The slaves, shouting, threw themselves upon the guards. Frigate jerked a spear loose and brought the butt of it against Kazz's head. Kazz crumpled. Monat kicked a guard in the groin and picked up his spear.
Burton did not remember anything after that. He awoke several hours before dusk. His head hurt worse than before. His ribs and both shoulders were stiff with pain. He was lying on grass in a pine log enclosure with a diameter of about fifty yards. Fifteen feet above the grass, circling the interior of the wall, was a wooden walk on which armed guards paced.
He groaned when he sat up. Frigate, squatting near him, said, `I was afraid you'd never come out of it' `Where are the women?' Burton said.
Frigate began to weep.
Burton shook his head and said, `Quit blubbering. Where are they?'
`Where the hell do you think they are?' Frigate said. `Oh, my God!'
`Don't think about the women. There's nothing you can do for them. Not now, anyway. Why wasn't I killed after I attacked Göring?'
Frigate wiped away the tears and said, `Beats me. Maybe they're saving you, and me, for the fire. As an example. I wish they had killed us.'
`What, so recently gained paradise and wish so soon to lose it?' Burton said. He began to laugh but quit because pains speared his head.
Burton talked to Robert Spruce, an Englishman born in 1945 in Kensington. Spruce said that it was less than a month since Göring and Tullius had seized power. For the time being, they were leaving their neighbors in peace. Eventually, of course, they would try to conquer the adjacent territories, including the Onondaga Indians across the River. So far, no slave had escaped to spread word about Göring's intentions.
`But the people on the borders can see for themselves that the walls are being built by slaves,' Burton said.
Spruce grinned wryly and said, `Göring has spread the word that these are all Jews. That he is only interested in enslaving Jews. So, what do they care? As you can see for yourself, that is not true. Half of the slaves are Gentile.' At dusk, Burton, Frigate, Ruach, de Greystoke, and Monat were taken from she stockade and marched down to a grailrock. There were about two hundred slaves there, guarded by about seventy Göringites. Their grails were placed on the rock, and they waited. After the blue flames roared, the grails were taken down. Each slave opened his, and guards removed the tobacco, liquor, and half of the food.
Frigate had gashes in his head and in his shoulder, which needed sewing up, though the bleeding had stopped. His color had much improved, though his back and kidneys pained him.
`So now we're slaves,' Frigate said. `Dick, you thought quite a lot of the institution of slavery. What do you think of it now?'
`That was Oriental slavery,' Burton said. `In this type of slavery, there's no chance for a slave to gain his freedom. Nor is there any personal feeling, except hatred, between slave and owner. In the Orient, the situation was different. Of course, like any human institution, it had its abuses.'
`You're a stubborn man,' Frigate said. `Have you noticed that at least half the slaves are Jews? Late twentieth-century Israeli, most of them. That girl over there told me that Göring managed to start grail-slavery by stirring up anti-Semitism in this area. Of course, it had to exist before it could be aroused. Then, after he had gotten into power with Tullius' aid, he enslaved many of his former supporters.' He continued, `The hell of it is, Göring is not, relatively speaking, a genuine anti-Semite. He personally intervened with Himmler and others to save Jews. But he is something even worse than a genuine Jew-hater. He is an opportunist. Anti-Semitism was a tidal wave in Germany; to get any place, you had to ride the wave. So, Göring rode there, just as he rode here. An anti-Semite such as Goebbels or Frank believed in the principles they professed. Perverted and hateful principles, true, but still principles. Whereas big fat happy-go-lucky Göring did not really care one way or the other about the Jews. He just wanted to use them.'
`All very well,' Burton said, `but what has that got to do with me? Oh, I see! That look! You are getting ready to lecture me.'
'Dick, I admire you as I have admired few men. I love you as one man loves another. I am as happy and delighted to have had the singular good luck to fall in with you as, say, Plutarch would be if he had met Alcibiades or Theseus. But I am not blind. I know your faults, which are many, and I regret them.'
