had brought the entire human species to life again. Would They be gods in disguise?
“Robert Spruce!” Frigate said.
“Before we jump to any conclusions,” Monat said, “don’t forget that the omission may have been an accident.”
“We’ll find out,” Burton said ominously. “But why the symbols? Why should we be marked?”
“Probably for identification or numbering purposes,” Monat said. “Who knows, except Those Who put us here.”
“Let’s go face Spruce,” Burton said.
“We have to catch him first,” Frigate replied. “Kazz made the mistake of mentioning to Spruce that he knew about the symbols. He did so at breakfast this morning. I wasn’t there, but those who were said Spruce turned pale. A few minutes later, he excused himself, and he hasn’t been seen since. We’ve sent search parties out up and down The River, across The River, and also into the hills.”
“His flight is an admission of guilt,” Burton said. He was angry. Was man a kind of cattle branded for some sinister purpose?
That afternoon, the drums announced that Spruce had been caught. Three hours later, he was standing before the council table in the newly built meeting hall. Behind the table sat the Council. The doors were closed, for the Councilmen felt that this was something that could be conducted more efficiently without a crowd. However, Monat, Kazz, and Frigate were also present.
“I may as well tell you now,” Burton said, “that we have decided to go to any lengths to get the truth from you. It is against the principles of every one at this table to use torture. We despise and loathe those who resort to torture. But we feel that this is one issue where principles must be abandoned.”
“Principles must never be abandoned,” Spruce said evenly. “The end never justifies the means. Even if clinging to them means defeat, death, and remaining in ignorance.”
“There’s too much at stake,” Targoff said. “I, who have been the victim of unprincipled men; Ruach, who has been tortured several times; the others, we all agree. We’ll use fire and the knife on you if we must. It is necessary that we find out the truth.
“Now, tell me, are you one of Those responsible for this resurrection?”
“You will be no better than Göring and his kind if you torture me,” Spruce said. His voice was beginning to break. “In fact, you will be far worse off, for you are forcing yourselves to be like him in order to gain something that may not even exist. Or, if it does, may not be worth the price.”
“Tell us the truth,” Targoff said. “Don’t lie. We know that you must be an agent; perhaps one of Those directly responsible.”
“There is a fire blazing in that stone over there,” Burton said. “If you don’t start talking at once, you will…well, the roasting you get will be the least of your pain. I am an authority on Chinese and Arabic methods of torture. I assure you that they had some very refined means for extracting the truth. And I have no qualms about putting my knowledge into practice.”
Spruce, pale and sweating, said, “You may be denying yourself eternal life if you do this. It will at least set you far back on your journey, delay the f
inal goal.”
“What is that?” Burton replied.
Spruce ignored him. “We can’t stand pain,” he muttered. “We’re too sensitive.”
“Are you going to talk?” Targoff said.
“Even the idea of self-destruction is painful and to be avoided except when absolutely necessary,” Spruce mumbled. “Despite the fact that I know I shall live again.”
“Put him over the fire,” Targoff said to the two men who held Spruce.
Monat spoke up. “Just one moment. Spruce, the science of my people was much more advanced than that of Earth’s. So I am more qualified to make an educated guess. Perhaps we could spare you the pain of the fire, and the pain of betraying your purpose, if you were merely to affirm what I have to say. That way, you wouldn’t be making a positive betrayal.”
Spruce said, “I’m listening.”
“It’s my theory that you are a Terrestrial. You belong to an age chronologically far past A.D. 2008. You must be the descendant of the few who survived my death scanner. Judging by the technology and power required to reconstruct the surface of this planet into one vast Rivervalley, your time must be much later than the twenty-first century. Just guessing, the fiftieth century A.D.?”
Spruce looked at the fire, then said, “Add two thousand more years.”
“If this planet is about the size of Earth, it can hold only so many people. Where are the others, the stillborn, the children who died before they were five, the imbeciles and idiots, and those who lived after the twentieth century?”
“They are elsewhere,” Spruce said. He glanced at the fire again, and his lips tightened.
“My own people,” Monat said, “had a theory that they would eventually be able to see into their past. I won’t go into the details, but it was possible that past events could be visually detected and then recorded. Time travel, of course, was sheer fantasy.
“But what if your culture was able to do what we only theorized about? What if you recorded every single human being that had ever lived? Located this planet and constructed this Rivervalley? Somewhere, maybe under the very surface of this planet, used energy-matter conversion, say from the heat of this planet’s molten core, and the recordings to re-create the bodies of the dead in the tanks? Used biological techniques to rejuvenate the bodies and to restore limbs, eyes, and so on and also to correct any physical defects?
“Then,” Monat continued, “you made more recordings of the newly created bodies and stored them in some vast memory tank? Later, you destroyed the bodies in the tanks? Re-created them again through means of the conductive metal which is also used to charge the grails? These could be buried beneath the ground. The resurrection then occurs without recourse to supernatural means.
“The big question is, why?”
“If you had it in your power to do all this, would you not think it was your ethical duty?” Spruce asked.
“Yes, but I would resurrect only those worth resurrecting.”
“And what if others did not accept your criteria?” Spruce said. “Do you really think you are wise enough and good enough to judge? Would you place yourself on a level with God? No, all must be given a second chance, no matter how bestial or selfish or petty or stupid. Then, it will be up to them….”
He fell silent, as if he had regretted his outburst and meant to say no more.
“Besides,” Monat said, “you would want to make a study of humanity as it existed in the past. You would want to record all the languages that man ever spoke, his mores, his philosophies, biographies. To do this, you need agents, posing as resurrectees, to mingle with the Riverpeople and to take notes, to observe, to study. How long will this study take? One thousand years? Two? Ten? A million?
