The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

-Philip Jose Farmer

1

Dreams haunted the Riverworld.

Sleep, night’s Pandora, was even more generous than on Earth. There, it had been this for you and that for your neighbor. Tomor­row, that for you and this for next door.

Here in this endless valley, along these unceasing Riverbanks, she dumped her treasure chest, showering everybody with all gifts: terror and pleasure, memory and anticipation, mystery and revela­tion.

Billions stirred, muttered, groaned, whimpered, laughed, cried out, swam to wakefullness, sank back again.

Mighty engines battered the walls, and things wriggled out through the holes. Often, they did not retreat but stayed, phantoms who refused to fade at cockcrow.

Also, for some reason, dreams recurred more frequently than on the mother planet. The actors of the nocturnal Theater of the Absurd insisted on return engagements, performances which they, not the patrons, commanded. The attendees were powerless to jeer or applaud, to throw eggs and cabbages or walk out, to chatter with their seatmates or doze.

Among this captive audience was Richard Francis Burton.

2

Fog, grey and swirling, formed the stage and the backdrop.

Burton stood in the pit like an Elizabethan too poor to afford a seat. Above him were thirteen figures, all in chairs which floated in the mist. One of them faced the others, who were arranged in a semicir­cle. That man was the protagonist-himself.

There was a fourteenth person mere, though it stood in the wings and could be seen only by the Burton in the pit. It was a black, menacing shape which, now and then, chuckled hollowly.

A not quite similar scene had happened before, once in reality and many times in dreams, though who could be sure which was which? There he was, the man who’d died seven hundred and seventy times in a vain effort to elude his pursuers. And there sat the twelve who called themselves the Ethicals.

Six were men; six, women. Except for two, all had deeply tanned or heavily pigmented skins and black or dark brown hair. The eyes of two men and a woman had slight epicanthic folds, which made him think that they were Eurasians. That is, they were if they had originated on Earth.

Only two of the twelve had been named during the brief inquisi­tion-Loga and Thanabur. Neither name seemed to be of any language he knew, and he knew at least a hundred. However, languages change, and it was possible that they might be from the fifty-second century A.D. One of their agents had told them that he came from that time. But Spruce had been under threat of torture and might have been lying.

Loga was one of the few with comparatively pale skins. Since he was sitting and there was (and had been) nothing material to mea­sure him against, he could be short or tall. His body was thick and muscular, and his chest was matted with red hair. The hair on his head was fox-red. He had irregular and strong features: a promi­nent, deeply clefted chin; a massive jaw; a large and aquiline nose; thick pale-yellow eyebrows; wide, full lips; and dark green eyes.

The other light-skinned man, Thanabur, was obviously the lead­er. His physique and face were so much like Loga’s that they could be brothers. His hair, however, was dark brown. One eye was green, though a rare leaf-green.

The other eye had startled Burton when Thanabur had first turned his face toward him. Instead of the green mate he had expected, he saw a jewel. It looked like an enormous blue diamond, a flashing, multifaceted precious stone set in his eye socket.

He felt uneasy whenever that jewel was turned on him. What was its purpose? What did it see in him that a living eye could not see?

Of the twelve, only three had spoken: Loga, Thanabur, and a slim but full-breasted blonde with large blue eyes. From the manner in which she and Loga spoke to each other, Burton thought that they could be husband and wife.

Watching them offstage, Burton noted again that just above the heads of each, his other self included, was a globe. They whirled, were of many changing colors, and extended six-sided arms, green, blue, black, and white. Then the arms would shrink into the globe, only to be replaced by others.