Gods of Riverworld (16 page)

Now the androids, whom he called Corsellis and Outram, stood before him. The former was in the uniform of a colonel; the latter, in civilian clothes. Their faces were expressionless; they would smile only at request and then only if they had been programmed to do so.

“You two arseholes will, as required, paint the rooms with the materials you’ll find in that converter there,” he said, pointing.

The androids did not follow his gesture, so he said, “Look over there. Where my finger is pointing. That cabinet is the converter I mean. The paint’s in sprayers. You know how to use those. The ladders are also in there. You know how to put the sections together and how to use them.”

Burton had thought of programming them to kiss his ass before they started the job, but he had rejected the childish and essentially meaningless act. If he resurrected the real Outram and Corsellis and got them to kiss his ass, that would be different. But they would refuse, of course. Besides, he could not just bring them to life for a while, even if he would have liked them to do menial labor for him. They were human beings, and he could not have them disintegrated when he was through with them.

Nevertheless, he did get some satisfaction, even chuckled, when he saw the two walk to the converter. If only he could arrange it so that the real men, the models, could at least see his androids. They would be outraged, furiously indignant.

He sighed. That form of revenge was petty, and he knew it. If Nur could see this, he would say, “It is beneath you. You have become no better than they.”

“I should turn the other cheek?” Burton muttered, continuing aloud the imaginary conversation. “I am not a Christian. Moreover, I never met a Christian who turned the other cheek when slapped.”

He would have to keep the identity of the simulacra to himself and that deprived him of the pleasure he had in this. Alice could get away with giving her androids the faces of Gladstone and Disraeli because she had no animus toward them. It was, to her, merely amusing to be waited on by two prime ministers.

He left his apartment for a while, though he was not sure that he should leave the androids unattended. If they had a problem that a sentient painter could have solved, they would either ignore it and go on or stop and wait for orders. He, however, was angered by the events on the past-display screen, not yet covered over. Its sequence was not in proper chronology; it had jumped to when he was three years old and being whipped savagely by his tutor. “All I did was tell him that he had a breath like a sick dog’s,” Burton said. “And that he farted overmuch. That’s all.”

Burton could not read at that age, but the tutor had started to teach him to speak Latin. At the age of ten, Burton would know far more Latin than his tutor and speak it fluently.

“But that was in spite of him, not because of him. I had a natal love for languages that no brutal pedant could scourge from me. Unfortunately, most boys hated the subject as much as they hated their teachers’ rods. In their minds, one was the other.”

The screen displaying his past appeared on the wall beside the door after it had been shut. Burton sat down in the flying chair parked by the door and turned it so that his back was to the wall. Immediately, the screen appeared on the wall opposite him. Burton put soundproof devices over his ears and a long eyeshade on his head. While he kept his eyes lowered, he could not see the screen. Apparently, the Computer had not had orders to shift the screen to the floor. Thus, Burton could read the book he held close to his chest without seeing or hearing the display.

The book was the Roman emperor Claudius’ grammar of the Etruscan language, located and reproduced for Burton by the Computer. It had been lost sometime during the Dark Ages of Earth, but an Ethical agent had photographed a copy of it shortly after Claudius had finished it. While Earth linguists were bemoaning its loss, it had been sitting in the records of the Ethicals for a thousand years.

Despite his absorption in the book, he could not keep from glancing at the screen. Now he, as the child, had been swung around to face the red angry features of McClanahan, the tutor. Though Burton could not hear the man, he could read the writhing lips. And he suddenly remembered other occasions when McClanahan had hurled invective and accusations at him, and the prophecy that he would go to Hell when he died—if not sooner.

Burton could not see his own lips, but he was screaming, “I’ll meet you there!” His view shifted. He was facing the other way, and the tutor was thrashing him again. He would not be crying or yelling; he kept his lips stubbornly locked so that the tutor would not have the satisfaction of knowing how much he was hurting him. That only made McClanahan angrier, and he increased the severity of his strokes. But he was afraid to whip him as much as he would have liked to. Though Burton’s father approved of instilling love of learning and obedience with the rod, he would not have stood for a whipping near to death. The tutor knew that the child would not scream until he was almost dead, and perhaps not then.

