The Fabulous Riverboat

by Philip José Farmer

  Sam fell into bed and the next morning, for the first time, refused to get up before dawn. But the next day he rose as usual.

  Sam and John sent a message to Iyeyasu that they would regard it as a hostile act if he invaded the rest of the Ulmak territory or Chernsky's Land.

  Iyeyasu replied that he had not intention of waging war on these lands, and he proved it by invading the state just north of his, Sheshshub's Land. Sheshshub, an Assyrian born in the seventh century B.C., had been a general of Sargon II, and so, like most powerful people on Earth, had become a leader on the Riverworld. He gave Iyeyasu a good fight, but the invaders were more numerous.

  Iyeyasu was one worry. There were plenty of others to keep Sam going day and night. Hacking finally sent a message, through Firebrass, that Parolando should quit stalling He wanted the amphibian promised so long ago. Sam had kept pleading technical difficulties, but Firebrass told him that was no longer acceptable. So the Firedragon II was reluctantly shipped off.

  Sam made a visit to Chernsky to reassure him that Parolando would defend Cernskujo. Coming back, a half mile upwind of the factories, Sam almost gagged. He had been living so long in the acid-bath-cum-smoke atmosphere that he had gotten used to it, but any vacation from it cleansed his lungs. It was like stepping into a glue-and-sulphur factory. And, though the wind was a fifteen mph breeze, it did not carry the smoke away swiftly enough. The air definitely was hazy. No wonder, he thought, that Publiujo, to the south, complained.

  But the boat continued to grow. Standing before the front port of his pilothouse, Sam could look out every morning and be consoled for his toil and tiredness and for the hideousness and stench of the land. In another six months, the three decks would be completed, and the great paddle-wheels would be installed. Then a plastic coating would be put over that part of the hull which would come into contact with water. This plastic would not only prevent electrolysis of the magnalium, it would reduce the water turbulence, thus adding ten mph to the boat's speed.

  During this time, Sam received some good news. Tungsten and iridium had been found in Selinujo, the country just south of SoulCity. The report was brought by the prospector, who trusted no one else to transmit it. He also brought some bad news. Selina Hastings refused to let Parolando mine there. In fact, if she had known that a Parolandano was digging along her mountain, she would have thrown him out. She did not want to be unfriendly; indeed, she loved Sam Clemens, since he was a human being. But she did not approve of the Riverboat, and she would not permit anything to go out of her land that would help build the vessel.

  Sam erupted, and, as Joe said, "Thyot blue thyit for mileth around." The tungsten was very much needed for hardening their machine tools but even more for the radios and, eventually, the closed-circuit TV sets. The iridium could be used to harden their platinum for various uses, for scientific instruments, surgical tools and for pen points.

  The Mysterious Stranger had told Sam that he had set up the deposit of minerals here but that his fellow Ethicals did not know that he had done so. Along with the bauxite, cryolite, and platinum would be tungsten and iridium. But an error had been made, and the latter two metals had been deposited several miles south of the first three.

  Sam did not tell John at once, because he needed time to think about the situation. John, of course, would want to demand that the metals be traded to Parolando or that war be declared.

  While he was pacing back and forth in the pilothouse, clouding the room with green smoke, he heard drums. They were using a code which he did not know but recognized, after a minute, as that used by SoulCity. A few minutes later, Firebrass was at the foot of the ladder.

  "Sinjoro Hacking knows all about the discovery of tungsten and iridium in Selinujo. He says that if you can come to an agreement with Selina, fine. But don't invade her land. He'd regard that as a declaration of war on SoulCity."

  Sam looked out the starboard port past Firebrass. "Here comes John hot-footing it," he said. "He's heard the news, too. His spy system is almost as good as yours, a few minutes less good, I'd say. I don't know where the leaks in my system are, but they're so wide that I'd be sunk if I was a boat, and I may be anyway."

  John, his eyes inflamed, his face red, and puffing and panting, entered. Since the introduction of grain alcohol, he had put on even more fat, and he seemed to be half drunk all the time and all drunk half the time.

