Riverworld, Day 72 * * * * After breakfast, in the late morning, Robbie went to find Freud. He convinced the reluctant doctor to leave his hut. "How are ye doing lad? I dinna kenn what's wrong wi' Mister Shaw but I think its the Dream-gum. I wouldna' chew it if ye paid me!" He paused to take a shot of Scotch. "It seems to cloud one's mind." Freud chuckled, the first expression of pleasure anyone had seen in him that day. "And that doesn't?" he asked Robbie, pointing to the cup of whiskey. "I agree," Ehrich said, joining them, "That dream gum will cause more trouble yet. Will we end up reinventing the opium den to go with our civilization? I will throw out my dream gum into the river from now on, rather than give it away to others." "Perhaps very wise," Freud replied. "We should decide what is against the law and what is not." Ehrich said. "At least to forestall future difficulties. Tensions are bound to increase, and people may not readily accept the sudden peace. We have had theft, we have had assault, what will happen next? If the law is laid out clearly, people will know it and restraint may be had. This is especially important with mixed societies. There are some who have grown up who treat nothing as private property, and may unknowingly commit a grave offense to others. Others may consider a brawl a perfectly normal way to settle disputes in their old culture." Cixi emerged from her hut, but stayed for only a few moments. She headed into the forest to the east. The only things she carried with her were the thin sticks she had not let go of and the towel she wore. The forest was uninhabited as she walked. She passed a broken arrow in the ground, a remnant of the battle. She walked for half the day, passing through the forests, which grew thicker with strange trees, and eventually arriving at the base of the impassable mountains which lined the edges of the Rivervalley. Searching for something to eat, her eyes fell about some bushes of berries, and a few tree roots, and she gathered them. As a meal, however, they proved unsatisfying. After walking a couple of feet to the north, she decided to turn around. A cool breeze touched her face, reviving her as if from a slumber. She looked down in her hand to find her yarrow sticks still grasped there. She cast the sticks one more time before returning back to the village. The trigrams were K'un, earth, above, and Li, flame, below. The whole hexagram was called Ming I, the darkening of the light. The moving lines gave the hexagram Sung, conflict or obstruction. Not an auspicious omen, she thought, and yet she remembered that the source of victory is defeat. Heya, she thought again, and the source of defeat, victory. * * * * "I'm worried about you," Josephine said. "You're different than you were before we came here. Is something wrong? Is there anything I can do?" "Wrong?" Shaw asked. "Isn't it obvious what's wrong? We are being played like pieces in a game and we don't even know who or what is playing. You have no knowledge of what happened during your first month here, people disappear into thin air on a regular basis and you ask what's wrong?" Shaw sighed, slumping his shoulders, and a tired look crossed his face for a moment, "I only wish there was something you could do. But thank you for asking." Josephine replied quietly but emphatically. "You're right. This world is a heck of a lot different than the one we _all_ died in, but that doesn't mean we have no control over our lives. Sure, we're having dreams, we're doing things we wouldn't normally do, but what you _can_ do is try to change it. You decry this world, but you chew the gum that emphasizes the occurrences you seem to hate so much. " She pauses, then continues, "There is something I can do, there's something you can do. We can get you off of that evil dreamgum. You're not the person I fell in love with back on the boat. Was that Shaw a bad man? Why did you kill him with that poison?" Shaw shook his head, disgusted, and walked away. Nobody else seemed to see it, he thought. We're being toyed with and nobody will do anything. I don't know some of the newcomers well enough, but Josephine should know better. Josephine... Have They gotten to her too? * * * * After Benjamin broke their silence, Matoaka walked toward him. Still uncertain, she spoke. "I hope I did not startle you. I did not know whether or not you would speak to me again after our 'differences' yesterday." "I am ever glad to speak to you," Benjamin said in Algonquian. She casually straightened up and brushed some of the dust off of her dress as if she were trying to cast away her embarrassment. Finally, she continued, "Being alone in this country is not safe, I learned that first hand. Perhaps, we should move out of the open for a while; I feel uncomfortable." Benjamin shrugged. "What is Danger in this Life?" Yet without hesitation he followed Matoaka, bringing his grail full of breakfast with him. He then resumed eating it, only finishing a small portion of it before setting it aside. She walks back