R.W. II - The Fabulous Riverboat

by Philip José Farmer

  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 Soul City 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 Soul City 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 Soul City, 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 Soul City." 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 we
re a pack of dreamgummers.

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

  John's tawny eyebrows rose. Sam knew what he was thinking. Perhaps he could use Cawber, one way or another.

  Sam looked at the water-clock. "Time for the inspection tour. Care to come along, John? I'll be with you in a minute," and he sat down at his desk to make a few more entries in his diary. That gave John the chance to leave first, as befitted the ex-King of England and of a good part of France. Sam thought it was ridiculous to worry about who preceded whom, yet he disliked John so much he could not bear to let him gain even this minor victory. Rather than argue about it, or just walk out ahead of Mm, and so cause John to throw a fit, he pretended he had work to do.

  Sam caught up with the group, which included the six Councilmen, just outside the nitric-acid factory. They went through the factories swiftly. The stinks emanating from the nitric and sulfuric acids; from the destructive distillation of wood to make alcohol, acetone, creosote, turpentine and acetic acid; the formaldehyde vats and the treatment of human excrement and lichen scraped off the mountains to extract potassium nitrate – these, combined, were enough to make a hyena lose its breakfast. The Councillors were roasted and deafened in the steel mill and the grinding mills and the forges and blacksmith shops. They were covered with a white dust in the limestone mills and magnesium factory. In the aluminum factory they were again roasted, deafened, and stunk out.

  The gunsmith shop up in the hills was not operating at the moment. Except for distant noises, it was quiet. But it was not beautiful. The earth had been dug up, the trees cut down, and smoke from the factories up The River was black and acrid along the mountains.

  Van Boom, the late-twentieth-century, half Zulu, half Afrikaans, chief engineer, met them. He was a handsome man with a dark bronze skin and curly hair. He stood about six-three and weighed about two hundred and fifty. He had been born in a ditch during The Bloody Years.

  He greeted them cordially enough (he liked Sam and tolerated John), but he did not smile as usual.

  "It's ready," he said, "but I want my objections recorded. It's a nice toy and makes a lot of noise and looks impressive and will kill a man. But it's wasteful and inefficient." "You make it sound like a Congressman," Sam said.

  Van Boom led them into the high doorway of the bamboo building, where a steel handgun lay on a table. Van Boom picked it up. Even in his big hand, the gun was huge. He strode past the others and out into the light of the sun. Sam was exasperated. He had held out his hand for the gun and the fellow had ignored him. If Van Boom intended to demonstrate it outside, why hadn't he said so in the first place?

  "Engineers," Sam muttered. Then he shrugged. You might as well hit a Missouri mule between the eyes with your pinkie as try to change Van Boom's ways.

  Van Boom held up the gun so that the sunshine twinkled against the silvery gray metal. "This is the Mark I pistol," he said. "Called so because The Boss invented it." Sam's anger melted like ice in a Mississippi River thaw,

  "It's a breech-loading, single-shot, flintlock hand weapon with a rifled barrel and a breakdown action."

  He held the gun in his right hand and said, "You load it so. You press forward the lock switch on the left side of the barrel. This releases the breech lock. You then press down the barrel with the left hand. This action forces the trigger guard into the grip, where the guard acts as a lever to cock the hammer."

  He reached into a bag strapped to his belt and removed a large brown hemispherical object. "This is a bakelite or phenol-formaldehyde-resin bullet, sixty caliber. You press the bullet, so, until it engages the lands of the barrel."

  He removed from his bag a shiny package with black contents.

  "This is a charge of black gunpowder wrapped in cellulose nitrate. Some time in the future, we'll have cordite instead of gunpowder. If we use this gun, that is. Now, I insert the load into the chamber with the primer end first. The primer is a twist of nitrate paper impregnated with gunpowder. Then I lift the barrel with my left hand, thus, locking it into place. The Mark I is now ready to fire. But, for emergency, if the primer does not ignite, you can pour priming powder into the touchhole just forward of the rear sight. In case of misfire, the gun may be cocked with the right thumb. Note that this flash vent on the right side of the action shield protects the shooter's face."

  A man had brought out a large wooden target and had inserted it in a frame on four legs. The target was about twenty yards away. Van Boom turned toward it, held out the gun, clenched both hands and sighted along the front and rear sights.

  "Get behind me, gentlemen," he said. "The heat of the passage through the air will burn off the surface of the bullet and leave a thin trail of smoke which you may be able to see. The plastic bullet has to be of such large caliber because of its light weight. But this increases the wind resistance. If we decide to use this gun – which I definitely am against – we might increase the caliber to seventy-five in the Mark II. The effective range is about fifty yards, but the accuracy is not good beyond thirty yards and nothing to brag about within that range."

