"Look what you've got round your waist!" He snatched at the amulet Max had given me. "Is this what I think it is, old buck old buster? Look here, Stacey — I swear it's mountain oysters on his belt. It is! Billygoat bobblers! Are they his own, d'you think? You find out, I'll ask you tomorrow… Hey, here's what we'll do (George, was it?): we'll tap a keg of bock-beer and you toot your pipes — you're the Grand Tutor! You toot your pipes while Maxie and I toot a few on the EAT-whistle, for old times' sake. Stacey'll do a dance with Croaker. You do have pipes, don't you, George?"
Anastasia in her embarrassment had touched her brow to my arm (Stoker having sprung out from between us to illustrate the dance he had in mind), and thinking to assure her that her husband's talk did not distress me, innocently I patted her behind, as was my wont when any lady of the herd needed calming. She looked up at me with quick wonder, also squeezed my arm uncertainly, and Stoker broke off his raillery to shout with laughter.
"Olé!" some others called.
"Stop!" Max commanded, stamping his feet.
"No no, Maxie, he just started! Watch he doesn't eat your hair-pins, Stacey; they eat anything, you know. Not like your gorilla-friend…"
"I don't listen!" Max cried, and covered his ears once more. To me he said desperately, "Pat her on the head, you got to pat her! It's different with human girls!" Then to Stoker, more determinedly: "I'm not her father, Stoker, much as I wish I was. But neither she nor Georgie's going with you. You got to kill me first."
Anastasia made a flutter of protest; Stoker laughed delightedly and drew his pistol; the cattle-prods moved towards us. I began to perspire.
Max opened his arms. "Na, wait," he pleaded, "I make you a bargain. You told me once you watched the Bonifacists burn some Moishians in the Riot, ja?"
"Only a few," Stoker answered modestly; the prospect of a bargain clearly amused him. "They were sure I was spying, but didn't know for which side, so the day I took a tour of their extermination campuses they only did a few."
Max's thin face glared. "But you told me you enjoyed it, ja?"
"Enjoyed it! I never had so much fun — except the day you and I pushed the EAT-button. What a party! This one chap in particular, we couldn't wait to try: biochemist named Schultz — maybe you've heard of him? He'd decided the only way to keep West-Campus culture from going up in smoke was to fireproof the Moishians. So he invented some kind of asbestos bagel, I believe it was, and ate nothing else for three months before he was picked up. When the Bonifacist scientists heard about it they put him straight in the oven — they don't miss a trick! You know, it's surprising how thirsty you got, around that place! Siegfrieder beer is the best in the University, and they had two kegs of it down by the ovens: one for enlisted men and one for officers and guests."
Breathless I asked, "Did it work? The bagels?" and only realized I'd been baited when Stoker's glee rang round the gorge.
"Founder forgive you!" Max said softly. And to Stoker: "Laugh all you want, I got reason to think this boy's a Grand Tutor, even though there's things he's got to learn yet. And this poor suffering girl you call your wife — she's a passèd Graduate, if ever there was one! So I make you this bargain, Stoker, you got one speck of right-mindedness in you: let her and George go on by themselves to Great Mall, and do what you want with me. Burn me up if you want, like poor Chaim Schultz — rest his mind!"
Stoker snapped his fingers. "Chaim, that was it! Chaim Schultz the biochemist. Very warm type, I remember. So many of you Moishian chaps were…"
In tears now, Max threw himself at Stoker's knees. "For Founder's sake let them go! Burn me!"
Anastasia and I hastened to calm him, she assuring him (her earlier complaint to the contrary notwithstanding) that her husband's bark was far worse than his bite when it came to maltreating her, and I that I had more faith in my incorruptibility than Max seemed to, and no intention to let anyone suffer in my stead. As to Anastasia, I was not persuaded that her decision to remain with Stoker was freely chosen, nor contrariwise that it was simply coerced; I meant to investigate the matter further and act accordingly. In short — I vowed with some heat — the three of us would go together, whether to Great Mall and Main Gate or to the Power Plant. I might have added, but chose not to, that I was curious to see with my own eyes what flunkage really was, the better to understand its opposite, and thus looked forward to visiting both the Power Plant and Main Detention; also that Max's pathetic gesture touched me less with gratitude and respect for him than with disapproval, even with a small, unexplainable contempt. It was but an amplifying of my own sentiments when Stoker said, "These Moishians, I swear to the Dunce, they enjoy being persecuted!" His tone was most amiable. "Don't let anybody tell you they're the Chosen Class: they volunteered!"
He ordered Max then to get off his knees and end the theatrics; he could burn all three of us if he had a mind to, he declared, and throw Croaker in for a backlog, but in fact he wanted only to entertain us for the night, inasmuch as he'd never matched drinks with a billygoat before, to say nothing of a Grand Tutor.
"Never," Max said. "These children and I aren't going." He took Anastasia's arm (who still pressed mine) and made as if to lead us away. The cattle-prodders glanced to their chief for instructions; Anastasia hesitated, as did I, unable to share my advisor's resolve.
"Doggone!" Stoker said, ignoring us all. "There is a fellow we've got to burn; I'd almost forgot him! Black chap we fished off the dam. Friend of yours, was he?"
He strode over to one of the sidecars and flashed an electric torch: there sprawled the brown-skinned, white-fleeced body of G. Herrold, his head flung back; each separate water-drop upon him sparkled in the torch-beam. We went over, shocked, and regarded our lost friend. Max moaned and tore at his beard. Anastasia snatched up the dead man's wrist and laid her ear to his chest.
"He's not asleep, like Croaker?" I demanded.
She shook her head. "I can't help feeling it's my fault! If he hadn't seen me out on the bridge…"
Stoker looked from speaker to speaker with a grin. I was smitten with grief. Dark fetcher from booklift, Belly, barn; first lover and teacher of full nelson; savior, sweep, and summoner (whose left hand still clutched the buckhorn) — he was the first dead human I had seen. His mouth being open, I kissed his cold forehead, and felt on my lips, with anger, drops of the river he'd crossed at last.
"This flunking place!" I cried. "What's it called?"
"Just 'The Gorge,' " Anastasia said.
"If you go with this Dean o' Flunks here" — Max pointed grimly to Stoker — "you might as well call it South Exit, because you're flunkèd for sure."
"I'm going to give it his name," I declared, indicating G. Herrold. Max showed some surprise at the firmness of my tone, but shrugged. To the company at large I announced: "From now on this river's name is George. And the gorge is George's Gorge."
Max nodded, Even Stoker cocked his head and grinned approval.
"That's okay," Max said. "And we'll bury him ourselves, right here. Help me lift him out, George."
"Now, now, Maxie!" Stoker laughed. "You don't go sticking people underground any way you please. Health rules! Forms to fill out; questions to answer! We'll have to fetch him up to the morgue and have him looked over — only take a few minutes if you come along. And the Staff Graveyard's right on Founder's Hill, above the Powerhouse; we run the College Crematorium off the same pile as the main steam-boilers." To me he added, "Awfully clever piece of engineering, actually: big oven man from Siegfrieder College designed it when we first hired him, just after the Riot…" He interrupted himself before Max could speak, to order his men to restart their engines. They answered him with curses, but finally obeyed when the order had been repeated several times by the lieutenant. "Hop in now, friends; the night doesn't last forever. Maxie, you ride with your wet pal there and see he doesn't bounce out. You kids ride with me." He grinned at his inadvertent word-play and snatched my elbow to guide me to his vehicle. "Do you kiss a girl before you climb her, George, or just sniff around? I never saw a goat go to it, much as I admire them."