The Fabulous Riverboat

  Cyrano was not present. He was superintending the building of a section of the wall which would eventually guard the shore of The River. Sam was glad. It was difficult enough for him to see Livy alone, but when she was with the Frenchman, he could not endure his thoughts. In silence, he and Livy parted.

  A beautiful woman with lovely, honey-colored hair approached him, and he was able to set aside his feelings about Livy for a while. The woman's name was Gwenafra. She had died at about the age of seven in a country that must have been Cornwall about the time the Phoenicians came there to exploit the tin mines. She had been resurrected among people of whom none spoke her ancient Celtic language and had been adopted by a group that spoke English. From her description, one of them had been that Sir Richard Francis Burton whom Sam had thought he'd seen on the shore just before the meteorite struck. Burton and his friends had built a small sailboat and set out for the headwaters of The River – as might have been expected of a man who had spent half his life exploring in the wildernesses of Africa and the other continents. On Earth Burton had sought the headwaters of the Nile and had found, instead, Lake Tanganyika. But on this world he had again been seeking the source of a river – the greatest River of them all – undaunted by the prospect that it might be ten million miles long or even twenty.

  After little more than a year, his boat had been attacked by evil men, and one had stuck a stone knife into little Gwenafra and thrown her into The River, where she had drowned. She had awakened the next day on the banks somewhere far up in the northern hemisphere. The weather was colder, the sun weaker and the people there said that you did not have to go more than twenty thousand grailstones before you were in an area where the sun was always half above, half below the mountains. And there lived hairy, ape-faced men ten feet tall and weighing seven to eight hundred pounds.

  (This was true, Joe Miller had been one of the Titanthrops there.)

  The people upRiver who adopted her spoke Suomenkielta, which in English meant Finnish. DownRiver a little way were Swedes, twentieth-century people who lived a peaceful life. Gwenafra grew up relatively happy with her loving foster parents. She learned Finnish, Swedish, English, a Chinese dialect of the fourth century B.C., and Esperanto.

  She drowned again by accident one day and woke up in this area. She still remembered Burton; she cherished a childhood crush she had had for him. But, being a realist, she was ready to love other men. And she had – and had just split with one, Sam had heard. She wanted a man who would be faithful to her, and these were not easy to find in this world.

  Sam was very much attracted to her. The only thing that had kept him from asking her to move in with him had been the fear of angering Livy. That fear was ridiculous – she had no claim on him as long as she was living with Cyrano. And she had made it plain that she did not care what he did in his private life or his public life. Nevertheless, against all logic, he was afraid to take another woman as his hut-mate. He did not want to snap the last thin link.

  He chatted with Gwenafra awhile and confirmed that she was still unattached.

  Chapter 19

  * * *

  Lunch was upsetting. The "roulette wheel" concealed somewhere in the false bottom of the grail, the wild caster of dice, came up with a meal that only a Goshute Indian could have swallowed and even he might have gagged a little. Sam threw out all the food but was able to console himself with two cigars, cigarettes and six ounces of an unfamiliar but delicious liqueur. Just smelling it sent his taste buds into a dance.

  The meeting with John and the Council took three hours. After much wrangling and a number of votes, it was decided to put to the people the question of amending the Carta so that a pro tem Councilman could be elected. John held up things for an hour, arguing that a vote wasn't needed. Why couldn't the Council simply say that the amendment was passed and that would be the end of it? No amount of explaining ever seemed to clarify such matters in John's head. It was not that he was unintelligent. It was just that he was not emotionally able to comprehend democracy.

  The vote was unanimous to accept Firebrass as Hacking's official visiting fireman. But he would have a close eye kept on him.

  After all this John rose and made a speech, occasionally lapsing from Esperanto into Norman French when he was overpowered by emotion. He thought that Parolando should invade SoulCity before SoulCity invaded Parolando. The invasion should be launched as soon as the handguns and the armored amphibian, Firedragon I, were ready. However, it might be best to test the mettle of their iron and the troops on New Brittany first. His spies were certain that Arthur planned to attack them soon.

