R.W. III - The Dark Design

  Actually, she did not want it one way or the other. If she had her choice – and why shouldn't she? – she would be a woman lover.

  Woman lover. Why didn't she say to herself: lesbian? The English language was the greatest in the world, but it had its faults. It was often too ambiguous. Woman lover could mean a man who loved women, a man or woman who loved women, or a woman who was a lover.

  There, .she'd said it. Lesbian. And she didn't feet any shame. What about Jack? She had loved him. What about . . . ?

  She had come up from the reverie only to dive down again.

  Across the room, Firebrass, though talking to others, was looking at her. Had he noticed her tendency to become a statue, slumped, her head slightly cocked to the left, her eyelids lowered, and the eyes slightly rolled up? And if he had, then had he decided she was too moody and hence untrustworthy?

  At that, she felt a slight panic. Oh, God, if he rejected her as a candidate just because she was pensive now and then! She was not that way when on duty! Never. But how could she convince Firebrass of that?

  She would have to be alert, always act as if she were on her toes, extroverted, prepared, trustworthy. As if she were a Girl Scout.

  She walked up to a circle in the center of which was Bishop Samuelo. The dark little man was telling some stories about La Viro. Jill had heard a number of them, since she had attended many Second Chancer meetings and talked with its missionaries. In Esperanto, the official language of the Church, La Viro meant The Man. He was also called La Fondinto, The Founder. Apparently, no one knew his Terrestrial name or else it was not considered important by the Second Chancers.

  Samuelo's tale concerned the stranger who had approached La Viro one stormy night in a cave high in the mountains. The stranger had revealed that he was one of the people who had reshaped this planet into one long Rivervalley and who had then resurrected the people of Earth.

  The stranger had instructed La Viro to found the Church of the Second Chance. He was given certain tenets to preach, and he was told that after he had spread these up and down the Valley, he would then be given more revelations. As far as she knew, these new "truths" had not yet been forthcoming.

  But the Church had spread everywhere. Its missionaries had traveled on foot or boat. Some, it was said, had journeyed in balloons. The fastest means of transportation had been death and resurrection.

  Actually, those who had killed the Chancer preachers were doing the Church a service. It ensured that the faith spread around The Riverworld in a much faster time.

  Martyrdom was a convenient means of travel, Jill thought. But it took great courage to die for your religion now when once dead always dead. She had heard that there had been a great falling away from the Church recently. Whether that was caused by the permanency of death now, or it was just that the movement had lost its steam, she did not know.

  One of the group was a man to whom she had not been introduced. Piscator had, however, pointed to him across the room and said, "John de Greystock. He lived during Edward I of England's reign. Thirteenth century? I have forgotten much of British history, though I studied it intensively when I was a naval cadet.''

  "Edward ruled from about 1270 to very early 1300, I think," Jill said. "I do remember that he ruled thirty-five years and died when he was sixty-eight. I remember it because that was a long life in those days, especially for an Englishman. Those chilly, drafty castles, you know."

  "Greystock was made a baron by Edward and accompanied him on his Gascon and Scottish expeditions," Piscator said. "I don't really know much about him. Except that he was governor of La Civito de La Animoj – Soul City in English – a little state some forty-one kilometers down-River. He came here before I did, not too long after King John stole Clemens' boat. He enlisted in Parolando's army, rose rapidly in rank, and distinguished himself during the invasion of Soul City . . ."

  "Why would Parolando invade Soul-City?" Jill said.

  "Soul City had made a sneak attack on Parolando. It wanted to get control of the meteorite iron supply here and the Not For Hire too. It almost succeeded. But Clemens and several others blew up a big dam. This had been built to store water from a mountain stream so it could be used to generate electrical power. The blowing up of the dam released many millions of liters of water. The invaders were wiped out, along with thousands of Parolandans. It also swept the aluminum and steel mills and the factories into The River. The Riverboat, too, but that was recovered almost undamaged.

