The Dark Design

Actually, she did not want it one way or the other. If she had her choice-and why shouldn't she?-she would be a woman lover.

Woman lover. Why didn't she say to herself: lesbian? The English language was the greatest in the world, but it had its faults. It was often too ambiguous. Woman lover could mean a man who loved women, a man or woman who loved women, or a woman who was a lover.

There, .she'd said it. Lesbian. And she didn't feet any shame. What about Jack? She had loved him. What about... ?

She had come up from the reverie only to dive down again.

Across the room, Firebrass, though talking to others, was looking at her. Had he noticed her tendency to become a statue, slumped, her head slightly cocked to the left, her eyelids lowered, and the eyes slightly rolled up? And if he had, then had he decided she was too moody and hence untrustworthy?

At that, she felt a slight panic. Oh, God, if he rejected her as a candidate just because she was pensive now and then! She was not that way when On duty! Never. But how could she convince Fire-brass of that?

She would have to be alert, always act as if she were on her toes, extroverted, prepared, trustworthy. As if she were a Girl Scout.

She walked up to a circle in the center of which was Bishop Samuelo. The dark little man was telling some stories about La Viro. Jill had heard a number of them, since she had attended many Second Chancer meetings and talked withjts missionaries. In Es­peranto, the official language of the Chufch, La Viro meant The Man. He was also called La Fondinto, The Founder. Apparently, no one knew his Terrestrial name or else it was not considered impor­tant by the Second Chancers.

Samuelo's tale concerned the stranger who had approached La Viro one stormy night in a cave high in the mountains. The stranger had revealed that he was one of the people who had reshaped this planet into one long Rivervalley and who had then resurrected the people of Earth.

The stranger had instructed La Viro to found the Church of the Second Chance. He was given certain tenets to preach, and he was told that after he had spread these up and down the Valley, he would then be given more revelations. As far as she knew, these new "truths" had not yet been forthcoming.

But the Church had spread everywhere. Its missionaries had traveled on foot or boat. Some, it was said, had journeyed in balloons. The fastest means of transportation had been death and resurrection.

Actually, those who had killed the Chancer preachers were doing the Church a service. It ensured that the faith spread around The Riverworld in a much faster time.

Martyrdom was a convenient means of travel, Jill thought. But it took great courage to die for your religion now when once dead always dead. She had heard that there had been a great falling away from the Church recently. Whether that was caused by the perma­nency of death now, or it was just that the movement had lost its steam, she did not know.

One of the group was a man to whom she had not been in­troduced. Piscator had, however, pointed to him across the room and said, "John de Greystock. He lived during Edward I of En­gland's reign. Thirteenth century? I have forgotten much of British history, though I studied it intensively when I was a naval cadet.''

"Edward ruled from about 1270 to very early 1300, I think," Jill said. "I do remember that he ruled thirty-five years and died when he was sixty-eight. I remember it because that was a long life in those days, especially for an Englishman. Those chilly, drafty castles, you know."

"Greystock was made a baron by Edward and accompanied him on his Gascon and Scottish expeditions," Piscator said. "I don't really know much about him. Except that he was governor of La Civito de La Animoj-Soul City in English-a little state some forty-one kilometers down-River. He came here before I did, not too long after King John stole Clemens' boat. He enlisted in Parolando's army, rose rapidly in rank, and distinguished himself during the invasion of Soul City ..."

"Why would Parolando invade Soul-City?" Jill said.

"Soul City had made a sneak attack on Parolando. It wanted to get control of the meteorite iron supply here and the Not For Hire too. It almost succeeded. But Clemens and several others blew up a big dam. This had been built to store water from a mountain stream so it could be used to generate electrical power. The blowing up of the dam released many millions of liters of water. The invaders were wiped out, along with thousands of Parolandans. It also swept the aluminum and steel mills and the factories into The River. The Riverboat, too, but that was recovered almost undamaged.

"Clemens had to rebuild almost from scratch. During our vulner­able situation, the Soul Citizens allied with some other states and attacked again. They were repulsed but with heavy losses. The Parolanders badly needed Soul City's bauxite, cryolite, ci

"I know that," Jill said with some asperity.

"Forgive me," Piscator said, smiling slightly. "After the unsuc­cessful attack by the Soul Citizens, Greystock was made a colonel. And after Parolando's successful invasion of Soul City, he was made its governor. Clemens wanted a tough, ruthless man, and like most feudal lords, Greystock was that.

"However, several weeks ago Soul City voluntarily became one of the states in the United States of Parolando, fully equal with the mother state.

"Of course"-here Piscator smiled lopsidedly-"by now the supply of minerals in Soul City is almost exhausted. Project Airship doesn't need Soul City anymore. Also, through the process which Greystock calls attrition, a very euphemistic term, I fear, the original makeup of the population there has changed considerably. It was once a majority of mid-twentieth-century American blacks, with a minority of medieval Arabs-fanatical Wahhabis-and Dravidian speakers of ancient India. Because of the wars and Greystock's harsh governorship, its population became about half-white."

"He sounds so savage," she said. "With due apologies to the savages."

"He had several rebellions to put down. No one was forced to stay at Soul City, you know. Clemens would not permit slavery. Everybody was given a chance to leave, to go peacefully and with all his possessions elsewhere. Many citizens stayed there, swore loyalty to Parolando, but then became saboteurs."

"Guerrilla warfare?"

"Hardly," Piscator said. "You know that the topography just isn't fined for guerrilla activity. No. It seems that a number of Soul Citizens thought that sabotage would be a method of recreation."

"Recreation?"

"It gave them something to do. It was better than drifting on down The River. Besides, many of them wanted revenge.

"To give Greystock his due, he usually just kicked any saboteurs he caught out of the state. Actually, he threw them into The River. Well, that is history, and it happened before I came here. Anyway, Greystock has come here because he wants to be a member of the airship crew."

"But he has no qualifications!"

"True-in one sense. He does not come from a highly technolog­ical culture, relatively speaking. But he is intelligent and curious, and he can learn. And though he was once a baron of England and governor of Soul City, he is willing to be a lowly crewman. The idea of flying fascinates him. It's akin to magic-for him. Firebrass has promised him that he can go-if there are not enough qualified airshipmen. Of course, if by chance the crew of the Graf Zeppelin or the Shenandoah should just happen to come along ..." Piscator had smiled.