  Sam was angered, but at the same time, he was amused. John would have liked to summon him to his palace, in keeping with his dignity as ex-King of England. But he knew that Sam would not come for a long time, if at all, and meanwhile there was no telling how much hankypanky Firebrass and Sam would manufacture. "What's going on?" John said, glaring.

  "You tell me," Sam said. "You seem to know more about the shady side of affairs than I do."

  "None of your wisecracks!" John said. Without being asked, he poured out a quart of purple passion into a stein. "I know what that message is about, even if I don't know the code!"

  "I thought as much," Sam said. "For your information, in case you missed anything . . ." and he told him what Firebrass had said.

  "The arrogance of you blacks is unendurable," John said. "You are telling Parolando, a sovereign state, how it must conduct itself in vital business. Well, I say you can't! We will get those metals, one way or the other! Selinujo doesn't need them; we do! It can't hurt Selinujo to give them up! We will give a fair trade!"

  "In what?" Firebrass said. "Selinujo doesn't want weapons or alcohol. What can you trade?" "Peace, freedom from war!"

  Firebrass shrugged and grinned, thus incensing John even more.

  "Sure," Firebrass said, "you can make your offer. But what Hacking says still goes."

  "Hacking has no love for Selinujo," Sam said. "He kicked out all the Second Chancers, black or white."

  "That's because they were preaching immediate pacifism. They also preach, and apparently practice, love for all, regardless of color, but Hacking says they're a danger to the state. The blacks have to protect themselves, otherwise they would be enslaved all over again." "The blacks?" Sam said. "Us blacks!" Firebrass replied, grinning.

  This was not the first time Firebrass had given the impression that he was not so deeply concerned with skin color. His identification with blacks, as such, was weak. His life had not been untouched by racial prejudice, but it had not been much affected. And he said things now and then that indicated that he would like a berth on the boat All this, of course, could be a put-on.

  "We'll negotiate with Sinjorino Hastings," Sam said. "It would be nice to have radios and TV for the boat, and the machine shops could use the tungsten. But we can get along without them."

  He winked at John to indicate that he should take this line. But John was as stone-headed as usual.

  "What we do with Selinujo is our problem, nobody else's!"

  "I'll tell Hacking," Firebrass said. "But Hacking is a strong person. He won't take any crap from anybody, least of all white capitalist imperialists." Sam choked, and John stared.

  "That's what he regards you as!" Firebrass said. "And the way he defines those terms, you are what he says you are."

  "Because I want this boat so badly!" Sam shouted. "Do you know what this boat is for, what its ultimate goal . . . ?"

  He fought back his anger, sobbing with the effort. He felt dizzy. For a moment, he had almost told about the Stranger. "What is it?" Firebrass said.

  "Nothing," Sam replied. "Nothing. I just want to get to the headwaters of The River, that's all. Maybe the secret of this whole shebang is there? Who knows? But I certainly don't like criticism from someone who just wants to sit around on his dead black ass and collect soul brothers. If he wants to do that, more power to him, but I still hold to integration as the ideal. And I'm a Missouri white born in 1835! So how's that for going against your heritage and your environment? The point is, if I don't use the siderite metal to build a boat, which is designed for travel only, not for aggression, then someone else will. And
that someone else may use it to conquer and to hold, instead of for tourist purposes.

  "Now, we've gone along with Hacking's demands, paid his jacked-up prices for the ones when we could have gone down there and taken them from him. John's apologized for what he called you and Hacking, and if you think it's easy for a Plantagenet to do that, you don't know your history. It's too bad about the way Hacking feels. I don't know that I blame him. Of course, he hates whites. But this is not Earth! Conditions are radically different here!"

  "But people bring their attitudes along with them," Firebrass said. "Their hates and loves, dislikes and likes, prejudices, reactions, everything." "But they can change!"

  Firebrass grinned. "Not according to your philosophy. Rather, not unless mechanical forces change them. So, Hacking isn't determined by anything to change his attitude. Why should he? He's experienced the same exploitation and contempt here as he did on Earth."

  "I don't want to argue about that," Sam said. "I'll tell you what I think we should do!"