  "Clemens had to rebuild almost from scratch. During our vulnerable situation, the Soul Citizens allied with some other states and attacked again. They were repulsed but with heavy losses. The Parolanders badly needed Soul City's bauxite, cryolite, cinnabar, and platinum. It had the only supply in the Valley. The bauxite and cryolite were needed to make more aluminum. Cinnabar is the ore of mercury, and platinum is used as electrical contacts for various scientific apparatuses, and as absolutely required catalysts in various chemical reactions."

  "I know that," Jill said with some asperity.

  "Forgive me," Piscator said, smiling slightly. "After the unsuccessful attack by the Soul Citizens, Greystock was made a colonel. And after Parolando's successful invasion of Soul City, he was made its governor. Clemens wanted a tough, ruthless man, and like most feudal lords, Greystock was that.

  "However, several weeks ago Soul City voluntarily became one of the states in the United States of Parolando, fully equal with the mother state.

  "Of course" – here Piscator smiled lopsidedly – "by now the supply of minerals in Soul City is almost exhausted. Project Airship doesn't need Soul City anymore. Also, through the process which Greystock calls attrition, a very euphemistic term, I fear, the original makeup of the population there has changed considerably. It was once a majority of mid–twentieth-century American blacks, with a minority of medieval Arabs – fanatical Wahhabis – and Dravidian speakers of ancient India. Because of the wars and Greystock's harsh governorship, its population became about half-white."

  "He sounds so savage," she said. "With due apologies to the savages."

  "He had several rebellions to put down. No one was forced to stay at Soul City, you know. Clemens would not permit slavery. Everybody was given a chance to leave, to go peacefully and with all his possessions elsewhere. Many citizens stayed there, swore loyalty to Parolando, but then became saboteurs."

  "Guerrilla warfare?"

  "Hardly," Piscator said. "You know that the topography just isn't fined for guerrilla activity. No. It seems that a number of Soul Citizens thought that sabotage would be a method of recreation."

  "Recreation?"

  "It gave them something to do. It was better than drifting on down The River. Besides, many of them wanted revenge.

  "To give Greystock his due, he usually just kicked any saboteurs he caught out of the state. Actually, he threw them into The River. Well, that is history, and it happened before I came here. Anyway, Greystock has come here because he wants to be a member of the airship crew."

  "But he has no qualifications!"

  "True – in one sense. He does not come from a highly technological culture, relatively speaking. But he is intelligent and curious, and he can learn. And though he was once a baron of England and governor of Soul City, he is willing to be a lowly crewman. The idea of flying fascinates him. It's akin to magic – for him. Firebrass has promised him that he can go – if there are not enough qualified airshipmen. Of course, if by chance the crew of the Graf Zeppelin or the Shenandoah should just happen to come along . . ." Piscator had smiled.

  Greystock was about 1.8 meters, a very tall height during the medieval period. His hair was black, long, and straight; his eyes, large and grey; his eyebrows, thick; his nose, slightly aquiline. His features harmonized into a ruggedly good-looking face. His shoulders were broad; his waist, narrow; his legs, thickly packed with muscle but long.

  At the moment, he was speaking to Samuelo, his grin and his tone both sarcastic. Piscator had said th
at Greystock hated priests, though he had been very devout during his Terrestrial existence. Apparently, he had never forgiven the clergy for falsely claiming to know the truth about the afterlife.

  Using Esperanto, Greystock said, "But surely you must have some idea of who and what La Viro was on Earth? What race was he? What nationality? When was he born, when died? Was he prehistoric, ancient, medieval, or what the later peoples called modern? What had he been on Earth, a religionist, agnostic, or atheist? What was his trade or profession? His education? Was he married? Did he have children? Was he a homosexual?

  "Was he unknown during his time? Or was he, perhaps, Christ? And is that why He is remaining anonymous, knowing that no one is going to believe His lies a second time?"

  Samuelo scowled, but he said, "I know little of this Christ; only what has been told me and that is not much. All I know of La Viro is what I have heard through word of mouth. They say that he is very tall, white skinned though very dark, and some say that they think he might have been Persian.

  "But all this is irrelevant. It is not his background or his physical appearance that matters. What does matter is his message."