  John's two toadies backed him, but the others, including Sam, voted them down. John's face became red, and he swore and beat his fists on the oak table, but nobody decided to change his mind.

  After supper the drums relayed a message from Hacking. Firebrass would be arriving tomorrow, some time before noon.

  Sam retired to his office. By the light of lamps burning fish oil – soon they would have electricity – he and Van Boom and Tanya Velitsky and John Wesley O'Brien, the engineers, discussed their ideas about the Riverboat and drew rough sketches on paper. Paper was still scarce, but they would need enormous amounts for their blueprints. Van Boom said that they should wait until they were able to make a certain kind of plastic. Lines could be drawn on this with magnetized "pens" and corrections could easily be made by demagnetizing. Sam replied that that was fine. But he wanted to start building the Riverboat the moment the amphibian was completed. Van Boom said that he could not agree to that. Too many things were in the way.

  Before the meeting broke up Van Boom pulled a Mark I gun out of a large bag. "We have ten of these now," he said. "This one is yours, compliments of Parolando's Engineering Corps. And here are twenty packages of powder and twenty plastic bullets. You can sleep with them under your pillow."

  Sam thanked him, the engineers left and Sam barred the door. Then he went into the back room to talk to Joe Miller awhile. Joe was still awake, but he said he was taking no sedation that night. He would be getting up in the morning. Sam bade the giant good night and went into his bedroom, next to the pilothouse. He drank two shots of bourbon and lay down. After a while he managed to doze, though he was afraid that the three-o'clock rain would wake him as usual and he would have trouble getting back to sleep.

  He awoke, but the rain was long past. Shouts came from somewhere and then an explosion that rattled the pilothouse. Sam leaped out of bed, wrapped a kilt around his waist, seized an ax and ran into the pilothouse. He suddenly remembered his pistol, but he decided he would go back for it when he found out what was going on. The River was still smothered in fog, but hundreds of dark figures were spilling out of it, and the tops of tall masts were sticking out above it Torches were flaring all over the plains and in the hills. Drums were beating.

  There was another explosion. A brightness in the night with bodies flying in all directions.

  He looked through the starboard port. The gates of the log wall around King John's palace were open, and men were streaming out. Among them was the stocky figure of John.

  By then more men had appeared out of the mists over the River. Bright starlight showed them lining up and moving out, rank after rank. The first of the invaders were by now in the great factories and advancing swiftly across the plain toward the foothills. Some explosions occurred inside factories as bombs were thrown to dislodge the defenders. And then a red tail flared out, disappeared, and something black shot toward him. Sam threw himself to the floor. A roar came beneath him, the floor heaved, and the glass ports blew in. A whiff of acrid smoke came to him and was gone.

  He should get up and run, but he couldn't. He was deafened and frozen. Another rocket would be coming his way, and that one might be closer.

  A giant hand gripped his shoulder and pulled him up. Another hand slid under his legs and he was being carried out. The arms and the chest of the giant were very hairy and as hard-muscled and as warm as a goril
la's. A voice as deep as if it were at the end of a railroad tunnel rumbled. "Take it eathy, Bothth."

  "Put me down, Joe," Sam said. "I'm all right, except for my shame. And that's all right, too, I ought to feel ashamed."

  His shock was fading, and a sense of relative calm flowed in to fill the vacuum. The appearance of the massive Titanthrop had steadied him. Good old Joe – he might be a dumb subhuman and sick at the moment, but he was still worth a battalion.

  Joe had put on his suit of leather armor. In one hand was the haft of an enormous double-headed ax of steel.

  "Who are they?" he rumbled. "They from Thoul Thity?"

  "I don't know," Sam said. "Do you feel up to fighting? How's the head?"

  "It hurtth. Yeah, I can fight okay. Vere do ve go from here?"

  Sam led him downhill toward the men collecting around John. He heard his name called and turned to see the tall lanky figure of de Bergerac, Livy by his side. She carried a small round shield of leather-covered oak and a steel-tipped spear. Cyrano held a long, dully shining blade. Sam's eyes widened. It was a rapier.

