17

Jack's face was hanging above her. It was unconnected to a body, floating freely like a balloon. The curly reddish hair, the broad handsome face, the bright blue eyes, the strong chin, the full lips, smiling . . .

"Jack!" she murmured, and then the face dissolved and became another, attached to a body.

The face was broad and handsome, the cheekbones high, the eyes black, slanted by epicanthic folds, the hair straight and black.

"Piscator!"

"I heard you screaming.'' He leaned down and took her hands. "Can you get up?"

"I think so," she said shakily. She came up easily enough with his help. She became aware that the thunder and lightning had ceased. Nor was it raining, though water was still dripping from the eaves. The door was open, showing only darkness. The clouds had not yet disappeared. No, there was the silhouette of a hill suddenly rising. Beyond was a break in the skycover and the white flare of a great gas sheet in which thousands of giant stars were embedded,

She also became aware that she was naked. She looked down and saw her breasts were reddened, as if they had been too near a fire. The red slowly faded away as she watched.

Piscator said, "I thought you had been slightly burned. Your breasts and your pubic area were inflamed, swollen, reddened. But there was no evidence of a fire."

"The fire was from within, inside me,"she said. "Dreamgum."

His eyebrows arose. He said, "Ah, so!"

She laughed.

He helped her to the cot, and she lay down on it with a sigh. The slight warmth inside her vagina had subsided now. Piscator busied himself, placing towels over her, getting her a drink of rainwater from the bamboo barrel placed outside the door. She drank the water, holding the cup with one hand, leaning on the elbow of the other arm.

"Thanks," she said. "I should have known better than to chew the gum. I was depressed, and when I'm in that kind of a mood, I get strange effects from it. It all seemed so real, so horrible. I never questioned its reality, though it was clearly impossible."

He said, "The Second Chancers use dreamgum in their therapy, but it's done under supervision. It seems to have some beneficial results. But we do not use it except in the initial stages of education with some people."

"We?"

"Al Ahl al-Hagg, the followers of the Real. What you Occidentals call Sufis."

"I thought so."

"You should, since we have had this conversation once before.''

She gasped and said, "When was that?"

"This morning."

"It must be the gum,'' she said. "I'm through with it. No more of this bloody stuff."

She sat up and said, "You won't tell Firebrass about this, will you?"

He was no longer smiling. "You are experiencing some very strong psychic disturbances. To cause burns, stigmata, on your body through mental means . . . well ..."

"I won't be using the gum anymore. I'm not just making an empty promise you know. I'm not addicted. I am mentally stable.''

"You're deeply troubled," he said. "Be honest with me, Jill. I may call you Jill, may I not? Have you had attacks similar to this? If so, how many and how serious were they? That is, how long did they last? How long did it take you to recover from them?"

"Not one recent attack, as you call it," she said.

"Very well. I will say nothing to anyone. That is, if there is no recurrence. You will be honest with me and inform me if you do suffer from any, won't you? You would not endanger your ship just because you want so desperately to be a member of the crew?"

"No, I would not," she said. But the words came hard.

"Then we'll let it stand at that, for the time being."

She rose on one elbow again, ignoring the slipping aside of the towel and the baring of her breast:

"Look, Piscator. Be honest. If you are given a rank inferior to mine, and it's likely, if Firebrass awards ranks according to experience, would you resent serving under me?"

"Not in the slightest," he said, smiling.

She lay back and pulled the towel up. "You come from a culture which held women in a very inferior position. Your women were practically on a level with the beasts of burden. They ..."

"That is in the past, the long dead and faraway past," he said. "Nor was nor am I a typical male, Nipponese or not. You must avoid stereotyping. After all, that is what you hate, what you have fought all your life, have you not? Stereotyping?"

"You're right," she said. "But it's a conditioned reflex."

"I believe I said this once before to you. However, repetition has its uses in education. You should learn to think in a different pattern."

"And how do I do that?"

He hesitated, then said, "You will know when to attempt that. And whom to see about it."

Jill knew that he was waiting for her to ask him to accept her as his disciple. She was having none of that. She just did not believe in organized religion. Though Sufism was not a religion, its members were religious. There was no such thing as an atheist Sufi.

She was an atheist. Despite having been resurrected, she did not believe in a Creator. At least, she did not believe in a Creator who was personally interested in her or in any creature whatsoever. People who did believe in a deity who considered human beings as His children-and why was a spirit always he?-why not be logical since God had no sex, an it?- people who believed in Him were deluded. The believers in God might be intelligent, but they were mentally benighted. The gears in that part of the brain which dealt with religion had been put into neutral, and they were spinning. Or the circuit of religion had been disconnected from the main circuit of the intellect.

That was a bad analogy. People used their intellect to justify the nonintellective, emotionally based phenomenon called religion. Often brilliantly. But, as far as she was concerned, uselessly.

Piscator said, "You are going to sleep. Good. If you need me, though, feel free to call on me."

"You're no physician," she said. "Why should you . . ."

"You have potential. And though you sometimes act foolishly, you are no fool. Though you have fooled yourself from time to time and still are. Good night."

"Good night."

He bowed quickly and walked out, closing the door behind him. She started to call out, but she stopped. She had wanted to ask him what he was doing near the hut when he had heard her. It was too late. Nor was it important. Still... what had he been doing here? Had he intended to seduce her? Rape was out of the question, of course. She was bigger than he, and though he probably was a master of the martial arts, so was she. Moreover, his position as an airship officer would be seriously jeopardized if she were to accuse him.

No, he would not have been here either to seduce or to rape. He did not give the impression that he was that type of man. On the other hand, no matter how nice they acted, weren't they all? No, there was something about him-she hated to use the imprecise and unscientifically founded term vibrations-but there it was. He did not radiate that length of frequency classified as "bad vibes."

It was then she realized that he had not asked her to describe her experience. If he had been curious, he had managed not to show it. Perhaps he had felt that she would have volunteered if she had wanted to share the details with him. He was a very sensitive man, very perceptive.

What did that horrifying attack by Jack mean? That she was afraid of him, of men in general? Of the male sex? Of sex itself when in male form? She could not believe that. But the illusion? delusion? visitation? had revealed certain feelings of hate and destruction. Not just for men in general and for Jack in particular. She had set him afire but she had also burned and raped herself-in a sense. Which made no sense. She certainly did not subconsciously wish to be raped. Only a mentally sick woman would desire that.

Did she hate herself? The answer was, yes, at times. But who didn't?

Some time later, she sank into an uneasy sleep. Once, she dreamed of Cyrano deBergerac. They were fencing with epees. The circling point of his blade dazzled her, and then her weapon was knocked up and his leaped in and its point sank deep into her navel. She looked down in surprise at the blade as it withdrew, but the navel did not spout blood. Instead, it swelled and thickened and then a tiny dagger issued from the tumor.

18

The shock of cold water fully awoke Burton. for a minute, he was completely beneath the surface, and he did not know which way was up in the darkness.

There was only one way to find out. After five strokes, he felt the pressure on his eardrums increasing. Reversing position, he swam in what he hoped was the opposite direction. For all he knew, he was moving horizontally. But the pressure eased, and just as he feared he could not possibly hold his breath anymore, he broke the surface.

At the same time, something rammed into the back of his head, knocking him half-senseless again. His flailing hand hit an object and he grabbed it. Though he could see nothing in the mists, he could feel the thing that was holding him up. A massive log.

Bedlam was around him, screams, shouts, someone nearby calling for help. He released his hold as soon as he had regained all his senses and swam toward the woman crying for aid. As he neared her, he realized that it was Loghu's voice. A few strokes brought him to her, close enough to see her face dimly.

"Take it easy," he said. "It's me, Dick!"

Loghu seized him by the shoulders, and they both went down. He fought her, pushed her away, then grabbed her from behind.

Loghu said something in her native Tokharian. He answered her in the same tongue.

"Don't panic. We'll be all right."

Longhu, gasping, said, "I've got hold of something. I won't sink."

He released her and reached around her. Another log. The collision must have torn some of the forward logs loose. But where was the boat and where was the raft? And where were Loghu and he?

It seemed probable that they had fallen into the gap made when the lashings of the logs of the raft had been torn loose. But the current would by now surely have carried the intact part against the rock, crushing everything between it and the rock. Had they been carried around the corner of the spire and were now drifting with the current?

If so, they were in a tangle of logs and pieces from the boat. They kept bumping against him and Loghu.

She moaned and said, "I think my leg's broken, Dick. It hurts so."

The log to which they were clinging was very thick and long, its ends so distant they could not be seen through the fog. They had to dig into the rough bark with their fingers. It would not be long before they would lose their grip.

Suddenly Monat's voice tore through the greyness.

"Dick! Loghu! Are you out there?"

Burton shouted, and a moment later something rapped along the log. It struck his fingers, causing him to yell with pain and to slip back into the water. He struggled back up, and then the end of a pole shot like a striking snake in ambush from the fog. It grazed his left cheek. A little to the right and it would have stunned him, perhaps broken his skull.

He seized it and called out that he was to be pulled in.

"Loghu's here, too," he said. "Be careful with that pole!"

He was dragged in by Monat to the edge of the raft where Kazz pulled him out with a single heave. Monat then stuck the pole into the darkness. A minute later, Loghu was drawn in. She was half-unconscious.

"Get some cloths and wrap her up in them. Keep her warm," he told Kazz.

"Will do, Burton-naq," the Neanderthal said. He turned and was enfolded in the mist.

Burton sat down on the wet, smooth surface of the raft. "Where are the others? Is Alice all right?"

"They're all here except Owenone," Monat said. "Alice seems to have some broken ribs. Frigate hurt his knee. As for the boat, it's gone."

Before he could recover from this shock, he saw torches flaring. They drew nearer, casting light enough for him to see their bearers. There were a dozen of them, short, dark-faced Caucasians with large, hooked noses, clad from head to foot in cloths of many stripes and colors. Their only arms were flint knives, all sheathed.

One of them spoke in a language which Burton thought was Semitic. If so, it was an ancient form of that family. He could understand a few words here and there, though. He replied in Esperanto, and the speaker switched to that.

There followed a swift dialog. Apparently, the man on the tower had fallen asleep because he had been drinking. He had survived the fall from the tower when the raft had crashed, into the island and toppled him and the man whom Burton had seen climb up to him.

The second man had not been so lucky. He had died of a broken neck. As for the luck of the pilot, it had run out on him. He had been thrown overboard by his enraged fellows.

The great grinding noises Burton had heard before the boat struck came from the collision of the tip of the V-shaped prow with the docks and then the hard rock of the beach. This had crumpled the front half of the V and torn loose many of the fish-leather lashings. The V had also, absorbed much of the shock, preventing more of the raft from being ripped apart.

A section of the northwest side had been ripped off, but it was forced on by the main body. It was this jumble of massive logs which had rammed into the Hadji II, crushing the lower half of the back part. After the torn-off front half of the boat had fallen into the water, the back half, knocked apart by the great blow, had fallen down from-and through-the log jam.

Burton had been thrown forward by the impact against the rock, had fallen back onto the deck, and then had been tilted off it as it slid into the water.

The crew was indeed lucky that no one had been killed or seriously hurt. No, Owenone was yet to be accounted for.

There were more things to find out. Just now, the wounded had to be attended to. He made his way to where the others lay beneath the blaze of three torches. Alice put out her arms to him and cried when he embraced her.

"Don't squeeze me," she said. "My side hurts'."

A man came to him and said that he had been appointed to take care of them. The two women were carried by some raftsmen, while Frigate, groaning, hobbled along supported by Kazz. By then the daylight had increased somewhat so they could see further. After progressing for perhaps 61 meters or over 200 feet; they stopped before a large bamboo hut thatched with the great irontree leaves. This was secured to the raft by leather ropes tied at one end to pegs fitted into drilled holes in the logs.

Inside the hut was a stone platform on which a small fire burned. The injured were laid near this on bamboo beds. By then the fog was getting thinner. The light increased and presently they were startled by a noise like a thousand cannon shells exploding at once. No matter how often they heard it, they jumped.

The grailstones had spouted their energy.

"No breakfast for us," Burton said.

He raised his head abruptly.

"The grails? Did anyone get the grails?"

Monat said, "No, they were lost with the boat." His face twisted with grief, and he wept. "Owenone must have drowned!"

They looked at each other in the firelight. Their faces were still pale from their ordeal; even so, they lost a shade of color.

Some of them groaned. Burton cursed. He too felt grief for Owenone, but he and his crew were beggars, dependent upon the charity of others. It was better to be dead than without a grail, and in the old days those who had lost theirs could, and often did, commit suicide. The next day they would wake up, far from their friends and mates, but at least with their own source of food and luxuries.

"Well," Frigate said, "we can eat fish and acorn bread."

"For the rest of our lives?"Burton,said, sneering. "Which may be forever for all we know."

"Just trying to look on the bright side of things," the American said. "Though even that is pretty dim."

"Why don't we deal with things as they come up?" Alice said. "For the moment, I'd like my ribs seen to, and I'm sure poor Loghu would like her broken bone set and splinted."