“And what about the eventual disposition of us? Are we to stay here forever?”
“You will stay here as long as it takes for you to be rehabilitated,” Spruce shouted. “Then….”
He closed his mouth, glared, then opened it to say, “Continued contact with you makes even the toughest of us take on your characteristics. We have to go through a rehabilitation ourselves. Already, I feel unclean….”
“Put him over the fire,” Targoff said. “We’ll get the entire truth.”
“No, you won’t!” Spruce cried. “I should have done this long ago! Who knows what….”
He fell to the ground, and his skin changed to a gray-blue color. Dr. Steinborg, a Councilman, examined him, but it was apparent to all that he was dead.
Targoff said, “Better take him away now, Doctor. Dissect him. We’ll wait here for your report.”
“With stone knives, no chemicals, no microscopes, what kind of a report can you expect?” Steinborg said. “But I’ll do my best.”
The body was carried off. Burton said, “I’m glad he didn’t force us to admit we were bluffing. If he had kept his mouth shut, he could have defeated us.”
“Then you really weren’t going to torture him?” Frigate said. “I was hoping you didn’t mean your threat. If you had, I was going to walk out then and there and never see any of you again.”
“Of course we didn’t mean it,” Ruach said. “Spruce would have been right. We’d have been no better than Göring. But we could have tried other means. Hypnotism for instance. Burton, Monat, and Steinborg were experts in that field.”
“The trouble is, we still don’t know if we did get the truth,” Targoff said. “Actually, he may have been lying. Monat supplied some guesses, and, if these were wrong, Spruce could have led us astray by agreeing with Monat. I’d say we can’t be at all sure.”
They agreed on one thing. Their chances of detecting another agent through the absence of symbols on the forehead would be gone. Now that They—whoever They were—knew about the visibility of the characters to Kazz’s species, They would take the proper measures to prevent detection.
Steinborg returned three hours later. “There is nothing to distinguish him from any other member of Homo sapiens. Except this one little device.”
He held up a black shiny ball about the size of a matchhead.
“I located this on the surface of the forebrain. It was attached to some nerves by wires so thin that I could see them only at a certain angle, when they caught the light. It’s my opinion that Spruce killed himself by means of this device and that he did so by literally thinking himself dead. Somehow, this little ball translated a wish for death into the deed. Perhaps, it reacted to the thought by releasing a poison which I do not have facilities for analyzing.” He concluded his report and passed the ball around to the others.
18
Thirty days later, Burton, Frigate, Ruach, and Kazz were returning from a trip upRiver. It was just before dawn.
The cold heavy mists that piled up to six or seven feet above The River in the latter part of the night swirled around them. They could not see in any direction farther than a strong man might make a standing broad jump. But Burton, standing in the prow of the bamboo-hulled single-masted boat, knew they were close to the western shore. Near the relatively shallow depths the current ran more slowly, and they had just steered to port from the middle of The River.
If his calculations were correct, they should be close to the ruins of Göring’s hall. At any moment, he expected to see a strip of denser darkness appear out of the dark waters, the banks of that land he now called home. Home, for Burton, had always been a place from which to sally forth, a resting place, a temporary fortress in which to write a book about his last expedition, a lair in which to heal fresh hurts, a conning tower from which he looked out for new lands to explore.
Thus, only two weeks after the death of Spruce, Burton had felt the need to get to some place other than the one in which he now was. He heard a rumor that copper had been discovered on the western shore about a hundred miles upRiver. This was a length of shore of not more than twelve miles, inhabited by fifth-century B.C. Sarmatians and thirteenth-century A.D. Frisians.
Burton did not really think the story was true—but it
gave him an excuse to travel. Ignoring Alice’s pleas to take her with him, he had set off.
Now, a month later and after some adventures, not all unpleasant, they were almost home. The story had not been entirely unfounded. There was copper but only in minute amounts. So the four had gotten into their boat for the easy trip downcurrent, their sail pushed by the never ceasing wind. They journeyed during the daytime and beached the boat during mealtimes wherever there were friendly people who did not mind strangers using their grailstones. At night they either slept among the friendlies or, if in hostile waters, sailed by in the darkness.
The last leg of their trip was made after the sun went down. Before getting home, they had to pass a section of the valley where slave-hungry eighteenth-century Mohawks lived on one side and equally greedy Carthaginians of the third century B.C. on the other. Having slipped through under cover of the fog, they were almost home.
Abruptly, Burton said, “There’s the bank. Pete, lower the mast! Kazz, Lev, back oars! Jump to it!”
A few minutes later, they had landed and had pulled the lightweight craft completely out of the water and upon the gently sloping shore. Now that they were out of the mists, they could see the sky paling above the eastern mountains.
“Dead reckoning come alive!” Burton said. “We’re ten paces beyond the grailstone near the ruins!”
He scanned the bamboo huts along the plain and the buildings evident in the long grasses and under the giant trees of the hills.
Not a single person was to be seen. The valley was asleep.
He said, “Don’t you think it’s strange that no one’s up yet? Or that we’ve not been challenged by the sentinels?”
Frigate pointed toward the lookout tower to their right. Burton swore and said, “They’re asleep, by God, or deserted their post!”
But he knew as he spoke that this was no case of dereliction of duty. Though he had said nothing to the others about it, the moment he had stepped ashore, he had been sure something was very wrong. He began running across the plain toward the hut in which he and Alice lived.
To Your Scattered Bodies Go/The Fabulous Riverboat Page 16
