The Fabulous Riverboat

"Yes. There's an insulating jacket of plaster encased in wood. Note that bleeder valve. It permits the gun to be heated up before use—a few seconds before it's fired. If that isn't done, the gun might jam. And since the gun's maximum temperature is the same as the steam in the boiler, there's no danger of burning up the barrel. You can use the gun like a fire hose. In fact, that'll be about the only way it'll be effective. The accuracy of a light plastic bullet with such comparatively low muzzle velocity isn't high."

Firebrass was far from being depressed because of the military superiority the amphibian would give Parolando. This probably was because he was pla

Soul City could not outbuild Parolando. But Parolando could not cut the supplies off, because then Soul City would cut off the bauxite, cryolite, platinum and indium.

The exhilaration from showing off his deadly invention whistled out almost audibly from Sam. The only solution to the problem, if Soul City did start a weapons race, would be to smash Soul City and take direct control of the minerals. This meant putting off the building of the Riverboat. And it also meant offending the two states, Publiujo and Tifonujo, that lay between Parolando and Soul City. And if those two states got together, they would be formidable, what with the weapons that Parolando had to give them in exchange for their wood.

Sam had thought that that potentiality was bad enough. But a few days later Iyeyasu completed his conquest of his neighboring states and sent a mission to Parolando. He made no demands that could not be met. In fact, in one way his proposals were helpful. He said that his nation had lost enough trees, and he would like to give them a chance to grow again—but for an increase in the number of weapons from Parolando, he was willing to provide a large quantity of wood and of excrement for their gunpowder industry. He would invade the territories across The River and take their wood from them.

What it amounted to was that Parolando would be paying Iyeyasu to collect the wood forcibly from its neighbors. It would be cheaper and also a lot less painful for Parolandoj, who would not have to do their own killing, enslaving or raiding.

And Sam Clemens would have one more thing to rob him of sleep.

John Lackland thought the proposal excellent. "Our factories are turning out weapons efficiently," he said. "We can afford to export more. And we must build a fleet of Firedragons so that the swords we give these people will be easily overpowered by our machines."

"When are we going to start building the Riverboat?" Sam asked.

No one gave him an answer, but the next day Van Boom, Velitsky, and O'Brien, his chief engineers, brought him the first rough overall sketches. They were drawn in black on white plastic boards with a pencil co

Firebrass said he would like to help build the boat. Permission was given, though John objected at first. Sam replied that the more help they had, the faster the work would move. And he did not see how any amount of knowledge on Firebrass' part would enable him to steal the boat. Though Sam did not tell John, he had an idea about Firebrass. That was to get him so involved, so "het up" about the boat that he would take an offer of a berth on the vessel.

The machinery necessary to roll out the first plates for the hull was almost finished. The dam had been finished a week ago, and the water from the cataract was filling it up. The aluminum wires of the generators, which would be turned by the waterfall from the dam, were being wound. The prototype batacitor, which would be four stories high, would be finished in a month, if enough materials were available.

Five hundred missionaries of the Church of the Second Chance asked for sanctuary in Parolando a few days later, Iyeyasu had kicked them out of his new state, promising various exquisite tortures if they tried to sneak back. Sam did not hear about them immediately because he was up at the dam.

The Chancers refused to go when John sent word to them to leave immediately. John Lackland, hearing this, smiled grimly, tugged at his lion-colored hair, and swore his favorite oath, "By the teeth of God!"

Sam was at the dam to supervise the installation of tons of dynamite inside the hollow walls. This was to be one more trick up his sleeve, a last-ditch operation—and perhaps a suicidal one—if ever an enemy were about to make a successful invasion.

Von Richthofen, red-faced and blowing hard from his run up the hill, told him of the arrival of the Chancers and their refusal to move. He did not mention John.

Sam told Lothar to tell the Chancers that he would be down in the evening. They could wait for him but were not to move outside a radius of twenty yards from the grailstone near which they had landed. For a moment, he considered ordering them to leave at once and telling the soldiers that they could pound them a little with the flats of their swords if they wished. He was hot and sweating and covered with cement dust, and he felt an especial animosity toward the Chancers. Here was a world blessed by the absence of flies and mosquitoes—and humans, the Chancers, were trying to fill the gap.

The rumbling and splash of giant mortars pouring out concrete, the yells of the straw bosses and the scraping of shovels and clatter of iron wooden-wheeled barrows kept Sam from hearing the explosions that came a half hour later. He knew nothing of what had happened until von Richthofen came ru

lump into a puddle. John had tested out the new guns on the Chancers. A hundred Mark I flintlocks had killed almost five hundred men and women in three minutes. John himself had fired and loaded ten times, using the last five bullets to finish off the wounded.

About thirty women, the most beautiful, had been spared. These had been taken to John's palace.

Long before he reached the water's edge, Sam saw the big crowd gathered around the grailstone. He sent Lothar ahead of him to clear the way. The crowd parted before them, like the Red Sea before Moses, he thought, but the Red Sea was before him after he got through the parting. The bodies were piled against each other, covered with blood, their flesh torn, bones shattered by the big-caliber bullets. In his ninety-seven years of life Sam had never grown accustomed to the silence of the dead. It seemed to hang over them like an invisible and chilling cloud. The mouth that would not speak again, the brain that could not think...

It did no good to remember that tomorrow these same people, in fresh and healthy bodies, would be up and doing somewhere along the banks. The effect of death could not be diluted with intellectualizing.

John was issuing orders about the disposal of the bodies to the soap and skin factories. He gri

"This is a massacre!" Sam shouted. "A massacre! Unjustified! Unforgivable! There was no reason for it, you bloody-minded, killing beast! That's all you ever have been, you murdering dog, all you ever will be! Swine! Swine! Swine!"

John lost his smile and took a step back as Sam, his hands clenched, moved close to him. The huge massiveboned Zaksksromb, holding a big club of oak with steel spikes set in its end, started toward Sam.

Lothar von Richthofen shouted, "None of that—leave him alone or I call Joe Miller! And I'll shoot the first man who makes a move toward Sam." Sam looked behind him. Lothar was holding a big pistol