The man who had conducted them there arranged for treatment of the injured. After this was done and the pains of his patients had been eased with pieces of dreamgum, he went outside. Burton, Kazz, and Monat followed him inside. By then the sun was burning away the fog. Within a few minutes it would all be gone.

The scene was appalling. The entire V-shaped prow of the raft had broken up when its point had ridden up onto the beach and its port side had smashed into a corner of the spire. The docks and the boats of the Ganopo were smashed, buried somewhere in the pile of logs on the beach. The main part of the raft had also slid for at least 13 meters onto the shore. Several hundreds of the raftspeople were standing at the edge of the wreck, talking animatedly but doing nothing constructive.

To the left, logs were jammed against the sheer wall of the spire by the current. There was no sign of the Hadji II, or of Owenone. Burton's hope that he might be able to retrieve at least a few grails was not going to be realized.

He looked around the raft. Even-though it had lost its forepart, it was still immense. It had to be at least 660 feet or 201 meters long with a breadth at its widest of 122 meters. Its stem was also V shaped.

In the center was the large, round, black object he had seen floating above the mists. It was the head of an idol 30 feet or over 9 meters tall. Black, squat, and ugly, it dominated the raft. It was sitting cross-legged, and its spine bore lizardlike crests. The head was a demon's, its blue eyes glaring, its wide, snarling mouth displaying many great white sharkfish teeth.

These, Burton assumed, had been removed from a dragonfish and set within the scarlet gums.

In the middle of its huge paunch was a round hole. Inside this was a stone hearth on which a small pile of wood blazed. Its smoke rose within the body and curled out of the batlike ears of the idol.

Forward, near the edge of the raft, the watch tower lay on its side, its supports broken off at the base by the force of the collision. A body still lay near it.

There were some large buildings here and there with many smaller ones among them. A few of the smaller ones had collapsed, and one of the big constructions leaned crazily.

He counted ten tall masts with square-rigged sails and twenty shorter ones with fore-and-aft rigs. All of the sails were furled.

Alongside the edges were a number of racks holding boats of various sizes.

Behind the idol was the largest building of all. He supposed that this was the house of the chief or perhaps a temple. Or both.

Presently wooden trumpets blew and drums beat. Seeing the people streaming toward the great building, Burton decided to join-them. They congregated between the idol and the building. Burton stood behind the mob where he could hear the proceedings but at the same time examine the statue. A little discreet scratching with a flint knife revealed that it was adobe covered with a black paint. He wondered where the paint for the body, eyes, and gums had been obtained. Pigments were rare, much to the sorrow of artists.

The chief, or the head priest, was taller than the others though still half a head shorter than Burton. He wore a cape and kilt with blue, black, and red stripes and an oaken crown with six points. His right hand held a long shepherd's staff of oak. He spoke from a platform at the building's entrance, gesturing often with the staff, his black eyes fiery, his mouth-spewing a torrent of which Burton understood not one word. After about half an hour he got down from the platform, and the crowd broke up into various work parties.

Some of these went to the island to clear away the logs which had broken from the prow and piled onto the main body. Others went to the starboard rearside, where the V-shaped stem joined the main part. These lifted huge oars and fitted them to locks. Then, like a gang of galley slaves, working to a rhythm beat out on a drum, they began rowing.

Apparently, they were trying to bring the stern around so that the current would catch it on one side and then swing the entire raft. As soon as the vessel presented enough of its starboard side to the current, it would be turned around enough to be free of the island.

That was the theory, but the practice failed. It became apparent that the log jam would have to be cleared first and then leverage applied to push the front part from the beach.

Burton wished to talk to the headman, but he had gone around to the front of the idol and was bowing rapidly and chanting to it. Whatever Burton had learned or not learned, he knew that it was dangerous to interrupt a religious ritual.

He strolled around, stopping to look at the dugouts, canoes, and small sailboats in racks or on slides along the edge of the raft. Then he poked around the larger buildings. Most of these had doors which were barred on the outside. Making sure that no one was noticing him, he entered several.

Two were storehouses of dried fish and acorn bread. One was crammed with weapons. Another was a boatshed containing two half-finished dugouts and the pine framework of a canoe. In time the latter would be covered with fish-skin. The fifth building held a variety of artifacts: boxes of oak rings fpr trading, spiral bones and the unicornlike horns of the hornfish, piles of fish- and human-leather, drums, bamboo flutes, harps with hornfish guts for strings, skulls fashioned into drinking cups, ropes of fiber and fish-skin, piles of dried dragonfish intestines, suitable for sails, stone lamps for burning fish-oil, boxes of lipstick, face-paint, marijuana, cigarettes , cigars, lighters (all doubtless saved up for trading or tribute), about fifty ritual masks, and many more items.

When he went into the sixth building, he smiled. This was where the grails were kept. The tall grey cylinders were stacked in wooden racks, waiting for their owners. He counted three hundred and fifty. One grail for each of the approximately three hundred and ten raftspeople meant that there were thirty extra grails.

A few minutes' inspection showed him that all but thirty were tagged. The others had cords tied around the handles of the tops, the other ends of which cords were connected to baked clay tablets bearing cuneiform writing. These were the names of their owners. He examined some of the incised marks, which looked like those he had seen in photographs of Babylonian and Assyrian documents.

He tried to raise the lids of a number of the tagged cylinders but failed, of course. There was some sort of mechanism preventing anyone but its owner from opening it. There were several theories about the operation, one being that a sensitive device inside the grail detected the electrical field of the owner's skin and then activated an opening mechanism.

However, the untagged grails were of a different kind, called "freebies" by some English-speakers.

When over thirty-six billion of Earth's dead had awakened whole and young along the immense stretch of The River, they had found a personal grail at their side. At the same time, each of the grailstones bore in its central depression one grail. This apparently had been provided by the resurrectors to show the new citizens just how their grails worked.

Each stone had vomited noise and light, and when the thunder and lightning had ceased, curious people had climbed onto the stones to look into the grails left there. The lids were raised, and the contents were revealed. Wonder of wonders, joy of joys! The hollow interior held snap-down racks on which were dishes and cups full of food and various goodies!

The next time the stones discharged, the private grails were on the stones, and these, too, supplied everything they needed and more, though human nature was such that many people complained because there wasn't 'more variety.'

The freebies had become very valuable; people bullied and thieved and killed to get them. If a person had a private grail and a freebie, he or she had twice as much food and luxuries as he or she was supposed to get.

Burton himself had never owned one, but here were thirty on racks before him.

The problem of the lost grails was solved-if he could get the headman to part with them. After all, his raft was responsible for the loss of the boat and the grails. He owed the crew of the Hadji II.

So far, he and his crew had been treated decently. He could think of other groups he had met that would have done nothing for them except throw them overboard-after mass-raping the women and perhaps sodomizing the men.

However, there might be a limit to the raftspeople's hospitality. The free grails were anything but free. This group might even have stolen these. However they got them, they would be saving them for emergencies, such as replacements for those they lost or as tribute if they ran into a particularly hostile and powerful group.

Burton left the building, barred the door after him, and walked around pondering. If he asked the chief to give him seven grails, he could be refused. That would make the man suspicious, and he would set up guards over this building. Not to mention the fact that he might get nervous having potential thieves around and would ask them, politely or otherwise, to leave.

Passing by the idol, he saw that the chief had stopped praying and was walking toward the island. Apparently, he intended to supervise the activities there.

Burton decided to ask him now about the grails. No use putting off the issue.

The man who sits on his arse sits on his fortune.

19

Mutu-Sha-Hj was his native name, meaning "Man of GOD," but to Esperanto speakers he was Metusael. In English, Methusaleh.

For a delirious moment, Burton wondered if he had met the model for the long-lived patriarch of the Old Testament. No. Metusael was a Babylonian, and he had never heard of Hebrews until he had come to The Riverworld. He had been an inspector of granaries on Earth, but here he was the founder and head of a new religion and commander of the great raft.

"One night many years ago, while a storm raged outside, I was sleeping. And a god came to me in my dream, a god named Rushhub. I had never heard of this god, but he told me that he had once been a mighty god of my ancestors. Their descendants, however, had abandoned him, and in my lifetime on Earth only a small village at the edge of the kingdom had still worshipped him.

"But gods do not die, though they may take other forms and new names, or even become nameless; and he had lived in the dreams of many people through many generations. Now he had decided that the time was come to leave the dreamworld. Thus, he told me that I must arise and go forth and preach the worship of Rushhub. I must gather together a group of the faithful and build a giant raft and take my people down The River upon it.

"After many years, perhaps several generations as we knew generations on Earth, we would come to the end of The River, where it empties into a hole in the base of the mountains that ring the top of this world.

"There, we would go through the underworld, a great dark cavern, and then we would come out into a bright sea surrounding a land where we would live forever in peace and happiness with the gods and goddesses themselves.

"But before the raft was launched we must make a statue of the god Rushhub and set it upon the raft and worship it as the symbol of Rushhub. So do not say, as so many have said, that we are idolaters who mistake the physical symbol for the body of the god itself."

Burton thought the man was crazy, though he was discreet enough not to say so. He and his crew had fallen into the hands of fanatics. Fortunately, the god had told Metusael that his worshippers must harm no one unless it was in self-defense. However, he knew from experience that "self-defense" could mean whatever a person or group wanted it to mean.

"Rushhub himself told me that just before we enter the underworld, we must break the idol into little bits and cast them into The River. He did not say why we should do so. He merely said that by the time we reach the cavern, we will understand."

"That is all very well for you," Burton said. "But you are responsible for destroying our boat. Also, we have lost our grails.''

"I am indeed sorry, but there is little I can do for you. What happened to you is the will of Rushhub."

Burton felt like striking the man in his face. Mastering himself, he said, "Three of my people are too injured at the moment to move them very far. Could you at least give us a boat so we could get to shore?"

Metusael glared with fierce black eyes, and. he pointed at the island..

"There is the shore, and there is a foodstone. I will see that your injured are placed there, and we will give you some dried fish and acorn bread. In the meantime, please do not trouble me with any more requests. I have work to do. We must get our raft back into The River. Rushhub told me that we should not delay our journey for any reason whatsoever.

"If we take too long, we may find the gates to the land of the gods forever shut. Then we will be left to howl at the gates and repent in vain for our lack of faith and determination."

At that moment Burton decided that anything he did would be justified. These people owed him much, and he owed them nothing.

Metusael had walked away. Now he stopped suddenly, pointing at Monat, who had just come out of the building.

"What is that?"

Burton walked up to him and said,' "That is a man from another world. He and some of his kind traveled from a distant star to Earth. This was over a hundred years after I died, perhaps four thousand years after you died. He came in peace, but the people of Earth discovered that he had a... drug which could keep people from aging. They demanded that he tell them its secret, but he refused. He said that Earth people had enough problems as it was with overpopulation. Besides, a person should not be given the chance to live forever unless that person was worthy of it."

''He was wrong then,'' Metusael said. "The gods have given us a chance to live forever." '

"Yes, in a way. Though, according to your religion, only a very small group, just those on this raft, will become truly immortal. Am I right?"

"It seems hard," Metusael said. "But that is the way it is, and who are we to question the motives and methods of the gods?"

"It is, however, a fact that we only know what the gods desire through human beings who speak for them. I have never met a person yet whose motives and methods I would not question."

"The more fool you."

"Aside from that,'' Burton said, smiling to hide his anger, "the Arcturans, Monat and his people, were attacked by the Earth people. They were all killed, but before he died Monat caused almost all of the Earth people to die."

He paused. How could he explain to this ignoramus that the Arcturans had left their mother ship in orbit around Earth? And that Monat had transmitted a radio wave signal to the orbiting vessel and that it had projected an energy beam of such a frequency that only human beings had died?

He did not really understand it himself, since in his time such things as radio and spaceships had not existed.

Metusael was wide-eyed now. Looking at Monat, he said, "He is a great magician? He killed all those people through his powers?"

For a moment, Burton considered using Monat's supposed magic as alever. Perhaps he could pry a boat and free-grails out of this man if he threatened him. But, though Metusael might be ignorant, and crazed, he was not unintelligent. He would ask why Monat, if he was such a sorcerer, had not protected the HadjiII from destruction and his companions from hurt. He also might ask why Burton needed a boat, since surely Monat could give them the power to fly through the air.

"Yes, he did slay them," Burton said. "And he also woke up on these banks, not knowing how or why. His magical tools were left on Earth, of course. However, he says that he will find the materials to make more tools some day, and he will regain his powers and be as mighty and as deadly as ever. Then those who have scorned and mocked him will have good reason to fear him."

Let Metusael chew on that.

Metusael smiled, and said, "By that time ..."

Burton understood. By men the raft would be long gone.

"Besides, Rushhub will protect his people. A god is mightier man a man, even a demon from the stars."

"Why didn't Rushhub avert this accident then?" Burton said.

"I do not know, but I am sure that he will come to me in a dream, and he will tell me why. Nothing happens to the people of Rushhub without a purpose."