Burton turned his head away and focused his intentness into a sword, the tip of which raked across the words of the grammar. He finished two pages, then closed his eyes and projected the pages, as if they had been a film, on the screen of his mind. After which, he opened his eyes to check his accuracy. He smiled. His memory had been one hundred percent perfect.

Book-learning a language was a step toward mastering it. But he should resurrect an Etruscan and imbibe the living speech. However—there was always a however—what would he do with the Etruscan after he had finished with her?

It was then that he thought of the possibility of reading the recordings of the dead in the files. Why not have the Computer unreel their memories? Perhaps the dead could speak.

Using a codeword, he asked the Computer to form a screen on the floor. It did so, and Burton put his question to it. The Computer replied that the memories of the recordings could be extracted and displayed. However, some recordings were not available because of overrides.

He looked at his wristwatch. Time for the androids to have finished their job.

By then the display of his past had leaped to Naples, where the family was staying for a while during its never-ending wandering through southern Europe. Once more, he was being whipped by a tutor, this time by DuPré, an Oxford graduate.

As Frigate had said, their lives were movies, but, before being shown the main feature, they were seeing “previews.”

It would be embarrassing when the Computer got to the events of the day before this particular incident. He and an Italian playmate had masturbated before each other.

It was also going to be embarrassing when the innumerable excretions were shown, and the sexual scenes would be downright intolerable. These were why Burton had decided that the idea for painting an apartment where all might meet was not enough. His own apartment was to be painted, and, if the others had any sense, they would follow his example.

He entered the doorway, and the screen was hidden beneath the paint. The androids, sweating, were just finishing up his bedroom. He had not told them to paint every room, since there were several into which he would not go. That is, unless he wished to see his past, and he knew that there would be many times when he would not be able to resist the temptation. He could, however, now view it only when he wished to.

He swore and snapped his fingers.

Perhaps not.

He went to the console of the auxiliary computer, which had not been painted over. Activating it, he stared at the screen. He smiled. The Computer was not displaying the loathed pictures there. Apparently it had been ordered only to use the walls for the memory projections.

The Outram android reported that they were through. Burton told them to store the ladders and the unused cans in a bedroom and to put the used cans in a converter. He disintegrated the cans, then ordered the androids into the converter. They walked into the huge cabinet; he secured the door; energy flashed; not even a speck of ash was left.

It had to be his imagination that made him think that their eyes looked pleading. They had neither self-consciousness nor instinct for self-preservation.

The walls, floor, and ceilings were an appalling egg-white, but he would paint murals over these.

Frigate called him via the console screen.

“I’ve been exploring the little worlds on that second level down from the top,” he said. “I found out that the Computer doesn’t show the past there. I don’t know why, but I think that the Ethicals had some limitations there that the Snark couldn’t override. Anyway, besides that, there are other reasons why we should move into them. They give the illusion of the great outdoors; I felt much freer than I do in my apartment. I’m going to suggest that we move into them, and that anyone who wishes to do so remodel them. I’m going to do it whether or not anyone else does, but it would be nice if everybody did it. We’d be close together and could use the central area for social meetings or whatever.”

They met in the central area of the “pie-in-the-sky” level that evening to talk about Frigate’s proposal.

“You’ll have to see those places for yourselves,” Frigate said. “They’re fabulous.”

The American reminded them that the circular section was divided into segments of thirty degrees each. The points of these twelve segments ended in the huge circular central area.

“It occurred to me that, from a bird’s-eye view, the circle looks like a zodiac chart. It’s divided into twelve parts, twelve houses, Aquarius, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, and so forth—if you want to look at it that way. I was thinking that maybe each of us could pick the area that corresponds to his or her birth date.”

“Why?” de Marbot said.

