The Fabulous Riverboat

Sam did not tell John at once, because he needed time to think about the situation. John, of course, would want to demand that the metals be traded to Parolando or that war be declared.

While he was pacing back and forth in the pilothouse, clouding the room with green smoke, he heard drums. They were using a code which he did not know but recognized, after a minute, as that used by Soul City. A few minutes later, Firebrass was at the foot of the ladder.

"Sinjoro Hacking knows all about the discovery of tungsten and iridium in Selinujo. He says that if you can come to an agreement with Selina, fine. But don't invade her land. He'd regard that as a declaration of war on Soul City."

Sam looked out the starboard port past Firebrass. "Here comes John hot-footing it," he said. "He's heard the news, too. His spy system is almost as good as yours, a few minutes less good, I'd say. I don't know where the leaks in my system are, but they're so wide that I'd be sunk if I was a boat, and I may be anyway."

John, his eyes inflamed, his face red, and puffing and panting, entered. Since the introduction of grain alcohol, he had put on even more fat, and he seemed to be half drunk all the time and all drunk half the time.

Sam was angered, but at the same time, he was amused. John would have liked to summon him to his palace, in keeping with his dignity as ex-King of England. But he knew that Sam would not come for a long time, if at all, and meanwhile there was no telling how much hankypanky Firebrass and Sam would manufacture. "What's going on?" John said, glaring.

"You tell me," Sam said. "You seem to know more about the shady side of affairs than I do."

"None of your wisecracks!" John said. Without being asked, he poured out a quart of purple passion into a stein. "I know what that message is about, even if I don't know the code!"

"I thought as much," Sam said. "For your information, in case you missed anything..." and he told him what Firebrass had said.

"The arrogance of you blacks is unendurable," John said. "You are telling Parolando, a sovereign state, how it must conduct itself in vital business. Well, I say you can't! We will get those metals, one way or the other! Selinujo doesn't need them; we do! It can't hurt Selinujo to give them up! We will give a fair trade!"

"In what?" Firebrass said. "Selinujo doesn't want weapons or alcohol. What can you trade?" "Peace, freedom from war!"

Firebrass shrugged and gri

"Sure," Firebrass said, "you can make your offer. But what Hacking says still goes."

"Hacking has no love for Selinujo," Sam said. "He kicked out all the Second Chancers, black or white."

"That's because they were preaching immediate pacifism. They also preach, and apparently practice, love for all, regardless of color, but Hacking says they're a danger to the state. The blacks have to protect themselves, otherwise they would be enslaved all over again." "The blacks?" Sam said. "Us blacks!" Firebrass replied, gri

This was not the first time Firebrass had given the impression that he was not so deeply concerned with skin color. His identification with blacks, as such, was weak. His life had not been untouched by racial prejudice, but it had not been much affected. And he said things now and then that indicated that he would like a berth on the boat All this, of course, could be a put-on.

"We'll negotiate with Sinjorino Hastings," Sam said. "It would be nice to have radios and TV for the boat, and the machine shops could use the tungsten. But we can get along without them."

He winked at John to indicate that he should take this line. But John was as stone-headed as usual.

"What we do with Selinujo is our problem, nobody else's!"

"I'll tell Hacking," Firebrass said. "But Hacking is a strong person. He won't take any crap from anybody, least of all white capitalist imperialists." Sam choked, and John stared.

"That's what he regards you as!" Firebrass said. "And the way he defines those terms, you are what he says you are."

"Because I want this boat so badly!" Sam shouted. "Do you know what this boat is for, what its ultimate goal... ?"

He fought back his anger, sobbing with the effort. He felt dizzy. For a moment, he had almost told about the Stranger. "What is it?" Firebrass said.

"Nothing," Sam replied. "Nothing. I just want to get to the headwaters of The River, that's all. Maybe the secret of this whole shebang is there? Who knows? But I certainly don't like criticism from someone who just wants to sit around on his dead black ass and collect soul brothers. If he wants to do that, more power to him, but I still hold to integration as the ideal. And I'm a Missouri white born in 1835! So how's that for going against your heritage and your environment? The point is, if I don't use the siderite metal to build a boat, which is designed for travel only, not for aggression, then someone else will. And that someone else may use it to conquer and to hold, instead of for tourist purposes.

"Now, we've gone along with Hacking's demands, paid his jacked-up prices for the ones when we could have gone down there and taken them from him. John's apologized for what he called you and Hacking, and if you think it's easy for a Plantagenet to do that, you don't know your history. It's too bad about the way Hacking feels. I don't know that I blame him. Of course, he hates whites. But this is not Earth! Conditions are radically different here!"

"But people bring their attitudes along with them," Firebrass said. "Their hates and loves, dislikes and likes, prejudices, reactions, everything." "But they can change!"

Firebrass gri

"I don't want to argue about that," Sam said. "I'll tell you what I think we should do!"

He stopped and stared out the port. The whitish-gray hull and upper works gleamed in the sun. How beautiful! And she was, in a sense, all his! She was worth everything he was being put through!

"I'll tell you what," he said more slowly. "Why doesn't Hacking come up here? Pay a little visit? He can look around, see for himself what we're doing. See our problems. Maybe he'll appreciate our problems, see we're not blue-eyed devils who want to enslave him. In fact, the more he helps us, the sooner hell be rid of us."

"I'll give him your message," Firebrass said. "Maybe he'll want to do that."

"We'll greet him in style," Sam said. "A twenty-one gun salute, big reception, food, liquor, gifts. He'll see we aren't such bad fellows after all."

John spat. "Pah!" but he said no more. He knew that Sam's proposal was best.

Three days later, Firebrass brought a message. Hacking would come, after Parolando and Selinujo had agreed on the disposition of the metals.

Sam felt like a rusty old boiler in a Mississippi steamboat. A few more pounds of pressure, and he would blow sky-high. "Sometimes, I think you're right!" he shouted at John.

Maybe we should just take over these countries and get done with!"

"Of course," John said smoothly. "Now, it is obvious that that ex-Countess Huntingdon—she must be decended from my old enemy, the Earl of Huntingdon —is not going to give in. She is a religious fanatic, a nut, as you say. And Soul City will fight us if we invade Selinujo. Hacking can't go back on his word. And he's stronger now that we've given him the Firedragon III. But I say nothing about that; I do not reproach you. I have been thinking much about this mess."

Sam stopped pacing and looked at John. John had been thinking. Shadows would be moving inside shadows; daggers would be unsheathed; the air would get gray and chill with stealth and intrigue; blood would spurt. And the sleeping would do well to stir.