toward the darkness of the forest and waited for Benjamin to follow. She sat on the ground, her back to the trunk of a tree and cleared her throat. "I cannot believe that you left the village just because of what happened these last few days; there must be more to it. Surely there is a solution to your problem; is there not? Why did you leave your stronghold for the unknown? Benjamin began speaking, releasing the words in an uninterruptable rush from where they had been pent up within him. "It is not just these few Days; it is the Months before that, and the Years and Decades before that. In my previous Life I spent Decades trying to avoid a War, and the War came, and many died and many more suffered greatly. In the end, I accepted that the War was necessary, but Necessity is a cruel, cruel Master. Inevitability is no Comfort. The only Comfort was knowing that that War would lead to a Peace, hopefully one that would last. "Peace never lasts. There were more Wars, large and small, and there was more Suffering, and more Blood was shed. And much of the Sweat and Toil of Man was wasted, year after year, on War, and when the War ended nothing had been created, only moved around. What vast Improvements might have been made in the Lives of Men had War not stolen their Money and Time and Industry. But Futility is no Comfort. The only Comfort was knowing that War would be set behind us in the blessed Eternity to come. For what Evil cannot a Man bear knowing that it is finite, and Respite is infinite? "Then came this World, and War became inevitable and necessary again, and again. It comes faster now; in the space of three months I have seen more men and women killed here than ever I did on the Earth. Immortality takes away the Sting, but it cheapens the Act until all Men may afford it. There are no Consequences, thinks the shallow man. This is the same man who plows his fields before the snowfalls to save time in the spring. But Commonness is no Comfort. The only Comfort was knowing that War would lead to the stability of Industry, of Civilization, reborn finally in a place where Peace could finally have what it needed to flower. "No man is fooled better by another man than by himself, but even I, Fool among Fools, can be made to see Light. There is every bit as much petty thirst for Blood here, and there is no escaping the Cycle, either. The bad blood between two enemies dies not when one kills the other, even on the Earth, but after a time, family feuds may die, and if they do not, the Family itself does. Here there is nothing to stop it; two men may kill each other again and again, day after year after century, for an Eternity of Misery and Hate. In seventy days, there has built up enough Hatred to assure a Lifetime of pain and death, death over and over. Can you imagine how many Enemies a man might have after a Year in this place? After sixty? After six hundred? With an Eternity of Time, but only a finite number of people, there must come a day when every person who ever lived is hated by every other person. And that day will be followed by an Eternity of more such days. No Hell could be worse. I no longer wish my Face to be among those drawn large in the Pages of the Book of this Hell-World. "Mark my words, Matoaka, heed me now if you have ever listened to me. There is but one Path to Contentment in this Hell, and that is Solitude. I have discovered this Truth; I knew it the moment I heard Shaw's arrow fly. But others will discover it soon enough. And then, there will be people fighting over the ways of achieving Solitude. People will seek to prey on those who have newly sought it out, and others will fight for the Places and Resources where it can be sustained. And the Lion God and whoever else manipulates men, will seek to prevent it. By being among the first to find it, we may be a Leap ahead and prepared to outwit those who would stop us." Matoaka listened to Benjamin with great intent, as if transfixed by his words, but at the mention of the Lion God she head eyes widened, her lips slightly opened, and her neck stiffened. Benjamin stopped long enough to make sure he had Matoaka's eyes, looked deep into them, then resumed again, as unstoppable as ever, before she could speak. "I would be most glad to have you as my Companion, to help me in this Enterprise. I have prayed that you would seek me out, even though I was afraid of what reasons you might have for doing so. If you will not stay with me, I will go and seek another Companion, or I will keep my Solitude to myself. But my Solitude will be all the sweeter if I can share it with you." "Please stay with me," Benjamin murmured in Algonquian. Matoaka's eyes watered, and she remained silent for a minute, but then she replied, perturbed, "The Lion God comes back every time something is unexplained, cruel or bizarre. How did you find this God? What is the story behind him? Shaka is the other thing I often hear associated with this Lion God. Some claim that a game is going on? I have not been on this world long enough to see