Metusaej walked off. Burton returned to the building to check on his crew. Kazz stepped outside just as Burton was about to enter. He had removed all his cloths except for his kilt, revealing a very hairy, squat, big-boned, powerfully muscled body. His head was thrust forward on a bowed and bull-like neck. His forehead was low and slanting; his skull long and narrow; his face, broad. His supraorbital ridges were thick, bony shelves above shrewd dark-brown eyes. The nose was puggish but had flaring nostrils. The bulging jaws pushed out thin lips. The massive hands looked as if they could squeeze stone to powder.

Despite his fearsome appearance, he would not have gotten more than a passing glance in the East End of London in Burton's time if he had been clothed.

His full name was Kazzintuitruaabemss. In his native language, Man-Who-Slew-The-White-Tooth.

"What's up, Burton-naq?"

"You and Monat come in with me."

When he was in the hut, he asked the others how they felt. Alice and Frigate said they could walk but not run. Loghu's case was evident. She was in no pain because of the dreamgum given her, but she would not be restored to full health for four or five days. It took that long for a broken bone to knit completely. The fantastic speed in healing was due to causes unknown, perhaps something in their food.

Whatever the reason, bones healed, teeth and eyes regrew, torn muscles and burned flesh were renewed, all with a quickness that had once astonished the Valley-dwellers. Now it was taken for granted.

Burton had no sooner explained the situation to them man twelve armed men appeared. Their captain said he had orders to escort them to the island. Two men put Loghu on a stretcher and carried her out. Frigate, supported by Monat and Kazz, limped after them. They made their way, with some difficulty, over the wilderness of logs and onto the shore. Here they were met by the Ganopo, all angry but helpless.

Loghu was taken into a hut, and the guards left. Not, however, before their captain cautioned Burton that he and his crew must stay away from the raft.

"And if we don't?" Burton said loudly.

"Then you will be thrown into The River. Perhaps with a stone tied to your legs. Almighty Rushhub has told us not to spill blood except in self-defense. But he said nothing about drowning our enemies."

Shortly before the midday grailstone discharge, a store of dried fish and acorn bread was delivered to Burton.

"Metusael says that this will keep you from starving until you can catch more fish and make more bread."

"I'll save my thanks to deliver in person to him," Burton said to the captain. "He may not like its form, though."

Monat said, "Was that empty bluster or do you plan on some sort of revenge?"

"Revenge isn't my dish," Burton said. "I do intend, however, to see that we do not go grailless."

Two days passed. The front part of the raft was still beached. The log jam had been cleared away, and the raft had been pushed back toward the water several meters. This was a tedious, back-breaking job. The entire population of the raft, their leader excepted, pried away at the front end with small thin logs as levers. From sunup until sunset, the Babylonian words for "Heave! One, two three, heave!" bellowed from hundreds of mouths.

Every mass effort only succeeded in pushing back the immensely heavy raft a millimeter or so. Often, the stones wedged between the rock of the beach and the front edge of the raft would slip a little, and the raft, urged by the current, would move back onto the beach. Several times, the wedges were knocked out, and all gains were lost.

Since the wind blew from down-River, the sails on the masts were unfurled. Metusael hoped that the upstream wind would give the heavers an advantage. The theory would have worked if it had not been that the rock spire blocked off most of the breeze.

By the morning of the third day, the raft had been pushed back about a meter. At this rate, it would take seven more days to free it.

The Ganopo were busy meanwhile. Unable to borrow a boat from Metusael, they sent four strong swimmers out. These got to the right bank, where they explained the situation and were loaned a small sailboat. They returned with a fleet of twenty boats manned by the chiefs of the local state and the best fighting men. The head chief, a tall Shawnee, looked around and then conferred with the Ganopo. Burton and Monat sat in on the meeting.

There was. a lot of talking, complaints from the Ganopo, various counsels offered, and a speech by Burton. He told them of the large store of goods on the raft, omitting mention of the free-grails, and suggested that perhaps the Babylonians would part with some of their stores if the locals loaned enough men to help free the raft.

The Shawnee thought this was a good idea. He talked to Metusael, who was polite but said he did not need any help.

Disgruntled, the Shawnee returned to the island.

"Those eagle-noses do not have much sense," he said: "Don't they know that we can take everything they have without giving anything in return? They have wrecked the boats and the docks of the Ganopo and offered nothing in restitution. They have wrecked the strangers' vessel, which took a year to build and cost them much tobacco and booze in trade for the wood with which to build it. They have caused a crewman to die. They have also caused the loss of the strangers' grails. A person might as well be dead as not have a grail.

"And what do they offer as payment? Nothing! They mock the Ganopo and the strangers. These are evil people, and they should be punished as such."

"Not to mention the valuable goods the chief and his chums will obtain," Burton murmured in English to Monat.

"What did you say?" the chief said.

"I was telling my friend, the man from the stars, that you have great wisdom and know what is right and wrong. That what you do to the eagle-noses will be right and just, and the great spirit will smile upon you."

"Your language says much in a few words."

"The tongue of my people is not forked."

And God forgive me for that remark, Burton thought.

Though the Shawnee did not say what he meant to do, it was evident to Burton that he would be planning a raid in force. Perhaps for that very night.

Burton called the others into his hut.

"Don't look so gloomy. I think we'll have grails after all, lose our beggar status. However, we must act tonight. How about it, Loghu, Pete, Alice? Do you feel up to some action? Some perhaps vigorous action?"

The three replied that they could walk. Running was as yet out of the question.

"Very well. Here is what we'll do, if you have no objections. If you do, we'll do it anyway."

20

They ate their evening meal, fish and bread which disgusted them before they put it in their mouths. The Ganopo, however, were kind enough to give them a few cigarettes and as much of the lichen-alcohol as they wanted. Before going into his hut, presumably to retire for the night, Burton walked around the beach. The Babylonians were either in their huts or talking in small groups before them. They were tired after three days of hard and frustrating labor and would soon be asleep. All, that is, except for the guards stationed along the edge of the raft. They would light pine torches soaked in fish-oil and pace back and forth under their illumination, waiting for their reliefs.

The largest groups were at the forward end. Metusael had placed them there to make sure that Burton's people did not try to sneak aboard to steal their goods. The little dark-skinned men watched him closely as he sauntered along. He grinned and waved at them. They did not return his greeting.

Having checked the situation, Burton walked back to his hut. On the way he passed the Ganopo chief, who was sitting before his hut and smoking one of the little briar pipes the grails offered once a year.

Burton squatted down by him.

"I am thinking, O chief, that tonight the raftspeople may be in for a big surprise."

The chief removed his pipe and said, "What do you mean?"

"It is possible that the chief of the people on the north bank may be leading a raid upon the raftspeople. Have you heard anything about that?"

"Not a word. The great chief of the Shaawanwaaki does not confide in me. However, I would not be surprised if he and his warriors did not resent the injuries and the insults which we Ganopo, who are under his protection, have suffered from the eagle-noses."

"If they did make this raid you suggest, when would they be likely to do it?"

"In the old days, when the Shaawanwaaki warred against the people on the south bank, they would cross the River just before dawn. The clouds are still duck then, and they could not be seen approaching. But soon after they had landed, the sun would come up and the clouds would burn away under its heat. Then the Shaawanwaaki could see to strike."

"That is what I thought," Burton said. "However, one thing troubles me. It is an easy matter to cross a river or even a small lake in the fog and find me other side. This is a small island which would be difficult to find in the clouds. It is true the rock tower is very high, but the raiders would be in the fog and could not see it."

The chief tamped down the coals in his pipe, and he said, "That is no worry of mine."

Burton said, "There is a ledge on the spire. It faces the north bank, but an outcropping of rock would prevent the raftspeople from seeing it. It would also prevent them from seeing a bonfire. A bonfire which anyone on The River north of the island might see even through the fog. Is that why some of the Ganopo have been busy all day carrying bamboo and pine up to this ledge?"

The chief grinned. "You have the curiosity of a wildcat and the eyes of a hawk. However, I promised the Shaawanwaaki chief not to say a word about this business."

Burton stood up. "I understand. Many thanks for your hospitality, chief, whether or not I ever see you again."

"If not in this world, perhaps in the next."

It was difficult to get to sleep. After hours of tossing and turning, he was surprised to find himself being shaken awake by Monat. Burton freed himself of the Arcturan's three fingers and thumb and got up. Monat, who also came from a planet with a twenty-four hours' rotation, had a biological chronometer in his head. Burton had depended upon him to wake the others at the right time.

They moved around, talking softly while they drank instant coffee. The crystals, a gift from the islanders, provided a boiling heat as they dissolved.

After going over their plan once more, they moved outside and relieved themselves. The hut was just high enough to be above the mists, enabling them to see a faint glow high up on the spire. The Shaawanwaaki, even though in fog, would be able to discern it as a dim glow. That would be all they needed.

Frigate and Burton were the only ones who had been wearing a full suit of cloths when the Hadji II had gone down. The others, however, had cloths given them by the Ganopo. Clad from head to foot in these, they walked down into' the fog. Burton led, one hand in Alice's, hers in Frigate's, and so on down the line. Depending upon an unusual sense of direction, Burton ted them to the water's edge. Now they could see the glow of the torches in the fuzziness.

Burton took out his flint knife. Kazz had a club he'd fashioned from a stick of pine with a knife- he'd borrowed from a Ganopo. Frigate's knife had been given to the Neanderthal woman, Besst. The rest were unarmed.

Burton moved cautiously forward until he was at the edge of the raft. There was enough space between the torches ranged along the edge for him to crawl through unseen. He proceeded to do this until he was well out of range of the guards' vision and hearing. He waited while, one by one, me others caught up.

"This is the easy part," he said. "From now on we'll be blind until we come across a torchlight. I have the location of the buildings and the boats in my head, but in this fog ... well, follow me."

Despite his assurances, he blundered around for a while. Then, abruptly, the huge black figure of the idol, a fire in its hollow belly, was in front of him. He stood for a minute, estimating the probable number of paces from the statue to the building which held the grails.

Kazz said, "I can just see some lights to the right."

Keeping to the right of the torches, Burton led the others until he saw the square walls and conical roof of the storehouse. From the front of the building came the voices of the guards, speaking in low tones, stamping their feet now and then. After going behind the building, touching it with a finger to keep contact. Burton stopped on the other side.

Here he removed from under his cloths a coil of leather rope borrowed from the Ganopo chief, who had not asked him about its intended use. Monat and Frigate also carried coils. Burton tied their ends together to make a single rope. While Alice held one end, he moved out into the darkness with Frigate, Monat, Loghu, and Kazz. He knew that there was a boat-rack on the edge of the raft just opposite the storehouse. This time, he went straight to his target.

Cautioning them to move slowly and silently, he and the others eased a large canoe off the rack. It could hold ten people and so, though made of light pine and thin fish-skin, was heavy.

After me canoe was in the water and paddles placed in it, all returned except Loghu. It was her job to keep the canoe from drifting away.

Following the rope, they went swiftly back to the storehouse.

Just as they returned, Kazz grunted, and said, "Others coming!"

The flames of four torches became visible.

"It's a change of guards!" Burton said.

They had to move around to the other side of the building since the four armed men were headed toward them.

Burton looked upward. Was it his imagination or was the fog becoming less dark above?

They waited, some of them sweating despite the damp, cold air. The guards exchanged some words, somebody must have cracked a joke, judging by their laughter, then the relieved men said good night. The torches showed that two were going to homes in the forward part. The other two went in the opposite direction, causing a swift retreat by the invaders.

Burton, watching from the corner said, "Those two are separating. Kazz, do you dunk you could get one of them?"

"No sweat, Burton-naq," Kazz said, and he was gone.

Both the torches were almost out of sight when Burton saw one of them drop. A minute later it lifted, becoming more bright as it approached them.

By then, Burton had moved the group from the side to the back of the building. He did not want a guard to walk past the front and see the torch.

Kazz had thrown his hood back. His big, blocklike teeth gleamed in the light of the flames. In one hand he held the heavy oak spear tipped with a long hornfish horn which he had taken from the guard. His belt held a chert knife set in a heavy wooden handle and a flint-headed axe. These he passed out to Frigate and Alice. His club went to the Arcturan.

"I hope you didn't kill him," Monat whispered.

"That depends on how thick his skull is," Kazz said.

Monat grimaced. He had an almost pathological abhorrence of violence, though he could be an effective fighter in self-defense.

"Will your leg handicap you?" Burton said. "Think you can throw that axe as effectively as usual?"

"I think so," Frigate said. He was shaking now, though he would be steady when the fighting started. Like the Arcturan, he dreaded physical conflict.

Burton told them what to do, then he led Kazz and Alice around one side toward the front. The others went around the opposite corner.

Burton peered around the corner. The four guards were standing close together, facing each other, and talking. A moment later, a torchlight appeared around the corner. The guards did not see it until it was close. As soon as Burton saw them turn toward it, calling a challenge, he moved out.

Kazz, his features shrouded by his hood, got near to them before he was required to stop. Probably, the guards thought that he was one of the relieved men, returned for some reason.

