"Farmer, Philip Jose - Riverworld 5 - Gods of Riverworld" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

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

24 / Philip Jose Farmer

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 heЧor sheЧor theyЧ 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?

At the opposite wall, a thousand feet away, was a fat cigar-shaped vessel, the largest of the spaceships. It was five hundred feet long and had a maximum diameter of two hundred feet. This could be used to travel to the Gardenworld, wherever that planet was. Loga had said that it would take a hundred years, Earthtime, to arrive at its destination. Loga had also said that the ship was so computerized-automatic that a person of average intelligence and little knowledge of science could operate it.

26 / Philip Jose Farmer