KING JOHN HAD JUMPED THE GUN.
Just before the four aviators formed their bucket brigade of death, he spoke into the microphone on the pilothouse control panel.
“Taishi!”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Attack! And may God ride with you.”
Fifteen minutes before, the huge hatch at the stern had opened. A large two-seater plane with folded wings had slipped down a runway into the water. Floating on its pontoons, it had waited while its wings were extended and locked. Then Sa-kanoue Taishi, sitting in the pilot’s seat forward of the wings, had started the two motors. While Taishi watched the aerial battle from the open cockpit, he warmed up the motors. Behind the wings, in the gunner’s station, stood Gabriel O’Herlihy.
Both were veterans, the Japanese of World War II, the Irish-Australian of the Korean police action. Taishi had flown torpedo bombers for the Imperial Navy and had met his end in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. O’Herlihy had been a machine-gunner for the infantry. Despite his lack of aerial experience, he had been chosen for this post because of his superb marksmanship. It was said he could play a machine gun like Harpo Marx played the harp.
Suddenly, though not unexpectedly, the captain had told Taishi to get into action as arranged. Taishi spoke through the intercom headphones, and O’Herlihy sat down. The Japanese revved the motors and they headed up-River into the wind. It was a long takeoff, since they were carrying ten rockets, each with a hundred-pound warhead, under the wings and a torpedo under the fuselage. This was electrically driven and carried seven hundred pounds of cordite in its head.
At last, the big craft left the surface. Taishi waited until they were fifty feet up and pressed the pontoon release button. The gear and the two large pontoons fell off, and the machine picked up speed.
O’Herlihy, looking back and upward, saw the four fighter planes fall and crash, but he did not tell Taishi. The pilot was too busy turning the machine toward the left bank, keeping it at a low altitude. He flew it between two rock spires just above the topmost wooden bridges. The plan was to skim across the top of the trees and, where possible, fly between the hills. Once they got close to the mountains, they would turn downwind. Still keeping close to the treetops, they would fly along the mountains. Then they would wheel right and shoot across the hills and come down just above the bamboo complexes. And they would strike at the Not For Hire which would be broadside to them.
Taishi knew that Clemens’ radar had picked them up the moment they left The River. But he hoped to elude it until he appeared suddenly from behind the hills.
The noncom had been trying to get Sam Clemens’ attention for a minute. The captain, however, seemed not to hear him. He was standing up by the chair now, a burning cigar in his mouth, his eyes filmed with tears. He was murmuring, over and over, “Georges! Bill!”
Joe Miller stood near him. The titanthrop was clad in battle armor, a steel helmet with a heavy wire basket over the face, a sausage-shaped extension to guard his nose, a chain-mail shirt, fishskin leather gloves, plastic loin protection, and aluminum thigh and shin guards. In his mammoth right hand was the shaft of a double-bladed steel axe-head weighing one hundred pounds.
Joe’s eyes were moist also.
“They vath nithe guyth,” he rumbled.
“Captain!” the noncom said. “Radar says a big plane has taken off from the Rex!”
Sam said, “What?”
“A two-motored plane, pontoon type, has taken off. Radar reports that it’s heading for the north.”
Sam came to full attention then. “North? Why the hell... ? Oh! It’s going to swing around and try to catch us broadside!”
He yelled at the others to get below. In a minute he had scrambled down the ladder onto the bridge. He shouted at the executive officer, John Byron.
“Did you order the Goose to take off?”
Byron said, “Yes, sir. The moment radar spotted their torpedo plane leaving! They broke the agreement!”
“Good man,” Sam said. He looked out the port window. The Goose, a big twin-motored torpedo plane, was past the boat, heading into the window. Even as he caught sight of it, it lifted, water falling from the white pontoons. A minute later, the two pontoons fell, struck The River, glanced upward and ahead, then fell, were caught by the current, and drifted away.
“Battle stations!” Clemens said.
Byron punched a button. Sirens began howling, but the crowd on the decks had already started toward its posts.
“Full speed ahead!”
