R.W. II - The Fabulous Riverboat

by Philip José Farmer

  Just what did Hacking expect to gain by this? Certainly, if he wanted a closer relationship with Parolando, he was taking a peculiar approach to it.

  Perhaps he felt that he had to put any white, no matter who, in his place. He wanted to make it clear that he, Elwood Hacking, a black, was not the inferior of any white.

  Hacking had been ruined by the same system that had ruined almost all Americans, black, white, red or yellow, in one form or another, to a greater or lesser degree.

  Would it always be this way? Forever twisted, hating, while they lived for who knew how many thousands upon thousands of years along The River?

  At that moment, but for that moment only, Sam wondered if the Second Chancers were not right.

  If they knew the way out from this imprisonment of hate, they should be the only ones to be listened to. Not Hacking or John Lackland or Sam Clemens or anybody who suffered from lack of peace and love should have a word to say. Let the Second Chancers . . .

  But he did not believe them, he reminded himself. They were just like the other faith dispensers of Earth. Well-intentioned, some of them, no doubt of that. But without the authority of truth, no matter how much they claimed it.

  Hacking suddenly quit talking. Sam Clemens said, "Well, we didn't plan on any after-dinner speeches, Sinjoro Hacking, but I thank you for your volunteering; we all thank you as long as you don't charge us for it. Our exchequer is rather low at the moment."

  Hacking said, "You have to make a joke out of it, don't you? Well, how about a tour? I'd love to see that big boat of yours."

  The rest of the day was passed rather pleasantly. Sam forgot his anger and his resentments in conducting Hacking through the factories, the shops and, finally, through the boat. Even half finished, it was magnificent. The most beautiful sight he had ever seen. Even, he thought, even . . . yes, even more beautiful than Livy's face when she had first said she loved him.

  Hacking did not become ecstatic, but he obviously was deeply impressed. He could not, however, refrain from commenting on the stench and the desolation.

  Shortly before supper time, Sam was called away. A man who had landed from a small boat had demanded to see the ruler of the land. Since it was a Clemens man who took him in, Sam got the report. He went off at once in one of the two alcohol-burning "jeeps" that had been finished only a week before. The slender, good-looking blond youth at the guardhouse rose and introduced himself, in Esperanto, as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

  Sam questioned him in German, noting that, whatever the youth's identity, he did speak the soft Austrian version of High German. His vocabulary contained words which Sam did not understand, but whether this was because they were just Austrian vocabulary items or eighteenth-century items, he did not know.

  The man calling himself Mozart said that he had been living about twenty thousand miles up The River. He heard about the boat, but what set him off on his journey was a tale that the boat would carry an orchestra to make music for the amusement of the passengers. Mozart had suffered for twenty-three years in this world of limited materials, where the only musical instruments were drums, whistles, wooden flutes and pan pipes and a crude sort of harp made of bone and the guts of a Riverfish. Then he had heard about the mining of the siderite and the great Riverboat and its orchestra with piano, violin, flute, horns, and all the other beautiful instruments that he had known on Earth, plus others that had been invented since his death in 1791. And here he was. Was there a place for him in the music-making ranks of the boat?

  Sam was an appreciator, though not a passionate lover, of some classical music. But he was thrilled at meeting the great Mozart face to face. That is, if this man was Mozart. There were so many phonies on The River, claiming to be everybody from the original one-and-only Jesus H. Christ down to P. T. Barnum, that he took no man's word for his identity. He had even met three men who claimed to be Mark Twain.

  "It just so happens that the former archbishop of Salzburg is a citizen of Parolando," Sam said. "Even though you and he parted on bad terms, if I remember correctly, he'll be glad to see you."

  Mozart did not turn pale or red. He said, "At last, somebody I knew during my lifetime! Would you believe. . . "

  Sam would believe that Mozart had not met anybody he'd known on Earth. So far, he himself had met only three people he'd known, and his acquaintanceship had been extensive during his long life and worldwide travels. That his wife Livy was one of the three was a coincidence exceeding the bounds of probability. He suspected that the Mysterious Stranger had arranged that. But even Mozart's eagerness in seeing the archbishop did not confirm that he was indeed Mozart. In the first place, the impostors that Sam had met had frequently insisted that those who were supposed to be their old friends were either mistaken or else impostors themselves. They had more gall than France. In the second place, the archbishop of Salzburg did not live in Parolando.

