Riverworld Short Stories

by Philip José Farmer

  Only Yeshua demurred.

  “I cannot take a human life.”

  Tom said, in an exasperated tone, “You won’t be doing that! Not in the sense we knew on Earth! You’ll be giving your man his life! And saving him from torture!”

  A man said, “He doesn’t have to take anybody’s life. He can volunteer to be one of those that’ll die.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Tom said. “How about it, Yeshua?”

  “No. That would make me a collaborator in murder, hence, a murderer, even if the one murdered was myself. Besides, that would be suicide, and I cannot kill myself. That, too, would be a sin, against…”

  He bit his lower lip.

  “Look!” Tom said. “We don’t have time to argue. The guards are getting mighty curious now. First thing you know, they’ll be storming in here.”

  “That is what you want,” Yeshua said.

  Angrily, Tom cried out, “I don’t know what you did or where you were when you were on Earth, but whatever it was or whoever you were, you really haven’t changed! I’ve heard you say you’ve lost your religion, yet you act like you haven’t lost a shred of it! You don’t believe in God anymore, yet you were just about to spout off about not going against God! Are you crazy, man?”

  “I think I’ve been crazy all my life,” Yeshua said. “But there are some things I will not do. They are against my principles, even though I no longer believe in The Principle.”

  By then the captain of the guards was shouting at the prisoners, demanding to know what they were up to.

  “Forget the mad Jew,” a woman said. “Let’s get this over with before they get here.”

  “Line up then,” Mix said.

  All except Yeshua got into one of two lines in which each person faced another. That was just as well since they were, without him, even-numbered. Opposite Mix was a woman, a brunette whom he vaguely remembered seeing in New Albion. She was pale and trembling but game enough.

  He lifted the chamberpot by its rim and said, “You call it.”

  He swung the brown pot up, loosed it, and watched it turn over and over. Sixty-two pairs of eyes were fastened upon it.

  “Open end!” The woman called out loudly but shakily.

  The container, turning, fell. It landed on its bottom and cracked in two.

  “Don’t hesitate!” Tom shouted. “We don’t have much time, and you might lose your nerve!”

  The woman closed her eyes as Tom stepped up to her and gripped her throat. For a few seconds she held her arms out at right angles to her body. She was attempting to put up no resistance, to make the job easier for him and quicker for her. The will to live was, however, too strong for her. She grabbed his wrists and tried to break his grip. Her eyes opened wide as if she were pleading with him. He squeezed her throat more tightly. She writhed and kicked, driving her knee up between his legs. He bent away though not swiftly enough to avoid getting the knee in the belly.

  “Hell, this ain’t going to work!” he said.

  He released her. Her face was blue by then, and she was gasping. He hit her in the chin, and she dropped onto the ground. Before she could regain consciousness, he was choking her again. It only took a few seconds to still her breath. Wanting to make sure, he held on a little longer.

  “You’re the lucky one, sister,” he said, and he rose.

  The people in his line, which had won the toss or lost it, depending upon the viewpoint, were having the same trouble he’d had. Though the other line had agreed beforehand not to fight against their stranglers, most of them had been unable to keep their promise. Some had torn loose and were slugging it out with their would-be killers. A few were running away, pursued. Some were dead, and some were now trying to choke their chokers.

  He looked at the big gate. It was swinging open. Behind it was a horde of guards, all armed with spears.

  “Stop it!” he roared. “It’s too late now! Attack the guards!”

  Without waiting to see how many had heard him, he ran toward the first of the spearmen. He yelled to give himself courage and to startle the guards into self-defence. But what did they have to fear from an unarmed, naked, and enfeebled man?

  The guards nearest him did, however, raise their spears.

  Good! He’d hurl himself onto the points, arms out, catching some in his belly and some in his chest.

  But the captain bellowed out an order, and they reversed their weapons. The shafts would be used as clubs.

  Nevertheless, he leaped, and he saw the butt end of the spear that would knock him senseless.