Detweiller, sitting in the pilot’s chair, pushed his two control sticks as far as they would go. The giant electrical motors began turning; the huge paddle wheels attached to them dug into the water. The boat almost seemed to leap forward.
“That’s a smart trick old John’s pulled,” Clemens said. “Radio the Goose and tell them to come in on the Rex’s broadside.”
Byron hastened to obey. Sam turned to de Marbot. The little fellow wore a coal-scuttle helmet of duraluminum, a chain-mail shirt and kilt, and leather jackboots. A leather belt held a holster in which a Mark IV pistol was couched and a scabbard in which a cutlass was sheathed.
“Tell your men to bring up the SW,” he said. “On the double!”
The Frenchman punched a button which would put him on the intercom to the storage room.
“Is the enemy plane still on the radar?” he said to the operator.
“Not at the moment,” Schindler replied. “It’s behind the hills, too close to the mountains.”
“It’ll come hellbent for election right over the tops of the trees,” Clemens said. “We won’t have much time.”
De Marbot gave a groan. Clemens looked at his pale face and said, “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” de Marbot said. “I heard something that sounded like an explosion! The line’s dead! Nobody answers!”
Sam could feel himself turning gray. “Oh, my God! An explosion! Get down there, find out what’s going on!”
Byron was by another intercom on the bulkhead. He said, “Station 25 reports an explosion in Station 26.”
The Frenchman stepped into the elevator and was gone.
“Sir, there’s the enemy plane!” the radar operator said. “On the port bank, just above the structures, coming in between those two rock spires.”
Sam ran to the window and looked out. The sun flashed on the silver-and-blue-streaked nose of an aircraft.
“Coming like a bat out of hell!”
He gripped the ledge, forced himself to be calm, and turned. But Byron had sent word down. It wasn’t needed, since the attacker was visible.
“Hold your fire until the attacker is five hundred yards distant,” Byron said. “Then fire the rockets. Cannons and small arms, wait until it’s within two hundred and fifty yards.”
“I shouldn’t have waited,” Sam muttered. “I should have brought the laser out as soon as those boys took off. It could slice that plane in half before it launched the torpedo.”
One more regret in a lifetime of regrets.
And just what in blue blazes happened down there?
“Here it cometh!” Joe Miller said.
The torpedo plane had dipped down past the bridges running along the edge of the hills. Now it was skimming the grass of the plains. Whoever the pilot was, he was handling his big heavy machine as if it were a one-seater fighter.
Events happened fast after that. The plane was going at least 150 miles per hour. Once it reached The River, it would have a mile to go to its target. But it would release the torpedo within six hundred feet. Closer, if the pilot was daring. The nearer the release, the less chance for the Not For Hire to evade the missile.
It would have been better if the boat were to turn prow-on and so present a smaller target. But to do this would cut the defense fire to a minimum.
Sam waited. The moment that the silvery weapon of destruction was loosed from its carrier, he would give the order to Detweiller to swing the boat around. The plane would be a lesser menace then. In any event, if it survived the hail of fire, it would be getting to hell out.
“Five hundred yards,” Byron said, reading the radarscope over its operator’s shoulder. He spoke into the intercom linked with the batteries. “Fire the rockets!”
Twenty silvery cone-tipped cylinders, spouting flame from their tails, sprang like cats at a feline convention after a lone mouse.
The pilot had the reflexes of a cat, too. Twelve rockets, smaller than those hurled at him, sprang from below his wings. The two flights met in three battings of an eye and went up in flame surrounded by smoke. Immediately after, the plane bored through the clouds. Now it was so close to The River that it seemed the waves would snap its bottom.
“Fire the second battery of rockets!” Byron yelled. “Fire cannons and small arms!”
Another flight of missiles arced out. The steam machine guns hosed a stream of ,80-caliber plastic bullets. The 88-millimeter cannon on the port side bellowed, spouting flame and gray clouds. The marines, stationed between the heavy platforms, fired their rifles.
The long sharkish-looking torpedo dropped from the airplane at an altitude of a hundred feet, hit the water, skipped, sank. Now all that could be seen of it was its wake, boiling white.
“Hard aport!” Sam said.
