Göring sucked on his pipe noisily, stared at Frigate, and then said, `Why not? I am living again. Do you deny that?' `Yes! I do deny that – in a sense. You are living. But you are not the Hermann Göring who was born in Marienbad Sanatorium at Rosenheim in Bavaria on January 12, 1893. You are not the Hermann Göring whose godfather was Dr. Hermann Eppenstein; a Jew converted to Christianity. You are not the Göring who succeeded Von Richthofen after his death and continued to lead his fliers against the Allies even after the war ended. You are not the Reichsmarschal of Hitler's Germany nor the refugee arrested by Lieutenant Jerome N. Shapiro. Eppenstein and Shapiro, hah! And you are not the Hermann Göring who took his life by swallowing potassium cyanide during his trial for his crimes against humanity!'
Göring tamped his pipe with tobacco and said; mildly, `You certainly know much about me. I should be flattered, I suppose. At least, I was not forgotten.'
`Generally, you were,' Frigate said. `You did have a long-lived reputation as a sinister clown, a failure, and a toady.' Burton was surprised. He had not known that the fellow would stand up to someone who had power of life and death over him or who had treated him so painfully. But then perhaps Frigate hoped to be killed.
It was probable that he was banking on Göring's curiosity.
Göring said, `Explain your statement. Not about my reputation. Every man of importance expects to be reviled and misunderstood by the brainless masses. Explain why I am not the same man.'
Frigate smiled slightly and said, `You are the product, the hybrid, of a recording and an energy-matter converter. You were made with all the memories of the dead man Hermann Göring and with every cell of his body a duplicate. You have everything he had. So you think you are Göring. But you are not! You are a duplication, and that is all! The original Herman Göring is nothing but molecules that have been absorbed into the soil and the air and so into plants and back into the flesh of beasts and men and out again as excrement, und so wieter!
`But you, here before me, are not the original, any more than the recording on a disc or a tape is the original voice, the vibrations issuing from the mouth of a man and detected and converted by an electronic device and then replayed.' Burton understood the reference, since he had seen an Edison phonograph in Paris in 1888. He felt outraged, actually violated, at Frigate's assertions.
Göring's wide-open eyes and reddening face indicated that he, too, felt threatened down to the core of his being.
After stuttering, Göring said, `And why would these beings go to all this trouble just to make duplicates?'
Frigate shrugged and said, `I don't know.' Göring heaved up from his chair and pointed the stem of his pipe at Frigate.
`You lie!' he screamed in German. `You lie, scheisshund!'
Frigate quivered as if he expected to be struck over the kidneys again, but he said, `I must be right. Of course, you don't have to believe what I say. I can't prove anything. And I understand exactly how you feel. I know that I am Peter Jairus Frigate, born 1918, died A.D. 2008. But I also must believe, because logic tells me so, that I am only, really, a being who has the memories of that Frigate who will never rise from the dead. In a sense, I am the son of that Frigate who can never exist again. Not flesh of his flesh, blood of his blood, but mind of his mind. I am not the man who was born of a woman on that lost world of Earth. I am the by-blow of science and a machine. Unless. . .'
Göring said, `Yes? Unless what?'
`Unless there is some entity attached to the human body, an entity which is the human being. I mean, it contains all that makes the individual what he is, and when the body is destroyed, this entity still exists. So that, if the body were to be made again, this entity, storing the essence of the individual, could be attached again to the body. And it would record every thing that the body recorded: And so the original individual would live again. He would not be just a duplicate.'
Burton said, `For God's sake, Pete! Are you proposing the soul?'
Frigate nodded and said, `Something analogous to the soul Something that the primitives dimly apprehended and called a soul.' Göring laughed uproariously. Burton would have laughed, but he did not care to give Göring any support, moral or intellectual.
When Göring had quit laughing, he said, `Even here, in a world which is clearly the result of science, the supernaturalists won't quit trying. Well, enough of that. To more practical and immediate matters. Tell me, have you changed your mind? Are you ready to join me?'
Burton glared and said, `I would not be under the orders of a man who rapes women; moreover, I respect the Israelis. I would rather be a slave with them than free with you.' Göring scowled and said, harshly, `Very well. I thought as much . . . well, I have been having trouble with the Roman. If he gets his way, you will see how merciful I have been to you slaves. You do not know him. Only my intervention has saved one of you being tortured to death every night for his amusement.' At noon, the two returned to their work in the hills. Neither got a chance to speak to Targoff or any of the slaves, since their duties happened not to bring them into contact. They did not dare make an open attempt to talk to him, because that would have meant a severe beating.
After they returned to the stockade in the evening, Burton told the others what had happened.
`More than likely Targoff will not believe my story. He'll think we're spies. Even if he's not certain, he can't afford to take chances. So there'll be trouble. It's too bad that this had to happen. The escape plan will have to be cancelled for tonight' Nothing untoward took place – at first. The Israelis walked away from Burton and Frigate when they tried to talk to them. The stars came out, and the stockade was flooded with a light almost as bright as a full moon of Earth.
The prisoners stayed inside their barracks, but they talked is low voices with their heads together. Despite their deep tiredness, they could not sleep. The guards must have sensed the tension, even though they could not see or hear the men in the huts. They walked back and forth on the walks, stood together talking, and peered down into the enclosure by the light of the night sky and the flames of the resin torches.
`Targoff will do nothing until it rains,' Burton said. He gave orders. Frigate was to stand first watch; Robert Spruce, the second; Burton, third. Burton lay down on his pile of leaves and, ignoring the murmuring of voices and the moving around of bodies, fell asleep.
It seemed that he had just closed his eyes when Spruce touched him. He rose quickly to, his feet, yawned, and stretched. The others were all awake. Within a few minutes, the first of the clouds formed. In ten minutes, the stars were blotted out. Thunder grumbled way up in the mountains, and the first lightning flash forked the sky.