  Chapter 12

  When he awoke, he had two pains in his head, the new one far worse than the old. He also was suffering again from diplopia. He sat up and looked around at the blurred scene. There were bodies of the prisoners here and there. Some had been killed by the others, and some had been beaten to death by the guards. Three of the guards lay on the dirt, one dead, the others bleeding. Apparently, some prisoners had wrested the spears away from the guards and gotten some small revenge before being killed.

  Yeshua was standing away from the rest of the prisoners, his eyes closed and his mouth moving. He looked as if he were praying, but Mix doubted that he was.

  When he looked back, he saw about twenty spearmen marching through the compound gate. Kramer was leading them. Mix watched the short, fat youth with the dark-brown hair and very pale blue eyes walking toward him. His piggish face looked pleased. Probably, Mix thought, he was happy that Mix and Yeshua had not been slain.

  Kramer stopped a few feet away from Mix. He looked ridiculous, though he must think he made a splendid figure. He wore a crown of oak wood each of the seven points of which sported a round button cut from mussel shells. His upper eyelids were painted blue, an affectation of the males of his land, an affectation which Mix thought was fruity. The upper ends of his black towel-cape were secured around his fat neck with a huge brooch made from copper, an exceedingly rare and expensive metal. On one plump finger was an oak ring in which was set an uncut emerald, also a scarce item. A black towel-kilt was around his paunch, and his knee-length boots were of black fish-leather. In his right hand he held a long shepherd’s crook, symbol that he was the protector of his sheep—his people. It also signified that he had been appointed by God for that role.

  Behind Kramer were two bloodied and bruised and naked prisoners, whom Mix had not seen before. They were short dark men with Levantine features.

  Mix squinted. He was wrong. He did know one of the two. He was Mattithayah, the little man who had mistaken Mix for Yeshua when they had first been Kramer’s prisoners.

  Kramer pointed at Yeshua and spoke in English.

  “Iss zat ze man?”

  Mattithayah broke into a storm of unintelligible but recognisable English. Kramer whirled and sent him staggering backward with a blow of his left fist against the jaw. Kramer said something to the other prisoner. This one answered in English as heavily accented as Kramer’s, but his native tongue was obviously different.

  Then he cried, “Yeshua! Rabbi! We have looked for you for many years! And now you are here, too!”

  He began to weep, and he opened his arms and walked toward Yeshua. A guard banged the butt of his spear on his back, over the kidney area, and the little man groaned and fell on his knees, his face twisted with pain.

  Yeshua had looked once at the two men and had groaned. Now he stood with downcast eyes.

  Kramer, scowling and muttering, strode up to Yeshua and seized his long hair. He jerked it, forcing Yeshua to raise his head.

  “Madman! Anti-Christ!” he shouted. “You’ll pay for your blasphemies! Yust ass your two crazedt friendss vill pay!”

  Yeshua closed his eyes. His lips moved soundlessly. Kramer struck him in the mouth with back of his hand, rocking Yeshua’s head. Blood flowed from the right corner of Yeshua’s lips.

  Kramer screamed, “Shpeak, you filt! Do you indeedt claim to be Christ?”

  Yeshua opened his eyes, and spoke softly.
<
br />   “I claim only to be a man named Yeshua, just another son of man. If this Christ of yours did exist and if he were here, he would be horrified, driven to madness with despair, at what had happened on Earth to his teachings after he died.”

  Kramer, yelling, hit Yeshua alongside the head with his staff. Yeshua fell to his knees and then crumpled forward, his head hitting the earth with a soft thud. Kramer drove the toe of his boot against the fallen man’s ribs.

  “Renounce your blasphemiess! Recant your Satanic ravingks! You vill excape mush pain in zis worlt if you do, ant you may safe your zoul in the next!”

  Yeshua raised his head, but he said nothing until he had regained his breath.

  “Do what you will to me, you unclean Gentile.”

  Kramer shouted, “Shut your dirty mous, you inzane monshter!”

  Yeshua grunted as Kramer’s boot toe drove into his side again, and he moaned for a little while thereafter.