  He stopped and stared out the port. The whitish-gray hull and upper works gleamed in the sun. How beautiful! And she was, in a sense, all his! She was worth everything he was being put through!

  "I'll tell you what," he said more slowly. "Why doesn't Hacking come up here? Pay a little visit? He can look around, see for himself what we're doing. See our problems. Maybe he'll appreciate our problems, see we're not blue-eyed devils who want to enslave him. In fact, the more he helps us, the sooner he'll be rid of us."

  "I'll give him your message," Firebrass said. "Maybe he'll want to do that."

  "We'll greet him in style," Sam said. "A twenty-one gun salute, big reception, food, liquor, gifts. He'll see we aren't such bad fellows after all."

  John spat. "Pah!" but he said no more. He knew that Sam's proposal was best.

  Three days later, Firebrass brought a message. Hacking would come, after Parolando and Selinujo had agreed on the disposition of the metals.

  Sam felt like a rusty old boiler in a Mississippi steamboat. A few more pounds of pressure, and he would blow sky-high. "Sometimes, I think you're right!" he shouted at John.

  Maybe we should just take over these countries and get done with!"

  "Of course," John said smoothly. "Now, it is obvious that that ex-Countess Huntingdon – she must be descended from my old enemy, the Earl of Huntingdon – is not going to give in. She is a religious fanatic, a nut, as you say. And SoulCity will fight us if we invade Selinujo. Hacking can't go back on his word. And he's stronger now that we've given him the Firedragon II. But I say nothing about that; I do not reproach you. I have been thinking much about this mess."

  Sam stopped pacing and looked at John. John had been thinking. Shadows would be moving inside shadows; daggers would be unsheathed; the air would get gray and chill with stealth and intrigue; blood would spurt. And the sleeping would do well to stir.

  "I do not say that I have been in contact with Iyeyasu, our powerful neighbor to the north," John said. He was slumped down in the tall-backed red leather-covered chair and staring into the purple passion in the tilted stem.

  "But I have information, or means of getting it. I am certain that Iyeyasu, who feels very strong indeed, would like to acquire even more territory. And he would like to do us a favor. In return for certain payments, of course. Say, an amphibian and a flying machine? He is wild to fly one of those himself, you know? Or didn't you?

  "If he attacked Selinujo, Hacking could not blame us. And if SoulCity and Iyeyasujo fought, and SoulCity was destroyed and Iyeyasujo weakened, how could that fail to benefit us? Moreover, I happen to have learned that Chernsky has made a secret compact with SoulCity and Tifonujo to fight if any of them are invaded by Iyeyasu. Certainly, the resultant carnage would find them weakened and us strengthened. We could then take them over or at least do what we wished without interference. In any case, we would ensure that we had uncontrolled access to the bauxite and the tungsten."

  That skull under that mass of tawny hair must hold a thunder-mug full of worms. Worms that fed on corruption and intrigue and deviousness. He was so crooked, he was admirable.

  "Did you ever meet yourself coming around a corner?" Sam said.

  "What?" John said, looking up. "Is this another of your unintelligible insults?"

  "Believe me, it's as close to a compliment as you'll ever get – from me. Of course, it's all hypothetical. But if Iyeyasu did attack Selinujo, what excuse would he have? They've never offended him, and they're sixty miles away from him on our side of The River."

  "When did one nation ever need a reasonable excuse for invasion?" John said. "But the fact is that Selinujo keeps sending missionaries into Iyeyasujo, though he has kicked out all Chancers. Since Selinujo won't stop doing this, then . . ."

  "Well," Sam said, "I couldn't let Parolando get involved in a deal like this. But if Iyeyasu decides on his own to fight, there's nothing we can do about it." "And you call me dishonest!"

  "There's nothing I could do about it!" Sam said, clamping down on his cigar. "Nothing! And if something develops that's good for the boat, then we'll take advantage of it."

  "The shipments from SoulCity would be held up while the fighting was going on," John said.

