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"Every man a god," said Huey Long. Selous stared at the American in shock and
approval. "That is why we were taken to this place," continued Long; "so that we
could do as we wished."
Beethoven struggled in his embrace, tried feebly to escape, but Long was much
too powerful for him.
Selous looked upon the two of them in that embrace, looked further to see
Caligula humping and scuttling away in the position of an insect, and thought:
the man is right. The American is right, every man is a god, and we have come to
this accursed place to make gods of ourselves, be they in the most despicable of
fashion. That is the answer that lay in the heart of the city; that is what we have
always understood. All of his life he had aspired, just as others must, to this
position, and now that he had found it there was nothing to do but submit.
"Submit!" Selous screamed to Beethoven. "Let it be! Do as you will!" He scanned
the land, the encampment in the distance, the near forms that in the intensity of
Caligula's necessity had scattered to open ground. I'd do it myself if I could,
thought Selous, and I will, I will. "Now I understand why we came back to the
banks of the River," he said to Huey Long. "This was waiting for us all the time,
wasn't it?"
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Long smiled, shook his head, opened his hands to Selous. His expression was
curious, abstracted. Beethoven, scrambling in Long's enormous hug, gave up sud-
EVERY MAN A GOD
139
denly, sunk to his knees, then leaned over the ground and rubbed his forehead in
the mud.
"You won't stop him," muttered Beethoven. "None of us will stop him. Nothing
will ever be stopped again. That's the answer, isn't it? That's what you wanted me
to know, why you brought me back to humiliate me."
"I don't know anything about that, son," said Huey Long. He smiled easily and
stared at Selous. "But we think we know the answer now, don't we?"
"Yes," said Selous. There was a dim and insistent haze in front of him; he could
have whisked it away with a few motions of his hand, but he chose not to. "Yes, I
understand. Every man a god." He looked at the entrapped, sullen Beethoven.
"Even you," he said. "And me, and the rest of them. That is for us to discover."
Caligula's voice bleated through the haze, through the shocking stillness of the
Riverworld. Selous heard the chanting of the emperor and then the dull scream of
his release. I'll be damned, he thought, and then, Yes, I guess I am. I guess we all
are. Which is exactly the same thing as being free.
"He sure put that chicken in the pot, didn't he?" said Huey Long. "Look at the
man put that there car in the garage." He cackled and wondered what Selous
would say to that. "Say, there," he said to Beethoven, who was now softly weeping
beneath him, "what do you think the Englishman would say?"
"Muss ess sein," Beethoven said. "Ess muss sein."
Magnificent in his duties, triumphant in his discharge, the god Caligula rolled
from the inert form that had served him so well adequately, anyway, enough for
the
140
Mike Resnick and Barry N. Malzberg
time being, though of course there would be better and looked at his subjects
encamped in the distance, fallen to their knees to revere and serve him.
"Oh, yes," he said quietly. "Oh, yes, reverence and service, they are the same
thing."
He readjusted his garments, stood, pushed the husk of his revenant to one side,
and strode to the small place that had been made for him by the servants of the
Riverworld, his parapet from which he would speak. He would gather them to
him and give them his orders, and then the true and final nature of his reign
would begin. In the distance he heard the shrieks of homage, Claudius himself
soon to come, to bear witness, to bow down in service. Every man a god, yes
But this god, granted the Riverworld, its indulgence, its folly and its treasure...
this god a man.
Blandings on Riverworld
Phillip G. Jennings
' 'Has even death become unsure? Are we mockeries of ourselves? Are you the
Mocker?"
The Big Cheese's voice echoed down from the throne. P.G. Wodehouse, Bart., was
urged to his knees by the guards at his side, and the Grand Panjandrum this "al-
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Hakim" chappie took wind for another set-to in what Plum had to admit was
exceptionally refulgent Arabic.
"To say that God speaks is to suggest he may ever be silent. This this 'river
world' is not reality, but a code, and therefore a message and not of God. But it
implies a message very like the Druze da'wa, and therefore a thousand times
deceitful. What do you know of the Deceiver?"
Hakim's mighty line of thought seemed almost logical. Some Oxford wallah might
grasp how one sentence led to the next, each conclusion grimmer than the one
before it. "Well now, dash it! I mean codes and all!" Saddled with the habits of a
myopic lifetime, Plum blinked about, trying to make something of a hall built of
cyclopean slabs. His spirits certainly needed fortifying. A casual
141
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Phillip C. Jeniiings
viewer of these mustered ranks hi black robes and white turbans said viewer
might easily hop to the conclusion that he was "in for it."
It was not a conclusion Plum Wodehouse liked to embrace. Death may have lost
much of its sting by the third or fourth inning, but his last incarnation he hadn't
even gotten a chance to eat, and his faith in the better nature of humanity was
taking a beating. "If you think I'm the Devil, or that I've met him, I have to
answer not to my knowledge. No. I mean, I don't think so."
"Truth knows what it means."
"I suppose it does," Plum conceded. In moments of desperate anxiety his smile
widened to the straining point and became almost horrible. "But I can't vouch for
anyone but myself, and I've met a lot of strange coves and covesses these last few
lives...." His eyes narrowed with sudden cunning. "Besides, didn't you say we
might not be ourselves? Under the circ.s, I don't know how to prove my bona
fides."
"We tolerate one people here, and one language. Assuredly I've never heard
Arabic spoken as you do," al-Hakim thundered from his high and distant seat.
"Nevertheless, it is Arabic of a sort."
He pondered, and the flanking spear-carriers shifted in waiting, ready to
extirpate this infidel at the crook of a finger. "You've lived several lives? After the
feast, attend us privately in our garden, and we will hear your testimony."
Plum took this for good news, and breathed again. The four hours of this present
existence might become eight, and then sixteen.... Socially inept, yes, but he'd
always charmed well, not everybody. In his last incarnation Hans Horbiger had
it in for him, with bells on. Still, al-Hakim
BLANDINGS ON RIVERWORLD
143
bi'Amr Allah would feel better for a few rashers under his belt, and in a tete-a-
tdte encounter...
Plum felt a tap on his shoulder. His travail was over, but the business of court
went on the business of recessing for lunch in conformity with the inexorable
schedule of the local grailstones.
One of the spearmen sat him in an alcove with a few heterogenous gents, and
took his tiffin-tin. The usual magic was done offstage, and it came back not quite
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an hour later for Plum to open.
The fee for this service was all his cigarettes and alcohol. Plum hardly minded
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