By the time the mistake was discovered, it was too late for them. Kazz grasped his spear just behind its head, and, using it as a quarterstaff, struck its butt against the side of a guard's neck.

Burton, holding his knife in his left hand, chopped the edge of his right against the back of the neck of another man. He had no wish to kill, and he had ordered the bloodthirsty Kazz to avoid using the spearhead if he could do so.

Frigate's axe whirled out of the greyness and caught a third in the chest. It was thrown not quite accurately enough, or perhaps Frigate was trying not to kill. In which case, his axe-throwing was superb. The blunt forefront, not the cutting edge, struck, and the man fell back, the wind knocked out of him. Before he could recover it, he was knocked out by Burton's savage kick to the side of his head.

At the same time as the others, Monat struck, and the fourth crumpled from a blow on the head.

There was silence for a moment as they waited to find out if anyone had heard the fight. Then they picked up the torches from the deck, and Burton unbarred the door. The fallen were dragged inside, where Monat examined them.

"Very good. They're all alive."

"Some of them'll be coming to soon," Burton said. "Watch them, Kazz."

He held a torch above the free-grail rack. "We're beggars no longer."

He hesitated. Should just seven grails be taken? Why not all thirty? The extras could be used to trade for wood and sails for the new boat to be built.

Honour Not Honours was his motto, but this was a matter of recompense, not thievery.

He gave the order, and each took five grails. They put the wide handle of one grail over their head, letting it hang behind them by the neck and thrust each arm through the handles of two grails. Then they left the building, barred the door, and followed the leather cord to the canoe. The torches were left upon the deck outside the storehouse.

Loghu said, "Isn't it about time the Indians attacked?"

"Past time, I would say," Monat replied.

The canoe loaded, they paddled away. Their destination was the south bank, which they intended to follow up-River until just before dawn. Burton was worried about the extra grails. If the local authorities saw them, they might seize them. Even if they didn't, greedy individuals would try to steal them.

There was only one way to hide them. The extras were filled with water. Sections of leather line were cut, and one end of each was tied to a handle. The other end was tied to the upper part of the canoe framework through a hole punched in the skin.

The drag on the canoe was heavy, but fortunately they were very close to the bank. They stopped at a dock complex near a grailstone and tied the canoe to a piling under a dock.

They sat down under the stone and waited. Dawn and hundreds of citizens came. Burton's group introduced itself and requested permission to use the stone. This was given gladly, since the south-bank locals were peaceful. In fact, they welcomed strangers, a source of news and gossip.

The fog burned away. Burton got on top of the stone and looked toward the spire. Its base was about 2.5 nautical miles distant, which, from his altitude, put the horizon 4 miles away. He could see the larger buildings and the idol but the flames he had expected to be rising from them were nonexistent. Perhaps the Shaawanwaaki had not set them afire. After all, they might have wanted to keep the raft intact until it could be taken to the shore and dismantled. Its logs were valuable.

Instead of pushing on that day, he decided that they would rest. That afternoon a Ganopo party landed, the chief among them. Burton questioned him.

The chief laughed. "Those Shaawanwaaki turtleheads completely missed the raft. They couldn't see the fire, though how they could not, I don't understand. Anyway, they paddled around for hours, and when the fog lifted they found that the current had taken them five stones below the island. What a bunch of bums!"

"Bid the Babylonians say anything to you about their missing canoe? Not to mention the guards we had to rough up?"

Burton thought it best not to say anything about the grails.

The chief laughed again. "Yes, they came storming ashore before the stone flamed. They were very angry, though they did not say why. They knocked us around a little, but the bruises and the insults did not bother us because we were happy that you had made fools of them. They searched the island thoroughly, but they did not find you, of course. They did find the ashes of the fire and asked us about it. I told them that it was a ceremonial fire.

"They didn't believe me. I think they must have guessed the truth. You won't have to worry about them sending out search parties for you. Every one of them, .including Metusael, is straining to get the raft off today. They must expect another attack tonight."

Burton asked the chief why the Shaawanwaaki didn't attack in the daylight. They could easily overwhelm the Babylonians.

"That is because there is an agreement among the states in this area to protect strangers. So far, it has been honored and with good reason. The other states would be compelled to go to war against the aggressor. However, the Shaawanwaaki were hoping to keep it a secret. If they were to be found out, they would say that the raftspeople had refused to pay compensation for the damage done to us.

"I don't know. Perhaps the Shaawanwaaki will give up the idea.

Still, there are many among them who would like to make a raid just for the sake of excitement."

Burton never found out what happened to the Babylonians. He decided that they should leave that day. After the canoe was on its way, the grails were pulled up, emptied, and placed in the bottom of the canoe.

21

After traveung 200 kilometers, burton found an area suitable for boat construction. It was not determined by the wood available, since all places had plenty of pine, oak, yew, and bamboo. What was now difficult to find was flint and chert for cutting timber. Even in the beginning, these stones were restricted to certain sites, some being rich in them, others comparatively poor, and many lacking them entirely. Wars for flint had been common in the old days.

The minerals were even rarer now. Hard as they were, flint and chert wore out, and new supplies were almost unheard of. As a result, the end of 32 a.r.d. (After Resurrection Day) was also the near end of large-vessel construction. At least, it was in the countries through which Burton had passed, and he presumed that it was the same everywhere.

The area at which he stopped was one of the very few that still had a plentiful store. The locals, a majority of pre-Columbian Algon-quins and a minority of pre-Roman Picts, were well aware of the value of their stones. Their chief, a Menomini named Oskas, haggled fiercely with Burton. Finally, he stated that his rock-bottom price was seven thousand cigarettes of tobacco, five hundred of marijuana, twenty-five hundred cigars, forty packages of pipe tobacco, and eight thousand cupfuls of liquor. He also suggested that he would like to sleep with the blonde, Loghu, every five days or so. Actually, he would prefer that it be every night, but he did not think his three women would like that.

Burton took some time to recover from his shock. He said, ' "That's up to her. I don't think either she or her man would agree to it. Anyway, you're asking far too much. None of my party would have booze or tobacco for a year."

Oskas shrugged and said, "Well, if it isn't worth it to you... ?"

Burton called a conference and told his crew what Oskas demanded. Kazz objected the most.

"Burton-naq, I lived all my life on Earth, forty-five summers, without whiskey or nicotine. But here I got hooked and if I go a day without either, I am ready, as you put it, to climb the wall. You know that I tried to quit both at different times, and before a week was gone I was ready to bite my tongue off. I was as mean as a cave bear with a thorn in his paw."

Besst said, "I haven't forgotten."

"If there was no alternative, we'd have to do it," Burton said. "It'd be cold turkey or no boat. But we do have the extra grails."

He returned to Oskas and, after they had smoked a pipe, he got down to business.

"The woman with the yellow hair and blue eyes says the only part of her you'll get is her foot, and you might have a hard time pulling it out of your ass."

Oskas laughed loudly and slapped his thigh.

When he had dried his tears, he said, "Too bad. I like a woman with spirit, though not with too much."

"It so happens that some time ago I got hold of a free-grail. Now, I am willing to trade that for a place in which to build our boat and the materials to build it."

Oskas did not ask him how he got it, though it was evident that he thought Burton had stolen it.

"If that is so," he said, smiling, "then we have a deal."

He stood up. "I will see that things are arranged at once. Are you sure that the blonde is not just playing hard to get?"

The chief took the grail to the council's stronghouse, adding it to the twenty-one free-grails there. These had been collected through the years for the benefit of himself and his subchiefs.

Here, as everywhere, special people made sure that they got special privileges.

It took a year to build another cutter. When it was half-finished, Burton decided not to name it after its predecessors, Hadji I and Hadji II. Both had come to bad ends, and, though he denied it, he was superstitious. After some talk with his crew, it was agreed that Snark was suitable. Alice liked the name because of her association with Lewis Carroll, and she agreed with Frigate that it was most appropriate.

Smiling, she recited part of the Bellman's speech from The Hunting of the Snark.

"He had bought a large map representing the sea,

Without the least vestige of land: And the crew were much pleased when they

found it to be A map they could all understand.

" 'What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and

Equators, Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?'

So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would

reply "They are merely conventional signs!

" 'Other maps are such shapes, with their islands

and capes!

But we've got our brave Captain to thank' (So the crew would protest) 'that he's bought us A perfect and absolute blank!' "

Burton laughed, but he was not sure that Alice was not obliquely insulting his abilities as a captain. Lately, they had not been getting along so well.

"Let's hope the voyage in the new boat won't be another agony in eight fits!" Alice cried. .

"Well," Burton said, grinning savagely at her, "this Bellman knows enough not to get the browsprit miffed up with the rudder sometimes!

"Nor,'' he added, "is there a Rule 42 of the boat's code. No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm."

"Which," Alice said, her smile gone, "was decreed by the Bellman himself. And the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one." .

There was a short silence. All felt the tension between the two, and they looked uneasy, dreading another violent explosion of their captain's temper.

Monat, eager to avoid this, laughed. He said, "I remember that poem. I was especially struck by 'Fit the Sixth, The Barrister's Dream.' Let me see, ah, yes, the pig was on trial for having deserted its sty, and the Snark, dressed in gown, bands, and wig, was defending it.

"The indictment had never been dearly expressed,

And it seemed that the Snark had begun, And had spoken three hours, before any one

guessed What the pig was supposed to have done."

He paused, rolled his eyes, and said, "I have it. That one quatrain which so impressed me.

"But their wild exultation was suddenly checked When the jailor informed them with tears,

Such a sentence would not have the slightest effect, As the pig had been dead for some years.''

They all laughed, and Monat said, "Somehow, that verse squeezes out the essence of Terrestrial justice, its letter if not its spirit."

"I am amazed," Burton said, "that in your short time on Earth you managed not only to read so much but to remember it so well.''

"The Hunting of the Snark was a poem. I believe that you can understand human beings better through poetry and fiction man through so-called fact-literature. That is why I took the trouble to memorize it.

"Anyway, an Earth friend gave it to me. He said that it was one of the greatest works of metaphysics that humanity could boast of. He asked me if Arcturans had anything to equal it."

Alice said, "Surely he was pulling your leg?"

"I don't think so."

Burton shook his head. He had been a voracious reader, and he had an almost photographic memory. But he had been on Earth sixty-nine years, whereas Monat had lived there only from 2002 to 2008 a.d. Yet, during the years they had voyaged together, Monat had betrayed a knowledge that no human could have accumulated in a century.

The conversation ended since it was time to go back to work on the boat. Burton had not forgotten Alice's seeming barb, however. He brought it up as they got ready to go to bed.

She looked at him with large, dark eyes, eyes that were already retreating into another world. She almost always withdrew when he attacked, and it was this that heated his anger from red to white-hot.

"No, Dick, I wasn't insulting you. At least, I wasn't doing so consciously."

"But you were doing it unconsciously, is that it? That's no excuse. You can't plead that you have no control of that part of you. What your unconscious thinks is just as much you as the conscious is. It's even worse. You can dismiss your conscious thoughts, but what you really believe is what that shadowy thing believes."

He began pacing back and forth, his face looking like a demon's in the faint light cast by the small fire on the stone hearth.

"Isabel worshipped me, yet she was not afraid to argue violently with me, to tell me when she thought I was doing something wrong. But you . . . you harbor resentment until it makes an absolute bitch of you, yet you won't come out with it. And that makes things even worse.

"There's nothing evil about a hammer-and-tongs, screaming, throwing argument. It's like a thunderstorm, frightening when it happens; but it clears the air after it's over.

"The trouble with you is that you were raised to be a lady. You must never lift your voice in anger, you must always be calm and cool and collected. But that shadowy entity, that hindbrain, that inheritance from your ape ancestors, is tearing at the bars of its cage. And, incidentally, tearing at you. But you, you won't admit it."

Alice lost her dreamy look, and she shouted at him.

"You're a liar! And don't throw up your wife to me! We agreed never to compare each other's spouse, but you do it every time you wish to get me angry! It isn't true that I lack passion. You of all people should know that, and I don't just mean in bed.

"But I won't go into a rage over every petty word and incident. When I get mad it's because the situation demands it. It's worth getting angry about. You ... you're in a perpetual state of rage."

"That's a lie!"

"I don't lie!"

"Let us get back to the point," he said. "What is there about my capacity as commander that you don't like?"

She bit her lip, then said, "It's not how you run the boat or how you treat your crew. That's such an obvious matter, and you do fine at it. No, what troubles me is the command, or lack of it, over yourself."

Burton sat down, saying, "Let's have it. Just what are you talking about?"

She hitched forward on the chair and leaned over so that her face was close to his.

"For one thing, you can't stand to stay in one place more than a week. Before three days are up, you get uneasy. By the seventh day you're like a tiger pacing back and forth in his cage, a lion throwing himself against the bars."

"Spare me the zoological analogies," he said. "Besides, you know that I have stayed in one place for as much as a year."

"Yes, when you were building a boat. When you had a project going, one which would enable you to travel even more swiftly. Even then, you took short trips, leaving the rest of us to work on the boat. You had to go see this and that, investigate rumors, study strange customs, track down a language you didn't know. Never mind what the excuse was. You had to get away.

