The Fabulous Riverboat

by Philip José Farmer

  Chapter 17

  * * *

  There were 1,000 people in Parolando, but the Riverboat would be taking only one hundred and twenty. Twenty of these already knew for sure they would be going. Sam and Joe Miller, Lothar von Richthofen, Van Boom, de Bergerac, Odysseus, three engineers, King John, and their hut-mates had been promised. The rest would know whether or not they had worked for nothing a few days before the boat sailed. At that time, the names would be written on slips of paper and placed inside a big wire cage. The cage would be whirled around and around, and then Sam would stop it, and, blindfolded, would reach in and pull out, one after the other, one hundred names. And these lucky ones would be the crew of the Not For Hire.

  The Not For Hire had about 5,000,000 miles to travel, if the Stranger could be believed. Averaging about 335 miles every twenty-four hours, it would take over forty-one years to reach the end of The River. But it would not average that much, of course. The crew would have to put into shore for extensive vacations on land and repairs would have to be made. In fact, the Riverboat might wear out, although Sam planned on taking many spare parts. Once the boat was on its way it could not put back for parts or pick them up anywhere else. There would be no metal of any consequence from this place on.

  It was strange to think that he would be about one hundred and forty years old when he got to the headwaters of The River.

  But what was that when he had thousands of years of youth to go?

  He looked through the bow ports. The plain was full of people streaming down from the hills to the factories. Behind him the hills would be alive with others on their way to the factories in the hills. A small army would be working on the big dam to the northwest, near the base of the mountains. A concrete wall was being constructed between two steep hills to dam up the water flowing from a spring near the top of the mountain. When the lake behind the dam was full, its overflow would drive electrical generators to power the mills.

  At present, the electrical energy needed came from a grailstone. A giant step-down transformer of aluminum took the energy three times a day, sent it through brobdingnagian aluminum wires to a two-story device known as the batacitor. This was a late-twentieth-century electronic discovery that could accept hundreds of kilovolts in a hundredth of a microsecond and could discharge it at any rate from a tenth of a volt to one hundred kilovolts. It was the prototype of the batacitor that would be put on the Riverboat. At present the energy was chiefly used in a cutting device made by van Boom that sliced through the pieces of nickel-iron dug up on the plain. The energy could also be moderated to melt the metal. The aluminum for the wires and the batacitor had been laboriously and expensively made from aluminum silicate derived from the clay under the grass along the base of the mountains. But that supply had run out and now the only economically feasible source was in SoulCity.

  Sam sat down at his desk, pulled out a drawer and removed a tall book bound in fish-bladder leather and with pages of bamboo-fiber paper. It was his diary, The Memoirs of a Lazarus. For the time being he was using ink made of water and tannic acid from oak bark and of carbon from finely ground charcoal-in-suspension to write down day-by-day happenings and his reflections. When the technology of Parolando was improved enough, he would use the electronic recorder that van Boom had promised him.

  He had no sooner started writing than the drums began beating. The big bass drums represented dashes; the small soprano drums, dots. The code was Morse; the language, Esperanto. Von Richthofen would be landing in a few minutes.

  Sam stood up to look out again. A half a mile away was the bamboo catamaran on which Lothar von Richthofen had sailed downRiver only ten days ago. Through the starboard ports Sam saw a squat figure with tawny hair coming out of the gateway of King John's log palace. Behind him came bodyguards and sycophants.

  King John was making sure that von Richthofen did not give Sam Clemens any secret messages from Elwood Hacking.

  The ex-monarch of England, present co-ruler of Parolando, wore a kilt with red and black checks, a poncho-like arrangement of towels, and knee-length, red-leather Riverdragon boots. Around his thick waist was a wide belt with a number of sheaths containing steel daggers, a short sword, and a steel ax. One hand held a steel rod coronet, one of many sources of contention between Sam and King John. Sam did not want to waste metal on such useless anachronisms, but John had insisted and Sam had given in.

  Sam found some satisfaction now in thinking about the name of his little nation. Parolando in Esperanto meant pair land and was so called because two men governed it. But Sam had not mentioned to John that another translation could be TwainLand.

