The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

At the end of that time he chanced to be sitting at the door of a hut, thinking that perhaps he could now venture into the city as himself. And then he heard a young girl say, “O my mother, tell me the day I was born, for one of my companions needs to know that so she can read my future.”

And the mother replied, “You were born, O daughter, on the very night when Abu Hasan farted.”

The listener no sooner, heard these words than he rose from the bench and fled, saying to himself, “Truly your fart has become a date, which shall last forever.”

And he did not quit traveling and voyaging until he returned to India and there lived in self-exile until he died, and the mercy of God be upon him.

This story was a great success, but before he told it Burton had to preface his story with the explanation that the Bedouins of that time considered farting in company a disgrace. In fact, it was necessary that everyone within earshot pretend that it had not happened, since the disgraced one would kill anyone who called attention to it.

Burton, sitting cross-legged before the fire, noted that even Alice seemed to enjoy the story. She was a middle-Victorian, raised in a deeply religious Anglican family, her father a bishop and the brother of a baron, descended from John of Gaunt, King John’s son, her mother the granddaughter of an earl. But the impact of River-world life and a long intimate association with Burton had dissolved many of her inhibitions.

He had then gone on to the tale of Sinbad the Sailor, though it was necessary to adapt this to the experiences of the Ganopo. They had never seen a sea, so the sea became a river, and the roc which carried off Sinbad became a giant golden eagle.

The Ganopo, in their turn, told stories from their creation myths and the ribald adventures of a folk hero, the trickster Old Man Coyote.

Burton questioned them about the adaptation of their religion to the reality of this world.

“O Burton,” their chief said, “this is not quite the world after death which we had envisioned. It is no land where maize grows higher than a man’s head in one day and deer and jackrabbit give us a good hunt but never escape our spears. Nor have we been reunited with our women and children, our parents and grandparents. Nor do the great ones, the spirits of the mountains and the river, of the rocks and the bush, walk among us and talk to us.

“We do not complain. In fact, we are far happier than in the world we left. We have more food, better food, than we had there, and we do not have to work to get it, though we had to fight to keep it in the early days here. We have far more than enough water, we can fish to our heart’s content, and we do not know the fevers that killed or crippled us nor do we know the aches and pains of old age and its enfeeblements.”

5

Here the chief frowned, and with his next words a shadow fell upon them and the smiles faded.

“Tell me, you strangers, have you heard anything about the return of death? Of death forever, I mean? We live upon this little island and so do not get many visitors. But from the few we do meet and from those we talk to when we visit the banks, we have heard some strange and troubling stories.

“They say that for some time now no one who has died has been raised again. A person is killed, and he or she does not wake up the next day, his wounds healed, his grail beside him, upon a bank far from the scene of his death. Tell me, is this true or is it just one of those tales that people like to make up to worry others?”

“I do not know,” Burton said. “It is true that we have traveled for thousands of kilometers … I mean, we have passed by an uncountable number of grailstones on our voyage. And for the past year, we have noticed this thing of which you speak.”