Gods of Riverworld (35 page)

Feeling in need of exercise, he played volleyball for a while. The game was fun and vigorous, and he loved to watch Bill Williams’ woman leap into the air to bat a ball back. Then, sweating, he walked to a chair and sat down. A Tweedledee and a Tweedledum asked him what he wanted. He ordered a mint julep. The two grotesquely fat androids went to a table and there had an argument—programmed in, of course—about which one would serve him. While their heated and amusing discussion was going on, he watched the blue caterpillar on a nearby giant mushroom smoking its hookah. In a way, he thought, it was a pity that all these things were to be destroyed. Yet, he could understand why Alice had tired of them.

He watched the dance floor for a while. The orchestra was playing some type of music he did not recognize. Frigate was walking by then, and Burton called him over. “What is that music, and what kind of gyrations are the dancers doing?”

“I don’t know the particular piece,” Frigate said. “It’s from the 1920s, sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it. The dance is called the Black Bottom.”

“Why do they call it that?”

“I don’t know.”

Alice and Monteith seemed to be enjoying the wild motions. At last she had found a partner to share her love of dancing. Burton had never cared for it. In fact, he had only danced several times in his life, and that had been for the edification of a black African tribal chief.

The fat identical-twin schoolboys, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, walked by him. Neither had a drink on a tray. Burton said, “What…?” and at that moment the music stopped in the middle of a bar. He rose and stared at the stand. The musicians had put aside their instruments and were getting down off the bandstand.

“What’s going on?” Frigate said.

Alice was staring puzzledly at the departing musicians.

“Not planned for,” Burton said. A chill passed over his skin.

The little Frenchman, de Marbot, his blue eyes wide, trotted up to Burton. “Something is wrong,” he said.

Burton turned to take in three hundred and sixty degrees of vision. The androids were hastening to the woods, their pace increasing. All except the Mock Turtle, which had fallen on its back and was bawling and kicking its legs. No, not all were heading for the trees. A number were spreading toward the west end of the field, where the hill began. Among them were the Red and White Knights on their chargers, the Lion and the Unicorn, and the Gryphon. They stopped just before coming to the hill and turned around to face the field.

By then the other androids had disappeared into the shadows under the massive oaks.

Burton glanced at de Marbot’s scabbard and the hilt of the saber sticking from it.

“I daresay you may have to use your snickersnee, Marcelin,” he said. “How many … are all your Hussars armed?”

“Why, yes,” de Marbot said. “We have twelve sabers among us.”

“Tell them to draw them,” Burton said. “Listen, Marcelin, I think we’re going to be attacked. Somebody, I’m sure, has put in an overriding program in the androids. Alice didn’t plan this.”

He glanced around. Star Spoon must have had the same idea. She was running for the roller coaster now. He looked at de Marbot.

“You have the most military experience,” he said. “You’re in command now.”

He turned and began yelling. “Everybody over here! Quick! On the double!”

Some of the crowd came running. Others stood still as if frozen: the rest ambled toward them.

Maglenna, pulling on Alice’s hand, ran up to Burton. “I say, what’s going on?”

“I am not sure.” Burton looked at Alice. “You don’t have the slightest idea?”

She shook her head. “No. Could the Snark be behind this? What can we do about it?”

“That’s up to Marcelin,” Burton said. “But I think we should make for the chairs. You and Monteith can sit on somebody’s lap. We can’t get through them—” he indicated the grim beasts guarding the west edge “—without serious loss.”

De Marbot was talking in rapid French to his friends. But he stopped and looked at the south edge of the field. The androids were coming out from the forest with weapons: spears, swords, maces, morning stars, and daggers.

Burton swiveled to take in the north and east sides of the field. Androids were emerging from the shadows there; all were similarly armed. And those from the east side were hurrying to place themselves between the guests and their flying vehicles.

“Too late,” Burton said.

De Marbot was bawling orders out in Esperanto so that all would understand him. They began to form a ragged square with the Hussars on the eastern side. Burton called to him, “I’m going to get some weapons.”

“Where?” de Marbot said.