"You have a blight of the soul, Dick. That's the only way I can describe it. You can't endure to stay long in one place. But it's not because of the place. Never! It's you yourself that you can't tolerate. You must run so you can get away from yourself!"

He stood up and began pacing again.

"You say then that I can't endure myself! What a pitiable fellow! He doesn't love himself, which means that no one else can love him!"

"Nonsense!"

"Yes, all you're saying is pure rot!"

"The rot is in you, not in what I say."

"If you can't stand me, why don't you leave?"

Tears slid down her cheeks, and she said, "I love you, Dick!"

"But not enough to put up with my trifling eccentricities, is that it?"

She threw up her hands. "Trifling?"

"I have an itch to travel. So what? Would you taunt me if I had a physical itch, say athlete's foot?"

She smiled slightly. "No, I'd tell you to get rid of it. But this isn't just an itch, Dick. It's a compulsion."

She got up and lit a cigarette. Waving it under his nose, she said, "Look at this. In my time on Earth I would never have dared smoke, wouldn't even have considered it. A lady did not do such things. Especially a lady whose husband was of the landed gentry, whose father was a bishop of the Anglican church. Nor did she ever drink strong liquor to excess or curse. And she would never have considered bathing nude in public!

"But here I am, Alice Pleasance Liddell Hargreaves of the estate of Cuffnells, a most proper Victorian female aristocrat, doing all that and much more. By much more, well, I'm doing things in bed that even the French novels my husband was so fond of reading would not even have hinted at.

"I've changed. So why can't you?

"To tell the truth, Dick, I'm sick of traveling, always moving on, cooped up inside a small vessel, never knowing what tomorrow will bring. I'm no coward, you know that. But I would like to find a place where they speak English, where the people are of my own kind, where there is peace, where I can settle down, put down roots. I'm so tired of this eternal voyaging!"

Burton was moved by her tears. He put his hand on her shoulder and said, "What can we do about it? I must keep going on. Now, my ..."

"Isabel? I'm not she. I'm Alice. I do love you, Dick, but I'm not your, shadow, trailing you wherever you go, present when there's light, gone when there's darkness, a mere appendage."

She got up to put out the half-smoked cigarette in a baked-clay ashtray. Turning to him, she said, "But there's more! There's something else that bothers me-very much. It hurts me that you don't fully confide in me. You have a secret, Dick, a very deep, very dark secret."

"Perhaps you can tell me what it is. I certainly don't know."

"Don't lie! I've heard you talking in your sleep. It has something to do with those Ethicals, doesn't it? Something happened to you you didn't tell anyone about when you were gone all those years.

"I've heard you muttering about bubbles, about killing yourself seven hundred and seventy-seven times. And I've heard names you never mention when you're awake. Loga. Thanabur. And you speak of Ecks and the mysterious stranger. Who are these people?"

"Only the man who sleeps alone can keep a secret,'' Burton said.

"Why can't you tell me? Don't you trust me-after all these years?"

"I would if I could. But it would be too dangerous for you. Believe me, Alice, I have said nothing because I must say nothing. It is for your own good. No arguments now. I won't give in, and I'll get very angry if you persist in questioning me."

"Very well then. But keep your hands to yourself tonight."

It was a long time before he fell asleep. Some time in the night he awoke, aware that he had been talking. Alice was sitting up, staring at him.

22

Oskas, half-drunk as usual, visited Burton during lunch hour. Burton did not mind, especially since the chief gave him a skin containing at least two liters of bourbon.

"Have you heard the rumors of this great white boat which is said to be coming from down-River?" the Indian said.

"Only a deaf man would not have heard," Burton said, and he took a long pull of the whiskey. It had a winey odor and went down smoothly, needing no dilution with water. But then the grails never delivered anything but the best.

He said, "Aah!" and then, "I find it hard to believe the stories. From the description, the vessel is propelled by paddlewheels. That would mean that its engines are of iron. I doubt that anyone could gather enough ore to make engines of any size. Also, I have heard that the hull of the boat is made of metal. There's not enough iron in the whole planet to make a vessel that big. If it is as big as the rumors say."

"You are full of doubts," Oskas said. "That is bad for the liver. However, if the stories are true, then the great boat will be coming along some day. I would like to have such a boat."

"You and millions more. But if such a boat can be made, then its maker could have iron weapons, perhaps firearms. You have never seen these though you do have some gunpowder bombs. Firearms, however, are metal tubes which can shoot metal projectiles to a great distance. Some of these can fire so fast that a man could not shoot one arrow before he was hit ten times. And then there are cannons. These are giant tubes which shoot large bombs farther than, the mountains.

"So, you can assume that others have tried to take this boat away from its owners and have died before they could get within arrow range. Besides, what would you do with it if you did get it? It takes highly trained people to operate such a boat."

"Those could be gotten," Oskas said. "You, for instance. Could you operate it?"

"Probably."

"Would you be interested in helping me take it? I would be grateful. You would be first among my subchiefs."

"I am not a warlike man," Burton said. "Nor am I greedy. However, just for the sake of conversation, let us say that I was interested. Here is what I would do."

Oskas was fascinated by the intricate but fantastic plan that Burton proposed. When he left he said that he would send Burton more whiskey. They must talk about this some more. Smiling broadly, Oskas staggered away.

Burton thought the chief was very gullible. He did not mind stringing him along, however. It would keep him happy.

The truth was that Burton had some plans of his own.

If the stories were true, then the boat was a means for traveling much faster than by sail. Somehow, he was going to get on it. Not by force but by cunning. The main trouble was that he had no idea as yet how he could accomplish that.

For one thing, the boat might not, probably would not, stop at this area. For another, it might not have room for more people. Also, why should its captain want to take him and his crew on?

The rest of the day, he was silent, absorbed in his thoughts. After he had gone to bed, he lay a long time considering every possibility. One of the things he considered was that of going along with Oskas' plan. Then, at the last moment, he could betray him. That might get him into the good graces of the boat's captain.

He rejected that almost instantly. In the first place, even if Oskas was rapacious and treacherous, he, Burton, would feel dishonored if he deceived him. Secondly, it was inevitable that many of Oskas' people would be killed and wounded. He did not wish to be responsible for that.

No, there had to be another way.

Finally, he found it. Its success depended upon stopping the boat or at least getting the attention of those aboard it. How he would do it if it passed during the night, he did not know. Somehow, he would.

Smiling, he fell asleep.

Two months passed. In another week, the Snark would be launched. In the meantime, details about the approaching paddle-wheeler had come in piecemeal. These had arrived by drum, smoke, fire, and mica-mirror signals. Putting the items together, Burton had built a picture of the vessel. It was probably larger than any Mississippi riverboat of his time. It was undoubtedly of metal, and it traveled at least 15 miles an hour or a little over 24 kilometers per hour. Sometimes, it had been seen going twice as fast. The calculations were crude, of course, since none of the observers had a stopwatch. But seconds could be counted as it passed from one grailstone to the next.

Burton had presumed from the first reports that the boat was a steamer. However, later messages said that the vessel seldom took in wood. This was for a boiler which heated water for showers and made steam for machine guns. Burton could not understand how steam propelled bullets. Monat suggested that the weapon used a synchronizing system to drop projectiles into the barrel, through which steam at considerable pressure was shot at regular intervals.

The motors of the boat used electricity, drawn from a grailstone when it discharged.

"Then they not only have steel, they have copper for the windings of the electrical motors," Burton said. "Where did they get all that metal?"

Frigate said, "The boat could be mainly aluminum. And aluminum could be used for the windings, though it's not as efficient as copper."

More data came in. The vessel bore its name on its sides in big black Roman letters. Rex Grandissimus. Latin for "The Greatest King," that is, greatest in manner or style of life. Its commander, according to informants, was none other than the son of Henry II of England and Eleanor, divorced wife of Louis VII of France, daughter of the Duke of Aquitaine. King John, surnamed Lackland, was the captain. After his famous brother, Richard the Lion-Hearted, had died, John had become Joannes Rex Angliae et Dominus Hiberniae, etc. He had also gained such a bad reputation that there was an unwritten law in the British royalty that no heir to the throne should ever be named John.

On first learning the captain's name, Burton had gone to Alice. "One of your ancestors commands the paddle wheeler. Perhaps we could appeal to his family affections to get him to take us aboard. Though, from what history said, he did not seem to have much family loyalty. He led a rebellion against his father, and he is said to have murdered his nephew, Arthur, whom Richard had made heir to the crown."

"He was no worse than any other king of that time," Alice said. "And he did do some good things, despite what people think. He reformed the coinage, he supported development of the Navy, he did all he could to develop trade, he urged the completion of London Bridge. He was also unusual among the monarchs of his time in that he was an intellectual. He read Latin books and French histories in the vernacular, and wherever he went he took his library with him.

"As for his opposition to the Magna Carta, that has been misrepresented. The barons' revolt was not in the interests of the common people; it was no democratic movement. The barons wanted special privileges for themselves. The freedom for which they fought was the freedom to exploit their subjects without opposition from the king.

"He fought hard against the barons, and he battled to keep the French provinces under the English crown. But there was no way he could get out of that; he had inherited old conflicts from his father and brother."

"Well!" Burton said. "You make him sound like a saint."

"He was far from that. He was also far more interested in England itself, the welfare of its people, than any previous Anglo-Norman king."

"You must have done much reading and thinking about him. Your opinions go against the grain of everything I've read."

"I had much time to read when I lived in Cuffnells. And I form my own opinions."

"Bully for you. Nevertheless, the fact remains that somehow this medieval monarch has gotten control of the greatest artifact, the most superb machine, on this world. I can deal with him when I get to him. The problem is, how do I do it?"

"You mean, how do we do it?"

"Right. My apologies. Well, we shall see."

The Snark was let down the ways into The River amid much cheering and drinking. Burton was not as happy as he should have been. He had lost interest in it.

During the festivities, Oskas took him aside.

"You don't intend to leave soon, I hope? I am counting on you to help me take the great boat."

Burton felt like telling him to go to hell. That would, however, not be diplomatic, since the chief might decide to confiscate the Snark for himself. Worse, he might quit resisting the temptation to take Loghu to his bed. During the year he had given her some trouble, though he had made no violent moves. Whenever he got very drunk, which was often, he had openly asked her to move in with him.

There had been many uneasy moments when it looked as if he was going to take her by force. Frigate, whose nature was anything but belligerent, had intended to challenge him to a duel, though he thought that it was a stupid way to solve a problem. But honor demanded it, manhood demanded it, there was no other way out unless he and Loghu sneaked away some night. He would not leave the people with whom he had been so intimate so many years.

Loghu had told him, "No, you will not get killed or kill that savage and so arouse his people to kill you. Leave it to me."

Loghu had men astonished everybody, Oskas most of all, by challenging him to a fight to the death.

After recovering from the shock, Oskas had roared with laughter. "What? I should fight a woman? I beat my wives when they anger me, but I would not fight one. If I were to do this, it would not matter that I would kill you easily. I would be laughed at; I would no longer be Oskas, The Bear Claw, I would be The Man Who Fought a Woman."

"What will it be?" Loghu had said. "Tomahawk? Spear? Knife? Or bare hands? You have seen me in the contests. You know how good I am with all weapons. It is true that you are bigger and stronger, but I know many tricks you don't. I've had some of the best instructors in the world."

What she did not mention was that he was very intoxicated, very fat, and very much out of condition.

Had it been a man who talked to him like that, Oskas would have leaped upon him. Drunk as he was, he knew that he was in a quandary. If he killed this woman, he would be a public jest. If he didn't accept the challenge, he would be said to be afraid of her.

Monat, smiling, stepped forward. "Chief, Loghu is my very good friend. I am also a friend of yours. Why don't we drop this matter? After all, it is the drink that is speaking in you, not you yourself, Oskas, the chief, a mighty warrior on Earth and along The River. No one can blame you for refusing to fight a woman.

"However, it is not right that you should bother another man's woman. You would not do it if you were not full of whiskey. So, I say that from now on you must not treat this woman with anything but the respect you demand from other men toward your women.

"Now, as Burton has told you, I was once a great magician. I still have some powers left, and I will not hesitate to use them if you harm Loghu. I would do so reluctantly, since I have great respect for you. But I will if I have to."

Oskas turned pale beneath the dark skin and the flush of whiskey-heated blood. He said, "Yes, it must be the drink. No one can blame me for what I do when I am drunk."

No more was said that night, and the next day Oskas claimed to have been so intoxicated he did not remember anything about the party.

For several months, he had been cool though polite to Loghu. Lately, he had resumed making remarks to her, though he had not touched her. This may have been because Loghu had told him, in private so that he would not lose face, that she would slice open his belly if he so much as laid a hand on her. Following which, she would crush his testicles.

She reported that he had only laughed at her. Despite which, he was aware that, given a chance, she could do just what she said. Nevertheless, Oskas had a compulsive passion for her. Now that the time was drawing close for her to leave, he was again after her.