Detweiller yanked back on the port stick. The monster wheels on the left side slowed, stopped, began churning water in the opposite direction. Slowly, the boat swung around.
Taishi, feeling the plane suddenly relieved of the weight of the torpedo, pulled back on the stick. Up rose the nose as the twin motors, on full power, lifted her to pass over the boat. Taishi leaned over the side of the cockpit, the wind hitting him full in the face. He could not see the torpedo, even though the water was clear, because he had passed it.
Ahead, the sun shone briefly on rockets, trailing smoke. Another launching! Heat-seekers, too.
If things had ‘gone otherwise, Taishi would have skimmed, the edge of the boat’s flight deck, passed beyond it, swung around, and come back to strafe. O’Herlihy was standing up now, bracing himself with one hand against the edge of his cockpit, waiting until the plane assumed a level to swing his guns around. But O’Herlihy would never get a chance to use his twin .50-calibers.
The plane, Taishi, and O’Herlihy disappeared in a great cloud, pieces flying out of it almost immediately, metal, flesh, bone, and blood.
One of the motors fell in an arc, smashing into the flight deck near a cannon. It rolled across and dropped over the edge and fell onto the hurricane deck, crushing two men.
A crewman called for a fire-fighting squad.
Sam Clemens, looking out the port window, saw the explosion, saw a dark object out of the corner of his eye, felt the vibrations of the impact.
“What in hell was that?”
But he kept his eyes on-the torpedo’s wake, sinister as a shark’s approach and even more swift.
If only the boat could spin around faster, spin around on a dime and give five cents’ change.
This was a strange geometry, a deadly one. The torpedo was describing a straight line, the shortest distance between two points—in this case, anyway. The boat was describing a circle in order to avoid being at the end of the line drawn.
Sam gripped the ledge, bit through his cigar so savagely that its outer part fell off, but, not totally severed, swung down. Its glowing end burned his chin, causing him to yell with pain. But that was a few seconds later. While the torpedo scraped against the hull, he felt nothing except extreme anxiety.
Then it had gone on, headed toward the shore, and he clapped his hand to his neck, burned his hand, and dashed the cigar away.
“Straighten her out,” he told Detweiller. “Resume former course, full speed ahead.”
Byron, looking out of the starboard window, said, “The torpedo’s half-submerged against the bank, Captain. Its motor is still pushing it, but it’s stuck in the mud, tilting up.”
“Let them worry about it,” Sarn/said, referring to the people on the bank. “Oh! Oh!”
He stopped. For several minutes, he’d forgotten about the explosion near the SW room.
“Byron! Has Marbot reported yet?”
“No, sir.”
The bulkhead intercom tootled. Byron answered it with Clemens close behind him.
“De Marbot here. Is the captain occupied?”
“I’m listening, Marc!” Sam said. “What’s happened?”
“The laser has been blown up! It’s totally destroyed! The entire guard, including Fermor, was killed, and so were four crewmen who came upon the scene. The guards were blown up; the crewmen were gunned down! Captain, there’s a saboteur or saboteurs aboard!”
Sam groaned. For a moment, he thought he was going to faint. He steadied himself with a hand against the bulkhead.
Byron said, “Are you all right, sir?”
Byron looked as pale as Sam felt. But he showed no evidence of hysteria. Sam straightened up, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m okay. Son of a blazing bitch! I should have had twenty men guarding that! I should have brought it up sooner! Now our ace in the hole is gone! And John didn’t have a chance with it! Never overlook the human factor, Byron!”
Byron said, “No, sir. I suggest...”
“That we send search parties looking for the bastard? Or bastards? They’ll be back at their posts by now. Maybe. Maybe they’re planning on wrecking the generators. Send some men down to the engine room to stand guard.
“And start checking the stations. See if anybody left his post for any reason whatever. There may be some innocents there, but we can’t take any chances. Anybody who left his post, throw him into the brig! I don’t care if it’s an officer and he seems to have a good excuse. We can’t fight John and worry about being stabbed in the back at the same time!”
“Aye, aye, sir!” Byron said, and he began calling the stations by number.