  The flint was in the hammer. When Van Boom would pull the trigger, the hammer would fall and scrape along the file-like surface of the frizzen. The frizzen covered the priming pan and should be knocked forward by the flint, uncovering the primer twist of the powder charge.

  There was a click as the sear let the hammer go, a flash as the primer twist burned, and a booming. The click-flash-boom took up a time equal to saying click-flash-boom and Van Boom had had time between the click and the boom to bring the gun back into line after it had been jarred away by the impact of the heavy hammer and flint.

  The bullet did leave a very faint trail of smoke, quickly dissipated by the fifteen-mile-an-hour wind. Sam, looking past Van Boom's arm, could see the bullet curve out and then back, carried by the wind. But Van Boom must have been practicing, because the bullet struck near the bull's eye. It went halfway into the soft pine, shattered and left a large hole in the wood.

  "The bullet won't penetrate deeply into a man," Van Boom said, "but it will leave a large hole. And if it hits near bone, the fragments should break the bone."

  The next hour was spent busily and happily with the Consuls and Councillors taking turns shooting. King John was especially delighted, though perhaps a little awed, because he had never seen a gun before. His first experience with gunpowder had come several years after he had been resurrected and he had seen only bombs and wooden rockets.

  At last Van Boom said, "If you keep up, gentlemen, you will exhaust our supply of bullets – and it takes a lot of labor and materials to make these bullets. Which is one reason why I object to making any more. My other reasons are: one, the gun is accurate only at close range; two, it takes so long to load and shoot that a good bowman could drop three pistol handlers while they're loading and stay outside the effective range of the guns. Moreover, a plastic bullet isn't recoverable, whereas an arrow is."

  Sam said, "That's a lot of nonsense! The mere fact that we would have these guns would demonstrate our technological and military superiority. We'd scare the enemy half to death before the battle started. Also, you forget that it takes a long time to train a good bowman, but anyone can shoot one of these after a relatively short lesson."

  "True," Van Boom said. "But could they hit anyone? Besides, I was thinking of making steel crossbows. They can't be handled as fast as longbows, but they don't require any more training than guns do, and the bolts are recoverable. And they're a hell of a lot more deadly than these noisy, stinking gadgets."

  "No, sir!" Sam said. "No, sir! I insist that we make at least two hundred of these. We'll outfit a new group, the Parolando Pistoleers. They'll be the terror of The River – you watch them! You'll see!"

  Chapter 18

  * * *

  For a change King John was on Sam's side. He insisted that the first two pistols should go to Sam and himself and the next dozen to their b
odyguards. Then the new group could be organized and trained.

  Sam was grateful for the backing, but he told himself to check on the men who formed the Pistoleers. He did not want it made up largely of men loyal to John.

  Van Boom made no effort to hide his disgust. "I'll tell you what! I'll take a good yew bow and twelve arrows and stand fifty yards away. At a signal all eight of you can advance on me, firing at will with your Mark I's – and I'll drop all eight of you before you get close enough to hit me! Is it a deal? I'm willing to lay my life on the line!" "Don't be childish," Sam said.

  Van Boom rolled his eyes upward. "I'm childish? You're jeopardizing Parolando – and your boat – because you want guns to play with!"

  "Just as soon as the guns are made you can start making all the bows you want," Sam said. "Look! We'll make armor, too, for the Pistoleers! That should dispose of your objections! Why didn't I think of that before? Why, our men will be dressed up in steel that'll repel the Stone Age weapons of the enemy as if they were straws. Let the enemy shoot his yew bows with his flint-tipped arrows. They'll bounce off the steel and the Pistoleers can take their time and blow the enemy into the next county!"

  "You forget that we've had to barter our ore and even metal weapons for wood and other materials we need." Van Boom said. "The enemy will have arrows with steel tips that can drive through armor. Don't forget Grecy and Agincourt."

  "There's just no dealing with you." Sam said. "You must be half Dutch – you're so stubborn." "If your thinking is representative of the thinking of white men, then I'm glad I'm half Zulu," Van Boom said.

  "Don't get huffy," Sam replied. "And congratulations on the gun! Tell you what, we'll call it the Van Boom Mark I. How's that?"

  "I'd just as soon not have my name attached to it," the engineer said. "So be it. I'll make your two hundred guns. But I'd like to make an improved version, the Mark II we talked about."