  John followed a hard-dirt path around a long, low factory building, and then he was at the foot of the staircase of Sam's quarters. His bodyguard, a big thug named Sharkey, pulled the bell rope and the little bell tinkled.

  Sam stuck his head out and shouted, "Come aboard, John!"

  John looked up at him from pale blue eyes and motioned to Sharkey to precede him. John was cautious about assassins, and he had reason to be. He was also resentful about having had to come to Sam, but he had known that von Richthofen would report to Sam first.

  Sharkey entered, inspected Sam's pilothouse and looked through the three rooms of the texas. Sam heard a growl, as low and powerful as a lion's, from the rear bedroom. Sharkey came back swiftly and closed the door. Sam smiled and said, "Joe Miller may be sick, but he can still eat ten Polish prizefighters for breakfast and call for a second helping."

  Sharkey did not reply. He signaled through the port that John could come up without fear of being ambushed.

  The catamaran was beached now, and the tiny figure of von Richthofen was coming across the plain, holding his grail in one hand and the wooden winged ambassadorial staff in the other. Through the other port Sam could see the lanky figure of de Bergerac leading a platoon toward the south wall. Livy was not in sight. John entered. Sam said, "Bonan matenon, Johano!"

  It galled John that Sam refused to address him as Via Rega Mosto – Your Majesty – in private. La Konsulo – the Consul – was their correct title and even that came reluctantly from Sam's lips. Sam encouraged others to call him La Estro, The Boss, because that angered John even more.

  John grunted and sat down at the round table. Another bodyguard, a big dark proto-Mongolian with massive bones and immensely powerful muscles, Zaksksromb, who presumably had died about 30,000 B.C., lit up a huge brown cigar for John. Zak, as he was known, was the strongest man in Parolando, with the exception of Joe Miller. And it could be argued that Joe Miller was not a man – or, at least, certainly not Homo sapiens.

  Sam wished Joe would get out of bed. Zak made him nervous. But Joe was sedating himself with dreamgum. Two days ago a chunk of siderite had slipped from a crane's tongs as Joe was passing beneath it. The operator swore it had been an accident, but Sam had his suspicions.

  Sam puffed on his cigar and said, "Hear anything about your nephew lately?"

  John did not start, but his eyes did widen a trifle. He looked at Sam across the table. "No, should I?"

  "I just wondered. I've been thinking about asking Arthur down for a conference. There's no reason why you two should be trying to kill each other. This isn't Earth, you know. Why can't we call off old feuds? What if you did drop him off in a sack into the estuary? Let bygones be bygones. We could use his wood, and we need more limestone for calcium carbonate and magnesium. He's got plenty." John glared, then hooded his eyes and smiled.

  Tricky John, Sam thought. Smooth John. Despicable John.

  "To get wood and limestone we'd have to pay with steel arms." John said. "I'm not about to permit my dear nephew to get his hands on more steel."

  "Just thought I'd broach the subject to you," Sam said, "because at noon . . . " John stiffened. "Yes?"

  "Well, I thought I'd bring up the subject to the Council. We might have a vote on it." John relaxed. "Oh?"

  Sam thought, You think you're safe. You've got Pedro Anseurez and Frederick
Rolfe on your side and a five-to-three vote in the Council is a nay vote . . .

  Once again he contemplated suspending the Magna Carta so that things could be done that needed to be done. But that might mean civil war and that could mean the end of the dream.

  He paced back and forth while John described in a loud voice and sickening detail his latest conquest of his latest blonde. Sam tried to ignore the words; he still got mad because the man boasted, although by now any woman who accepted John had only herself to blame.

  The little bell tinkled. Lothar von Richtofen entered. He was now wearing his hair long and so, with his handsome, somewhat Slavic, features, he looked like a less stocky and better-looking Göring. The two had known each other well during World War I, since both had served 'under Baron Manfred von Richthofen, Lothar's older brother. Lothar was a wild, brash, and essentially likable person, but this morning his smiles and his debonair bearing were gone. "What's the bad news?" Sam said.