“Enemy vessel is five miles away, Captain,” the chief radar operator called. “Traveling at fifty-five miles per hour.”
The Rex had a top speed of forty-five miles per hour in still water and no headwinds. Aided by the current and the wind, it was going at a speed equal to the Not For Hire’s.
“Any indication of the Goose!” Sam said.
“Nothing sir.”
Sam looked at the chronometer. The big plane should still be flying alongside the mountains, hugging the top of the trees, down below the forest whenever possible. But it would not be attacking the Rex by itself. Its orders were to wait until the Rex was engaged with the motherboat. Then, while John’s crew was occupied with firing upon the enemy; the Goose would come roaring out across the trees, swoop down to The River, and make a run for the broadside of the Rex. If John had had any sense, he would have held back his own torpedo plane until the full-scale battle started.
But then John had hoped that the people on the Not For Hire would be so busy watching the aerial fight that they would be taken by surprise.
“Enemy vessel four miles away, Captain. Dead ahead.”
Sam lit another cigar and asked the medic to put some salve on his chin-burn. Smollett did so, and then Clemens stood by the starboard port, watching the smoke clouds rising from the fires on the left bank about a quarter of a mile ahead. Flames were eating the bamboo, pine, and yew structures. Pieces lifted off the blaze, carried by the wind, and landed on the bridges and houses. People were scurrying around, carrying belongings out of burning houses or climbing down ladders before the fire got to them. Others had formed lines, dipping their grails and fired-clay buckets into The River, passing the containers along to the other end, where the water was thrown onto the fires at the bases. That was a hopeless procedure; there was nothing to do but let the fire go. Apparently half of the sightseers had decided to do that. They thronged to the plains, where there were a few buildings and continued to wait for the meeting of the boats.
“Before we’re done, we’ll have leveled Virolando,” Sam said to no one in particular. “We won’t be very popular here.”
“Enemy is three miles away, sir.”
Sam walked to the intercom, where Byron was still talking to the stations. Joe/s huge bulk came up behind him, and Sam could smell the bourbon emanating from the enormous nose. The titanthrop always liked to take several belts before a fight. It wasn’t that he needed Dutch courage, he explained. It was just for his stomach’s sake. It quieted the “butterflies.”
“Bethideth, Tham, I need lotth of enerchy. You thaid alcohol giveth enerchy. My body burnth it up like a motor burnth fuel. And I got a big body.” ‘
“Yeah, but a whole fifth?”
Byron looked at him. “So far, nobody’s been away from his post.”
“Vhat if they had to take a pithth?” Joe said. “I alvayth have to pithth a lot chutht before a fight. No matter how brave I am, and I am, I get tenthe. It ain’t nervouthneth. Chutht tenthion.”
“And of course all that booze doesn’t have a thing to do with it,” Sam said. “If I had a fifth in me, I wouldn’t be able to get out of the toilet. In fact, I’d be lucky if I could find it.”
“The vhiskey dearth my kidneyth. Clear kidneyth; clear head. My head, I mean, not the boat’th head.”
“Both heads have a lot in common,” Sam said. “The toilet’s got pipes full of water, and you have water on the brain.”
“You’re chuth talking nathty becauthe you’re nervouth,” Joe said. He patted Sam on the shoulder with fingers the size of bananas.
“Don’t get familiar with the captain,” Sam said: But he felt better. Joe loved him, and he would always be at his side. Could anything bad happen to him while that monster was guarding him? Yes. The boat could be destroyed, Joe or no Joe.
THE REX GRANDISSIMUS WAS VISIBLE BY NOW, A WHITE INDIStinct mass moving toward him. As minutes passed, it became sharper. For a moment, Sam Clemens felt a pain in his breast. The Rex had been his first boat, his first love. He had fought to get the metal for it, killed, even slain one of his colleagues for it—where was Erik Bloodaxe now?—helped plan it down to the least bolt, and all that killing and battling and struggle had been negated when King John had stolen it. Now it was his greatest adversary. It was a pity to have to destroy that craft, one of the only two of its kind on the whole planet.
He hated John even more because he was forcing him to sink the beauty. Maybe, though, just maybe the Rex could be boarded and taken. Then both boats could sail on up The River to its headwaters.