`Just which one is it this time?' `That book. The Jew, The Gypsy, and El Islam. How could you have written it? A hate document full of bloody-minded nonsense, folk tales, and superstitions! Ritual murders, indeed!'
`I was still angry because of the injustices I had suffered at Damascus. To be expelled from the consulate because of the lies of my enemies, among whom. . .' `That doesn't excuse your writing lies about a whole group,' Frigate said.
`Lies! I wrote the truth!'
'You may have thought they were truths. But I come from an age which definitely knows that they were not. In fact, no one in his right mind in your time would have believed that crap!'
`The facts are,' Burton said, `that the Jewish moneylenders in Damascus were charging the poor a thousand percent interest on their loans. The facts are that they were inflicting this monstrous usury not only on the Moslem and Christian populace but also on their own people. The facts are, that when my enemies in England accused me of anti-Semitism, many Jews in Damascus came to my defense. It is a fact that I protested to the Turks when they sold the synagogue of the Damascan Jews to the Greek Orthodox bishop so he could turn it into a church It is a fact that I went out and drummed up eighteen Moslems to testify in behalf of the Jews. It is a fact that I protected the Christian missionaries from the Druzes. It is a fact that I warned the Druzes that that fat and oily Turkish swine, Rashid Pasha, was trying to incite them to revolt so he could massacre them. It is a fact that when I was recalled from my consular post, because of the lies of the Christian missionaries and priests, of Rashid Pasha, and of the
Jewish usurers, thousands of Christians, Moslems, and Jews rallied to my aid, though it was too late then.
`It is also a fact that I don't have to answer to you or to any man for my actions!'
How like Frigate to bring up such an irrelevant subject at such an inappropriate time. Perhaps he was trying to keep from blaming himself by turning his fear and anger on Burton. Or perhaps he really felt that his hero had failed him.
Lev Ruach had been sitting with his head between his hands.
He raised his head and said, hollowly, `Welcome to the concentration camp, Burton! This is your first taste of it. It's an old tale to me, one I was tired of hearing from the beginning. I was in a Nazi camp, and I escaped. I was in a Russian camp, and I escaped. In Israel, I was captured by Arabs, and I escaped.
`So, now, perhaps I can escape again. But to what? To another camp? There seems to be no end to them. Man is forever building them and putting the perennial prisoner, the Jew, or what have you, in them. Even here, where we have a fresh start, where all religions, all prejudices, should have been shattered on the anvil of resurrection, little is changed.'
`Shut your mouth,' a man near Ruach said. He had red hair so curly it was almost kinky, blue eyes, and a face that might have been handsome if it had not been for his broken nose. He was six feet tall and had a wrestler's body.
`Dov Targoff here,' he said in a crisp Oxford accent. `Late commander in the Israeli Navy. Pay no attention to this man. He's one of the old-time Jews, a pessimist, and a whiner. He'd rather wail against the wall than stand up and fight like a man.'
Ruach choked, then said, `You arrogant Sabra! I fought; I killed! And I am not a whiner! What are you doing now, you brave warrior? Aren't you a slave as much as the rest of us?'
`It's the old story,' a woman said. She was tall and dark-haired and probably would have been a beauty if she had not been so gaunt. `The old story. We fight among ourselves while our enemies conquer. Just as we fought when Titus besieged Jerusalem and we killed more of our own people than we did the Romans. Just as. . .' The two men turned
against her, and all three argued loudly until a guard began beating them with a stick.
Later, through swollen lips, Targoff said, `I can't take much of this, much longer. Soon . . . well, that guard is mine to kill.'
'You have a plan?' Frigate said, eagerly, but Targoff would not answer.
Shortly before dawn, the slaves were awakened and marched to the grailrock. Again, they were given a modicum of food. After eating, they were split up into groups and marched off to their differing assignments. Burton and Frigate were taken to the northern border. They were put to work with a thousand other slaves, and they toiled naked all day in the sun. Their only rest was when they took their grails to the rock at noon and were fed.