  "Which I have heard from many preachers of your Church many times!'' Greystock said. "And which I believe no more than I do the stinking falsehoods the stinking priests offered me as God's own truths in my own time!"

  "That is your privilege, though not your right," Samuelo said.

  Grey stock looked puzzled. Jill did not understand what he meant either.

  Greystock said loudly, "All you priests talk mumbo-jumbo!" and he walked away scowling.

  Piscator, watching him, smiled. "A dangerous man. But interesting. You should get him to tell the story of his journey with an Arcturan."

  Jill's eyebrows went up.

  "Yes, he knew a being who came to Earth from a planet of the star Arcturus. Apparently, this being came with some others in a spaceship in 2002 A.D. But he was forced to kill almost all human beings. He died, too, though. It's a horrible story, but true.

  "Firebrass can give you the details. He was on Earth when it happened."

  Chapter 16

  * * *

  Eager to talk to Greystock, Jill made her way through the crowd toward him. But she was stopped by Firebrass before she could reach the Englishman.

  "A messenger just told me that radio contact's been made with the Mark Twain. Want to come along and get in on the pow-wow? You might get to talk to the great Sam Clemens himself."

  "Too right I would!" she said. "And thanks for the invitation."

  Jill followed Firebrass to the jeep, which was near the foot of the staircase. It was made of steel and aluminum and had pneumatic nylon tires. Its six-cylinder motor was fueled by wood alcohol.

  There were five passengers: Firebrass, Gulbirra, de Bergerac, Schwartz, and Hardy. The jeep took off swiftly, following the narrow valleys among the hills. Its bright beams showed the grass, closely cut by machines, huts here and there, stands of the incredibly quick-growing bamboo, some 31 meters or over 100 feet high. Leaving the hills, it sped over the plain gently sloping to The River.

  Jill could see the lights of the aluminum-processing factory, the steel mill, the distillery, the welding shop, the armory, the arms factory, the cement mill, and the government building. The latter housed the newspaper and radio station offices, and the top government officials had residences there.

  The colossal hangar was down-River and hence downwind of the other buildings. Up in the mountains to the west were strings of lights. These were on the dam constructed to replace the one that Clemens had blown up.

  The jeep passed the hangar. A steam locomotive, burning alcohol, chuff-chuffed by, hauling three flatbed cars piled with aluminum girders. It entered the blazing interior of the hangar, stopped, and a crane hook swung down to the rear car. Workers gathered around it to connect hooks to the steel cables around the girders.

  "City Hall" was the northernmost building. The jeep stopped before its porch. The riders got out and went between two massive Doric columns. Jill thought that the building was an abomination, architecturally speaking. Nor did it fit in with the surroundings. Seen from a distance, this area looked as if both the Parthenon and a section of the Ruhr had been teleported to a remote section of Tahiti.

  Firebrass' suite of offices was to the left of the entrance to the immense lobby. Six men stood guard before its entrance, each armed with a single-shot rifle firing .80-caliber plastic bullets. They also carried cutlasses and daggers. The radio "shack" was a large room next to the conference hall and Firebrass' sanctum sanctorum. They entered the former to find several men standing around the operator. He was adjusting dials on the big panel before him. On hearing the door slam open under his commander's overvigorous shove, he looked up.

  "I've been talking to Sam," he said. "But I lost him about thirty seconds ago. Hold on. I think I got him."

  A series of squeals and crackles issued from the loudspeaker. Suddenly, the interference eased off, and a voice could be heard above the noise. The operator made a final adjustment and gave up his chair to Firebrass.

  "Firebrass speaking. Is that you, Sam?"

  "No. Just a moment."

  "Sam here," a pleasant drawling voice said. "Is that you, Milt?"

  "Sure is. How are you, Sam? And what's doing?"

  "As of today, Milt, the electronic log says we've traveled 792,014 miles. You can convert that into kilometers if you wish. I prefer the old system, and that's what we're . . . well, you know that. Not bad for three years' travel, heh? But downright aggravating. A snail could go to the North Pole faster than we can, if it could go on a straight line. Or, pardon me, a great curve. It would have time to build a hotel for us and make an enormous fortune renting rooms to the walruses until we arrived. Even if the snail was traveling only a mile every twenty-four hours and we're averaging about eight hundred miles a day.