  Sam had no idea where he was. He had sprung him just to test Mozart's reaction. Sam agreed that Sinjoro Mozart could apply for citizenship. First, he straightened him out about the musical instruments. These had not been made yet. Nor would they be wood or brass. They would be electronic devices which could reproduce exactly the sounds of various instruments. But if Sinjoro Mozart was indeed the man he claimed to be, he had a good chance of being the conductor of the orchestra. And he could have all the time he wanted to compose new works.

  Sam did not promise him that he would have the conductorship. He had learned his lesson about making promises.

  A big party was held in John's palace in honor of Hacking, who seemed to have discharged his venom for the day at the first meeting. Sam talked with him for an hour and found that Hacking was very intelligent and literate, a self-educated man with a flair for the imaginative and the poetic.

  That made his case even sadder, because such talent had been tragically wasted.

  About midnight, Sam accompanied Hacking and party to the big thirty-room, second-story, stone-and-bamboo building set aside for state guests. This was halfway between his quarters and John's palace. Then he drove his jeep to his home, three hundred yards away. Joe sulked a little because he had wanted to drive, even though his legs were far too long for him to try this. They staggered up the ladder and barred the door. Joe went into the rear and flopped on his bed with a crash that shook the house on its stilts. Sam looked out the ports just in time to see Cyrano and Livy, their arms around each other, lurch into the door of their hut. To their left, set above them, was von Richthofen's hut, where he and Gwenafra had already gone to bed.

  He muttered, "Good night!" not knowing just whom he was addressing, and fell into his own bed. It had been a long, hard and trying day, ending up with a huge party at which everybody had drunk stupendous quantities, of purple passion or grain alcohol and water and chewed much dreamgum and smoked much tobacco and marihuana.

  He awoke dreaming that he was caught in a California earthquake on the Fourth of July.

  He leaped out of bed and ran on the trembling floor to the pilothouse. Even before he reached the ports, he knew that the explosions and the earth-shaking were caused by invaders. He never reached the ports, because a rocket, whistling, its tail flaming red, struck one of the stilts. The roar deafened him, smoke whirled in through the broken ports and he pitched forward. The house collapsed, and its front part fell down. History repeated itself.

  Chapter 25

  * * *

  He banged into the wood and broken glass and earth and lay with the wall under him while he tried to come up out of his stunned condition. A big hand picked him up. By the light of an explosion, he saw Joe's great-nosed face. Joe had climbed down from the open end of his room and thrown aside the lumber until he had found Sam. He held the handles of his grail and Sam's with his left hand.

  "I don't know how, it's a miracle, but I'm not hurt bad," Sam said. "Just bruised and cut by glass."

  "I didn't have time to put on my armor," Joe said. "But I got my akth. Here'th a thword for you and a pitht
ol and thome bulleth and powder chargeth." "Who the hell can they be, Joe?" Sam said.

  "I don't know. Thee! They're coming in through the holeth in the vallth vhere the dockth are."

  The starlight was bright. The clouds that sent the rains down every night at three o'clock had not yet come, but the mists over The River were heavy. Out of these, men were still pouring to add to the masses spreading over the plains. Behind the walls, in the mists, must be a fleet.

  The only fleet that could get close without causing an alarm would be the Soul City fleet. Anybody else arriving at this hour would have had to have been within view of the spies that Sam and John Lackland had set up along The River, even in hostile territory. It couldn't be Iyeyasu's fleet; that was still sitting in the docks as of the report received just before midnight.

  Joe peered over a pile of wood and said, "There'th a hell of a battle around John'th palathe. And the guetht houthe, vhere Hacking and hith boyth vath, ith on fire."