Göring meant to build a wall between the mountain and The River; he also intended to erect a second wall, which would run for the full ten-mile length of the lakeshore and a third wall at the southern end.
Burton and the others had to dig a deep trench and then pile the dirt taken from the hole into a wall. This was hard work, for they had only stone hoes with which to hack at the ground. Since the roots of the grass formed a thickly tangled complex of very tough material, they could be cut only with repeated blows. The dirt and roots were scraped up on wooden shovels and tossed onto large bamboo sleds. These were dragged by teams onto the top of the wall, where the dirt was shoveled off to make the wall even higher and thicker.
At night, the slaves were herded back into the stockade. Here, most of them fell asleep almost at once. But Targoff, the redheaded Israeli, squatted by Burton.
`The grapevine gives a little juice now and then,' he said. `I heard about the fight you and your crew made. I also heard about your refusal to join Göring and his swine.'
`What do you hear about my infamous book?' Burton said.
Targoff smiled and said, `I never heard of it until Ruach brought it to my attention. Your actions speak for themselves. Besides, Ruach is very sensitive about such things. Not that you can really blame him after what he went through. But I do not think that you would behave as you did if you were what he said you are. I think you're a good man, the type we need. So. . .'
Days and nights of hard work and short rations followed. Burton learned through the grapevine about the women. Wilfreda and Fatima were in Campbell's apartment. Loghu was with Tullius. Alice had been kept by Göring for a week, then had been turned over to a lieutenant, a Manfred Von Kreyscharft. Rumor was that Göring had complained of her coldness and had wanted to give her to his bodyguards to do with as they pleased. But Von Kreyscharft had asked for her.
Burton was in agony. He could not endure the mental images of her with Göring and Von Kreyscharft. He had to stop these beasts or at least die trying. Late that night, he crawled from the big hut he occupied with twenty-five men into Targoff's hut and woke him up.
`You said you knew that I must be on your side,' he whispered. `When are you going to take me into your confidence? I might as well warn you now that, if you don't do so at once, I intend to foment a break among my own group and anybody else who will join us.'
`Roach has told me more about you,' Targoff said. `I didn't understand, really, what he was talking about. Could a Jew trust anyone who wrote such a book? Or could such a man be trusted not to turn on them after the common enemy has been defeated?'
Burton opened his mouth to speak angrily, then closed it. For a moment, he was silent. When he spoke, he did so calmly. `In the first place, my actions on Earth speak louder than any of my printed words. I was the friend and protector of many Jews; I had many Jewish friends.'
`That last statement is always a preface to an attack on the Jews,' Targoff said.
`Perhaps. However, even if what Roach claims were true, the Richard Burton you see before you in this valley is not the Burton who lived on Earth. I think every man has been changed somewhat by his experience here. If he hasn't, he is incapable of change. He would be better off dead.
`During the four hundred and seventy-six days that I have lived on this River, I have learned much. I am not incapable of changing my mind. I listened to Roach and Frigate. I argued frequently and passionately with them. And though I did not want to admit it at the time, I thought much about what they said.'
`Jew-hate is something bred into the child,' Targoff said. `It becomes part of the nerve. No act of will can get rid of it, unless it is not very deeply embedded or the will is extraordinarily strong. The bell rings, and Pavlov's dog salivates. Mention the word Jew, and the nervous system storms the citadel of the mind of the Gentile Just as the word Arab storms mine. But I have a realistic basis for hating all Arabs.'
`I have pled enough,' Burton said. `You will either accept me or reject me. In either case, you know what I will do.'
`I accept,' Targoff said. `If you can change your mind, I can change mine. I've worked with you, eaten bread with you. I like to think I'm a good judge of character. Tell me, if you were planning this, what would you do?' Targoff listened carefully. At the end of Burton's explanation, Targoff nodded. `Much like my plan. Now. . .'
