The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

However, the untagged grails were of a different kind, called “freebies” by some English-speakers.

When over thirty-six billion of Earth’s dead had awakened whole and young along the immense stretch of The River, they had found a personal grail at their side. At the same time, each of the grailstones bore in its central depression one grail. This apparently had been provided by the resurrectors to show the new citizens just how their grails worked.

Each stone had vomited noise and light, and when the thunder and lightning had ceased, curious people had climbed onto the stones to look into the grails left there. The lids were raised, and the contents were revealed. Wonder of wonders, joy of joys! The hollow interior held snap-down racks on which were dishes and cups full of food and various goodies!

The next time the stones discharged, the private grails were on the stones, and these, too, supplied everything they needed and more, though human nature was such that many people complained because there wasn’t ‘more variety.’

The freebies had become very valuable; people bullied and thieved and killed to get them. If a person had a private grail and a freebie, he or she had twice as much food and luxuries as he or she was supposed to get.

Burton himself had never owned one, but here were thirty on racks before him.

The problem of the lost grails was solved-if he could get the headman to part with them. After all, his raft was responsible for the loss of the boat and the grails. He owed the crew of the Hadji II.

So far, he and his crew had been treated decently. He could think of other groups he had met that would have done nothing for them except throw them overboard-after mass-raping the women and perhaps sodomizing the men.

However, there might be a limit to the raftspeople’s hospitality. The free grails were anything but free. This group might even have stolen these. However they got them, they would be saving them for emergencies, such as replacements for those they lost or as tribute if they ran into a particularly hostile and powerful group.

Burton left the building, barred the door after him, and walked around pondering. If he asked the chief to give him seven grails, he could be refused. That would make the man suspicious, and he would set up guards over this building. Not to mention the fact that he might get nervous having potential thieves around and would ask them, politely or otherwise, to leave.

Passing by the idol, he saw that the chief had stopped praying and was walking toward the island. Apparently, he intended to super­vise the activities there.

Burton decided to ask him now about the grails. No use putting off the issue.

The man who sits on his arse sits on his fortune.

19

Mutu-Sha-Hj was his native name, meaning “Man of GOD,” but to Esperanto speakers he was Metusael. In English, Methusaleh.

For a delirious moment, Burton wondered if he had met the model for the long-lived patriarch of the Old Testament. No. Metusael was a Babylonian, and he had never heard of Hebrews until he had come to The Riverworld. He had been an inspector of granaries on Earth, but here he was the founder and head of a new religion and commander of the great raft.

“One night many years ago, while a storm raged outside, I was sleeping. And a god came to me in my dream, a god named Rushhub. I had never heard of this god, but he told me that he had once been a mighty god of my ancestors. Their descendants, how­ever, had abandoned him, and in my lifetime on Earth only a small village at the edge of the kingdom had still worshipped him.

“But gods do not die, though they may take other forms and new names, or even become nameless; and he had lived in the dreams of many people through many generations. Now he had decided that the time was come to leave the dreamworld. Thus, he told me that I must arise and go forth and preach the worship of Rushhub. I must gather together a group of the faithful and build a giant raft and take my people down The River upon it.