  The flames lit a number of bodies on the ground and showed the tiny figures struggling around the log stockade of John's palace. Then, the cannon and its caisson was pushed before the stockade.

  "That's John's jeep!" Sam said, pointing at the vehicle which had just driven up behind the cannon.

  "Yeah, and it'th our cannon!" Joe said. "But it'th Hacking'th men that're going to blatht John out of hith little love netht."

  "Let's get to hell out of here!" Sam said, and he scrambled over the lumber and in the opposite direction. He could not understand why the invaders had not sent men to his house yet. The rocket that had hit had come from the plains. And if Hacking and his men had sneaked out of the guesthouse to launch a surprise attack in conjunction with an attack from the supposed ore boats, then Sam should have been a primary target along with John Lackland.

  He'd find out later what it was all about – if there was a later.

  That Hacking's men had gotten hold of the cannon was ill news for Parolando. Even as he thought this, he heard the big gun boom, one, two, three. He whirled in his flight and saw pieces of wood flying out from the smoke. John's walls were wide open, and the next few shells should reduce his log palace to rubble.

  There was only one good thing about the invaders having their hands on the cannon. The supply of shells was limited to fifty. Even with the many tons of nickel-iron still in the ground, metal was not so common that it could be wasted to any extent on explosive shells.

  Ahead was Cyrano and Livy's hut. The door was open, and the place was empty. He looked up the hill. Lothar von Richthofen, clad only in a kilt, carrying a rapier in one hand and a pistol in the other, was running toward him. A few paces behind was Gwenafra with a. pistol and a bag of bullets and gunpowder packages.

  There were other men and women coming toward him. Among them were a few crossbowmen.

  He shouted at Lothar to organize them, and he turned to look down on the plains. The docks were still black with men. If only the cannon could have been turned to catch them packed together and unable to retreat. But the cannon had been wheeled around from John's palace, which was flaming, and was being trained on Parolandanoj hurrying up the hill.

  Then a big dark machine came through a wide breach in the wall. Sam cried out with dismay. It was the Firedragon II given to Hacking. But where were the three amphibians of Parolando?

  Presently he saw two coming toward the hills. Of a sudden, the steam machine guns in the turrets began to stutter hissingly, and his men – two men! – were falling. The Soul Citizens had captured the amphibians!

  Everywhere he looked, he saw a battle raging. There were men fighting around the Riverboat. He cried out again, because he could not endure the thought of its being damaged. But no cannon shells were delivered near it. Apparently the enemy was as concerned about it as he was.

  Rockets from the hills behind them were soaring over their heads and blowing up among the army below. Enemy rockets rose in reply; scores of red flames streaked above them; some came so close they could see the blur of the cylindrical body, the long bamboo stick protruding from the rear, and a whoosh as an exceptionally large one shot about ten feet above their heads. It just missed the top of the hill and blew up with a tremendous blast on the other side. Leaves from a nearby irontree fluttered down.

  The next half hour – or was it two hours? – was a shrieking, yelling, shouting, gunpowder-stinking, blood-stinking, sweating, bowel-churning chaos. Time after time, the Soul Citizens charged up the hill, and time after time they were repelled by rockets, by sixty-nine-caliber plastic bullets, by crossbow bolts and longbow arrows. Then a charge carried them through to the defenders, and it was rapier, broadsword, ax, club, spear and dagger that drove them back.

  Joe Miller, ten feet high, eight hundred pounds heavy, his hairy hide drenched with blood – his own and others – swung his ax with its eighty-pound nickel-steel head at the end of an oak shaft three niches thick and six feet long. It crashed through oak shield and leather armor, brushed aside rapiers and spears and axes, split breastbones, took off arms and necks, halved skulls. When his enemies refused to come near him, he charged them. Time and again, he broke up charges that might otherwise have succeeded.

  Many flintlock Mark I pistols were fired at him, but their shooters were so unnerved by him that they fired from too far away, and the big plastic bullets wobbled off to one side.