Burton, talking to him now, kept this in mind. It wouldn't do to have him think that he had little time left to get Loghu into his bed.

"No, we are not leaving. We will follow the plan that I have worked out for you, and I and my people will be among the vanguard when we seize the boat.

"However, as you know, it is essential that we get to the boat when it has stopped to draw lightning from a stone. If it's moving we have no chance. Now, I have calculated the area where the boat will stop nearest to this place. I can't pinpoint it. But I can say within four or five grailstones where it will stop in the evening.

"Our boat needs a shakedown cruise. I propose to take it on one tomorrow. I'll sail down to the place where the great boat will stop, and I'll look over the situation. We need to know the lay of the land if we are to attack the mighty vessel with any chance of success.

"Would you like to come along?"

Oskas had been looking at him narrow-eyed. Now his face cleared, and he smiled.

"Of course I will go along. I do not blunder blind into a battle.''

That took care of Oskas' unvoiced suspicion that the Snark would not return from the cruise. Even so, he stationed four men in a hut nearby to keep an eye on the boat, though he said nothing of it to Burton. That night, the entire crew sneaked out through the fog to the hills. There they retrieved the free-grails from a hole in the base of the mountain and brought them back to the boat. These were put in a hiding place behind what looked like a solidly secured bulkhead.

The next day, after breakfast, Oskas came aboard with seven of his best warriors. They crowded the vessel, but Burton did not complain. He began passing out lichen-alcohol flavored with ground irontree leaves. His crew had orders to be very abstemious. By midafternoon, the chief and his men were loud-mouthed, laughing drunks. Even their lunch had not been enough to sober them to any extent. Burton kept pressing his guests with drinks. About an hour before they were to stop for dinner, the Indians were staggering around or lying on deck asleep.

It was easy to push the still conscious ones into the water and then throw the unconscious after them. Fortunately, the shock of the water woke up the latter. Otherwise, Burton would have felt compelled to pick them up and take them ashore.

Oskas, treading water, shook his fist at them and raved in Menomini and Esperanto. Laughing, Burton bent his thumb and all except the middle finger and jerked his hand upward. Then he held out his hand with the first and fourth fingers extended, the ancient sign of the "evil eye," a sign that in modern times had come to mean "bullshit."

Oskas became even more violent and colorful in his description of the many ways he would get revenge.

Kazz, grinning, threw the chief's grail to him so accurately that it struck him on the head. The warriors had to dive down after him. When they brought him up, two were forced to support him until he could regain consciousness.

Kazz thought that putting a lump on Oskas' head was very funny.

He would have considered it to be even a better joke if the chief had drowned. Yet, among his crewmates, he was as sociable, tender, and compassionate a man as anyone could ask for. He was a primitive, and all primitives, civilized or preliterate, were tribal people. Only the tribe consisted of human beings and were treated as such. All outside the tribe, though some might be considered friends, were not quite human. Therefore, they did not have to be treated as if they were completely human.

Though the Neanderthal had lost his tribe on Earth, he had regained it in the crew of the Snark. This was his family, his tribe.

23

The Snark did not stop where Burton had told Oskas it would wait for the paddlewheeler. It would have been foolish to do so. Oskas could have made his way back quickly to his territory by renting or stealing a boat. He would then return with many warriors before the arrival of the Rex Grandissimus.

The cutter sailed on past the designated stop and continued down-River for two days. Meanwhile, its crew saw and heard messages sent by Oskas via heliograph, fire and smoke signals, and drum. The chief claimed that Burton's party had stolen cigarettes and booze from him and then had kidnapped him. Oskas offered a reward to anyone who would seize and hold the "criminals" until he could arrive to take them into custody.

Burton had to act quickly to counteract this, though it was doubtful that any authorities of the small states would arrest the crew of the Snark. Oskas was not popular because of the troubles he had given them over the years. However, individuals might organize privateering groups.

Burton went ashore with a box of tobacco and liquor and some oak rings. With these he paid the head of the local branch of the signal company to send out a message for him. This was that Oskas lied, and the truth was that the chief had wanted to take a female crew member by force and so she and her companions had been compelled to flee. Oskas had pursued them but his warcanoe had been sunk when he had tried to board the Snark.

Burton then added that he knew that the chief and his councillors had a great treasure, a hoard of free-grails numbering at least a hundred.

This was a lie, since Oskas, when drunk, had told Burton that the headmen only had twenty. Burton did not mind stretching the truth. Attention would now be diverted from him to the chief. His people would hear this, and they would be raising hell about it. Undoubtedly, they would demand that the proceeds of the free-grails be added to the communal stockpile. Also, Oskas would now have to worry about thieves. Not only would these be of his own people, but many from other states would be planning how they could steal the grails.

Oskas was going to be too busy to worry about revenge.

Burton chuckled as he thought about this.

The Snark came to an area where the current of The River slowed down considerably. The boat had encountered many of these, places where a river should no longer be able to flow downward. On Earth this would have meant that The River would have spread out into a lake, deluging the Valley.

However, after passing through the almost dead current, the cutter came to an area where the water picked up speed. Once again, it was running toward the faraway mouth, that legendary great cavern leading to the north polar sea. There were a number, of explanations for this phenomenon, none of which had so far been proved valid.

One was that there were enough variations in local gravity to permit the impetus of The River to overcome the lack of downward gradient. Those who favored this theory said that the unknown makers of this world might have installed underground devices which caused a weaker gravity field in appropriate areas.

Others suggested that water was pumped under great pressure from pipes deep beneath The River.

A third school speculated that the ceaseless current-flow was caused by a combination of pressure pumps and "light-gravity" generators.

A fourth maintained that God had decreed that the water go uphill and so there was no use wondering about the phenomenon.

The majority of people never thought about it.

Whatever the cause, The River never stopped rolling along its many-million-meter course.

At the end of the second day, the Snark docked in the locality where the great metal boat should stop. The news here was that the Rex had stopped traveling for several days. Its crew was taking a short shore leave.

"Excellent!" Burton said. "We can get to it by tomorrow and have a whole day to talk Captain John into enlisting us."

Though he sounded cheerful, he did not feel so. If his plan did not work, he'd have to take the Snark through Oskas' area in daylight since there was little wind at night. Warned by the signal system that it was coming, the chief would be waiting for it with his full force. Burton felt that he should have turned back up-River after getting rid of the. Indians and sailed far past their land. However, the paddle-wheeler might then have passed by the Snark, and Burton would have had no chance to talk to its commander.

Sufficient unto the day is .the evil thereof, and the best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley. He'd enjoy tonight and take care of tomorrow tomorrow. Despite which reassurance, he worried.

The locals here were a majority of sixteenth-century Dutch, a minority of ancient Thracians, and the usual small percentage of people from many places and many times. Burton met a Fleming who had known Ben Jonson and Shakespeare, among other famous persons. He was talking to him when a newcomer joined the crowd sitting around a bonfire. He was a Caucasian of medium stature, thin bodied, black haired, and blue eyed. He stood for a minute, looking intently at Frigate. Then he smiled broadly and ran up to him.

He cried out in English, "Pete! For God's sake, Pete! It's me, Bill Owain! Pete Frigate, by the Lord! It is you, isn't it, Pete?"

Frigate looked startled. He said, "Yes? But you, you're ... what did you say your name was?"

"Bill Owain! For Christ's sake, you haven't forgotten me, Bill Owain, your old buddy! You look a little different, Pete. For a moment, I wasn't sure! You don't quite look like I remember you! Bill Owain! I didn't recognize you at first, it's been so long!"

They embraced then and both talked swiftly, laughing now and then. When they let loose of each other, Frigate introduced Owain.

"He's my old schoolmate. We've known each other since fourth grade in grammar school. We went to Peoria Central High together and buddied around for some years afterward. When I finally settled down in Peoria after working around the country, we used to see each other now and then. Not very often, since we had our own lives to live and belonged to different circles."

"Even so," Owain said, "I don't see how you could have failed to recognize me right off. But then I wasn't quite sure about you either. I remembered you differently. Your nose is a little longer and your eyes are greener and your mouth isn't quite as broad and your chin seems bigger. And your voice-you remember how everybody kidded you because it was a dead ringer for Gary Cooper's? It doesn't sound like it used to, like I thought it did. So much for memory, eh?"

"Yeah, so much for memory. You know, Bill, mine was never very good. Besides, we remember each other as middle-aged and old men, and now we look like we did when we were twenty-five. Also, we're not wearing the clothes we did then, and it's a shock, a real shock, to run across somebody I knew then. I was stunned!"

"I was, too! I wasn't quite sure! Listen, do you know you're the first person I've met that I knew on Earth?"

Frigate said, "You're the second for me. And that was thirty-two years ago, and the guy I met wasn't one I cared to associate with!"

That, Burton thought, would be a man called Sharkko. A publisher of hardcover science fiction books in Chicago, he had cheated Frigate in a rather complicated deal. The business had taken several years, at the end of which Frigate's writing career had been almost wrecked. But one of the first persons Frigate had encountered after being resurrected was Sharkko. Burton had not witnessed the meeting, but Frigate had recounted how he had avenged himself by punching the fellow in the nose.

Burton himself had met only one person he had known on Earth, though his acquaintances had been numerous and worldwide. That was also a meeting he could have passed up. The man had been one of the porters on his expedition to find the source of the Nile. On the way to Lake Tanganyika (Burton and his companion Speke were the first Europeans to see it), the porter had purchased a slave, a girl about thirteen years old. She had become too sick to continue with them, so the porter had cut off her head rather than allow someone else to own her.

Burton had not been present to prevent the murder, nor would it have been discreet to punish the man. He had the legal right to do with his slave as he wished. However, Burton would punish him for other things, such as laziness, thievery, and breakage of goods, and he laid the whip on him whenever the opportunity arose.

Now Owain and Frigate sat down to drink lichen-alcohol and to talk of old times. Burton noticed that Owain seemed to remember incidents and friends much better than Frigate did. This was surprising, since Frigate had very good recall.

"Remember how we used to see the shows at the Princess, Columbia, and Apollo theaters?" Owain said. "Do you remember the Saturday we decided to find out how many movies we could see in one day? We went to a doublefeature at the Princess, then a double-feature at the Columbia, a triple-feature at the Apollo, and a midnight show at the Madison."

Frigate smiled and nodded. But his expression showed that his recollection was faulty.

"Then there was that time we took a trip to St. Louis with Al Everhard and Jack Dirkman and Dan Doobin. Al's cousin got some dates for us; they were nurses, remember? We drove out to the cemetery-what was it called?"

"Damned if I remember," Pete said.

"Yes, but I'll bet you haven't forgotten how you and that nurse stripped and you were chasing her around the cemetery and you jumped over a tombstone and fell smack into a wreath and got all torn up from the thorns and roses! Bet you haven't forgotten that!"

Frigate grinned embarrassedly. "How could I?"

"It sure took the wind out of your sails! And everything else! Haw, haw!"

There was more reminiscence. After a while, the talk turned to their reactions on awakening along the banks of The River. The others joined in then, since this was a favorite topic. That day had been so frightening, so awe-inspiring, so alien that no one would ever forget that. The horror, the panic, and confusion were still with them. Burton sometimes wondered if people were still talking so much about that experience because the recapitulation was a form of therapy. They hoped to rid themselves of the trauma by a verbal discharge.

There was a general agreement that everybody had acted somewhat silly that day.

"I remember how absurdly formal and dignified I was," Alice said. "Not that I was the only one. However, most people were hysterical. We were all in great shock. The wonder is that nobody died of a heart attack. You'd think that waking up in this strange place after you'd died would be enough to kill you again-at once."

Monat said, "Perhaps, just before resurrection, our anonymous benefactors injected some sort of drug into us that eased the impact of the shock. Also, the dreamgum we found in our grails may have acted as a sort of postoperative anesthesia. Though I must say that its effect caused some terribly savage behavior."

Alice looked at Burton then. Even after all these years, she still blushed at the memory. All their social inhibitions had been stripped off for a few hours, and they had acted as if they were minks whose sole diet was Spanish fly. Or as if their secret fantasies had taken control.

The conversation then centered on the Arcturan. Previously, despite his warm manner, he had encountered the standoffishness he met everywhere at first from strangers. His obvious nonhuman origin made them shy or caused repulsion.

Now they questioned him about his life on his native planet and his experience on Earth. A few had heard tales of how the Arcturans had been forced to slay almost all the people on Earth. No one present, however, except Frigate, had been living when the Arcturans' ship had arrived on Earth.

Burton said, "You know, that is peculiar, though I suppose it's to be expected. There were, according to Pete, eight billion people living in 2008 a.d. Yet, aside from Monat and Frigate here, and one other person, I've never met anyone who lived then. Did any of you?"

Nobody had. In fact, the only locals who had lived past the seventies of the twentieth century were Owain and a woman. She had died in 1982; he, in 1981.

Burton shook his head. "There must be at least thirty-six billion along The River. The biggest majority should be those who lived between 1983-I choose that date because I've met only three who lived past it-those who lived between 1983 and 2008. Yet, where are they?"

