He could hear Alice’s scream through all the noise; he knew it from long experience. Turning, he saw her standing horrified, the back of her hand over her mouth, her eyes huge dark holes.
He also saw the Red Knight on his galloping horse, charging toward him, the spike-knobbed club held high. The crimson armor and the horse-head-shaped helmet were a terrible sight. The beat of the horse’s hooves was like the roll of a drum just before the gallows trapdoor was dropped.
Burton shifted the saber to his left hand, stopped, picked up a spear, and braced himself for the throw. His target was not the Red Knight but its charger. When the armored thing was thirty feet away, he cast the spear, and its sharp broad head plunged into the horse’s shoulder. It fell forward, turning over. Its rider flew through the air and landed with a crash of steel upon the grass. Burton took the saber in his right hand and ran to the horse, which was starting to get up, and he slashed its jugular. It, too, had been programmed to kill; it had bitten and kicked while its rider was swinging its club; it had to be made harmless first.
The Knight lay prone and motionless. Burton turned the heavy body over and undid the helmet fastenings. He had to make sure that the thing was dead, not just unconscious. Seeing the face, he recoiled with shock. It was his face.
“One of Alice’s jokes,” he said.
He rose, looked at the dead features, and thought of how strange it was to see himself as a corpse. He gazed over the field between him and the foot of the hill. There were bodies everywhere, some in heaps. The only one standing in that direction was Alice, who was just pulling her rapier from a Humpty Dumpty. Her tears were washing the blood from her face.
Then he saw Star Spoon running down the hill with a beamer in each hand. She had fled, but only to get weapons from the house that would assure their victory, though she might be the only one left alive.
He turned. There were ten androids on their feet, not counting the Jabberwock. Three humans were still fighting, Li Po, a black man, and a white woman, one of Aphra Behn’s friends. The woman went down under a rain of swordstrokes as he watched.
The Jabberwock, breathing in short unsteady gasps, waddled toward the cluster of battlers. It turned when it got near, and its tail whipped out, catching three androids and the black man. Li Po rapiered the White Queen in front of him and ran for the parking area. There were still three chairs there.
Frigate came from somewhere and also headed toward the chairs. The remaining androids hacked at the fallen black man before pursuing the two men.
The Jabberwock swung its head from left to right, saw Burton, and lumbered toward him.
The field was comparatively quiet now, but, suddenly, Burton heard a motor turning over. That was followed by a series of explosions, and Bill Williams, bloody but grinning, rode his cycle from behind the little house with the chimneys like rabbit’s ears and the fur-covered roof. Burton did not know what he had been doing there or how he had gotten his cycle there. Perhaps he had pushed it there during the fray, intending to get away at an opportune moment. Perhaps, and this was more likely, he was just waiting for a chance to use it. Or he might have gotten the machine hidden and then fainted from his wounds. Recovering, he had followed his original plan. Whatever had happened, and Burton was never to know, the fellow was now doing what only he could have thought of.
As the monster advanced toward Burton, not turning its head to find the source of the new noise, Williams speeded up the machine. Dodging around the bodies, sometimes driving over an outstretched arm or leg, Williams sped straight at the side of the Jabberwock, and he smashed his motorcycle into its ribs.
So great was the impact, the Jabberwock was moved a few inches to one side. Williams flew headlong over its back and slammed into the ground. The monster raised its head as high as the neck could reach, gave a great bawling cry, and died.
Burton ran to Williams and turned him over. He was dead, his face smashed and his neck broken.
Though doomed, the androids advanced toward Burton as programmed. They never reached him. Frigate’s and Li Po’s chairs smashed into them and knocked them down again and again until they could no longer get up. Then the two men got out of the chairs and finished their work.
Burton heard a gasp behind him. Turning, he saw that Star Spoon had slipped and fallen on her face. She had let the beamers loose to soften the fall with her hands. He walked up to her and picked her up. Sobbing, she went into his arms.
Except for the weeping of Alice, Star Spoon, and Frigate, the field was silent. Only he, those three, and Li Po had survived. No. The Blue Caterpillar was sitting on the giant mushroom, and the rocking-horse-fly, a creature too fragile to have been programmed to kill, was alive. They did not, however, count.
He felt more weary, more emptied, than he had ever felt in his long life. He was in shock, numb, the world around him seeming alien and drifting way.
“Who could have done this horrible thing?” Alice wailed.
Who, indeed?
At that moment, William Gull groaned and sat up from the dead.
33
Though covered with blood, the Englishman was uninjured except for a bump on the back of his head.
“I was knocked out, and some of those killed fell on top of me. The androids did not see me.”
He gingerly touched his head and grimaced.
“You were very fortunate,” Burton said dully. “I think you were the only one who went down who escaped beheading.”
Why did Gull have the good luck? Why couldn’t Nur or de Marbot or Behn have been spared?
No, that did not matter, he told himself. They can be resurrected.
And then he knew that the murderer would have insured that they would stay dead. Why bother to kill them if they could be brought back? It made no sense.