  Then an arrow went through his left arm, and a man braver, or more foolhardy, than the rest stepped under his ax and thrust a rapier into his thigh. The butt end of the shaft came back and broke his jaw and then the reversed ax severed his head. Joe could still walk, but he was losing blood fast. Sam ordered him to retreat to the other side of the hill, where the badly wounded were being treated.

  Joe said, "No! I ain't going!" and he fell to his knees with a groan.

  "Get back there! That's an order!" Sam screamed, and he ducked, though it was too late, as a bullet whistled by his ear and smashed to bits against the side of an irontree. Some of the plastic must have ricocheted; he felt a stinging in his arm and calf.

  Joe managed to heave himself up, like a sick elephant, and shambled off. Cyrano de Bergerac appeared from the darkness; he was covered with gunpowder smoke and streaked with blood. He held the basket hilt of a long, thin, bloody rapier in one hand and a pistol in the other. Behind him, equally dirty and bloody, her long dark hair loose behind her, was Livy, She carried a pistol and a bag of ammunition, and her function was to reload the pistols. Seeing Sam, she smiled, her teeth white in the powder-blackened face.

  "My God, Sam! I thought you were dead! That rocket against your house. . . !" "I wish you were behind me in this," he said.

  That was all he had time to say, though he would not have said anything more, whatever the case. The enemy came back in another charge, slipping and sliding up over the piles of the fallen or leaping over them. The bowmen by then were out of ammunition, and the pistoleers had only a few more charges. But the enemy had about expended its powder too, though it had more arrows.

  Joe Miller was gone, but Cyrano de Bergerac tried to make up for it and came close to doing so. The man was a demon, seemingly as thin and as flexible and as swift as the rapier he wielded. From time to time, he shot the pistol with his left hand into an opponent's face and then lunged with the rapier, thrusting into another. He would toss the gun behind him, and Livy would stoop and pick it up and reload. Sam thought, briefly, of what a change had come about in Livy. He had never suspected her potentiality for action under conditions like these. That frail, often sickly, violence-loathing woman was coolly performing duties that many men would have run from.

  Among them me, he thought, if I had any time to think about it.

  And especially now that Joe Miller was not by his side to protect him physically and to give him moral support, both of which he needed badly.

  Cyrano thrust beneath a shield which a shrieking Wahhabi Arab lifted too high in his frenzy, and then Livy, seeing that she had to do it, that Cyrano could
not, held the pistol in both hands and fired. The hammer made the barrel swerve, she brought it back into line, smoke and flame spurted out, and an Arab fell back with his shoulder torn off.

  A massively built Negro leaped over the body with his ax raised in both hands and Cyrano, withdrawing the blade from the first man before he hit the ground, ran the ax-man through the Adam’s apple.

  Then the enemy retreated down the hill again. But now they waited while the big dark-gray amphibian, like a Merrimac on wheels, huffed toward them. Lothar von Richthofen pushed against Sam who stepped aside when he saw the aluminum-alloy tube and the rocket with its ten-pound warhead. A man knelt while Lothar loaded the rocket into the bazooka and then aimed it. Lothar was very good at this, and the rocket sailed down, its fiery arc ending against the front of the amphibian, its bull's eye the single beam of light in its nose. Smoke covered it, and then the wind carried that away. The amphibian had stopped, but it came on now, its turrets turning and the steam guns lifting.

  "Well, that was the last one," Lothar said. "We might as well get to hell out of here. We can't fight that. Who should know better than we, heh?"

  The enemy was re-forming behind the armored vehicle. Many of them were uttering the ululating cries which the Ulmaks, the pre-Amerinds across The River, made during charges. Apparently, Hacking had enlisted those Ulmaks not yet conquered by Iyeyasu.

  Suddenly, Sam could not see as well. Only the fires from the burning houses and from the open hearths and smelters, which were still operating, enabled him to see anything at all. The rain clouds had come as swiftly as they always did, like wolves chasing the stars, and within a few minutes it would rain savagely.

  He looked around him. Every attack had thinned them out. He doubted that they could have withstood the next one, even if the amphibian had not come.