"My God!" Alice said. Then, "Dick told me about that black man, Bill Williams, resurrecting Gull and the others. Do you suppose ... ?"
"I don't know. We'll probably never find out. It's possible that Wandal Goudal or Sarah Kelpin, one of the women having babies, did it. In any event ..."
Though not very often at a loss for words, Nur was so now.
"Tom will have to be told," she said. "Surely, he'll do what must be done."
"I'll call him now," Nur said.
She sat down to wait, thinking that she would hear from him in ten or fifteen minutes. However, the screen glowed on the control console in less than six minutes. She was surprised to see, not Nur's, but Tom Turpin's face. It was red under his dark skin, and his face was contorted.
"I'm contacting all of you!" he shouted.
You, she understood, would be the seven companions. But what was he doing in the central area forming the O at the tips of the pie-slice-shaped private worlds? And why were his favorite woman, Diamond Lil Schindler, his cronies, Chauvin, Joplin and other musicians, and their women there?
"OK! I see all of you there! Man, I'm mad! Mad, do you hear?"
Nur's voice, quiet and soothing, came.
"Calm down, Tom. Tell us what happened."
"They threw me out!" he screamed. "Overpowered my guards, grabbed me and my friends, and threw me out! They said I wasn't King Tom no more! I was through! I couldn't ever get back in! So long, goodbye, farewell, adieu, adios, motherfucker!"
"Who's they?" Burton's voice said. "Was Bill Williams the ringleader?"
"No, not him! He moved out two days ago into one of the empty worlds! It was Jonathan Hawley and Hamilton Biggs did it! They were the ringleaders, I mean!"
Alice had probably been introduced to the two, but she did not remember the names.
"Something like this was to be expected," Nur said. "There's little ... nothing ... you can do about it, Tom. Why don't you move into one of the empty worlds? And be very careful the next time you select someone to bring in?"
"I can't even do that!" Tom yelled. He raised his arms and brought them down violently, his hands slapping his thighs. "Can't even do that! Williams is in one of them! The gypsies have taken over another! I know 'cause I saw them coming out of it! I can't get into any of the other four! Somebody's locked them with codewords! I don't know who did it, but I think Hawley and Biggs did it! They're holding them for excess population or whatever! Maybe they did it just out of spite!"
"It could be worse. They could have killed you," Nur said.
"Yeah, Pollyanna, it could have been worse!"
Turpin was weeping now. The big black woman, Schindler, put her arms around him. He sobbed on her neck while she smiled, exposing the twinkling gems set into her teeth. On Earth, she had been one of the most important madams of the St. Louis Tenderloin district and one of Turpin's lovers.
Alice waited until he had released himself from Diamond Lil's embrace, and she said, "You and your friends can stay at my place, Tom."
The others, Burton, de Marbot, Aphra, Frigate, and Nur, hastened to extend their invitations.
"No," Turpin said, wiping his eyes with a huge violet handkerchief, "that ain't necessary, but I thank you. We'll just move into apartments."
He raised a fist and began howling, "I'll get you, Hawley, Biggs, you other motherfucking Judases! I'll get you! You'll be sorry, you sons of bitches! Watch out for Tom Turpin, you hear me!"
She could not see the screen that must have appeared on the wall before Turpin. But she could hear the loud laughter and the triumphant words.
"Get lost, you blubbering blubber!"
Tom howled with anger and anguish and began striking the wall. Alice cut off the screen. What next?
What indeed? That was the only one of the upsetting events leading up to the party. Which, she would say later to anyone who would hear—there were few of those left—was, she was not exaggerating in the slightest, the worst party she had ever given.
3O
The morning of April the first, Burton and Star Spoon breakfasted on the balcony outside their bedroom. The sky was clear, and the breeze was gentle and cool because Burton had ordered it so. Now and then, an elephant trumpeted and a lion roared. The shadow of a roc crossed over the table, the bird with a forty-foot wingspread designed by Burton and fashioned by the Computer. Star Spoon started when it darkened them.
"It won't hurt us, it's programmed not to attack us," Burton said, smiling.
"It could be an ill omen."
He did not argue with her. Li Po and the men and women of the eighth century a.d. whom he had brought in were intelligent and much-experienced, yet they had not rid themselves of their superstitions. Li Po was perhaps the most flexible, but even he reacted now and then to something that he should by now laugh at or not even think of.
He wondered if one had to desuperstition oneself, as it were, before one could Go On. What did the holding of absurd beliefs have to do with gaining compassion and empathy and freedom from hate and prejudice? It had much to do with it if it caused fear and cruelty and irrational behavior. But could one be afraid that bad luck would come if a black cat crossed one's path and still be a "good" person? No, not if one threw a brick at the cat or treated one's friends badly because one was in an ill humor from anxiety.
"You, too, are afraid," Star Spoon said.
"What?" He stared at her.
"You knocked on wood three times. On the table."
"No, I didn't."
"I'm sorry to have to contradict you, Dick. But you did. I would not lie."
"I really did?"
He laughed uproariously.
"Why do you find that funny?"
He explained, and she smiled. That, he thought, was the first time in days that she had lost her blank expression. Well, if he had to pull her out of her soberness by making a fool of himself, he did not mind.
"I did not ask you how you are," he said.
"I am well."
"I hope that you will be happy soon."
"I thank you."
Burton was thinking about proposing to her that the Computer locate in her memory all her experiences of brutality, especially the rapes. The Computer could excise them as a surgeon could a rotting appendix. Though the erasing would eliminate much from her memory, perhaps many years if the time of events were totaled, she would be free of painful thoughts. On the other hand, though the memories would be gone, their emotional impact would still be there. The Computer could not remove that. Star Spoon still might be repulsed by love-making but not have the slightest idea why.
The mind had to operate on itself, but it was seldom a skilled surgeon.
Burton silently cursed Dunaway and wished that there was a hell to which the man could be sent.
Star Spoon lifted a fork of trout to her mouth, chewed while staring out over the gardens below the castle, the jungle river, and the desert beyond. Having swallowed, she said, "I want you to bring in another woman, Dick. One who can take care of your needs. A woman who can laugh and love. I do not mind, I not only do not mind, I would be very pleased."
"No," he said. "No. That is most generous of you—also very Chinese. I admire the culture and wisdom of your people, But I am not Chinese."
"It's not just Chinese. It's good common sense. There's no reason why I should be—what did you say the other day?—a dog in the ... ?"