  "We've got enough stock to keep going for a week. The big worry would be wood. Maybe Iyeyasu would be able to keep that coming even with a war going on, since the fighting will be south of us. We could handle the chopping and transportation ourselves. If he didn't intend to invade for a couple of weeks, we could lay in extra stocks of ore from SoulCity by offering them increased payments. Maybe promise them an airplane, the APM-1. That's just a toy, now that we've almost got our first amphibian airplane finished. All this is hypothetical, you understand?"

  "I understand," John said. He was not trying to mask his contempt.

  Sam felt like shouting at him that he had no right to be contemptuous. Whose idea had it been, anyway?

  It was the next day that the three chief engineers were killed.

  Sam was there when it happened. He was standing on the scaffolding by the starboard side of the boat, looking down into the open hull. The colossal steam crane was lifting the immense electric motor which would be driving the port paddle-wheel. The motor had been moved during the night from the big building where it had been built. The moving had taken over eight hours and had been effected by the crane, which also had a gigantic winch. The winch, plus hundreds of men pulling on cables, had pulled the motor on its big car, which moved on steel rails.

  Sam got up at dawn to watch the final work, the lifting and then the lowering of the motor into the hull and its attachment to the paddle-wheel axle. The three engineers were standing down in the bottom of the hull. Sam called down to them to get away, that they were too vulnerable if the motor should drop. But the engineers were stationed in three different places so that they could transmit signals to the men on the port scaffolding, who, in turn, were signaling the crane operator.

  Van Boom turned to look up at Sam, and his teeth flashed whitely in his dark face. His skin looked purplish in the light of the big electric lamps.

  And then it happened. A cable snapped, and another cable snapped, and the motor swung out to one side. The engineers froze for a second and then they ran, but they were too late. The motor fell to one side and crushed all three of them.

  The impact shook the great hull and the vibrations made the scaffolding on which Sam stood quiver as if a quake were passing through the land. Blood ran out from under the motor.

  Chapter 24

  * * *

  It took five hours to put in new cables on the crane, secure these to the motor and lift the motor. The bodies were removed, the hull washed out and then the motor was lowered again. A close inspection had determined that the damage to the motor casing would not affect the operation of the motor.

  Sam was so depressed that he would have liked to have gone to bed and remained there for a week. But he could not do so. The work had to go on, and
while there were good men who would see to it that it did go on, Sam did not want them to know how shaken he was.

  Sam had many engineers, but Van Boom and Velitsky were the only ones from the twentieth century. Though he had advertised by word of mouth and through the drum systems for more, he had gotten none.

  The third day, he asked Firebrass into his pilothouse for a private conference. After giving him a cigar and scotch, he asked him if he would be his chief engineer. Firebrass' cigar almost dropped out of his mouth.

  "Steer me, sty-mate! Do I read you unfrosted? You want me as your number one dillion?" "Maybe we should talk in Esperanto," Sam said.

  "Okay," Firebrass said. "I'll bring it down to dirt. Just what do you want?"

  "I'd like you to get permission to work for me on a temporary basis, supposedly." "Supposedly?"

  "If you want it, the position is permanently yours. The day the boat sets out on the long journey, you can be its chief engineer."

  Firebrass sat silent for a long time. Sam got up and paced back and forth. Occasionally, he looked out the ports. The crane had put in the starboard motor, and now it was lowering parts of the batacitor into the hull. This would be thirty-six feet high when all the parts were secured together. After it was installed, a trial run would check the operation of the batacitor and the motors. A double cable, six inches thick, would be run out for two hundred feet and its free end, attached to a large shallow hemisphere, would be slipped onto the top of the nearest grailstone. When the stone delivered its tremendous electrical energy, the energy would be transmitted by the cables into the batacitor, which would store it, and then the energy would be drawn out at a controlled rate to power the electrical motors.

  Sam turned away from the port. "It's not as if I were asking you to betray your country," he said. "In the first place, all you have to do now is to request permission from Hacking to work for me on the building of the boat. Later, you can make up your mind about going with us. Which would you rather do? Stay in SoulCity where there is actually little to do except indulge yourself? Or go with us on the greatest adventure of all?"