much, perhaps." She snorts, "Not that I had the leisure to do so. What is going on here?" Benjamin shook his head. "I don't know if there is a Lion God or not. Something greater than Coincidence seems to direct things here, to choose where the slain awaken, to sow Dreams in minds to affect their Actions, even to alter the Memories of some of us. Perhaps is nothing but Coincidence, perhaps Fate, perhaps it is some kind of God or Gods. Several of the Dreams have referred to a Game, in which we are merely Pawns being moved by two such Gods, one of them a Lion God. We will probably never learn the Truth of it; it is bound up in the great Question of this place, whether it is Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, or something entirely other. "None of this matters; we must choose our Actions based on whatever Faith we have left, plus our Reason. If some God, Lion or otherwise, interferes, then so he will." Matoaka remained pensive for some time. Tossing her head back, she looked at the sky, "All this makes no sense to me right now. The only thing that corroborates what you have told me so far is our waking up a few miles away from the village after being slain by Ford's men. That is the only thing in my whole life on this world could be considered to be more than a coincidence." "I am sure there will be more, and soon," Benjamin said. She looked ahead at Benjamin again. With a trance-like voice, she added, "I had a vision after you left; I was calling for one. Before I collapsed, I heard a voice telling me that this place is unbalanced, wrong, and to find what is wrong with it. But is this really what I am supposed to be looking for and what can I possibly do about it?" Benjamin chuckled. "Oh, I am sure that it is really what someone wishes you to do. I simply no longer trust that that someone isn't treating us as Tools, to be used and discarded with no concern for our Welfare. It is eminently typical for the Visions to tell you that you must do something, but to tell you nothing of how it might be done. If it ever tells you something you can actually do to fix this unbalance, come see me, but until then, I do not trust it to guide you or me to anything but further Disharmony and Slaughter and Suffering." She shrugged and lowered her head. She picked up her bow and bag, swinging them over her back. "I thank you for speaking to me," she finally said, "but I cannot stay with you. You have spent many moons on this world and have found your calling; perhaps you are right. I seem to have been given a greater purpose. Whether or not I have understood it, I cannot say, but I also know that I cannot rest until I have found out the truth..." Almost whispering, "...and my people." Benjamin started to speak, then again stopped himself and nodded silently. Matoaka made the farewell sign with her hands, and said "Farewell" in Algonquian. Without further delay she disappeared in the woods and proceeded in the general direction of the village. After Matoaka was gone, Benjamin sadly returned to his previous plans. Thoughtful, Matoaka took her time in getting back to the village. She observed her surroundings very carefully, picking berries and leaves placing them in her bag, and investigated whatever seemed unusual. She mumbled, "Unbalanced. Wrong. Game. Pawns. What was it? 'Veins, plains, the tree and the river and the reins, beware of the manes.' Does it have a meaning into all this? And what about Freud? 'Beware. Fine minds find kind hide ride don't look inside.'" As if stricken by lightning, her eyes opened wide. She started to walk faster. Matoaka returned to the village in the early evening, and sought out Shaw. He was sitting alone by the grailstone, with an expression of concentration, but looked up at her as she approached. "Shaw," she began, "could we finish our earlier conversation, in private again? I wish to ask something of you and also I would like to share something with you." Shaw nods and followed Matoaka away from the village. Louis noticed the two leaving, and, with a look at Josephine, quietly and carefully went off the in the same direction. Once they were out of sight of the village, Matoaka spoke to Shaw. "We both had to leave in a hurry before our conversation was over this morning. Since, I have spoken to someone else who seems to believe the same as you do. "Who?" Shaw asked, almost frantic, "Who else was this?" "I do not believe it matters who it is; however, you probably already know who it is." Matoaka came closer to Shaw until he could feel the warmth of her breath in his ear when she whispered, "Benjamin." She stayed there for no more than two seconds after whispering, then, abruptly, she detached herself and continued, "I also had a vision, the first one since I have been here; a voice told me that this place is unbalanced, wrong, and that I must find what is wrong. I am uncertain whether what is believed to be wrong by you and that other person is what I must find. Besides, I do not see how I could possibly fix this. The vision is what prompted