Read Online Gods of Riverworld by Philip José Farmer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Philip José Farmer
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Besides, how do we know that the Computer is showing us everything? It can delete as the Snark wishes it to, and we can’t be sure that it’s not doing so. We have to make a be-there visit. We’ll make a flying patrol, be birds, get an overall view of everything. Then we can take our time and get the details.”
“You mistake me,” de Marbot said. “I was merely going to comment on the state of my stomach. It is complaining of its emptiness.”
They took their chairs through the tube in the center of the floor to the next level, went down a corridor to the nearest door, opened it, and walked inside. It was a suite unfurnished except for a converter against a wall. De Marbot selected for lunch escargots bourguignonne with French bread and a glass of white wine. Thirty seconds later, he removed the dishes and silverware and glass and napkin. His blue eyes were big with admiration as he sniffed the delicate aroma. “ Sacrée merde! Never on Earth could I get such perfection, such ecstasy! Yet surely the Ethicals must have gotten the original from some Parisian chef and copied it! What could be that genius’ name? I would like to resurrect him, if only to thank him!”
“Someday, I’ll order a deliberately badly cooked meal just for the sake of variety,” Burton said. “Don’t you find all this exquisiteness, this perfection, tiring? Every meal is a gustatory triumph.”
“Never!” de Marbot said. He rolled his eyes on seeing Burton’s eclectic choice, buttermilk biscuits and squabs marinated in cream and a schooner of dark beer.
“Barbaric! And I thought that you did not like beer?”
“I do when I eat ham or squabs.”
“ De gustibus non disputandum. Whoever said that was an idiot.”
A section of wall folded out to make a table, and they ate.
“ Délicieux! ” De Marbot cried, and he smacked his lips loudly.
Until three weeks ago, he had been whip-thin. Now his face was becoming moonlike, and a slight roll was entrenching itself around his waist.
“There is a glacé de viande I must try,” de Marbot said.
“Now?”
“No. I am no pig. Later. Tonight.”
For dessert the Frenchman had a fig soufflé and a glass of red wine.
“Superb!”
They washed up in the bathroom and returned to the chairs. “We should be walking this off,” Burton said.
“We’ll work it off with saberplay before supper.”
7
The illuminated halls they passed through had been dark a few seconds before they got to them. Heat detectors in the walls reacted to their bodies and activated switches that turned the lighting on ahead of them and off behind them. Because of this, the unknown probably knew exactly where they were. All he had to do was to command the Computer to give him images of every lit area. However, he could not spend all his time just watching the screens; he would have to sleep. If, however, by some means the tenants managed to get on his track, he could be awakened by the Computer.
The two came down a vertical shaft and came out into a hall. Halfway down this, they stopped their chairs and got out of them. A transparent outward-leaning wall enclosed a vast well glowing brightly from a source below them. The upper part of the enclosure was empty, but a few hundred feet below them was the illumination: a shifting dancing whirling mass of what seemed to be tiny suns. De Marbot got two pairs of dark spectacles from a box on a ledge and handed one pair to Burton. Burton put them on and looked for the twelfth time at the most gorgeous display he had ever seen, more than eighteen billion souls collected and made visible in one place. The Ethicals called them wathans , a word more precise than the English soul. These were the entities of artificial origin, each of which had been attached to an Earth-person the moment that the sperm and the egg united to form the zygote of that person. These remained attached to the head of each individual until he or she died, and it was these that gave Homo sapiens its
“You mistake me,” de Marbot said. “I was merely going to comment on the state of my stomach. It is complaining of its emptiness.”
They took their chairs through the tube in the center of the floor to the next level, went down a corridor to the nearest door, opened it, and walked inside. It was a suite unfurnished except for a converter against a wall. De Marbot selected for lunch escargots bourguignonne with French bread and a glass of white wine. Thirty seconds later, he removed the dishes and silverware and glass and napkin. His blue eyes were big with admiration as he sniffed the delicate aroma. “ Sacrée merde! Never on Earth could I get such perfection, such ecstasy! Yet surely the Ethicals must have gotten the original from some Parisian chef and copied it! What could be that genius’ name? I would like to resurrect him, if only to thank him!”
“Someday, I’ll order a deliberately badly cooked meal just for the sake of variety,” Burton said. “Don’t you find all this exquisiteness, this perfection, tiring? Every meal is a gustatory triumph.”
“Never!” de Marbot said. He rolled his eyes on seeing Burton’s eclectic choice, buttermilk biscuits and squabs marinated in cream and a schooner of dark beer.
“Barbaric! And I thought that you did not like beer?”
“I do when I eat ham or squabs.”
“ De gustibus non disputandum. Whoever said that was an idiot.”
A section of wall folded out to make a table, and they ate.
“ Délicieux! ” De Marbot cried, and he smacked his lips loudly.
Until three weeks ago, he had been whip-thin. Now his face was becoming moonlike, and a slight roll was entrenching itself around his waist.
“There is a glacé de viande I must try,” de Marbot said.
“Now?”
“No. I am no pig. Later. Tonight.”
For dessert the Frenchman had a fig soufflé and a glass of red wine.
“Superb!”
They washed up in the bathroom and returned to the chairs. “We should be walking this off,” Burton said.
“We’ll work it off with saberplay before supper.”
7
The illuminated halls they passed through had been dark a few seconds before they got to them. Heat detectors in the walls reacted to their bodies and activated switches that turned the lighting on ahead of them and off behind them. Because of this, the unknown probably knew exactly where they were. All he had to do was to command the Computer to give him images of every lit area. However, he could not spend all his time just watching the screens; he would have to sleep. If, however, by some means the tenants managed to get on his track, he could be awakened by the Computer.
The two came down a vertical shaft and came out into a hall. Halfway down this, they stopped their chairs and got out of them. A transparent outward-leaning wall enclosed a vast well glowing brightly from a source below them. The upper part of the enclosure was empty, but a few hundred feet below them was the illumination: a shifting dancing whirling mass of what seemed to be tiny suns. De Marbot got two pairs of dark spectacles from a box on a ledge and handed one pair to Burton. Burton put them on and looked for the twelfth time at the most gorgeous display he had ever seen, more than eighteen billion souls collected and made visible in one place. The Ethicals called them wathans , a word more precise than the English soul. These were the entities of artificial origin, each of which had been attached to an Earth-person the moment that the sperm and the egg united to form the zygote of that person. These remained attached to the head of each individual until he or she died, and it was these that gave Homo sapiens its
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