The Dark Design

"It was formulated by the great Sam Clemens, who left on his boat, the Mark Twain, almost a year ago."

"The Mark Twain? That's pretty egostistical, isn't it?"

"The name was chosen by popular vote. Sam protested, though not very strongly. Anyway, you interrupted me. There's an unwrit­ten rule that nobody interrupts the captain. So here goes. We, the people of Parolando, do hereby declare ..."

There was no hesitation nor, as far as she knew, any mistakes in the long recital. The almost total lack of the written word had forced the literate population to rely on memory. A skill that once had flourished only among preliterates-and actors-was now general property.

While the words rose to the sky, the sky became brighter. The mists shrank to their knees. The valley floor was still covered with what looked at a distance like snow. The foothills beyond the plains were no longer distorted. The long hillgrass, the bushes, the iron-trees, oaks, pines, yews, and bamboo no longer looked like a Japanese painting, misty, unreal, and far off. The huge flowers that grew from the thick vines intertwined on the irontree branches were begi

The western precipices were blue-black stone on which were enormous splotches of bluish-green lichen. Here and there, narrow cataracts fell dull-silvery down the mountain sides.

All of this was familiar to Jill Gulbirra. But each morning awoke in her the same sense of awe and wonder. Who had formed this many-million-kilometers-long Rivervalley? And why? And how and why had she, along with an estimated thirty-four to thirty-seven billion people, been resurrected on this planet? Everybody who had ever lived from about 2,000,000 b.c. to 2008 a.d. seemed to have been raised from the dead. The exceptions were children who'd died at or under the age of five and the mentally retarded. And also, possibly, the hopelessly insane, though there was doubt about the definition of hopelessly.

Who were the people who had done this? Why?

There were rumors and tales, strange, disturbing, and madden­ing, of people who had appeared among the lazari. Briefly. Mysteri­ously. They were named, among other things, the Ethicals.

"Are you listening?'' Firebrass said. She became aware that they were staring at her. "I can give you back, almost verbatim, what you've said so far," she answered.

This wasn't true. But she was sensitized-keeping one ear open, as it were, like an ante

Now the people were coming out of the huts, stretching, cough­ing, lighting up cigarettes, heading for the bamboo-walled latrines, or walking toward The River, grails in hand. The hardy wore only a towel; most were clad from head to foot. Bedouins of the Riverval­ley. Phantoms in a mirage.

Firebrass said, "Okay. You ready to be sworn in? Or do you have mental reservations?"

"I never have those," she said. "What about you? In regard to me, I mean?"

"It wouldn't matter, anyway." He gri

"Okay."

She didn't like it, but what could she do? She certainly wasn't going to walk out. Besides, though they didn't know it, they'd be on probation with her.

The air became warmer. The eastern sky continued to brighten, quenching all but a few giant stars. Bugles blew. The nearest was on top of a six-story bamboo tower, in the middle of the plain, and the bugler was a tall, ski

"Real brass," Firebrass said. "There are some deposits of cop­per and zinc a little ways upstream. We could have taken them away from the people who owned it, but we traded instead. Sam wouldn't let us use force unless it was necessary.

"South of here, where Soul City used to be, were big deposits of cryolite and bauxite. The Soul Citizens wouldn't keep their side of the bargain-we were trading steel weapons for the ores-so, we went down and took it. In fact," he waved his hand, "Parolando now extends for 64 kilometers on both sides of The River."

The men removed all cloths except for those around the waist. Jill kept on a green-and-white-striped kilt and a thin, nearly transparent cloth around her breasts. They had looked like desert Arabs; now they were Polynesians.

The dwellers of the plains and the bases of the foothills were gathering by the Riverside. A number shucked all their cloths and jumped into the water, whooping at the cold and splashing each other.

Jill hesitated for a minute. She had sweat all day and all night paddling her canoe. She needed a bath, and sooner or later she'd have to disrobe entirely. She dropped her towels and ran to the bank and dived flatly out. After swimming back; she borrowed a bar of soap from a woman and lathered the upper part of her body. She came out of the water shivering and rubbed herself vigor­ously.

The men stared frankly, seeing a very tall woman, slim, long lagged, small breasted, wide hipped, deeply ta

Hardy's gaze was fastened on her pubic hair, which was extraor­dinarily long, thick, and ginger colored. Well, he'd get over that, and he was as close to it as he was ever going to get.

Firebrass went around the side of the grailstone and returned with a spear. Just below the steel head, attached to the shaft, was a large vertebral bone from a hornfish. He drove the spear straight into the ground beside her canoe.

"The bone means it's my spear, the captain's," he said. "I stuck it in the ground by the canoe to tell everybody that it's not to be borrowed without permission. There are a lot of things like that for you to learn. Meanwhile, Schwartz can show you your quarters and then give you a guided tour. Report to me at high noon under that irontree there."

He indicated a tree about 90 meters to the west. Towering over 300 meters, if had a thick, gnarly grey bark, scores of great branches extending 90 meters outward, huge elephant's-ear leaves with green and red stripes. Its roots surely drove down at least 120 meters, and its unburnable wood was so hard it would resist a steel saw.

"We call it The Chief. Meet me there."

The bugles rang out again. The crowds organized themselves into a military formation under the directions of officers. Firebrass pulled himself onto the top of the grailstone. He stood there, watching while the roll call was made. The corporals reported to the sergeants and the sergeants to the lieutenants, and they to the adjutant. Then Hardy to Firebrass. A moment later, the mob was dismissed. However, they did not leave. Firebrass got off the mushroom-shaped stone, and the corporals took his place. These put the grails in the depressions on the surface of the stone.

Schwartz was beside her. He cleared his throat. "Gulbirra? I'll take care of your grail."

She took it from the canoe and handed it to him. This was a grey metal cylinder, 45.72 centimeters across, 76.20 centimeters high, weighing empty about 0.55 kilogram. It had a lid which, once shut, could be lifted only by the owner. There was a curved handle on the lid. Tied to it by a bamboo fiber rope was her I.D., a tiny baked-clay dirigible. It bore her initials on both sides.