Lightning struck near. Burton saw by its flash that the guards were huddled under the roofs sticking out from the base of the watch houses at each corner of the stockade. They were covered with towels against the chill and the rain.
Burton crawled from his barracks to the next. Targoff was standing inside the entrance.
Burton stood up and said, `Does the plan still hold?'
`You know better than that,' Targoff said. A bolt of lightning showed his angry face. `You Judas!' He stepped forward, and a dozen men followed him. Burton did not wait; he attacked. But, as he rushed forward, he heard a strange sound. He paused to look' out through the door. Another flash revealed a guard sprawled face down in the grass beneath a walk.
Targoff had put his fists down when Burton turned his back on him. He said, `What's going on, Burton?'
`Wait,' the Englishman replied. He had no more idea than the Israeli did about what was happening, but anything unexpected could be to his advantage.
Lightning illuminated the squat figure of Kazz on the wooden walk. He was swinging a huge stone axe against a group of guards who were in the angle formed by the meeting of the two walls. Another flash. The guards were sprawled out on the walk. Darkness. At the next blaze of light, another was down; the remaining two were running away down the walk in different directions.
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Another bolt very near the wall showed that, finally, the other guards were aware of what was happening. They ran down the walk, shouting and waving their spears.
Kazz, ignoring them, slid a long bamboo ladder down into the enclosure and then he threw a bundle of spears after it. By the next flash, he could be seen advancing toward the nearest guards.
Burton snatched a spear and almost ran up the ladder. The others, including the Israeli, were behind him. The fight was bloody and brief. With the guards on the walk either stabbed or hurled to their deaths, only those in the watch houses remained. The ladder was carried to the other end of the stockade and placed against the gate. In two minutes, men had climbed to the outside, dropped down, and opened the gate. For the first time, Burton found the chance to talk to Kazz.
`I thought you had sold us out.'
`No. Not me, Kazz,' Kazz said reproachfully. `You know I love you, Burton-naq. You're my friend, my chief. I pretend to join your enemies because that's playing it smart. I surprise you don't do the same. You're no dummy.'
`Certainly, you aren't,' Burton said. `But I couldn't bring myself to kill those slaves.' Lightning revealed Kazz shrugging. He said, `That don't bother me. I don't know them. Besides, you hear Göring. He say they die anyway.'
`It's a good thing you chose tonight to rescue us,' Burton said. He did not tell Kazz why since he did not want to confuse him. Moreover, there were more important things to do.
`Tonight's a good night for this,' Kazz said. `Big battle going on. Tullius and Göring get very drunk and quarrel. They fight; their men fight. While they kill each other, invaders come. Those brown men across The River . . . what you call them? . . . Onondaga's, that's them. Their boats come just before rain come. They make raid to steal slaves, too. Or maybe just for the hell of it. So, I think, now's good time to start my plan, get Burton-naq free.'
As suddenly as it had come, the rain ceased. Burton could hear shouts and screams from far off, toward The River. Drums were beating pup and down The Riverbanks. He said to Targoff, `We can either try to escape, and probably do so easily, or we can attack.'
'I intend to wipe out the beasts who enslaved us,' Targoff said. `There are other stockades nearby. I've sent men to open their gates. The rest are too far away to reach quickly; they're strung out at half-mile intervals: By then, the blockhouse in which the off-duty guards lived had been stormed. The slaves armed themselves and then started toward the noise of the conflict. Burton's group was on the right flank. They had not gone half a mile before they came upon corpses and wounded, a mixture of Onondaga's and whites.
Despite the heavy rain, a fire had broken out. By its increasing light, they saw that the flames came from the longhouse. Outlined in the glare were struggling figures. The escapees advanced across the plain. Suddenly, one side broke and ran toward them with the victors, whooping and screaming jubilantly, after them.
`There's Göring,' Frigate said. `His fat isn't going to help him get away, that's for sure.' He pointed, and Burton could see the German desperately pumping his legs but falling behind the others.
`I don't want the Indians to have the honor of killing him,' Burton said. `We owe it to Alice to get him.' Campbell's long-legged figure was ahead of them all, and it was toward him that Burton threw his spear. To the Scot, the missile must have seemed to come out of the darkness from nowhere. Too late, he tried to dodge. The flint head buried itself in the flesh between his left shoulder and chest, and he fell on his side. He tried to get up a moment afterward, but he was knocked back down by Burton.
Campbell's eyes rolled; blood trickled from his mouth. He pointed at another wound, a deep gash in his side just below the ribs. `You . . . your woman . . . Wilfreda . . . did that,' he gasped. `But I killed her, the bitch. . .'
Burton wanted to ask him where Alice was, but Kazz, screaming phrases in his native tongue, brought his club down on the Scot's head. Burton picked up his spear and ran after Kazz. `Don't kill Göring!' he shouted. `Leave him to me!'
Kazz did not hear him; he was busy fighting with two Onondaga's. Burton saw Alice as she ran by him. He reached out and grabbed her and spun her around. She screamed and started to struggle. Burton shouted at her; suddenly, recognizing him, she collapsed into his arms and began weeping. Burton would have tried to comfort her, but he was afraid that Göring would escape him. He pushed her away and ran toward the German and threw his spear. It grazed Göring's head, and he screamed and stopped running and began to look for the weapon but Burton was on him. Both fell to the ground and rolled over and over, each trying to strangle the other.
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.
Chapter 17
* * *
The days that followed were busy ones. A rough census indicated that at least half of the 20,000 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 20,000,000 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 thing 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 Melange 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 but and greeted them.<
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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,' Button said.
R.W. I - To Your Scattered Bodies Go Page 15