Sam had always seesawed from deepest pessimism to wildest optimism.
“Two and a half miles now,” the radar operator said.
“Any blips on the Goosel”
“No... yes, sir! Got some! It’s three miles to the starboard, just above the hills!”
“Sir, the enemy vessel is turning to starboard,” the radarman said.
Sam looked out the fore port. Sure enough, the Rex was swinging around. And as the Not For Hire plowed toward it, the Rex presented its stern.
“Vhat in hell’th he doing?”
“He can’t be running away!” Sam said. “Whatever else the sneaky bastard is, he’s not a coward. Besides, his men wouldn’t let him. No, he’s up to something devious.”
“Perhaps,” Detweiller said, “the Rex has some mechanical difficulty?”
“If it does, we can catch it,” Sam said. “Radar, check its speed.”
“Enemy vessel is making thirty-five miles per hour, due west, sir.”
“Against the current and wind, that’s top speed,” Sam said. “There’s nothing wrong with it. Nothing I can see, anyway. Why in blue jumping blazes are they running? They haven’t got any place to hide.”
Sam paused, rolling his eyes as if they were looking for an idea. He said, “Sonar! Do you pick up any foreign object! Say, something that could be a mine?”
“No, sir. All clear underwater except for some schools of fish.”
“It’d be just like John to make some mines and scatter them in our path,” Sam said. “I’d do it myself if the situations were reversed.”
“Yeth, but he knowth ve have thonar.”
“I’d try it anyway. Sparks, tell Anderson to hold off until we’re engaged or until further orders.”
The radio operator transmitted the message to the pilot of the Goose, lan Anderson. He was a Scot who had flown a British torpedo-bomber during World War II. His gunner, Theodore Zaimis, was a Greek who had been a tail-gunner in an RAF Handley Page Halifax on its night raids over France and Germany in the same war.
Anderson reported that he understood. Radar followed the Goose as it maintained a more or less level course eastward.
As the sun slowly arced downward, the Not For Hire decreased the gap between it and the Rex.
“Maybe John doesn’t know how fast this boat can go,” Sam muttered as he paced back and forth. He looked at the crowds on both banks and on the spires and bridges. “Why do they stand around gawking? Don’t they know rockets and shells are likely to be landing among them? That’s the least John could have done, warn them!”
The great red-and-black stone temple came into view, loomed, then dwindled. Now the pursuer was only half a mile behind the pursued. Sam gave Detweiller orders to ease up on the speed.
“I don’t know what he’s up to. But I’m not going to run full speed into any trap.”
“It looks as if he’s heading for the strait,” Detweiller said.
“I might have known that,” Sam said. i The mountains were curving in, their arcs on both sides almost meeting a mile ahead. Here the black, white, and red-streaked walls formed straight-up-and-down precipices out of which The River boiled. The Rex, though it must be under full power, was only making twenty miles an hour. Its rate of progress would be even less if it entered the towering and dark passage.
“Do you really suppose John’s going to take her to the other side?” Sam said. He pounded his left palm with his fist. “By thunder, that’s it! He’s going to wait for us on the other side, catch us when we come out!”
“You vouldn’t be that thtupid, vould you?” Joe Miller said.
Sam ignored him. He strode to the radio operator. “Get me Anderson!”
The pilot of the Goose spoke with a broad Lowland Scots brogue. “Aye, we’ll go over and see what this skurlie is doing, Captain. But it’ll take some time to climb over the pass.”
“Don’t climb over the mountains; go through the pass,” Sam said. “If you see your chance, attack!” Then to Byron, “Heard anything?”
A slight annoyance passed over Byron’s face. “I’ll tell you as soon as I do.”
Sam laughed and said, “Sorry, John. But the idea of somebody planting explosives down there... well, it concerns me. Carry on.”
“Here it is,” Byron said as the warrant officer of Station 26 spoke. Sam swung around to stand by Byron.