  Lothar took the cup of bourbon that Sam offered, downed it, and said, "Sinjoro Hacking has just about finished putting up fortifications. SoulCity has walls twelve feet high and ten thick on all fronts. Hacking was nasty to "me, very nasty. He called me an ofejo and a honkio, words new to me. I did not care to ask him for an explanation."

  "Ofejo might be from the English ofay," Sam said, "but I never heard the other word. Honkio?"

  "You'll hear those words a lot in the future," Lothar said, "if you deal with Hacking. And you will. Hacking finally got down to business after spewing out a torrent of abuse, mostly about my Nazi ancestors. I never heard of the Nazis on Earth, you know, since I died in a plane crash in 1922. He seemed to be angry about something – maybe his anger had nothing to do with me originally. But the essence of his speech was that he might cut off the bauxite and other minerals."

  Sam leaned on the table until things came back into focus. Then he said, "I'll take a shot of Kentucky courage myself."

  Von Richthofen continued, "It seems that Hacking isn't too happy with the makeup of his state. It's one-fourth Harlem blacks who died between 1960 and 1980, you know, and one-eighth eighteenth-century Dahomeyan blacks. But he has a one-fourth non-black population of fourteenth-century Wahhabi Arabs, fanatics who still claim that Mohammed is their prophet and they're here just for a short trial period. Then there is the one-fourth composed of thirteenth-century, Asiatic-Indian, Dravidian, black-skinned Caucasians, and one-eighth of people from anywhere and anytime. A slight majority of the one-eighth is twentieth-century."

  Sam nodded. Though resurrected humanity consisted of persons who lived from 2,000,000 B.C. to A.D. 2008, one-fourth had been born after A.D. 1899 – if estimates were correct.

  "Hacking wants his SoulCity to be almost entirely black. He said that he had believed that integration was possible when he lived on Earth. The young whites of his day were free of the racial prejudices of their elders and he had known hope. But there aren't too many of his former white contemporaries in his land. And the Wahhabi Arabs are driving him out of his mind. Hacking became a Moslem on Earth, did you know that? First, he was a Black Muslim, an American home-grown variety. Then he became a real Moslem, made a pilgrimage to Mecca and was quite certain that the Arabs, even if they were white, were not racists.

  "But the massacre of the Sudanese blacks by the Sudanese Arabs and the history of Arabic enslavement of blacks disturbed him. Anyway, these nineteenth-century Wahhabi are not racist – they're just religious fanatics and too much trouble. He didn't say so, but I was there ten days and I saw enough. The Wahhabis want to convert SoulCity to their brand of Moslemism, and if they can't do it peacefully, they'll do it bloodily. Hacking wants to get rid of them and the Dravidians, who seem to regard themselves as superior to Africans of any color. Anyway, Hacking will continue to furnish us bauxite if we will send him all our black citizens in return for his Wahhabi and Dravidian citizens. Plus an increased amount of steel arms. Plus a larger share in the raw siderite."

  Sam groaned. King John spat on the floor. Sam scowled and said, "Merdo, Johano! Not even a Plantagenet gobs on my floor! Use the spittoon or get out!"

  He forced himself to push down his rage and frustration as King John bristled. Now was not a time to bring about a confrontation. The vainglorious ex-monarch would never back down on the spitting issue, which was, in reality, trifling.

  Sam gestured self-deprecatingly and said, "Forget about it, John. Spit all you want to!" But he could not resist adding: "As long as I have the same privilege in your house, of course."

  John growled and popped a chocolate into his mouth. He used the growling, grinding voice that indicated that he, too, was very angry but was imposing great self-control. "This Saracen, Hacking, gets too much. I say we have kissed his black hand long enough. His demands have slowed down the building of the ship –"

  "Boat, John," Sam said. "It's a boat, not a ship."

  "Boato, smoato. I say, let us conquer SoulCity, put the citizens to the sword, and seize the minerals. Then we will be able to make aluminum on the spot. In fact, we could build the boat there. And, to make sure that we were not interfered with, we should conquer all the states between us and SoulCity." Power-mad John.

  Yet, Sam was inclined to think that he might, for once, be right. In a month or so Parolando would have the weapons that would enable it to do just what John was proposing. Except that Publia was friendly and its bills were not high, and Tifonujo, though it demanded much, had permitted itself to be stripped of trees. It was, however, possible that both states planned to use the nickel-iron they got for their wood to make weapons so that they could attack Parolando.

