Davis was startled. He said, “What? You don’t know where you are? The guards did not stop you? How did you get by them?”
Doctor Faustroll indicated an invisible object by his right foot. “We carried ourself through the border in our suitcase. The guards did not see the case. It was midnight and cloudy. Also, they were drowsy.”
“It must be a very large case to hold you. All of you?”
“It’s very small, but there’s enough room for us and our conscience,” Doctor Faustroll said. “We take the conscience out of the case only when we intend to use it, which isn’t often, Or when it needs airing.”
He picked up his grail with one hand and his fishing pole in the other.
Davis hitched up the towel Velcroed to his waist and then grasped the handle of his own grail. His good humor had vanished. He was getting impatient with the fellow, and he did not want to be late for his appointment with the king.
Looking serious, he said, “If I were you, I’d get out of this place as quickly and quietly as possible. If you don’t, you’ll be working with those wretched people down there.”
He pointed at the riverbank. Faustroll turned around to stare at the swarm of sweating, straining, and shouting men and women. Tiny figures at this distance, they were
8
Philip Jos6 Farmer
striving to pull or to push a roughly cube-shaped and bungalow-sized block of granite on log rollers into the River. Its forward edge was on two wooden runners, heavily lubricated with fish fat, that dipped into the water.
“They’re building a pyramid beneath the surface of the River?” Faustroll said.
“Must you keep up this nonsense?” Davis said. “And why don’t you ask me why I’m giving you this advice to scoot out of here as fast as your feet can carry you? If, that is, you’re able to do so, which I doubt very much.”
“There is no such thing as nonsense,” Faustroll said. “In fact, what you call nonsense makes greater sense than what you call sense. Or, perhaps, there is no concrete abstraction that we term sense. But, if there is no sense, then there is also no nonsense. We have spoken. Selah.”
Davis sighed, and he said, “If you don’t mind risking slavery and perhaps torture, come along with me. Don’t say I didn’t try to warn you.”
They had been standing at the edge of the grass-carpeted plain. Now they trudged up the slope of the foothills. Davis, a red-haired man of medium height and build but with abnormally large hands, led the way. The madman was slower because he was observing the whole milieu. Though the mountains towering straight up to 20,000 feet, the mile-wide foothills, and the mile-wide plains on either side of the mile-wide River were typical
CROSSING THE DARK RIVER 9
of most of the Rivervalley, the human activity was not. Many men and women were cutting away large blocks of stone in the vertical face of the mountains and were sliding the blocks down the foothills. The grass in the path of the very heavy weights was crushed, and the earth had sunk in. But the grass was so tough that it had not died out.
Near the lower edge of the foothill were extra oak log rollers for moving the blocks across the plain. Halfway along the plain, several crews were pulling on ropes tied around the blocks while gangs shoved against the rear of the blocks. When these got to the River’s edge, they were placed on runners and slid into the water.
As in most areas, the River was shallow for several yards beyond the banks, which were only a few inches above the River. Then the level bottom abruptly became a cliff. That plunged straight down at least a mile before reaching the cold and lightless bottom in which was a multitude of strange forms of fish.
Not only was the bank swarming with people, the River itself was jammed with boats small and large. And two gigantic wooden cranes on the bank were close to being completed.
The other side of the River showed a similar scene. Even as Faustroll watched, a huge stone block on that side slid on runners into the water and disappeared. A huge bubble formed above the roiling water and burst.
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