  "As of . . ." sputter, crackle "... little trouble."

  Firebrass waited until reception was clear before speaking again. "Is everything all-go, Sam?"

  "Copacetic," Sam said. "Nothing unusual has happened. Which means that there are always emergencies, always trouble, but not mutinies, among the crew. I've had to boot a few out now and then. If this keeps up, by the time we get to our million-mile mark, I'll be the only person who was on the boat when it left Parolando."

  More crackles. Then Jill heard a voice that was so deep, so bottom-of-the-well, that cold ran over her neck.

  Sam said, "Yeah? Oh, all right, I forgot you, though that's not easy with you breathing booze down my neck. Joe says he'll still be here, too. He wants to say hello to you. Joe, say hello."

  "Hello, Milt."

  Thunder in a barrel.

  "How're thingth going? Thwell, I hope. Tham here, he'th kinda thad becauthe hith girl friend left him. Thye'll be back, though, I think. He'th been havingk bad dreamth about that Erik Bloodakthe again. I told him if he'd lay off the boothe, he'd be okay. He hathn't got any ekthcyuthe to drink, thinthe he hath me ath a thyining ekthample of thobriety."

  Jill looked at Hardy, saying, "What the . . ."

  Hardy grinned and said, "Yeth, he lithpth. Joe Miller is as big as two Goliaths put together but he lisps. Joe belongs to a species of subhuman .which Sam named Titanthropus clemensi, though actually I think Joe's kind is really just a giant variant of Homo sapiens. Anyway, it became extinct an estimated fifty thousand to one hundred thousand years ago. He and Sam met many years ago, and they've been real pals since. Damon and Pythias. Roland and Oliver."

  "More like Mutt and Jeff or Laurel and Hardy," someone muttered.

  Hardy said, "Hardy?"

  Firebrass said, "Mute it. Okay, Sam. Everything's in orbit. We got a great new candidate, real first-class officer material. Australian, named Jill Gulbirra. She's got over eight hundred hours dirigible experience and she has an engineering degree. How do you like that?"

  Crackle. Then, "A woman?"

  "Yeah, Sam, I know the
y didn't have female riverboat pilots or railroad engineers in your day. But in my day we had women airplane pilots and horse jockeys and even astronauts!"

  Jill unfroze and started forward. "Let me talk to him," she said. "I'll tell that son of a bitch . . ."

  "He isn't objecting. He's just surprised," Firebrass said, looking up at her. "Take it easy. What do you care? He's all right. Even if he wasn't, he couldn't do anything. I'm Numero Uno here.

  "Sam, she said she's pleased to meet you."

  "I heard her," Sam said, and he chuckled. "Listen . . ." Crackle, hiss, sputter. ". . . when?"

  "Static shot that all to hell,'' Firebrass said. "And you're drifting off. I don't think we can keep contact much longer. So here goes, fast. I'm a long way from having a full crew, but it'll be a year before the big ship's finished. By then I might have enough. If not, what the hell? Airplane pilots and mechanics are a dime a dozen and they can be trained for dirigible operation.

  "Listen."

  He paused, looked around – though why Jill did not know – and said, "Heard from X? Have ..."

  Static rolled over his voice, chewed it up, and wouldn't let go of the pieces. After trying for several minutes to get hold of Clemens again, Firebrass gave up.

  Jill said to Hardy, "What is this about hearing from X?"

  "I don't know," the New Englander said. "Firebrass says it's a private joke between Sam and him."

  Firebrass turned off the radio and got up from his chair. "It's getting late, and we have a lot to do tomorrow. Do you want Willy to drive you home, Jill?"

  "I don't need anyone to protect me," she said. "And I don't mind walking. No thanks."

  Covered with the magnetically attached towels, she walked across the plain. Before she had reached the first hill, she saw clouds racing across the blazing sky. She took a stick of dreamgum from her shoulderbag, tore off half of it, and thrust it into her mouth. It had been years since she had chewed it.