To Your Scattered Bodies Go

20

Göring started chewing, stopped, stared, then said, "Why should I? I don’t have any authority here, and I couldn’t do anything to you if I did. I’m just a guest here. Damned decent people, these; they haven’t bothered me at all except to ask if I’m all right now and then. Though I don’t know how long they’ll let me stay without earning my keep."

"You haven’t left the hut?" Burton said. "Then who charged your grail for you? How’d you get so much dreamgum?" Göring smiled slyly. "I had a big collection from the last place I stayed; somewhere about a thousand miles up The River."

"Doubtless taken forcibly from some poor slaves," Burton said. "But if you were doing so well there, why did you leave?" Göring began to weep. Tears ran down his face, and over his collarbones and down his chest, and his shoulders shook.

"I… I had to get out. I wasn’t any good to the others. I was losing my hold over them — spending too much time drinking, stroking marihuana, and chewing dreamgum. They said I was too soft myself. They would have killed me or made me a slave. So I sneaked out one night … took the boat. I got away all right and kept going until I put into here. I traded part of my supply to Sevier for two weeks" sanctuary." Burton stared curiously at Göring.

"You knew what would happen if you took too much gum," he said. "Nightmares, hallucinations, delusions. Total mental and physical deterioration. You must have seen it happen to others."

"I was a morphine addict on Earth!" Göring cried. "I struggled with it, and I won out for a long time. Then, when things began to go badly for the Third Reich — and even worse for myself — when Hitler began picking on me, I started taking drugs again!" He paused, then continued, "But here, when I woke up to a new life, in a young body, when it looked as if I had an eternity of life and youth ahead of me, when there was no stern God in Heaven or Devil in Hell to stop me, I thought I could do exactly as I pleased and get away with it. I would become even greater than the Fuehrer! That little country in which you first found me was to be only the beginning! I could see my empire stretching for thousands of miles up and down The River, on both sides of the valley. I would have been the ruler of ten times the subjects that Hitler ever dreamed of!" He began weeping again, then paused to take another drink of water, then put a piece of the dreamgum in his mouth. He chewed, his face becoming more relaxed and blissful with each second.

Göring said, "I kept having nightmares of you plunging the spear into my belly. When I woke up, my belly would hurt as if a flint had gone into my guts. So I’d take gum to remove the hurt and the humiliation. At first, the gum helped. I was great. I was master of the world, Hitler, Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Alexander, Genghis Khan, all rolled into one. I was chief again of Von Richthofen’s Red Death Squadron; those were happy days, the happiest of my life in many ways. But the euphoria soon gave way to hideousness. I plunged into hell; I saw myself accusing myself and behind the accuser a million others. Not myself but the victims of that great and glorious hero, that obscene madman Hitler, whom I worshipped so. And in whose name I committed so many-crimes."

"You admit you were a criminal?" Burton said. "That’s a story different than the one you used to give me. Then you said you were justified in all you did, and you were betrayed by the…" He stopped, realizing that he had been sidetracked from his original purpose. "That you should be haunted with the specter of a conscience is rather incredible. But perhaps that explains what has puzzled the puritans — why liquor, tobacco, marihuana, and dreamgum were offered in the grails along with food. At least, dreamgum seems to be a gift booby-trapped with danger to those who abuse it." He stepped closer to Göring: The German’s eyes were half-closed, and his jaw hung open.

"You know my identity. I am traveling under a pseudonym, with good reason. You remember Spruce, one of your slaves? After you were killed, he was revealed, quite by accident, as one of those who somehow resurrected all the dead of humanity. Those we call the Ethicals, for lack of a better term. Göring, are you listening?" Göring nodded.

"Spruce killed himself before we could get out of him all we wanted to know. Later, some of his compatriots came to our area and temporarily put everybody to sleep — probably with a gas intending to take me away to wherever Their headquarters are. But They missed me. I was off on a trading trip up The River. When I returned, I realized They were after me, and I’ve been running ever since. Göring, do you hear me?" Burton slapped him savagely on his cheek. Göring said, "Ach!" and jumped back and held the side of his face. His eyes were open, and he was grimacing.

"I heard you!" he snarled. "It just didn’t seem worthwhile to answer back. Nothing seemed worthwhile, nothing except floating away, far from…"

"Shut up and-listen!" Burton said. "The Ethicals have men everywhere looking for me. I can’t afford to have you alive, do you realize that? I can’t trust you. Even if you were a friend, you couldn’t be trusted. You’re a gummer’

Göring giggled, stepped up to Burton and tried to put his arms around Burton’s neck. Burton pushed him back so hard that he staggered up against the table and only kept from falling by clutching its edges.

"This is very amusing," Göring said. "The day I got here, a man asked me if I’d seen you. He described you in detail and gave your name. I told him I knew you well — too well, and that I hoped I’d never see you again, not unless I had you in my power, that is. He said I should notify him if I saw you again. He’d make it worth my while." Burton wasted no time. He strode up to Göring and seized him with both hands. They were small and delicate, but Göring winced with pain.

He said, "What’re you going to do, kill me again?"

"Not if you tell me the name of the man who asked you about me. Otherwise…"

"Go ahead and kill me!" Göring said. "So what? I’ll wake up somewhere else, thousands of miles from here, far out of your reach." Burton pointed at a bamboo box in a corner of the hut. Guessing that it held Göring’s supply of gum, he said, "And you’d also wake up without that! Where else could you get so much on such short notice?"

"Damn you!" Göring shouted, and tried to tear himself loose to get to the box.

"Tell me his name!" Burton said. "Or I’ll take the gum and throw it in The River!"

"Agneau. Roger Agneau. He sleeps in a but just outside the Roundhouse."

"I’ll deal with you later," Burton said, and chopped Göring on the side of the neck with the edge of his palm.

He turned, and he saw a man crouching outside the entrance to the hut. The man straightened up and was off. Burton ran out after him; in a minute both were in the tall pines and oaks of the hills. His quarry disappeared in the waist-high grass.

Burton slowed to a trot, caught sight of a patch of white starlight on bare skin — and was after the fellow. He hoped that the Ethical would not kill himself at once, because he had a plan for extracting information if he could knock him out at once. It involved hypnosis, but he would have to catch the Ethical first. It was possible that the man had some sort of wireless imbedded in his body and was even now in communication with his compatriots — wherever They were. If so, They would come in Their flying machines, and he would be lost.

He stopped. He had lost his quarry and the only thing to do now was to lose Alice and the others and run. Perhaps this time they should take to the mountains and hide there for a while.

But first he would go to Agneau’s hut. There was little chance that Agneau would be there, but it was certainly worth the effort to make sure.