The Fabulous Riverboat

Sam groaned. It made no difference whether Hacking or Iyeyasu had the boat, if he couldn't get it. But by the time they were inside the dam, he felt better. Maybe the two forces would destroy each other, and the Parolandanoj who'd fled could come back and take over. All wasn't lost yet.

Moreover, the appearance of the Herculean Liver Eating Johnston heartened him. The Mysterious Stranger had not entirely abandoned him. He was still pla

Still he could show up again. The River was a great place for bad pe

In the dam, Johnston had to be introduced and the situation explained. Joe Miller, wrapped in towels, sat up and shook hands with Johnston. And Johnston, awe in his voice, said, "Night and day, this man-child seed many queer things. But I ain't never seed one like you. You didn't have to crush my hand, friend."

"I didn't try," Joe said. "You look pretty big and thtrong to me. Bethideth, I been thick."

About half an hour before the rains, they moved out. The land was relatively quiet by then. The celebrators had gone to bed, and everybody had cleared away from the fires in expectation of the rain. But the guard towers and the factories were full of enemy guards, and these had stopped drinking. Apparently, Hacking had called a halt to it.

Johnston, like a giant ghost, drifted away while they leaned against the side of the sulfuric acid factory. Ten minutes later, he was suddenly beside them.

"I been giving those blacks the ear," he said. "That Hacking is shore one smart nigger. All that drinking and whooping it up and staggering around, why, that's all put on! That's fer the benefit of spies from Iyeyasujo. Hacking knows the Jap is going to attack tonight, and he's making it look like it's go

Sam was startled by the news. He asked Johnston if he had overheard anything else.

"Yeah, I heard a couple of them Citizens talking about why Hacking decided he had to attack us. He knew Iyeyasu was going to do it, so he decided he had to jump the gun. If he didn't, the Jap would have control of the metal and the amphibians and everything, and he'd just conquer Soul City next and then have everything. Them jackasses was laughing fit to kill. They said it was King John arranged with Hacking to take over. And then Hacking blew up King John in his own house because he didn't trust John. Said John was a traitor and even if he wasn't, he was a whitey and couldn't be trusted."

Sam said, "But why in hell would John do that to us? What did he have to gain?"

"Hacking and John was go

"Du

"Yeah. Well, it wasn't Hacking was to blame for his being tortured. Some a them Wahhabi Ayrabs did it. They's got it in for the Second Chancers, you know, and they got him and tortured him, with the help a some a them African niggers, the Dahomeyans, who used to torture a dozen people before breakfast every day, according to what I heard. By the time Hacking heard of it and stopped it, Goring was dying. But he talked to Hacking, called him his soul brother and said he forgave him. Said he'd see him later along The River. Hacking was pretty shook up about it, from what his men said."

Sam digested the news, which set the teeth of his stomach even more on edge. He was so upset he couldn't even get any amusement from Hacking's double cross of the champion double-crosser, King John. He did have to admire Hacking's statesmanship and perception, however. Hacking had realized there was only one way to deal with John, and he had taken that way. But then Hacking did not have Sam Clemens' conscience.

The news changed everything. Apparently, Iyeyasu was on the way now, which meant that Sam's plans to sneak out during the rains would not work. The Soul Citizens were too alert. "What's the matter, Sam?" Livy said. She was sitting

ear him and looking sadly at him. "I think it's all up with us."

"Oh, Sam!" she replied. "Where's your manhood? It isn't all up with us! You get depressed so easily if things don't go your way all the time! Why, this is the greatest opportunity you could ask for to get your boat back! Let Hacking and Iyeyasu destroy each other and then take over. Just sit back up in the hills until they have clawed each other to death and then jump on them while they're gasping out their last!"

Sam said angrily, "What are you talking about? Jump on them with fifteen men and women?"

"No, you stupe! You have at least five hundred prisoners in that stockade and God knows how many more in other stockades. And you have thousands who ran away to Cernskujo and Publiujo!"

"How can I get hold of them now?" Sam said. "It's too late! The attack will be launched in a few hours, you can bet on that! Besides, the refugees were probably put in stockades, too! For all I know, Chernsky and Publius Crassus may be in cahoots with Hacking!"

"You're still the same paralyzed pessimist I knew on Earth," she said. "Oh, Sam, I still love you, in a way, that is. I still like you as a friend, and..."

"Friend!" he said so loudly that the others jumped. Cyrano said, "Morbleu!" and Johnston hissed, "Shet up, you want them black Injuns to get us?" "We were lovers for years," he said.

"Not always, by a long shot," she said. "But this is no place for a discussion of our failures. I don't intend to thrash those out, anyway. It's too late. The point is, do you or do you not want your boat?"

"Of course, I do," he said fiercely. "What do you think... ?" "Then get off your dead ass, Sam!" she said.

From anybody else, the remark would have been unremarkable. But from her, his fragile, soft-voiced, clean-speeched Livy, it was unthinkable. But she had said it, and now that he thought back on it, there had been times on Earth, which he had suppressed in his memory, when...

"The lady makes a powerful lot a sense!" Johnston rumbled.

He had far more important things to think about. But the really important things were best recognized by the unconscious, and it, must have been this that sent the thought. For the first time, he understood, really understood, with the cells of his body, from the brain on down, that Livy had changed. She was no longer his Livy. She had not been for a long tune, perhaps had not been for some years on Earth before her death.

"What do you say, Mr. Clemens?" the mountain man rumbled.

Sam gave a deep sigh, as if he were breathing out the last fragments of Olivia Langdon Clemens de Bergerac, and said, "Here's what we do."

The rains lashed down; thunder and lightning made the skies and the land hideous for a half hour. Johnston appeared out of the rain with two bazookas and four rockets tied together on his broad back. Then he disappeared again and a half hour later was back with some throwing knives and tomahawks, all of steel, and some new blood, not his, splashed on his arms and chest.

The rain clouds went away. The land was brightly silver under the magnificent stars, as big as apples, as numerous as cherries on a tree in season, as luminous as jewels before electric lights. Then it got colder, and they shivered under the irontree. A thin mist formed over The River; within fifteen minutes, it was so thick that the waters and the grailstones and the high walls along the banks could not be seen. A half hour later, Iyeyasu struck. The big boats and the small boats, crammed with men and weapons, came from across The River, where the Sacs and Foxes had once ruled, from the northern part of the exUlmak territory, from the land where the Hottentots and Bushmen had once lived in peace. And the main bulk came from the right bank of The River, from the three lands where Iyeyasu was now lord.