me to come and speak to you. In any case, I meant to ask you why you believe that Freud is one of _them_ and perhaps if you could tell me what kind of dreams you were referring to." "Why do I think he is one of them?" Shaw echoed. "A while ago, before we arrived here, when I first started dreaming, he wanted to hypnotize all of us at once, to see what kind of dreams we had been having, then tell us all what we told him. We told him no, and he reluctantly did us one at a time with all the others watching. A few days later I awoke after a very strong dream, that, for some reason I was unable to remember. He was in the room with me, and I believe that he did something to keep me from remembering it. He avoided me since then. He knows I know. Watch him, you will see how he acts." Matoaka frowned. "Freud becomes more and more suspicious every time I hear his name. I may have a proposition for you on that account, but first I must ask you this other favor. We can talk about it afterward. These blanks seem to occur on a regular basis; some do not remember what happened the first month they were here. I do not see how you can remember that you cannot remember; it is suspicious. Are you aware of this?" "True," Shaw said. "That is rather suspicious. What they say is that they remember nothing before awakening on the river, near a group of slavers who I helped them escape. Still, I wonder..." Matoaka continued, "I remember clearly what happened at the seance; I realize that you do not, aside from what we have told you happened. You must be receptive to spirits." "I never was on earth. It must be this gum, it somehow opens us up to some sort of transmissions, maybe lets us listen in on how they communicate." "It is interesting, indeed," Matoaka agreed. "The only time I ever chew dreamgum is when I request a vision. I noticed it could help as well has hinder it." She hesitated, "I wanted to ask you if you would like to... How shall I put this? To help me request another vision from the Great Power. I have never done this before and I am not sure how to go about it, but I figure that the both of us should be strong enough to get something more out of it than if I would do it by myself. Do you have any experience in that field? I can lead the way if you have not or perhaps we can join our knowledge." Shaw considered. "The only experience I have, I have gained here. What would we have to do?" Pleased, Matoaka explained the movements she normally performed and the words she uttered during such occasions. She concluded, "It is very simple as you can see. If you do not believe in the Great Power as I described it to you, imagine it to be whatever you believe is the Great Power. The both of us should get some kind of an answer." Matoaka looked up at the evening sky. "Tonight is a good night. Are you ready to follow me through our journey?" Matoaka indicated the way to the secluded clearing she had used the previous night in her despair. On their way she asked Shaw to help her gather wood for the fire they would start. Once at the clearing, Shaw and Matoaka arranged the towels forming a triangle with the fire. Matoaka looked at Shaw. "We must dress your face. Allow me to paint it, it would be an honor." Using the berries she had gathered while returning to the village, she made a black mixture. With a light yet steadfast hand, she painted Shaw's face and naked skull. Done, she fished two cubes of dreamgum out of her bag and offered one to Shaw. "Do you need a new one?" Shaw nodded and popped the cube into his mouth. Matoaka followed his lead and both began chewing. After one last look at Shaw, she nodded to him, then kneeled on the towel and begun chanting in her native tongue. Matoaka threw a powder on the fire which started to produce a great amount of smoke. As if bewitched by it, she placed her hands on her thighs, her body swayed slightly back and forth, her eyes closed while she tilted her head back to face the stars. She occasionally raised her arms, incessantly chanting, forgetting all that surrounded her except for the power that Shaw was emanating. Shaw sat watching as Matoaka chanted, his eyes half open, occasionally rocking from side to side, or looking off at something only he could see. After a few moments, a strange heat came over the pair. It began at their feet and moved slowly up their bodies to their heads. They glanced silently at one another for long enough to determine that both were experiencing the phenomenon, and then glanced more lingeringly as each felt suddenly drawn toward the other. In a single concerted motion, they doffed their towels and began to make love furiously, rolling about on the ground and emitting animal-like noises. Their every sense seemed heightened, and remained so as they fell back, sweating, against one of the trees. Their sharpened post-coital hearing caught the sound of some rustling in the brush, and Matoaka lunged toward it. When Shaw joined her, he found her looking at a towel on the ground. "It's Louis's," he said, recognizing the pattern.