“The musical instruments. Some of them can be used as clubs.”

He ran to the bandstand with some men behind him. The androids from the north, those nearest the stand, did not change their pace or utter a sound. If they had run, they could have cut Burton off. But he was able to pick up a saxophone, and the others got guitars, bass fiddles, flutes, French horns, anything that might be wielded as a blunt instrument of warfare.

They ran back to the square, where they were arranged in a ragged fashion by de Marbot. He was quivering with eagerness, his blue eyes bright, his round face split with a smile. “Ah, my darlings!” he cried to his Hussars. “You will show these monsters how the soldiers of Napoleon fought!”

His voice was stilled by a great whistling bellow. All looked at the south side of the field, where the Jabberwock was rearing up on its hind legs, stretching its snaky neck out, its mouth gaping, exposing the four sharp teeth. It did not, however, as Burton had feared it would, charge at once. It dropped to all fours and walked slowly toward them, bellowing.

Burton was on the western side of the square, facing the beasts and the Knights there. At the same time that the Jabberwock had begun advancing, the beasts and the Knights’ horses had begun walking slowly toward the humans.

On all sides of the group, the androids walked toward it in formation, silently.

Suddenly, Burton was aware that Star Spoon was not with them. She had climbed up the side of the roller coaster and was perched near the top of a cross-piece.

It was too late to go after her. Calling to her to come down would only attract the attention of the androids to her. Perhaps they would not notice her. In any event, she was on her own. No. If he could get to a chair, he could fly to her and take her away.

32

“They outnumber us three to one,” Burton said loudly to anyone who would hear. “The big beasts and the Knights make the odds even worse. But try to grab their spears and clubs away from them. If any of them fall, pick up their weapons.”

De Marbot repeated the advice for the whole group. A black woman, one of the Second Chancers, shrilled, “Oh, Lord, what can we do? We can’t shed blood! We’re pacifists, peaceful in your sight, Lord!”

“Damn it, woman!” Burton shouted. “Those things aren’t human! They’re machines! It’s no sin to fight for your life against them!”

“That’s right!” a black man shouted. “It’s no sin! Fight, brothers and sisters! Do battle for the Lord without sin! Tear them apart!”

One group, Burton thought it was the Revised Free Will Baptists, began singing a spiritual. They had not gotten more than a few words out when de Marbot roared for silence.

“If you sing, you can’t hear my orders!”

With the Frenchman leading, the square began trotting toward the chairs. Burton, in the rear, kept glancing backward. The Knights and the beasts had not stepped up their pace. Apparently, they were set to close in on the group at a predetermined rate.

The Jabberwock was near the end of the line of androids, coming in from the south side of the field. The monster was the most dangerous attacker, and it should be opposed by at least six sabermen. Burton swore. If only he had a sword instead of a saxophone in his grip.

The group, the women inside, the men forming a shell around them, trotted toward the ranks of creatures standing before the chairs. There were about two hundred or more there, the thickest concentration of bodies. Whoever had planned this had guessed correctly that the humans would try to get to their vehicles. To attempt the hill so they could get inside the house, they had to attack the big beasts and the Knights, and the aspect of these was so fearsome that the humans would prefer to go the other way.

Suddenly, the people ahead of him screamed. He jumped up so he could get a better look at what was frightening them. He saw that chairs were flying up without riders, and he groaned. Androids hidden behind the defensive lines were sending the chairs up. Even if the humans did fight through, they would have no aerial escape; they would have to keep on going into the forest. And they would be hunted down.

De Marbot understood this at once. He cried out a command to halt. The people, however, kept on moving ahead, pushing and shoving, until de Marbot’s sabermen succeeded in stopping them. Instantly, the Frenchmen raced around the group to the back, which had now become the front.

“We must get through them to the hill and to the house!” de Marbot shouted. “Dick, you take your men to the left flank! The honor of defending us against the Jabberwock is yours!”

Burton hustled his group as ordered. The androids continued to advance slowly and voicelessly. By now, they were within sixty feet of the humans.

De Marbot raised his saber and yelled, “Charge!”