He would have to find out about that. Just now, they must recover from their exhaustion and shock. Then the dead must be converted into ashes; the horrible mess cleaned up.
“Let’s go to the house,” he said. “There’s nothing to be gained by staying here.”
First, though, he must take precautions to guard himself and the others. He picked up the two beamers and said, “Star Spoon, were there any androids in the house when you got these?”
“I didn’t see any,” she said. Her voice was as empty of expression as her face.
“We’ll have to do everything for ourselves,” he said. “We can’t trust the androids.”
He stopped walking. The beamers seemed rather light. He opened the bottom of the beamer butts and looked into the receptacles for the powerpacks. He swore. They were empty.
He showed them to Star Spoon and said, “These would have been useless.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was too excited to notice.”
She shuddered. “It’s a good thing I didn’t have to use them.”
“Yes. But whoever did this is very clever. Only…”
They were trudging up the hill, every step forward seeming to be in a thick and heavy substance, as if they were walking at the bottom of a treacle well.
“What?” she said.
“Why didn’t the killer have the androids take the beamers from the house and kill us with them? It would have been very easy. We wouldn’t have had a chance.”
Li Po had been listening in. He said, “Perhaps the killer likes the sight of blood. Or it may be that he wanted us to suffer or to think that we might survive. As it turned out…”
“He won’t stop,” Burton said.
“He failed,” the Chinese said. “All we have to do is raise our friends, and he will be…”
His mouth fell open. “Ah! What if he has inhibited their resurrection?”
“Exactly,” Burton said. “Well, we’ll soon find out.’
Frigate caught up with them. He looked behind, and Burton turned to see what he was staring at. Gull was far behind them, moving slowly up the slope.
“I could be overly suspicious,” the American said, “but don’t
you think it’s funny that he wasn’t killed after he fell? I have no evidence for my suspicions, but, after all, he was Jack the Ripper. Maybe he played it safe, programmed the androids to spare him. He might even have fixed it so that one would knock him out or tap him lightly on the head if it looked as if we’d win. I hate to say these things, but we can’t take any chances now.”
“I’ve thought of the same thing,” Burton said. “However, his story could be true.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence. The sky was still blue, and the sun was about where it would be at six o’clock. He thought of what the Mad Hatter had said. “It’s always six o’clock here.”
The birds were singing again in the woods, and an angry squirrel was scolding something, probably one of Alice’s cats. The wild animals must have been frightened into silence by the uproar, but now that that had ceased, they had resumed normal life. All the noise and the babel meant nothing to them after they had passed. Those innocent creatures lived only in the present; the past was forgotten.
He envied them their innocence and unawareness of time.
They paused to catch their breaths in the large and beautiful garden of flowers at the top of the hill. Burton scanned the sky, wondering if the chairs were pressing against the blue wall somewhere out there. They would keep doing that until their power supply weakened, and then they would settle down slowly into the trees.
They entered the huge empty house—he hoped it was empty—and they searched every room, their weapons ready. Satisfied that no one, human or android, was hiding in ambush, they showered. After putting on new clean clothes, simple robes, they met in the large library. By then the antishock pills given by the Computer were doing their work. They were still very tired and dispirited, however. The drinks did not seem to help much. Nor was anybody hungry.
“Well, there’s no use putting it off,” Burton said, and he seated himself in front of the computer console. Though he dreaded to ask the question, he did so. And what he did not want to hear was what the Computer, through the computer, told him.
The dead, Nur, Turpin, Sophie, de Marbot, Aphra, all the slain, could not be raised. Someone had inhibited the raising, and the Computer would not say who that person was.
“Oh, my God!” Alice said, and she moaned. “I had Monty for six days, and now he’s gone forever!”
“I wouldn’t say forever,” Burton said. “We’ll find a way to cancel the overrides. Someday.”
“We should warn the others,” Alice said.
“The others?” Burton said. “Oh, you mean those in Turpinville. And Netley and his people and the gypsies.”
“Tell the gypsies,” Frigate said. “Never mind those who threw Tom and me out of our places. They don’t deserve to be warned. What they do deserve … well…”
“I understand your feelings,” Burton said, “but, in a way, they’re our allies. The Snark or whoever the killer is won’t be attacking just us.”
“How do you know that?” Frigate said.
“I don’t know that, but we must warn them.”
He tried Turpinville first. Though the screen was activated, there was no reply, and they could see only a dim diffuse dark amber light.
Burton was about to try Netley when Li Po said, “Wait! I thought I saw something!”
“What is it?” Burton said, squinting his eyes—as if that would help.
“Something dark. Moving,” Li Po said.
The others crowded around the console. They, too, squinted.
“I don’t see anything,” Burton said.
“You don’t have my eagle eyes,” Li Po said. He pointed. “There! Can’t you see it? It’s dark, and it’s moving, though very slowly. Wait.”
Presently, Burton could see a dark vague bulk. It swelled almost imperceptibly, taking a near-unendurable time to float nearer. Minutes passed, and then the outlines became more distinct. Alice gasped and said, “It’s a man!”