“It’s a conceit of mine. However, since the birth date could determine the particular area in which to live, it’ll avoid argument if we use the zodiacal method. Of course, there’s no reason for disagreement, since they’ll all look alike once the original paraphernalia is cleared out. It’s just an idea.”

The others said that it seemed as good a way of choosing the areas as any.

“But you don’t believe in that astrological crap, do you?” Turpin said.

“No. Not really. However, I do know something about it. Now, Po, you were born, according to the Western calendar, on April 19,
A.D.
701. That makes you Aries the Ram, the first house, the principle of which is energy. You certainly are energetic.”

“And much more!” the Chinese said.

“Yes. The first house also pioneers, and you were a pioneer. Your positive qualities are outgoing, original, and dynamic.”

“Very true! I must learn more about this Occidental astrology.”

“Your negative qualities,” Frigate said, smiling, “are that you’re foolhardy, have low self-sufficiency, and are deceitful.”

“What? I? Perhaps I might be foolhardy, though I would prefer to call it absolutely courageous. But how could you say that I have low self-sufficiency, you who know me so well?”

“I’m just telling you what astrology says about your sign. Anyway, negative qualities are to be overcome, and evidently you conquered yours, if you ever had them.”

“One might say that he overcompensated in his conquest,” Burton said drily.

“The house of Aries is OK with you?” Frigate said.

“Why not! It is the
first
!”

Frigate spoke to Alice. “You were born May 4, 1852. That makes you Taurus the Bull. Ruled by Venus, the emotions.”

“Hah!” Burton said. Alice glared at him.

“Taurus builds. Your positive qualities make you loyal, dependable, and patient. But you have to battle against excessive pride, self-indulgence, and greediness.”

“Not to my knowledge,” Alice said quietly.

“The second house OK with you?”

“Of course.”

Frigate spoke to Thomas Million Turpin, who was smoking a panatela and holding a glass of bourbon.

“You were born on May 21, 1873, under the sign of Gemini, the Twins. You’re ruled by Mercury, and you’re strong on communication. You’re versatile, genial, and creative.”

“Keep talking, man!”

“But your negative qualities … uh … you’re two-faced, superficial, and unstable.”

“That’s a damn lie! I never been two-faced, I always been straightforward. Where’d you get that shit?”

“Nobody said that you were,” Frigate said. “What that indicates is that you have had to overcome those tendencies.”

“I ain’t two-faced. I’m just discreet and polite. No use hurting someone’s feelings if you don’t have to. It don’t pay.”

“The third house agreeable with you?”

“One’s good as another and maybe better.”

“We don’t have anybody born under Cancer,” Frigate said. “Not yet, anyway. The fifth house is Leo the Lion, representing vitality and ruled by the sun. Leo dramatizes. That’s you, Marcelin. Born August 18, 1782.”

“So far, excellent,” de Marbot said. “I am all those.”

“A Leo is regal…”

“True!”

“… entertaining…”

“Doubly true!”

“… and commanding.”

“Triply true.”

“The bad qualities, alas, are that Leo is pompous, domineering, and conceited.”

The Frenchman reddened and scowled; the others burst out laughing.

“He got you there!” Turpin said.

“Leo, the fifth house, OK?” Frigate said.

“If it is understood that we are merely amusing ourselves with this parlor game of astrology and that, though I may be a leader, I am not domineering, and though I have much to boast about but do not, I am not conceited, and that never, never am I pompous!”

“Nobody’ll argue with you,” Frigate said ambiguously. “Now we come to the sixth house, Virgo, the virgin. Ruled also by Mercury, the communicator. Virgo analyzes. That’s you, Aphra, born September 22, 1640. Virgo is practical, analytical, intellectual.”

“I’ve never been any of those,” Aphra said.

“Virgo is also critical, hypochondriacal, and prim.”

She laughed uproariously.

“I, with my reputation and my bawdy dramas?”

“The sixth house OK?”

“Why not?”