The Fabulous Riverboat

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 bodyguards. 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

hite 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 BoomMark 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."

"Let's make two hundred of these first, then we'll start on the Mark II," Sam said. "We don't want to mess around so long trying to get the perfect weapon that we suddenly find we don't have any at all. Still—"

He talked for a while about the Mark II. He had a passion for mechanical gadgets. On Earth he had invented a number of things, all of which were going to make nun a fortune. And there was the Paige typesetting machine, into which he had sunk—and it had sunk—all the wealth he had made from his books.

Sam thought of the typesetting monster and how that wonderful contraption had bankrupted him. For a second, Paige and Van Boom were one and he felt guilty and a little panicky.

Van Boom next complained about the materials and the labor put into the AMP-1, their aerial machine prototype. Sam ignored him. He went with the others to the hangar, which was on the plains a mile north of Sam's quarters. The craft was only partly finished but would look almost as skeletal and frail when ready to fly as it did now.

"It's similar to some of the planes built in 1910," von Richthofen said. "I'll be exposed from my waist up when I sit in the cockpit. The whole machine looks more like a metal dragonfly than anything else. The main object is to test out the efficiency of the wood alcohol-burning motor and our materials."

Von Richthofen promised that the first flight would be made within three weeks. He showed Sam the plans for the rocket launchers which would be attached under the wings. "The plane can carry about six small rockets, but it'll

ostly be good only for scouting. It won't go faster than forty miles an hour against the wind. But it'll be fun flying it."

Sam was disappointed that the plane wasn't a twoseater. He looked forward to flying for the first time in his life—his second life, that is. But von Richthofen said the next prototype would be a two-seater and Sam would be his first passenger.

"After you've tested it out," Sam said. He expected John to protest about this and to insist that he be taken up first. But evidently John was not too eager to leave the ground.

The last stop was at the boatyard, located halfway between the hangar and Sam's house. The craft within the pine-log enclosure would be completed within a week. The Firedragon I was the amphibious prototype of the boat that would be the launch for the big boat. It was a beautiful machine, made of thick magnalium, about thirtytwo feet long, shaped like a U.S. Navy cruiser with wheels, with three turrets on its sleek top deck. It was powered by steam, burned wood alcohol, could operate in water or on land, carried a crew of eleven and was, so Sam declared, invincible.

He patted the cold gray hull and said, "Why should we worry about having bowmen? Or having anything but this? This juggernaut could crush a kingdom all by itself. It has a steam-powered ca

All in all, the tour had made him happy. It was true that the plans for the great Riverboat had barely been started. But those took time. It was vital that the state be well protected at first, and just making the preparations was fun. He rubbed his hands and puffed on a new cigar, drawing the green smoke deeply into his lungs. And then he saw Livy.

His beloved Livy, sick for so many years, and dead, finally, in Italy, in 1904.

Restored to life and youth and beauty, but not, alas, to him.

She was walking toward him, carrying her grail by its handle, wearing a white scarlet-edged kilt that came halfway down her thighs and a thin white scarf for a bra. She had a fine figure, good legs, handsome features. Her forehead was broad and satiny white. Her eyes were large and luminous. Her lips were full and shapely; her smile, attractive; her teeth, small and very white. She customarily wore her dark hair parted, combed down smooth in front but twisted into a figure eight in the back. Behind an ear she wore one of the giant crimson roselike blooms that grew from the vines on the irontrees. Her necklace was made of the convoluted red vertebrae of the hornfish. Sam's heart felt as if it were being licked by a cat.

She swayed as she walked toward him, and her breasts bounced beneath the semi-opaque fabric. Here was his Livy, who had always been so modest, had worn heavy clothes from the neck down to the ankle, and had never undressed before him in the light. Now she reminded him of the half-naked women of the Sandwich Islands. He felt uneasy, and he knew why. His queasiness among the natives had been as much due to their unwanted attraction for him as repulsion, each feeling dependent on the other and having nothing to do with the natives per se.

Livy had had a Puritanical upbringing, but she had not been ruined by it. On Earth she had learned to drink and to like beer, had even smoked a few times and had become an infidel or, at least, a great doubter. She had even tolerated his constant swearing and had let loose with a few blisterers herself if the girls were not around. The accusations that she had censored his books and thus emasculated them were off the target. He had done most of the censoring himself. Yes, Livy had always shown adaptability.

Too much. Now, after twenty years of absence from him, she had fallen in love with Cyrano de Bergerac. And Sam had the uneasy feeling that that wild Frenchman had awakened in her something that Sam might have awakened if he had not been so inhibited himself. But after these years on The River and the chewing of a certain amount of dreamgum, he had lost many of his own inhibitions. It was too late for him. Unless Cyrano left the scene...