  Cyrano said, "Morbleu!" He switched to Esperanto. "Your smith gave this to me just after supper – he said there was no sense in waiting."

  Cyrano whipped the rapier, cutting the air with a sharp sound. "I've come alive again. Steel – sharp steel!"

  A nearby explosion made them all dive for the ground. Sam waited until he was sure that another rocket was not coming and then looked at his pilothouse. It had received a direct hit; its front was blown open; a fire was racing through it and would soon be in the texas. His diary was gone, but he could retrieve his grail later. It was indestructible.

  In the next few minutes the wooden missiles, tails flaming, arched out, wobbling, from wooden bazookas held on the shoulders of the Parolandoj rocketeers. The missiles landed near and sometimes among the enemy and exploded with gouts of fire and much black smoke, quickly carried away by the wind.

  Three runners reported. The attack had been launched from three places, all from The River. The main body was concentrated here, apparently to seize the Parolandoj leaders, the larger factories and the amphibian. The other two armies were about a mile away on each side. The invaders were composed of men from New Brittany and Kleomanujo and the Ulmaks from across The River. The Ulmaks were savages who had lived in Siberia circa 30,000 B.C. and whose descendants had migrated across the Bering Straits to become Amerinds.

  So much for King John's spy service, Sam thought. Unless – unless he is in on the attack. But if he were he wouldn't be standing out here where he's likely to get killed any moment . . .

  Anyway, Arthur of New Brittany would never make a deal with the uncle who had murdered him.

  The rockets continued to arc down from both sides, the five-pound warheads with their rock-fragment shrapnel taking a toll. The Parolandoj had the advantage; they could lie flat while their rockets exploded among upright targets. The invaders had to keep moving, otherwise they might just as well go home.

  Nevertheless, it was frightening to lie on the ground and wait for the next noisy blast and hope that it would not come closer than the last one. There were screams from the wounded that were not, however, as heartrending as they would have been if Sam had not been so deafened that he could barely hear them and if he also had not been too worried about himself to think of others. Then, suddenly, the rockets had quit blowing up the world. A huge hand shook Sam's shoulder. He looked up to see that many around him were getting to their feet. The sergeants were yelling into the stunned ears of their men to form a battle array. The enemy was so close now that neither side was using the missiles or else they had all been launched.

  Ahead was a dark body, a sea of screaming whooping fiends. They ran up the hill and the first, second and third ranks fell, pierced by arrows. But those behind did not break. They leaped over the fallen and kept on coming. Suddenly, the archers were being hammered down or thrust through or clubbed.

  Sam kept close behind Joe Miller, who moved ahead slowly, his ax rising and falling. And then the giant was down, and the enemy were struggling on top of him like a pack of jackals on a lion, Sam tried to get to him; his ax smashed through a shield and a head and an uplifted arm and then he felt a burning pain along his ribs. He was pushed back and back, while he slashed away with the ax and then it was gone, wedged in a skull. He stumbled over a pile of wood. Above him was the burning floor of his smashed house, still held up by three burning pylons.

  He turned on his side, and there was the handgun, the Mark I, that he had left by his bedside. Near it lay three packages of powder with the nitrate-soaked twists and a number of the plastic bullets. The explosion had hurled them out of the house.

  Two men whirled by him in a dance, their hands gripping each other, straining, grunting with the strain, glaring into each other's bloody faces. They stopped, and Sam recognized King John – his opponent was taller but not as thickly built. He had lost his helmet, and he, too, had tawny hair and eyes that were blue in the light of the flames overhead.

  Sam broke open the pistol, put in the bullet and the charge as he had done that morning up in the hills, locked the barrel and rose to his feet. The two men still struggled, one slipping back a little, then the other, trying to throw each other. John held a steel knife in his right hand; the other man, a steel ax; each was grasping the weapon hand of the other.

  Sam looked around. No one was coming at him. He stepped forward and extended the muzzle of the big pistol, holding it steady with both hands. He pulled the trigger, the click sounded, the gun was jarred to one side by the heavy hammer, there was a flash, he had the gun back in line, a boom, a cloud of smoke, and John's assailant fell to one side, the entire right side of his skull blown away.