  The savages across The River were probably planning the same thing.

  "I'm not through," von Richthofen said. "Hacking made his demands about the trading of citizens on a one-to-one basis. But he won't come to any agreement unless we send a black to deal with him. He says he was insulted when you sent me, since I'm a Prussian and a Junkers to boot. "But he'll overlook that, since we don't know any better, if we send him a member of the Council the next time. One who's black." Sam's cigar almost fell out. "We don't have a black Councilman!"

  "Exactly. What Hacking is saying is that we had better elect one."

  John passed both hands through his shoulder-length tawny hair and then stood up. His pale blue eyes were fiery under the lion-colored eyebrows.

  "This Saracen thinks he can tell us how to conduct our internal affairs. I say, War!"

  Sam said, "Now, just a minute, Your Majesty. You have good reason to be mad, as the old farmer said when he fell in, but the truth is, we can defend ourselves quite well – but we cannot invade and occupy any large territory."

  "Occupy?" John shouted. "We will slaughter half and chain the other half!"

  "The world changed much after you died, John – uh, Your Majesty. Admittedly there are other forms of slavery than the outright form, but I don't want to get into an argument about definitions. There is no use making a fuss, as the fox said to the hens. We just appoint another Councilman, pro tem. And we send him to Hacking."

  "There is no provision in the Magna Carta for a pro tern Councilman," Lothar said. "We change the Carta," Sam said. "That'll take a popular election."

  John snorted disgust. He and Sam Clemens had gone through too many blazing arguments about the rights of the people.

  "There's one other thing," Lothar said, still smiling but with an exasperated note in his voice. "Hacking asks that Firebrass be allowed to visit here for a tour of inspection. Firebrass is especially interested in seeing our airplane." John sputtered. "He asks if we care if he sends a spy!"

  "I don't know," Sam said. "Firebrass is Hacking's chief of staff. He might get a different idea of us. He's an engineer – I think he had a PhD, too, in physics. I've heard about him. What did you find out, Lothar?"

  "He impressed me very much," von Richthofen said. "He was born in 1974 in Syracuse, New York. His father was black, and his mother was half Irish and half Iroquois Indian
. He was in the second party to land on Mars and the first to orbit Jupiter – "

  Sam was thinking, Men really did that! Landed on the Moon and then Mars. Right out of Jules Verne and Frank Reade, Jr. Fantastic, yet no more fantastic than this world. Or, indeed, than the mundane world of 1910. None of it could be explained in a manner to satisfy any reasonable man. It was all incredible. "We'll put it up to the Council today, John," Sam said,

  if you have no objection. We'll have a general election on the pro tem Councilman. I personally favor Uzziah Cawber."

  "Cawber was a slave, wasn't he?" Lothar said. "I don't know. Hacking said he didn't want any Uncle Toms."

  Once a slave, always a slave, Sam thought. Even when a slave revolts, kills, and is killed as a protest against his slavery – resurrected, he still does not think of himself as a free man. He was born and raised in a world soaked with the rotten essence of slavedom and every thought he thinks, every move he makes is stained with slavery, subtly altered with slavery. Cawber was born in 1841 in Montgomery, Alabama, he was taught to read and write, he served in the house of his master as his secretary, he killed his master's son in 1863, escaped, and went West and became a cowboy, of all things, and then a miner. He was killed with a Sioux spear in 1876; the ex-slave killed by a man about to become a slave. Cawber is delighted with this world – or claims to be – because no man can enslave him here or keep him enslaved. But he is the slave of his own mind and of the reaction of his nerves. Even when he holds his head high, he will jump if somebody cracks a whip, and his head will bow before he can stop it . . .

  Why, oh, why had man been brought back to life? Men and women were rained by what had happened on Earth, and they would never be able to undo the damage. The Second Chancers claimed a man could change, entirely change. But the Second Chancers were a pack of dreamgummers.

  "If Hacking calls Cawber an Uncle Tom, Cawber will kill him," Sam said. "I say, let's send him."