To Your Scattered Bodies Go

Hermann Göring, Burton thought. He had killed Göring, but Göring must be alive again somewhere along The River. Was the man now groaning and shouting in the neighboring hut one who had also suffered because of Göring, either on earth or in the Rivervalley? Burton threw off the black towel and rose swiftly but noiselessly. He secured a kilt with magnetic tabs, fastened a belt of human skin around his waist, and made sure the human-leather scabbard held the flint poignard. Carrying an assegai, a short length of hardwood tipped with a flint point, he left the hut.

The moonless sky cast a light as bright as the full moon of Earth. It was aflame with huge many-colored stars and pale sheets of cosmic gas.

The hostelries were set back a mile and a half from The River and placed on one of the second row of hills that edged the Riverplain. There were seven of the one-room, leaf-thatch-roofed, bamboo buildings. At a distance, under the enormous branches of the irontrees or under the giant pines or oaks, were other huts. A half-mile away, on top of a high hill, was a large circular stockade, colloquially termed the "Roundhouse." The officials of Sevieria slept there.

High towers of bamboo were placed every half-mile along The River shore. Torches flamed all night long on platforms from which sentinels kept a lookout for invaders.

After scrutinizing the shadows under the trees, Burton walked a few steps to the but from which the groans and shouts had come.

He pushed the grass curtain aside. The starlight fell through the open window on the face of the sleeper. Burton hissed in surprise. The light revealed the blondish hair and the broad features of a youth he recognized.

Burton moved slowly on bare feet. The sleeper groaned and threw one arm over his face and half-turned. Burton stopped, then resumed his stealthy progress. He placed the assegai on the ground, drew his dagger, and gently thrust the point against the hollow of the youth’s throat. The arm flopped over; the eyes opened and stared into Burton’s. Burton clamped his hand over the man’s open mouth.

"Hermann Göring! Don’t move or try to yell! I’ll kill you!" Göring’s light-blue eyes looked dark in the shadows, but the paleness of his terror shone out. He quivered and started to sit up, then sank back as the flint dug into his skin.

"How long have you been here?" Burton said.

"Who. …?" Göring said in English, then his eyes opened even wider. "Richard Burton? Am I dreaming? Is that you?" Burton could smell the dreamgum on Göring’s breath and the sweat-soaked mat on which he lay. The German was much thinner than the last time he had seen him.

Göring said, "I don’t know how long I’ve been here. What time is it?"

"About an hour until dawn, I’d say. It’s the day after Resurrection Celebration."

"Then I’ve been here three days. Could I have a drink of water? My throat’s dry as a sarcophagus."

"No wonder. You’re a living sarcophagus — if you’re addicted to dreamgum." Burton stood up, gesturing with the assegai at a fired-clay pot on a little bamboo table nearby. "You can drink if you want to. But don’t try anything."

Göring rose slowly and staggered to the table. "I’m too weak to give you a fight even if I wanted to." He drank noisily from the pot and then picked up an apple from the table. He took a bite, and then said, "What’re you doing here? I thought I was rid of you."

"You answer my question first," Burton said, "and be quick about it. You pose a problem that I don’t like, you know."

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."