"Maybe there are some at the next grailstone," Frigate said. "After all, Dick, nobody's taken a census. What's more, nobody is able to do that. You pass hundreds of thousands every day, but how many do you get to talk to? A few dozen a day. Sooner or later you're bound to run into one."

They speculated for a while about why and how they had been resurrected and who could have done it. They also talked about why the growth of facial hair in men was inhibited, why all males had awakened circumcised, and why women had their hymens restored before resurrection. As for not needing to shave, half the men thought it a good thing while the other half resented not being able to grow moustaches and beards.

There was also some wonder about why the grails of both men and women occasionally yielded lipstick and other cosmetics.

Frigate said that he thought that their benefactors probably did not like to shave and that both their sexes painted their faces. That was, to him, the only reasonable explanation.

Then Alice brought up Burton's experience in the preresurrection bubble. This got everybody's attention, but he told them that he had no memory of that. He'd suffered a blow on his head which had wiped out all recollection of it.

As always, when he told this lie, he caught Monat smiling slightly at him. He suspected that the Arcturan guessed that he was prevaricating. However, the fellow had never said so. He respected Burton's reasons for concealment even if he did not know what they were.

Frigate and Alice recounted Burton's tale as they remembered it. They made several mistakes, which he, of course, could not correct.

"If that is so," a man said, "then the resurrection isn't a supernatural thing. It was done through scientific means. Amazing!"

"Yes, it is," Alice said. "But why are we no longer resurrected? Why has death, permanent death, returned?"

A gloomy pensiveness fell upon them for a minute.

Kazz broke it by saying, "There is one thing which Burton-naq has not.forgotten. That's the business with Spruce. The agent of the Ethicals."

That brought forth more questions.

"What are Ethicals?"

Burton took a long drink of scotch and launched into the story. At one time, he said, he and his party had been captured by grail-slavers. There was no need to explain this word. Everybody had had some experience with grail-slavers.

Burton told them how his boat had been attacked and how they had been put into a stockade. Thereafter, they had left it only to work under a heavy guard. All of their tobacco, marijuana, dream-gum, and liquor were taken by their captors. Moreover, these kept half of the food for themselves, leaving their prisoners on a bare-minimum diet.

After a few months, Burton and a man named Targoff had led a successful revolt against the slavers.

24

"A few days after we'd won our freedom, Frigate, Monat, and Kazz came to me. They greeted me, and then Kazz spoke excitedly.

"A long time ago, before I could 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.'

"My friend here, my naq, as he calls it in his speech, indicated the center of his forehead and that of all of us.

"Kazz then said, 'I know 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 who don't have it, but I don't say nothing to you. Now, I see a third who don't have it.'

"I still did not understand. Monat, however, explained.

" 'He means that he is able to perceive certain symbols of 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 those symbols-except for the three he's mentioned.'

"Frigate added that Kazz somehow could see a little further into the color spectrum than non-Neanderthals could. Into the ultraviolet , as a matter of fact, since the symbols were bluish. At least that is the way Kazz described them. All of us, except certain individuals, seem to bear this mark. As if we're branded cattle. Since that time, Kazz, and his woman Besst, have observed these on people's foreheads, when the lighting conditions were right, of course."

This news, as always, resulted in astonishment, indignation, and even shock. Burton waited until the furor died down before speaking.

"Some of you late-twentieth-centurians may know that the so-called Neanderthal man was reclassified. The anthropoligists decided that he was not a separate species but a variant of Homo sapiens. Nevertheless, just as he differed somewhat in physical build and teeth from us, he also has the ability to see into the ultraviolet."

Besst said, "I am not a Neanderthal man but a woman, and I, too, have this ability."

Burton grinned and said, "Women's lib has penetrated into the Old Stone Age. However, let me point out that events will show that Whoever made this world and stamped us with, in a manner of speaking, the mark of the beast, did not know that Homo neanderthalis had a special visual ability. This means that Whoever is not omniscient.

"To resume my narrative. I asked for the identity of the person who lacked the symbol. Frigate replied, 'Robert Spruce!'

'' Spruce had also been a grail slave. He claimed to be an Englishman born in 1945. That was about all I knew of him.

"I said that we would get him and question him. Frigate told me that we'd have to catch him because he was probably long gone. It seems that Kazz told Spruce he'd noticed Spruce lacked the mark on his forehead. Spruce had turned pale, and a few minutes later he left hurriedly. Frigate and Monat sent search parties out, but at the time they reported to me he hadn't been found.

"It seemed to me that his flight was an admission of guilt, though I didn't know what he was guilty of. A few hours later, he was discovered hiding in the hills. He was brought before the newly formed council of our newly formed state. Spruce was pale and trembling, though he looked us straight in the eye defiantly enough.

"I informed him that we suspected that he was an agent for the Ethicals if not an Ethical himself. I also told him that we would go to any lengths, including torture, to get the truth from him. This was a lie, since we would have been no better than the men who'd enslaved us if we had resorted to torture. Spruce, however, did not know that.

"Spruce said, 'You may be denying yourself eternal life if you torture me. It will at least set you far back on your journey, delay your final goal. "

"I asked him what that final goal was, but he ignored that question. Instead, he said, 'We can't stand pain. We're too sensitive.'

"There was some more exchange, but he would not answer our questions. Then one of the councillors suggested that he be suspended above a fire. Monat spoke up then. He told Spruce that he was from a culture somewhat more advanced than that of Earth's. He felt he was more qualified to make guesses about the truth than the rest of us, and no one argued with him about this. Monat said that he would like to spare him the pain of the fire and also the pain of betraying his trust. Perhaps Monat could make some speculations about the Ethicals and their agents, and Spruce could merely affirm or deny the speculations. In this way, Spruce would not be making a positive betrayal of his trust, whatever that was."

Bill Owain said, "That was a peculiar arrangement."

"True. But Monat hoped to get him to talking. You see, we were not going to use any brutal methods of inquisition. If we couldn't scare him, then we were going to try hypnosis. Both Monat and I are skilled mesmerists. However, as it turned out, we didn't have to resort to that.

"Monat said, 'It's my theory that you are a Terrestrial. You come from an age chronologically far past 2008 a.d. In fact, you are a descendant of the few people who survived the death beam projected from our orbital ship.' Monat guessed that the technology and energy required to reconstruct this planet into one vast Rivervalley was very advanced. He suggested that Spruce was born in the fiftieth century A.D.

"Spruce replied that he should add two thousand years.

"Monat then said that not everyone had been resurrected. There wasn't enough room on this world. It was known that no children who had died before the age of five were here. And though it couldn't be proved, it seemed likely that no imbeciles and idiots had been resurrected here. Nor was anyone who lived after 2008 a.d., with the exception of Spruce here.

"Where were these people?

"Spruce answered that they were elsewhere, and that was all he would say on the subject.

"Monat then asked him how the people of the Earth had been recorded. That is, what device had the Ethicals used to make recordings of our bodies? Since it was obvious that scientific, not supernatural, means were used to resurrect us, that meant that everyone from the Old Stone Age to 2008 a.d. had somehow been observed, the structure of every cell of a person's body recorded, and this recording was stored somewhere to be used later in the recreation of the body.

"Monat said that the recordings must be placed in an energy-matter converter, whereupon the body was duplicated. The effects of injuries, wounds, and diseases that had caused death were cancelled. Amputated limbs and organs were restored. I myself saw some of this regeneration process when I awoke in the preresurrec-tion space. Also, those aged past twenty-five were rejuvenated.

"Monat further speculated that the bodies in the PR bubble were destroyed after the regeneration process was completed. But recordings of the new bodies had been made, and these recordings were used in the final stage, the great resurrection, when all of us appeared together on that never-to-be-forgotten day.

"Monat supposed that the resurrection was accomplished through the metal of the grailstone system. That is, all the stones are connected deep underground to form a circuit of some sort, and the energy is supplied from the hot nickle-iron core of this planet.

"Monat then said, "The big question is why?'

"Spruce said, 'If you had it in your power to do all this, would you not think it your ethical duty?"

"Monat said that he would think so. But he would bring back to life only those who deserve a second life.

"Spruce became angry then. He replied that Monat was setting himself up as an equal of God. Everybody, no matter how stupid, selfish, petty, brutal, etcetera, must be given another chance to redeem themselves, to make themselves worthy. It would not be done for them; they must, somehow, lift themselves by their own moral bootstraps.

"Monat asked Spruce how long this process would take. A thousand years? Two? A million?

"Spruce became angry, and he shouted, 'You will stay here as long as it takes you to be rehabilitated! Then . . .'

"He paused, glaring at us as if he hated us, and he said, 'Continued contact with you makes even the toughest of us take on your characteristics. We then have to go through a rehabilitation process ourselves. Already, I feel unclean . . .'

"One of the councillors, wishing to press him, urged that he be put over the fire until he would talk freely.

"Spruce cried, 'No, you won't! I should have done this long ago! Who knows what . . .'"

Burton paused dramatically.

"Then Spruce fell dead!"

There were gasps, and someone said, "Mein Gott!"

"Yes, but that isn't the end of the story. Spruce's body was taken away for dissection. It seemed too coincidental that he should have had a heart attack. Not only was it too convenient for him, it was unheard of.

"While he was being dissected, we discussed what happened. Some thought that he was lying to us. Or, at least, only giving us half-truths. We did agree on one thing. That was that there were people in this Valley who were agents of the Ethicals or perhaps the Ethicals themselves. These did not bear the mark on their foreheads.

"But it seemed likely that we would not be able to distinguish them anymore by using Kazz's peculiar visual powers. Spruce would be resurrected wherever their headquarters was. He would report to the others that we now knew about the symbols. And of course they would put the mark on their agents.

"This would take time, and in the meantime Kazz might detect others. But this has not happened. Neither he nor Besst has seen anybody unmarked. Again, of course, this does not mean too much. They have to get a close look under certain conditions to see the mark.

' "Three hours later, the surgeon reported to us. There was nothing remarkable about Spruce. Nothing to distinguish him from, other members of Homo sapiens."

Once more, Burton paused.

"Except for one small item! This was a very tiny black sphere! The doctor had found it on the surface of Spruce's forebrain. It was attached to the cerebral nerves by extremely thin wires. This led us to conclude that Spruce had literally thought, or wished, himself to die.

"Somehow, the sphere interacted with his mental processes in such a manner that he could think himself dead. Perhaps he thought of a certain code sequence, and this released a poison into his system. The doctor could find no evidence of this, but then he lacked the necessary chemical means to make an accurate analysis.

"In any event, Spruce's body showed no damage. Something had stopped his heart, but the doctor did not know what that was.''

A woman said, "Then there could be such people among us? Now, here, in this group?"

Burton nodded, and everybody started talking at once. After fifteen minutes of this babel, he stood up and indicated to his crew that it was time to go to bed. On the way to the cutter, Kazz drew him aside.

"Burton-naq, when you mentioned you and Monat were hypnotists . . . well, that made me think about something. I've never thought about it before . .. maybe there's nothing funny about it... only . . ."

"Well?"

"It's nothing, I'm sure. Only it was funny. You see, I told Spruce I could see he didn't have no sign on his head. He left a few minutes later, but I could smell the fear in his sweat. There were others there, all eating breakfast, Targoff, Doctor Steinborg, Monat, Pete, and a number of others. Targoff said we should convene the council, though this was some time after Spruce had taken off. Monat and Pete agreed. But they said they wanted to question me a little more. You know, what the marks looked like. Were they all alike or did they differ?"

"I said they differed. A lot of them were. . . what you say? . . . similar, yes, that's it. But each one . .. what the hell, you know what they look like, I've drawn pictures of them for you."

Burton said, "Aside from some looking something like Chinese ideograms, they resemble nothing I've ever seen. My guess is that they're symbols of a numbering system."

"Yeah, I know what you said. The thing is, Monat and Frigate took me aside before we went to your place to tell you what'd happened. In fact, we went to Monat's hut."

Kazz paused. Impatiently Burton said, "Well?"

"I'm trying to remember. But I can't. I went into the hut, and that's all!"

"What do you mean, that's all?"

"Burton-naq, I mean that's all. I don't remember a thing about going into that hut. I remember starting through the door. The next I remember is walking with Monat, Pete, and the other councillors to your hut!"

Burton felt a slight shock, yet he had no idea what had caused it.

"You mean that you don't remember anything from the time you entered until the time you walked out?"

"I mean that I don't remember walking out. All of a sudden, there I was, a hundred paces from Monat's house and walking along, talking to Monat."

Burton frowned. Alice and Besst were standing on the dock, looking back as if wondering why they had dropped behind.

"This is most peculiar, Kazz. Why haven't you told me about this before? After all, it's been many years since it happened. Didn't you think about this before?"

"No, I didn't. Ain't that funny? Not one frigging thought. I still wouldn't remember even entering the hut if Loghu hadn't said something about it the other day. She saw me go in, but she wasn't with the group that day and so didn't know what was going on until later.