Burton asked the Computer to make the area brighter if it could. The fluid—it had to be a fluid since the man was floating in it—was illuminated a little. More minutes passed, and then they could see the face of a black man, eyes staring and mouth open.
“I don’t know what’s happened,” Burton said, “but something horrible has. The screen for receiving messages from outside Turpin’s world is in the room next to Turpin’s office. Obviously, it’s filled with water or some kind of liquid.”
“That can’t be!” Star Spoon said.
“Oh, yes, it can. The Computer can do almost anything.”
“Try Netley’s,” Frigate said.
Burton did so. This time, the screen showed them a clearer fluid. They could not see very far into it, but they could distinguish a shadowy bulk that looked like a sofa. Near it was a small dark object too fuzzy to be identified. But it was floating. It could be a plastic bottle of some sort, partly full, perhaps, and buoyed by the air in it.
“Definitely another flood,” Burton said.
“Ask the Computer if it knows what happened,” Frigate said.
Burton glared at him. “Don’t be a stupid ass. Whoever did this would command the Computer not to tell us anything.”
“You don’t know. Maybe the Snark doesn’t care. Maybe he’d like us to know. Anyway, if he thought that we’d all be dead, no one around to question it, why conceal anything?”
“Anything is possible. Sorry about the remark.”
Burton asked the Computer if it had made recordings of the recent events in Turpinville and Frigate’s world. It replied that it had. Burton then ordered it to run off the pictures of Turpinville, starting from the moment that the liquid had poured into that world.
They had thought that the only video-audio transmissions inside the worlds were made through the computer sets inside the private worlds, these being connected through cables to the floors of the worlds. But the Snark, the unknown, had found a way to break this communication and video-audio barrier. Selected areas of the world’s wall had been made into screens, and Burton and his companions saw the deluge as a flying bird would see it. They watched as the waters of the fountains and the river and the marshes and lake were replaced by the amber liquid. Which, the Computer told them in answer to Burton’s question, was bourbon.
“Bourbon?” Burton said, and he asked the Computer to repeat the statement.
It was bourbon.
The inlets for the various water sources had poured in the liquor under great pressure. The fountains had soared up until they almost touched the top of the Brobdingnagian chamber, and the river and lakes and marshes had spewed forth the swift raging floor of whiskey.
“No doubt, it was the best bourbon,” Burton muttered.
The citizens of Turpinville had been panicked, but, after a few minutes, they had taken every means of transportation to the exit. They had fought each other for the hundred available flying chairs, hitting, knifing, and shooting. Those left behind had fought for the automobiles, motorcycles, and horses and buggies. They had jammed into the railroad train and climbed on top of the cars. Those in the chairs had gotten swiftly to the exit, only to find that they could not open the door. The people on foot and in the ground vehicles were drowned before they reached the exit.
If they had not panicked, they could have made flying chairs in the e-m converters and flown to the exit. Where they would have discovered that their efforts were in vain.
Though the liquor poured out swiftly, it had an enormous volume to fill, and the surface of the fluid body was only one-fourth of the way up the walls. The people in the chairs had taken them to the ceiling, but they had been overcome by the fumes or died from lack of oxygen. Some of them might still be alive; they would not last long. Though the flood had ceased to rise, it did not have to do so to complete its work.
“What a way to die!” Burton said.
He looked at the pale set faces. “I suppose we might as well try Netley’s world.”
The same thing had happened there, except that
the liquor was gin. The best, of course.
Burton anticipated that those who had died in both worlds would be denied resurrection by the Computer, and he was right.
The gypsies had been traveling in a corridor leading to the well of the wathans—perhaps they meant to sightsee it—when a big wheeled robot had come upon them and pierced them with beamer rays. Ten minutes later, robots had cleaned up the blood and carried the bodies off to be turned to ashes in converters.
“That leaves six of us alive,” Burton said. “Seven if the Snark is counted. But…”
“But what?” Alice said after a long silence.
He did not reply. He was thinking that the killer could have done away with them much more easily if he—or she—had flooded Alice’s world. Why the different means? Was it for grisly amusement, using the exotic androids against them, the charming creatures of two fantasy books for children suddenly turned into bloodthirsty monsters?
It seemed more probable that the killer had made an exception in Alice’s world because he or she had been one of the guests. And that guest had perhaps wished to see that his or her enemies, people he or she must have hated deeply, would be slain most bloodily.
And that guest had made arrangements by programming the androids to spare him or her.
He knew Alice, Peter Frigate, and Li Po too well to suspect them. That left only two. William Gull, who claimed to be a changed and deeply religious man, but had once murdered five women. And Star Spoon, who, however, had no motive—as far as he knew.
Yet Gull had not been in the tower long enough to learn how to operate the Computer with the skill, no, the ingenuity, that the killer needed.
Star Spoon had been studying the Computer long and hard, but would she have been able in such a relatively short time to gain knowledge that those who had been using the Computer much longer than she did not have?
It could be that there was a second Snark.
If so, then the six were at his mercy.
The Gods of Riverworld Page 29