GODS OF RIVERWORLD by Philip Jose Farmer

“Unless the Computer is lying,” Nur said.

Burton swung around to face him. “What do you mean by that?”

“The Computer may have an override command. It could have been told to give this report.”

“By whom? Only Loga could do that!”

Nur shrugged thin, brown, and bony shoulders.

“Perhaps. An unknown could be in the tower. Remember what Pete thought he heard when we were celebrating our victory.”

“Footsteps in the corridor outside the room!” Burton said. “Frigate said he thought it was his imagination!”

“Ah, but was it?”

It was not necessary to use the console. Burton asked the Computer—as distinguished from the small auxiliary computers—a few questions. A circular section of the wall glowed, and words on it indicated that no unauthorized person had entered Loga’s room. It denied that Loga’s commands had been overridden.

“Which it would, I must admit, if this mysterious stranger had told it to do so,” Burton said. “If that’s happened … well, by God, we are in trouble 1”

He asked for a rerun of the scene they had witnessed through their viewers. There was none. Loga had not directed the Computer to record it.

“I thought everything was going to be clear, unmysterious, straightforward from now on,” Frigate said. “I should have known better. It never is.”

He paused, then said softly, “He cracked open like Humpty Dumpty, except that Humpty Dumpty broke after he fell, not before. And then he turned to water like the Wicked Witch of the West.”

Burton, who had died in 1890, did not understand the last reference. He made a mental note to ask the American about it when there was time.

Burton was going to ask the Computer to send in a robot to clean up the liquid. He decided, after some thought, to leave the room as it had been found. He would lock the door to the apartment with a codeword that only he knew. And then, if someone unlocked it …

What could he do?

Nothing. But he would at least know that there was an intruder.

Nur said, “We’ve been assuming that what we thought we saw take place here actually did take place.”

“You think that what we saw was computer-simulation?” Frigate said.

“It’s possible.”

“But what about the liquid?” Burton said. “That’s not simulated.”

“It could be synthetic, a false clue. Loga’s voice could have been reproduced to deceive and confuse us.”

Alice said, “Wouldn’t it be more logical just to abduct Loga? We might have thought that Loga had just gone away for some reason or another.”

“Why in the world would he do that, Alice?” Burton said.

“We were to return to The Valley day after tomorrow,” Li Po said. “If Loga wanted to get rid of us, he’d have it done in two days. No, that liquid … the whole thing … there’s someone else in the tower.”

“That makes ten in the tower then,” Nur said.

“Ten?” Burton said.

“The eight of us. Plus the unknown who did away with Loga, though more than one might have done that. Plus Fear. That makes at least ten.”

“In a sense, we’re gods,” Frigate said.

“Gods in a gaol,” Burton said.

If they felt godlike, their faces did not show the vast assurance and happiness that must distinguish gods from humanity. The first area they had gone to from Loga’s apartment was the highest story in the tower. Here, in a huge chamber, was the hangar of the Ethicals. There were two hundred aerial and spacecraft of various kinds there, in any of which they could have flown to any place in The Valley. However, the hangar hatches had to be opened, and that the Computer refused to do. Nor could they operate the hatch mechanisms manually.

The unknown who had liquefied Loga had inserted an override command in the Computer. Only he—or she—or they— had the power to raise the hangar hatches.

They stood close together in a corner of the immense room. The floor, walls, and ceilings were a monotonous, overpowering gray, the color of prison cells. Their means of escape, the saucer-shaped, sausage-shaped and insect-shaped machines, seemed to brood in the silence. They were waiting to be used. But by whom?