GODS OF RIVERWORLD by Philip Jose Farmer

“Yeah, Pollyanna, it could have been worse!”

Turpin was weeping now. The big black woman, Schindler, put her arms around him. He sobbed on her neck while she smiled, exposing the twinkling gems set into her teeth. On Earth, she had been one of the most important madams of the St. Louis Tenderloin district and one of Turpin’s lovers.

Alice waited until he had released himself from Diamond Lil’s embrace, and she said, “You and your friends can stay at my place, Tom.”

The others, Burton, de Marbot, Aphra, Frigate, and Nur, hastened to extend their invitations.

“No,” Turpin said, wiping his eyes with a huge violet handkerchief, “that ain’t necessary, but I thank you. We’ll just move into apartments.”

He raised a fist and began howling, “I’ll get you, Hawley, Biggs, you other motherfucking Judases! I’ll get you! You’ll be sorry, you sons of bitches! Watch out for Tom Turpin, you hear me!”

She could not see the screen that must have appeared on the wall before Turpin. But she could hear the loud laughter and the triumphant words.

“Get lost, you blubbering blubber!”

Tom howled with anger and anguish and began striking the wall. Alice cut off the screen. What next?

What indeed? That was the only one of the upsetting events leading up to the party. Which, she would say later to anyone who would hear—there were few of those left—was, she was not exaggerating in the slightest, the worst party she had ever given.

3O

The morning of April the first, Burton and Star Spoon breakfasted on the balcony outside their bedroom. The sky was clear, and the breeze was gentle and cool because Burton had ordered it so. Now and then, an elephant trumpeted and a lion roared. The shadow of a roc crossed over the table, the bird with a forty-foot wingspread designed by Burton and fashioned by the Computer. Star Spoon started when it darkened them.

“It won’t hurt us, it’s programmed not to attack us,” Burton said, smiling.

“It could be an ill omen.”

He did not argue with her. Li Po and the men and women of the eighth century a.d. whom he had brought in were intelligent and much-experienced, yet they had not rid themselves of their superstitions. Li Po was perhaps the most flexible, but even he reacted now and then to something that he should by now laugh at or not even think of.

He wondered if one had to desuperstition oneself, as it were, before one could Go On. What did the holding of absurd beliefs have to do with gaining compassion and empathy and freedom from hate and prejudice? It had much to do with it if it caused fear and cruelty and irrational behavior. But could one be afraid that bad luck would come if a black cat crossed one’s path and still be a “good” person? No, not if one threw a brick at the cat or treated one’s friends badly because one was in an ill humor from anxiety.

“You, too, are afraid,” Star Spoon said.

“What?” He stared at her.

“You knocked on wood three times. On the table.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“I’m sorry to have to contradict you, Dick. But you did. I would not lie.”

“I really did?”

He laughed uproariously.

“Why do you find that funny?”

He explained, and she smiled. That, he thought, was the first time in days that she had lost her blank expression. Well, if he had to pull her out of her soberness by making a fool of himself, he did not mind.

“I did not ask you how you are,” he said.

“I am well.”

“I hope that you will be happy soon.”

“I thank you.”

Burton was thinking about proposing to her that the Computer locate in her memory all her experiences of brutality, especially the rapes. The Computer could excise them as a surgeon could a rotting appendix. Though the erasing would eliminate much from her memory, perhaps many years if the time of events were totaled, she would be free of painful thoughts. On the other hand, though the memories would be gone, their emotional impact would still be there. The Computer could not remove that. Star Spoon still might be repulsed by love-making but not have the slightest idea why.