"What happened was that she was standing in the doorway of her and Frigate's hut. Frigate, Monat, and me was going to go into Frigate's hut. When they found she was there, they went to Monat's. It was just by chance that she mentioned this yesterday. We was talking about when we was grail slaves, and this brought up Spruce. That's when she asked me what Monat, Pete, and me was talking about. She said she wondered sometimes why they wanted to talk to me in private.

"She just never brought it up before because it didn't seem important. It still wasn't, but she was curious, and since the subject was brought up, she remembered to ask me. You know how curious women are."

"Women have the curiosity of cats," Burton said, and he chuckled. "Whereas men are as curious as monkeys." "What? What does that mean?"

"I don't know, but it sounds deep. I'll think up an explanation later. So, it was Loghu's remarks that made you remember the events preceding and following your entry into Monat's place?" "Not right away, Burton-naq. I got to puzzling about what she said. I really strained my brain. I could hear the tissues ripping. Finally, I could remember, in a dim way, how we meant to go into Pete's hut. Then I could remember Loghu being there and Monat saying they'd use his hut. And after a while... I could faintly recollect going into there.

"While you was talking didn't you notice me sitting there by the fire, frowning away like there was a thunderstorm on my brow?"

"I just thought you'd taken too much to eat and drink, as usual.''

"That, too. But it wasn't no farts storming around inside me. It was gas on the brain."

"Since you've recalled this, you haven't said anything to Monat or Frigate about it?"

"No."

"Don't, then."

Kazz had a low forehead, but he was not unintelligent.

"You think there's something phony about those two?"

Burton said, "I don't know. I'd hate to think so. After all these years . .. and they are good friends. At least . . ."

"It don't seem possible," Kazz said. He sounded as if his heart were about to break.

"What doesn't?"

"I don't know what. But it has to be something bad."

"I don't know that," Burton said. "There may be a very good explanation other than the one I'm thinking of. Anyway, don't mention this to anyone."

"I won't. Only ... listen, those two do have symbols on their heads. They always had them. So, if them agents didn't have them at one time, Pete and Monat couldn't be agents!"

Burton smiled. Kazz's thoughts were his. Nevertheless, he had to look into this. How could he do it without putting the two on guard? Of course, they might have nothing to hide.

"Yes, I know. Don't forget that Besst has also seen their symbols. So we have double confirmation, not that we need it.

"In any course, mum's the word until I say otherwise."

They started to walk toward the Snark. Kazz said, "I don't know. I sure have a bad feeling about this. Wish I'd kept my mouth shut. Loghu would say something about it."

25

Burton paced back and forth on the deck in the fog. though his body was warm in the cloths, his face was chilled. An unusually cold body of air had moved into the area, and as a result the mists were piled halfway up the mast. He could not see beyond his outstretched arms.

As far as he knew, everybody aboard except himself was asleep. His only company were his thoughts. These tended to stray as if they were sheep on a hillside. Burton had to work hard to bring them back, arrange them in an orderly band, keep them moving toward pasture. And what was pasture? Bitter eating.

There were thirty-three years to cover in his memory. It was a selective process, one which concentrated on Monat and Frigate. What actions, what words of theirs were suspicious? What could be fitted into a dark jigsaw puzzle?

There were very few people available. There might be more, but he could be looking at them and not even realize that they were pieces.

That terrible, joyous day, the day that he had awakened from the dead, he had met the Arcturan first of all. Of all those he had encountered that day, Monat had acted most calmly and rationally. He had taken stock of the situation amazingly fast, checked out the environment, and immediately understood the purpose of the grails.

The second person Burton had especially noticed was the Neanderthal, Kazz. He, however, had not tried to talk to Burton at first. He had merely followed him for a while. Peter Frigate had been the second person to talk to Burton. And, now that Burton considered it, Frigate had been rather easy and casual in manner. This was strange in view of Frigate's claim that he suffered from anxiety and hysteria.

Later events had seemed to confirm this. However, from time to time, and consistently in the past twenty years, Frigate had overcome his faults. Had he really attained self-mastery or had he just abandoned a role, ceased to play-act?

Certainly, it had been quite a coincidence that the second person Burton met had written a biography of him. How many biographers of his existed? Ten or twelve? What were the probabilities that one of them would be resurrected only a few meters from him? Twelve in thirty-six billion.

Still, it was within the realm of chance; it was not impossible.

Then Kazz had joined those who'd collected around Burton. Then Alice. Then Lev Ruach.

Today, while Kazz had been helmsman, Burton had stood by him and questioned him. Had Kazz talked to Monat and Frigate during Resurrection Day when Burton had not been around? Did he remember anything that was suspicious about them?

Kazz had shaken his thickly boned head. "I was with them several times when you were not in sight. But I don't remember nothing strange about them. That is, Burton-naq, there was nothing stranger than strange. Everything was strange that day."

"Did you notice the marks on people's foreheads that day?"

"Yes, a few. That was when the sun was highest."

"What about Monat and Frigate?"

"I don't remember seeing any on theirs that day. But then I don't remember seeing one on you, either. The light had to reflect at a certain angle."

Burton had taken out of his shoulderbag a pad of bamboo paper, a sharply pointed fish bone, and wooden bottle of ink. He took over the wheel while Kazz drew the marks he saw on the foreheads of the Arcturan and the American. Both were three parallel horizontal lines crossed by three parallel vertical lines juxtaposed to a cross enclosed in a circle. The lines were of even thickness and length except at the ends. Monat's lines broadened at the right; Frigate's, at the left.

"What about the sign on my forehead?" Burton had said.

Kazz showed him four wavy parallel horizontal lines next to a symbol like an ampersand (&). Below it was a short, thin, straight horizontal line.

"Mortal's and Pete's are remarkably alike," Burton said.

At Burton's request, Kazz then drew the symbols on the foreheads of everyone of the crew. Not one resembled any other.

"Do you remember Lev Ruach's?"

Kazz nodded, and a moment later he handed Burton the drawing. He felt disappointed, though he had no conscious reason to be so. Ruach's symbol was not at all like his prime suspects'.

Now, walking on the deck, Burton wondered why he had expected it to be similar to the other two. Something tickled the back of his brain, some suspicion he could not scratch. There was a linkage among the three, but it slipped away just as he was about to grasp it.

He had done enough thinking. Now for action.

A white bundle lying against the cabin was the Neanderthal, wrapped in cloths. Guiding himself by the fellow's snoring, Burton went to him and shook him. Kazz, snorting, woke up at once.

"Time?"

"Time."

First, though, Kazz had to piss over the railing. Burton lit a fish-oil lantern, and they walked down the gangplank onto the dock. From there they moved slowly onto the plain, their destination an empty hut about two hundred paces away. They missed it, but after circling around, they found it. After they had entered, Burton shut the door. A bundle of logs and shavings had been placed in the stone hearth that evening by Kazz. In a minute, a small fire was blazing. Kazz sat down on a bamboo wickerwork chair near the fire. He coughed as he breathed smoke which had escaped the feeble draught of the chimney.

It was easy to place Kazz into a hypnotic trance. He had been one of Burton's subjects for years when Burton entertained locals by displaying his powers as a mesmerist.

Now that Burton thought about it, Monal and Frigate had always been present at these times. Had they been nervous then? If they had, they had successfully concealed it.

Burton took Kazz straight back to the time when he had mentioned to the breakfasting group that Spruce had no mark. Working forward, he took him then to the point where the Neanderthal had gone into Monat's hut. Here he encountered first resistance.

"Are you now in the hut?"

Kazz, staring straight ahead, his eyes seemingly turned inward upon the past, said, "I am in the doorway."

"Go on in, Kazz."

The fellow shook with effort.

"I can't, Burton-naq."

"Why not?"

"I do not know."

"Is there something you fear in the hut?"

"I don't know."

"Has anyone told you that there is something bad in the hut?"

"No."

"Then you have nothing to fear. Kazz, you are a brave man, aren't you?"

"You know I am, Burton-naq."

"Why can't you go on in then?"

Kazz shook his head. "I don't know. Something . . ."

"Something what?"

"Something . . . tells me ... tells me ... can't remember."

Burton bit his lower lip. The flaming wood cracked and hissed.

"Who tells you? Monat? Frigate?"

"Don't know."

"Think!"

Kazz's forehead wrinkled. Sweat poured down it.

The firewood crackled again. Hearing it, Burton smiled.

"Kazz!"

"Yes."

"Kazz! Besst is in the hut, and she's screaming! Can you hear her screaming?"

Kazz straightened up and looked from side to side, his eyes wide open, his nostrils distended, his lips drawn back.

"I hear her! What is the matter?"

"Kazz! There's a bear in the hut, and it's going to attack Besst! Take your spear and go in there and kill the bear, Kazz! Save Besst!"

Kazz stood up, and, his hand grasping the imaginary spear, sprang forward. Burton had to move swiftly to get out of his way. Kazz stumbled over the chair and fell upon his face.

Burton grimaced. Would the shock bring Kazz out of his trance? No, Kazz was up on his feet and about to run forward again.

"Kazz! You're in the hut! There's the bear! Kill it, Kazz! Kill it!"

Snarling, Kazz grabbed the phantom spear with both hands and thrust it.

'' Ayee! Ayee!'' And a gabble of harsh sounds followed. Burton, having learned his native language, understood them.

"I am the Man-Who-Slew-The-White-Tooth! Die, Hairy-One-Who-Sleeps-All-Winter! Die, but forgive me! I must, I must! Die! Die!"

Burton spoke loudly. "Kazz! It's run away! The bear has run out of the hut! Besst is safe now!"

Kazz stopped thrusting the spear. He stood upright now, looking from side to side.

"Kazz! It's a few minutes later. Kazz! Besst has left. You're in the hut now! Inside it. You've nothing to fear! You've entered the hut, and there is nothing to be afraid of! But who else is in there with you?

"Kazz! You're in the hut a few minutes after you saw that Spruce had no mark on his forehead. Who else is in the hut with you?"

The Neanderthal had lost his fierce expression. Now he looked dully at Burton.

"Who? Why, Monat and Pete."

"Very good, Kazz. Now . . . who first spoke to you there?"

"Monat did."

"Tell me what he said to you. Tell me what Frigate said, too."

"Frigate never said anything. Just Monat."

"Tell me what he said .... what he is saying."

"Monat says, 'Now, Kazz, you will remember nothing that took place in this hut. We will talk a minute and then we will leave. After you leave you will not remember going into the hut or leaving it. Everything between that time will be a blank. If anyone should ask you about this time, you will say that you don't remember. And you will not be lying because you will have forgotten everything. Isn't that right, Kazz?' "

The Neanderthal nodded.

' "Also, Kazz, just to make sure, you will not remember the first time I told you to forget that you had mentioned to me and Frigate that we had no marks. Do you remember that time, Kazz?' "

Kazz shook his head. " 'No, Monat.' "

He gave a drawnout sigh.

"Who sighed?" Burton said.

"Frigate."

It was evidently an expiration of relief.

"What else is Monat saying? Tell me what you are saying, too.''

" 'Kazz, when I talked to you that first time, the time just after you had told Frigate and me that we had no signs, I also told you to tell me whatever Burton said about meeting a mysterious person. By that I mean someone who might call himself an Ethical.' "

Burton said, "Aah!"

" 'Do you remember that, Kazz?'

" 'No.'

" 'Of course not. I told you not to remember that. But I now tell you to remember it. Do you remember it, Kazz?' "

A silence of about twenty seconds followed. Then the Neanderthal said, " 'Yes, I remember now.'

' "Very good, Kazz. Now, forget it again, though what I told you then still is a command. Isn't that right?'

" 'Yes, that's right.'

" 'Now, Kazz. Has Burton ever said anything to you about this Ethical? Or about anyone, man or woman, who claimed to be one of those who brought us back from the dead?'

" 'No, Burton-naq never told me anything like that.'

' "But if, in the future, he does tell .you, you will come to me at once and tell me. You will only do this, however, when no one else is around. Where no one can overhear us. Do you understand that?'

" 'Yes, I understand.'

' "If for some reason I am not available, if you cannot get hold of me because I am dead or gone on a journey, you will tell Peter Frigate or Lev Ruach, instead of me. Do you understand?' "

Burton said, in a low voice, "Ruach, too!"

" 'Yes, I understand. I will tell Peter Frigate or Lev Ruach instead of you.'

" 'And you will tell them only when no one is around, where no one else can overhear you two. Understand?'

" 'Yes, I understand.'

' "And you will not tell anyone else about this, you will only tell Frigate, Ruach, or myself. Understand?'

" 'Yes, I understand.'

" 'Very good, Kazz. That's fine. We will go now, and when I snap my fingers twice, you will not remember this or the first time. Understand?'

" 'Yes, I understand.'

" 'Kazz, you will also . . . oh, oh! Someone's calling for us! No time for an excuse now. Let's go!' "

Burton had to guess what this last remark meant. Monat must have been about to tell Kazz what he should say if anyone asked him what the conversation had been about. That was a lucky break for Burton. If Kazz had had a reasonable story, then Burton would never have become suspicious.