Ann Pullen had never told Davis that she was aware that he disliked her intensely. Both, however, knew well how each felt about the other. The only barrier keeping her from making him a quarry slave was Ivar. He was fond, though slightly contemptuous, of Davis. On the other hand, he respected the American for his knowledge, especially his medical lore, and he loved to hear Davis’s stories of the wonders of his time, the steam iron horses and sailless ships, the telegraph and radio, the automobile, the airplane, the vast fortunes made by American robber barons, and the fantastic plumbing.
18
Philip Jos6 Farmer
CROSSING THE DARK RIVER
19
What Davis did not tell Ivar was what the late-twentieth century doctors he had met had told him—to his chagrin. That was that much of his treatment of his patients on Earth had been based on false medical information. However, Davis was still convinced that his neuropathic treatments, which involved no drugs, had enormously benefited his patients. Certainly, their recovery rate had been higher than the rate of those who went to conven-tional M.D.’s. On the other hand, the physicians had admitted that, in the field of psychiatry, the recovery rate of the mentally disturbed patients of African witch doc- ; tors was the same as that of psychiatrists’ patients. That admission, he thought, either down-valued twentieth-century j medicine or up-valued witch doctors. 1
A few of his informants had admitted that a large number of physically sick people recovered without the help of medical doctors or would have done so without such help.
He explained this to the painted madman on the way to the room, though he was irked because he felt compelled to justify himself. Faustroll did not seem very interested. He only muttered, “Quacks. All quacks. We pataphysicians are the only true healers.”
“I still don’t know what a pataphysician is,” Davis said.
“No verbal explanation is needed. Just observe us, translate our physical motion and verbal expressions into the light of truth, vectors of four-dimensional rotations into photons of veracity.”
“Man, you must have a reasonable basis for your theory, and you should be able to express it in clear and logical terms!”
“Red is your face, yet cool is the room.”
Davis lifted his hands high above his head. “I give up! I don’t know why I pay any attention to what you say! I should know better ! Yet…”
“Yet you apprehend, however dimly, that truth flows from us. You do not want to acknowledge that, but you can’t help it. That’s good. Most of the hairless bipedal apes don’t have an inkling, don’t respond at all. They’re like cockroaches who have lost their antennae and, therefore, can’t feel anything until they ram their chitinous heads into the wall. But the shock of the impact numbs even more the feeble organ with which they assumedly think.”
Faustroll waved his bamboo fishing pole at Davis, forcing him to step back to keep from being hit on the nose by the bone hook.
“I go now to probe the major liquid body for those who breathe through gills.”
Faustroll left the room. Davis muttered, “I hope it’s a long time before I see you again.”
But Faustroll was like a bad thought that can’t be kept out of the mind. Two seconds later, he popped back into the room.
“We don’t know what the royal osteopath’s history on Earth was,” Faustroll said, “or what your quest, your shining grail, was. Our permanent grail is The Truth. But the temporary one, and it may turn out to be that the permanent (if, truly, anything is permanent) grail or desideratum or golden apple is the answer to the question: Who resurrected us, placed us here, and why? Pardon. Not a question but questions. Of course, the answer may be that it doesn’t matter at all. Even so, we would like to know.”
20
Philip Jos6 Farmer
“And just how will you be able to get answers to those questions here when you couldn’t get them on Earth?”
“Perhaps the beings who are responsible for the Riverworld also know the answers we so desperately sought on Earth. We are convinced that these beings are of flesh and blood, though the flesh may not be protein and the blood may lack hemoglobin. Unlike God, who, if It does exist, is a spirit and thus lacks organs to make sound waves, though It seems to be quite capable of making thunder and lightning and catastrophes and thus should be able to form its own temporary oral parts for talking, these beings must have mouths and tongues and teeth and hands of a sort. Therefore, they can tell us what we wish to know. If we can find them. If they wish to reveal themselves.