Chapter 16
* * *
The next day, shortly after breakfast, several guards came for Burton and Frigate. Targoff looked hard at Burton, who knew what Targoff was thinking. Nothing could be done except to march off to Göring's `palace.' He was seated in a big wooden chair and smoking a pipe. He asked them to sit down and offered them cigars and wine.
`Every once in a while,' he said, `I like to relax and talk with somebody besides my colleagues, who are not overly bright. I like especially to talk with somebody who lived after I died. And to men who were famous in their time. I've few of either type, so far.'
`Many of your Israeli prisoners lived after you,' Frigate said.
`Ah, the Jews!' Göring airily waved his pipe. `That is the trouble. They know me too well. They are sullen when I try to talk to them, and too many have tried to kill me for me to feel comfortable around them. Not that I have anything against them. I don't particularly like Jews, but I had many Jewish friends. . . ' Burton reddened.
Göring, after sucking on his pipe, continued, Der Fuehrer was a great man, but he had some idiocies. One of them was his attitude toward Jews. Myself, I cared less. But the Germany of my time was anti-Jewish, and a man must go with the Zeitgeist if he wants to get any place in life. Enough of that. Even here, a man cannot get away from them.' He chattered on for a while, then asked Frigate many questions concerning the fate of his, contemporaries and the history of post-war Germany.
`If you Americans had had any political sense, you would have declared war on Russia as soon as we surrendered. We would have fought with you against the Bolshevik, and we would have crushed them.' Frigate did not reply. Göring then told several `funny,' very obscene stories. He asked Burton to tell him about the strange experience he had had before being resurrected in the valley.
Burton was surprised. Had Göring learned about this from Kazz or was there an informer among the slaves? He told in full detail everything that had happened between the time he opened his eyes to find himself in the place of floating bodies to the instant when the man in the aerial canoe pointed the metal tube at him.
`The extra-Terrestrial, Monat, has a theory that some beings, – call them Whoever or X – have been observing mankind since he ceased to be an ape. For at least two million years. These super-beings have, in some manner, recorded every cell of every human being that ever lived from the moment of conception, probably, to the moment of death. This seems a staggering concept, but it is no more staggering than the resurrection of all humanity and the reshaping of this planet into one Rivervalley. The recordings may have been made when the recordees were living. Or it may be that these super-beings detected vibrations from the past, just as we on Earth saw the light of stars, as they had been a thousand years before. .
'Monat, however, inclines to the former theory. He does not believe in time travel even in a limited sense.
'Monat believes that the X's stored these recor
dings. How, he does not know. But this planet was then reshaped for us. It is obviously one great Riverworld. During our journey up River, we've talked to dozens whose descriptions leave no doubt that they come from widely scattered parts, from all over. One was from far up in the northern hemisphere; another, far down in the southern. All the descriptions fall together to make a picture of a world that has been reworked into one zigzagging Rivervalley.
`The people we talked to were killed or died by accident here and were resurrected again in the areas we happened to be traveling through. Monat says that we resurrectees are still being recorded. And when one of us dies again, the up-to-the-minute recordings are being placed somewhere – maybe under, the surface of this planet – and played into energy-matter converters. The bodies were reproduced as they were at the moment of death and then the rejuvenating devices restored the sleeping bodies. Probably in that same chamber in which I awoke. After this, the bodies, young and whole again, were recorded and then destroyed. And the recordings were played out again, this time through devices under the ground. Once more, energy-matter converters, probably using the heat of this planet's molten core as energy, reproduced us above the ground, near the grailstones. I do not know why they are not resurrected a second time in – the same spot where they died. But then I don't know why all our hairs were shaven off or why men's facial hairs don't grow or why men were circumcised and women made virgins again. Or why we were resurrected. For what purpose? Whoever put us here has not shown up to tell us why.'
`The thing is,' Frigate said, `the thing is, we are not the same people we were on Earth. I died. Burton died. You died, Hermann Göring. Everybody died. And we cannot be brought back to life!'
R.W. I - To Your Scattered Bodies Go Page 14