He and his sabermen leaped ahead of the others, who took more time than they should have in attaining any speed. They were undisciplined and scared, and thus some ran faster than others, jostling those ahead, and some, as was inevitable, fell down, and some tripped over these. Burton only had time to glance at the screaming milling crowd and at the Frenchmen closing with the Red and White Knights, the Lion, the Unicorn, a Walrus, the Gryphon, and a Humpty Dumpty. Then the open mouth of the Jabberwock, its four teeth flashing, saliva running from its lower lip, roaring, was shooting at him. Burton threw the saxophone with all his force into its mouth, and the thing closed its jaws automatically on it. Its nose struck Burton on the chest, knocked him backward, and rammed the air from his lungs. He rolled away while trying to regain his wind, and several women fell on top of him.

The saxophone, spat out, landed near his outstretched right hand. He grabbed it. One of the struggling black women on top of him shrieked, and she was lifted up in the Jabberwock’s mouth. The teeth closed through her body; she became limp and silent. With a toss of the head, the monster threw her body away and whipped the snaky neck and head outward and down and seized another screaming woman.

Though he had not yet gotten all of his breath back, Burton heaved the one woman on top of him away, rolled, and ran by the Jabberwock’s giant right front foot. A Tweedledee and a Tweedledum walked steadily toward him, holding long spears, their huge fat faces expressionless. Yelling, Burton ran at them, his saxophone held high.

They were programmed to do only certain things, though these were many. One thing they had not been commanded to do was to avoid the area of the Jabberwock’s lashing tail, something any human would have consciously done. As a result, the two identicals were knocked flat by the enormous scaly tail. No, not just knocked down. The tail had broken some of their bones. They were crumpled on the grass and groaning.

He glanced back and up. The Jabberwock was not aware of his presence; it was engrossed in killing another woman. Burton ran to the rear flank and waited for the tail to lash to his left. As he did so, he glimpsed the head and shoulders of Williams running toward the chair-parking area. Androids were clumsily stabbing at him with spears and hacking at him with swords, but he was zigzagging desperately. Then Burton could give him no more attention; he leaped forward, landed, stooped, and grabbed a spear the fallen Tweedledee or Tweedledum had dropped. He straightened up, whirled, and leaped back into the protection of the monster’s flank. He lifted the spear with both hands and drove it into the heaving side. It sank halfway into the body; blood spurted out and around the shaft. Bellowing deafeningly, the thing reared up on its back legs; the woman in its mouth dropped out.

Burton had turned and run away. The end of the tail came within an inch of hitting him. A green pig charged him, its curling tusks wet and yellow. Burton leaped up and came down on its back but slipped and fell on the grass, bracing against the impact with his hands. One of the card people, a trey of hearts, lay facedown near him, its spindly legs kicking. Burton scrambled up, seized the spear it had been carrying, and thrust upward into the belly of the Mad Hatter, who had just missed him with the edge of a saber. The Hatter reeled backward, its hands by its sides, instead of reacting instinctively, as a human would, by grabbing the shaft. Its face, however, was twisted with agony.

Burton let loose of the spear and picked up the saber it had dropped. Now he did not feel so naked and helpless; now he had a weapon he could use as few could. Immediately a Frog-Footman, a giant owl, and an ugly Duchess attacked him. The bird’s weight, sharp beak, and beating wings made it the most formidable. He slashed half a wing off, cut through the shaft of the Frog-Footman’s spear, severed the head of the owl with a back-slash, parried the ugly Duchess’ spear, and ran her through the belly.

The whole field was a melee now, individuals and clusters battling one another. Many of the humans had grabbed weapons. Though outnumbered, they had one advantage. The androids were neither skilled weapon wielders nor capable of improvised action. They could only thrust straight ahead of them with the spears or hack down with the swords, and their ability to parry was nil. As a result, those humans who were armed were outfighting their opponents, and more and more humans were grabbing weapons. On the other hand, being inferior in number, they could not guard their flanks and sides as well as they would have liked.

The big beasts and the Knights had to be dealt with first. Then, just possibly—it was a fighting chance—the humans could mop up on the lesser creatures.