GODS OF RIVERWORLD by Philip Jose Farmer

“But the secret door would not open when I asked the Computer to do it for me.

“Therefore, the unknown does not wish us to leave the tower.

“There may come a time when he’ll wish us to go, and, if so, he’ll open an exit for us. Until then, we’re prisoners. But this prison is vast and has, in a sense, more treasures to offer than the Earth we lived on or the Rivervalley. The treasures are physical and mental, moral and spiritual. I suggest that we find out what these are and use them. We might as well. We can’t stay caged in this suite.

“Meanwhile, of course, we’ll be trying to think of ways to override the unknown’s overrides. What one person sets up, another may knock down. The unknown is not a god.”

“What you’re suggesting is that we move back into our apartments and live as if there were no unknown?” Burton said.

“I say that we should leave this particular area, which is a small prison, and go out into the larger prison. After all, Earth was a prison. So was the Rivervalley. But if you’re in a large enough space to give you the illusion of freedom, then you don’t think of yourself as a prisoner. The half-free man is one who thinks he is free. The really free man is one who fully knows what he can do in prison and does it.”

“A Sufi’s wisdom,” Burton said, smiling but with a sneer in his voice. “We do look rather ridiculous, don’t we? We run into a hole and then ask ourselves why we ran and decide that we didn’t have to.”

“We were following instinct,” Nur said. “It was wrong to do so. We had to find a place where we could be safe. At least, think we were. Then we had the relative peace of mind to evaluate our situation.”

“Which turned out to be no peace of mind. Well, I do feel better, I won’t feel as much a prisoner. And that pile of furniture irks me. Let’s tear it down.”

Frigate said, “Before we do, I have something to tell you.”

Burton, who had started for the door, stopped and turned around.

“Nur wasn’t the only one who did a little independent investigating,” Frigate said. “As you know, Monat can’t be resurrected because of Loga’s command, which the Snark reaffirmed. Monat’s body-record is still on file. But I asked the Computer to locate his wathan in the shaft, and the Computer said that it had been there but was now gone. You know what that means. Monat has Gone On.”

Tears welled from Burton, and with the grief was mixed surprise that he should feel such grief. He had not known until that moment how he really felt about Monat. One of the first people he had encountered during his first resurrection had been the strange-looking, obviously non-Terrestrial Monat. Monat had accompanied him for a long time in The Valley and had impressed Burton with his compassion and wisdom. He had seemed warm. Thoroughly human despite his appearance, that is, what humans ideally should be.

Somehow, Burton had come to regard Monat as a father, a being stronger and wiser than he, a teacher, a pointer-out of right paths. And now Monat was gone forever.

Why should he shed tears and be choked up? He should be happy, gloriously happy because Monat had arrived at the stage where he no longer had to suffer the encumbering flesh.

Was it because he suffered a sense of loss? Had he thought, deep, in the dark unconscious, that Monat would somehow free himself from Loga’s lock on him and be, in short, a savior? Had he felt that Monat would come up out of the records like Jesus from the tomb or Arthur from the lake or Charlemagne from his cave and rescue the defeated and the besieged?

It was strange to be thinking such thoughts. They must have been circulating somewhere in him, waiting for the right moment to break out.

His own father had not been a real father, not what a son wanted as a father. So, in some manner, Burton had taken Monat as one, perhaps because he could never accept another Earthman as one. Monat was from another world, therefore not, what was the word … tainted? That was a curious word to leap to his mind.