The Fabulous Riverboat

16

Mists still overhung The River and the edge of the banks, but he could see the huge squat mushroom shape of the grailstone a mile and a half down the slope of the plain just by the water's edge. A moment later, he saw a boat, toy-size, emerge from the mists. Two figures jumped out and pulled the dugout onto the shore, then ran off to the right. The light from the skies was bright enough for Sam to see them, though he sometimes lost them when buildings intervened. After going around the two-story pottery factory, they cut straight into the hills. He lost them then, but it seemed that they were heading for John Plantagenet's log "palace."

So much for the sentinel system of Parolando. Every quarter mile on The River's front was guarded by a hut on thirty-foot stilts with four men on duty. If they saw anything suspicious, they were to beat on their drums, blow their bone horns and light their torches.

Two men slipping out of the fog to carry news to King John, ex-King John, of England?

Fifteen minutes later Sam saw a shadow ru

Sam beckoned to him; Grevel ran up the "ladder" and entered after Sam had unbarred the thick oak door.

Sam said, in Esperanto, "Saluton, leutenanto Grevel. Kio estas?"

(Translation: "Hello, Lieutenant Grevel. What's the matter?") Grevel said, "Bonan matenon, Estro. Ciu grasa

ripono, Rego Johano, estas jus akceptita duo spionoj."

(Translation: "Good morning, Boss. That fat rascal, King John, has just received two spies.")

Neither Sam nor Grevel could understand each other's English, but they got along very well in Esperanto, except now and then.

Sam gri

"He tried to assassinate Arthur of New Brittany? What is that man trying to do, ruin all of us?"

He paced back and forth, stopped, lit a big cigar and began pacing again. Once he stopped to invite Grevel to a bite of cheese and a glass of wine.

It was one of the ironies of Chance or, perhaps, of the Ethicals, for who knew what things they arranged, that King John of England and the nephew he had murdered most foully should have been located within thirty-two miles of each other. Arthur, Prince of Brittany of dead Earth, had organized the peoples among whom he found himself into a state he called New Brittany. There were very few old Bretons in the ten-mile-long territory he ruled, but that did not matter. New Brittany it was.

It had taken eight months before Arthur had discovered that his uncle was his neighbor. He had traveled incognito to Parolando to verify with his own eyes the identity of the uncle who had slit his throat and dropped his weighted body into the Seine. Arthur wanted to capture John and keep him alive for as long as possible under exquisite torture. Killing John would only bar him, possibly forever, from getting his revenge. John, murdered, would awake the next day someplace thousands of miles away on The River.

But Arthur had sent emissaries demanding that John be given up to him. These demands had been rejected, of course, though only Sam's sense of honor and his fear of John kept him from agreeing to Arthur's demands.

Now John had sent four men to assassinate Arthur. Two had been killed; the others had escaped with minor wounds. This would mean invasion. Arthur not only had wanted revenge on John, he would like to get possession of the meteorite iron.

Between Parolando and New Brittany, a fourteen-mile stretch of the right bank of The River was known as Chernsky's Land, or in Esperanto, Cernskujo. Chernsky, a sixteenth-century Ukrainian cavalry colonel, had refused an alliance with Arthur. But the nation immediately to New Brittany's north was governed by Iyeyasu. He was a powerful and ambitious person, the man who had established the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1600 with its capital at Yedo, later called Tokyo. Sam's spies said that the Japanese and the Breton had met six times in a war conference.

Moreover, just to the north of Iyeyasujo was Kleomanujo. This was governed by Cleomenes, a king of Sparta and half-brother to that Leonidas who held the pass at Thermoplyae. Cleomenes had met three times with Iyeyasu and Arthur.

Just south of Parolando was an eleven-mile stretch called Publia, after its king, Publius Crassus. Publius had been an officer in Caesar's cavalry during the Gallic campaigns. He was inclined to be friendly, although he extracted a big price for letting Sam cut down his timber.

South of Publia was Tifonujo, ruled by Tai Fung, one of Kublai Khan's captains, killed on Earth when he fell drunk off a horse.

And south of Tifonujo was Soul City, headed by Elwood Hacking and Milton Firebrass.

Sam stopped and glared from under bushy brows at Grevel. "The hell of it, Bill, is there isn't much I can do. If I tell John I know about his trying to murder Arthur, who may deserve murder, for all I know, then John knows that I've got spies inside the house. And he'll just deny everything, ask that I bring his accusers forth—and you know what would happen to them, to you." Grevel paled.

Sam said, "Start your blood ru

"John could be a tax-collector," Grevel said, as if he had plumbed the depths of insult. And he had, for him.

"It was a bad day when I had to agree to take John on as a partner," Sam muttered, blowing out smoke as he turned toward Grevel. "But if I hadn't taken him in, I'd have been robbed of my chance at the iron."

He dismissed Grevel after thanking him. The skies just above the mountains across The River were red. Soon the entire vault would be rosy on the edges and blue above, but it would be some tune before the sun cleared the mountain. Before then, the grailstones would be discharging

He washed his face in a basin, combed his thick bush of reddish hair straight back, applied the toothpaste with the tip of his finger to his teeth and gums, and spat. Then he fastened a belt with four sheaths and a bag dangling from a strap and put it around his waist. He placed a long towel around his shoulders as a cape, picked up a cane of oak shod with iron and, with the other hand, picked up the grail. He went down the stairs. The grass was still wet. It rained every night at three o'clock for a half hour, and the valley did not dry until after the sun came up. If it were not for the absence of disease germs and viruses, half the valley's humans would have died of pneumonia and flu long ago.

Sam was young and vigorous again, but he still did not like to exercise. As he walked, he thought of the little railway he would like to build from his house to the edge of The River. But that would be too restrictive. Why not build an automobile with a motor that burned wood alcohol?