  John fell gasping onto the ground. Then he raised himself, looking at Sam, who was reloading the gun. "Many thanks, partner! That man was my nephew, Arthur!"

  Sam did not reply. If he had been thinking more coolly he would have waited until Arthur had killed John and then blown Arthur's head off. It was ironic that he, Sam, who had much to gain by John's death, should be responsible for saving him. Moreover, he could not expect gratitude from John. The man had no such thing in his soul.

  Sam completed reloading the pistol and strode away, looking for Joe Miller. But he saw Livy reeling backward as a big Ulmak, whose left arm dangled bloodily, drove her back with blows of a stone ax on her shield. Her spear had been broken and in a few seconds he would have beaten her to her knees or shattered the shield. Sam reversed the pistol and broke the Ulmak's skull from behind with the butt of his gun. Livy fell exhausted and weeping on the ground. He would have gotten down to comfort her, but she seemed all right and he did not know where Joe Miller was. He plunged into the embattled mass and saw Joe on his feet again, demolishing heads, trunks and arms with sweeps of his great ax.

  Sam stopped a few paces from a man who was coming up from behind Joe, a large ax in both hands. Sam fired, and the bullet took part of the man's chest off.

  A minute later, the invaders were running for their lives. The sky was graying. By its light it was evident that Parolandoj were coming in from north and south. The other two columns, had been shattered, and the reinforcements were outnumbering the invaders. Moreover, they brought rockets which blew up the boats and canoes waiting for the defeated.

  Sam felt too exhilarated to be depressed by the losses and the damage. For the first time he came out of the blue funk that always seized him during a fight. He actually enjoyed the battle during the last ten minutes.

  A moment later his pleasure was gone. A wild-eyed and naked Hermann Göring, his scalp caked with blood, appeared on the battleground. His arms were raised straight up, and he was shouting, "Oh, brothers and sisters! Shame! Shame! You have killed, you have hated, you have lusted for the blood and the ecstasy of murder! Why did you not throw down your arms and take in your enemies with love? Let them do with you what they would? You would have died and suffered but final victory w
ould have been yours! The enemy would have felt your love – and the next time he might have hesitated before again waging war. And the time after that and the next time he might have asked himself, 'What am I doing? Why am I doing this? What good is this? I have gained nothing – ' and your love would have seeped through the stone over his heart and . . ."

  John, coming up behind Göring, struck him on the back of the head with the hilt of his knife. Göring fell forward and lay on his face without moving.

  "So much for traitors!" John shouted. He stared around wildly and then yelled, "Where are Trimalchio and Mordaunt, my ambassadors?"

  Sam said, "They wouldn't be stupid enough to hang around here. You'll never catch them. They'll know you know they sold out to Arthur."

  John's striking of Göring was illegal, since free speech was every one's right in Parolando. But Sam did not think that arresting John would be the right course at that moment. He, too, had felt like hitting Göring.

  Livy, still weeping, staggered past. Sam followed her to where Cyrano sat on a pile of corpses. The Frenchman was wounded in a dozen places, though not seriously, and his rapier was bloody from tip to guard. He had given a splendid account of himself.

  Livy threw herself on Cyrano. Sam turned away. She had not even thanked him for having saved her life.

  There was a crash behind him. He turned. The rest of his house had fallen in, bringing the pylons with it.

  He felt drained of strength, but there would be little rest for him today. The casualties and the damage had to be assessed. The dead had to be taken to the rendering factory up in the hills, since their fat was used to make glycerin. The practice was gruesome but necessary, and the owners of the bodies did not mind. Tomorrow they would be alive and well again somewhere far away along The River.

  In addition, the entire population would have to be kept ready for a call to arms and the work of erecting the walls along the River-edge would have to be speeded up. Scouts and messengers would have to be sent out to determine just what the military situation was. The Ulmaks and the Kleomenujoj and the New Bretons might launch a full-scale attack.