  Kramer, his black cloak flapping after him, strode to Mattithayah and his companion.

  “Do you shtill maintain zat zis lunatic iss ze Blessedt Zon of Godt?”

  The two were pale beneath their dark skins, and their faces looked as if they were made of melting wax. Neither replied to Kramer.

  “Answer me, you svine!” he cried.

  He began to beat them with the shepherd’s staff. They backed away, their hands up to protect themselves, but they were seized by the guards and kept from retreating.

  Yeshua struggled to his feet. Loudly, he said, “He is so savage because he fears that they speak the truth!”

  Mix said, “What truth?”

  His double vision was increasing, and he felt as if he should vomit. He was beginning to lose interest in everything but himself. God, if only he could die before he was tied to the stake and the wood set afire!

  “I’ve heard that question before,” Yeshua said.

  Mix didn’t know for a moment what Yeshua meant. Then illumination flooded in. Yeshua had thought he’d said, “What is truth?”

  After Kramer had beaten Mattithayah and his friend into unconsciousness, they were dragged out through the gate by their legs, their heads bumping, their arms trailing along behind their heads. Kramer started to walk toward Yeshua, his staff lifted high as if he intended to give him the same treatment. Mix hoped that he would. Perhaps, in his rage, he’d kill Yeshua now and thus save him from the fire.

  The joke would certainly be on Kramer then.

  But a sweating panting man ran through the gate, and he cried out Kramer’s name. It was thirty seconds, though, before he caught his wind. He was the bearer of ill news.

  Apparently, there were two fleets approaching, one from up-River, one from down-River. Both were enormous. The states to the north of Kramer’s and the states to the south of the newly conquered territories had been galvanised into allied action against Kramer, and the Huns across from them had joined them. They finally realised that they must band together and attack Kramer before he moved against them.

  Kramer turned pale, and he struck the messenger over the head with his staff. The man fell without a sound.

  Kramer was in a bad way. Half of his own fleet had been destroyed in its victory, and the number of his soldiers had been considerably reduced. He wouldn’t be ready for a long time to launch another attack nor was he well fitted to withstand an invasion from such a huge force.

  He was doomed, and he knew it.

  Despite Mix’s pain and the knowledge of the fire waiting for him, he managed a smile. If Kramer were captured, he would undoubtedly be tortured and then burned alive. It was only just that he should be. Perhaps if Kramer himself felt the awful flames, he might not be so eager to subject others to them when he rose again.

  But Mix doubted that.

  Kramer shouted orders to his generals and admirals to prepare for the invasion. After they had left, he turned, panting, toward Yeshua. Mix called to him.

  “Kramer! If Yeshua is who those two men claim he is, and they’ve no reason to lie, then what about you? You’ve tortured and killed for nothing! And you’ve put your own soul in the gravest jeopardy!”

  Kramer reacted as Mix had hoped he would. Screaming, he ran at Mix with the staff raised. Mix saw it come down on him.

  Kramer must have pulled his punch. Mix awoke some time later, though not fully. He was upright and tied to a great bamboo stake. Below him was a pile of small bamboo logs and pine needles.

  Through the blur, he could see Kramer applying the torch. He hoped that the wind would not blow the smoke away from him. If it rose straight up, then he would die of asphyxiation and would never feel the flames on his feet.

  The wood crackled. His luck was not with him. The wind was blowing the smoke away from him. Suddenly, he began coughing. He looked to his right and saw, vaguely, that Yeshua was tied to another stake very near him. Upwind. Good, he thought. Poor old Yeshua will burn, but the smoke from his fire will kill me before I burn.

  He began coughing violently. The pains in his head struck him like fists. Vision faded entirely. He fell toward oblivion.

  But he heard Yeshua’s voice, distorted, far away, like thunder over a distant mountain.

  “Father, they do know what they’re doing!”

  RIVERWORLD WAR

  Foreword

  Those who’ve read the preface to The Dark Design know that I’d sliced the manuscript in half and had it published under the above title. As it was, this half made a very long book. The second half was to come out as The Magic Labyrinth. But when I reworked this, it got longer and longer and ended up at about 220,000 words. The Berkley editor assured me that this length was economically unfeasible if the book was to be a hardcover, and the publisher would look askance and think twice about issuing it as a softcover. Moreover, when I reread it after completing the manuscript, I thought it too long. The editor agreed. As it was, the battle between the two mighty riverboats, captained respectively by Samuel Clemens and King John of England, was 50,000 words long. The conflict was a book in itself or at least of book-length.

  I made great slashes in this as I did elsewhere in the novel. Result: the reader of the fourth and final book in the series will know that many of the characters more or less prominent in the first three books had died during the battle. But the reader won’t know how they died or why.

  The chapters excised from Design but included in the book at hand relate the fate of these people. They also tell how Burton managed to get to the ammunition storage room in the Not For Hire during the battle.

  I’d have liked to have included most of the excisions, but they consisted of lines or half-lines, paragraphs or half-paragraphs, pages or half-pages, and half-chapters lifted from everywhere, from the beginning of the book to near its end. They couldn’t be put together to make a coherent whole. The chapters here, however, form a sort of long short story or novelette.

  i

  John crawled to a stairway and went down it hands first. Before he had gone three steps, his hand missed a hold, and he slid face-first down. He brought up with a crash at the bottom, and lay there, too stunned to know where he was or what he was supposed to be doing.

  Tordenskjold came groping slowly down the steps then and stumbled over his captain. He looked at the groaning form at his feet, then bent and began to drag him out of the enclosure. Flames were leaping behind him. A high-pitched sound that pierced through his deafness made him look up. The pilothouse was beginning to topple, just as that of the enemy boat had. Fortunately for both of them, it was leaning sidewise, toward Tordenskjold’s left. Over it went, the bending metal protesting. Its top deck crashed against the side, split off, and fell between the boats.

  In the corridor, Richard Burton picked himself up from the deck. The others straggled up. Several had been hurled against a bulkhead and were too stunned to do anything but groan.

  Burton blew the whistle which hung from a cord around his neck. “Follow me!”

  The deck on the outside was bright eno
ugh. The fires started by the hydrogen gas, the shells, and the rockets were blazing vigorously. The wind had almost ceased with the advent of night, and the smoke was a swollen monster covering both vessels. The heavy acrid odor set him to coughing and his eyes watering. It wasn’t necessary to open the hatch. It had been blown off. He stumbled over the warped hatch a few feet from the exit. He shouted a warning to those behind him. They couldn’t hear him. Nor could they see the obstacle in the smoke until they were on it. Three marines piled up on it.

  Burton went through the hatchway out onto the deck. The walkway was filled with people, a number of whom had hurled grappling hooks tied to lines. Some of these had caught on railings or posts or become embedded in the flesh of enemy crewmen. There was much screaming and cursing and explosions of pistols and rifles from both boats and the thud of arrows striking people or the hull. Burton could hear all this only dimly since he was still half-deaf from the broadsides. The smoke was clearing, however, and he could get a grasp of some of the situation. The vessels were touching at only two points. The crumpled prow of the enemy was against the stern of the Rex. And its fore starboard paddlebox was against the fore port side of the Rex. At these points, the sailors had cast grappling lines onto each other’s vessels. The more distant points had been spanned by lines shot from grappling guns. A few of the heavy ropes were secured to stanchions or railings. Others lay untied. The hands that would have made them tight were lax, their owners lying dead or wounded on the decks.

  Burton plowed through the crowd, cursing and shoving aside those who blocked him. “Let the marines through!” he bellowed. It was doubtful that they could hear him any better than he could hear them. Suddenly, the press thinned. Men and women were dropping on all sides of him. Across the way, clouds of smoke were rising, blown from the muzzles of pistols and shotguns. The enemy marines were ranged along the top of the paddlebox and the walkway on both sides of it.