“Ensign Santiago left about half an hour ago, sir,” Schindler said. “He put me in charge, said he was suffering from nervous diarrhea and he wanted to clean himself out so he wouldn’t disgrace himself. He said he’d be right back. He didn’t show up until ten minutes later, but I didn’t think much about it, sir, since he said he just couldn’t stop.
“He looked like he’d just had a shower, sir, was dripping wet. He said he’d fouled himself and so had to take a quick shower. Then, just after we heard the general call to report by the numbers, he excused himself again. But he hasn’t been back.”
“Station 27, report!” Byron said. He turned his head to Sam. “He might not be the only one.”
All thirty-five stations reported that no one else had been missing even for a minute.
“Well, he’s either hiding some place or went overboard,” Sam said.
“I doubt he could leave the boat without someone seeing him,” Byron said.
Sam called de Marbot. “Get all your marines, all, to search for Santiago. If he resists, shoot him. But I would like to talk to him if possible.”
Sam turned to Byron. “Santiago’s been with us from the beginning. John must have planted him, though how John knew about the laser I don’t know. We didn’t even think of it until after he stole the boat. And how in God’s name did Santiago find out about the laser? Even Queen Victoria’s sex life wasn’t a better secret.”
“He’s had plenty of time to dig around,” Byron said. “He’s a sly one. I never did trust the dago.”
“I liked him,” Sam said. “He was always congenial, very good at his duties, and a hell of a good poker player.”
Santiago was a seventeenth-century Venezuelan sailor who had captained a warship for ten years. Shipwrecked off an unidentified Caribbean island, he was speared by Indians as he struggled onto a beach. However, this only hastened his death a little. Syphilis had almost finished tearing him apart anyway.
“Of course,” Sam added, “he was awfully jealous of his women and he had his stupid Latin machismo. But after one of his women, a twentieth-century jukado expert, beat him up, he reconsidered his ways and treated the ladies as if they were worth their weight in gold.”
There were more pressing things to consider than Santiago’s ego. For one, how would John know that his agent had succeeded? John was unaware of the laser. He would have originally charged the Venezuelan with blowing up some vital part of the boat. That command had not been carried out, since the generators and electromechanical control centers were too well guarded.
Also, unless there was a spectacular explosion, how would John know that his agent had done his work? Was a system of signals worked out? If so, Santiago had not sent any.
Unless... he had a radio set hidden somewhere on the vessel. And it was on a frequency not used by...
Sam felt a faint vibration in the deck, one not accounted for by the thrusting of paddles into the water.
He walked to the stern port and looked out. Wisps of smoke were issuing from the starboard side, apparently coming from the hurricane deck.
Sam ran to the intercom and bellowed into it. “Stations 15 and 16! What happened?”
A calm female voice answered. “This is P.O. Anita Garibaldi, Station 17! There’s been an explosion down here, sir! A bulkwall’s been blown up! The wires in it have been severed!”
Detweiller swore. Sam whirled around. “What is it?”
“I’ve lost control,” Detweiller said, but Sam already knew that. The wheels had slowed, and even as he looked out the stern window, he saw that they had stopped. Slowly, the nose of the boat was turning to port, and it was being carried back by the current.
Detweiller reached out and punched a button. A light by it glowed. He grabbed the sticks again. The wheels began rotating, picked up speed. The boat swung back to its original course.
“The backup system is working,” Detweiller said.
Sam grinned a little though he did not feel joyous at all. “Santiago wouldn’t know about that,” he said. “It was John, though, that gave me the idea for installing it! Hoist by his own petard!”
He yelled into the intercom, keeping his finger on the all-stations button. “All right, you incompetent bungling blind microcephalic dingdongs! You could expand your brains a hundredfold, and they’d still rattle around in a gnat’s ass!
“Find Santiago!”
“The strait’s dead ahead, Captain,” Detweiller said.
A shadow passed over, and twin motors roared. The Goose shot in front of them at an altitude of about two hundred feet. It was climbing between the dark walls, its searchlight stabbing ahead of it, dwindling in distance and darkness, then disappearing as it went around a long bend.
“Can we keep in radio contact with the Goose?” Sam said to the radio operator.
“It’s possible, sir. The long waves can bounce around that bend to us.”
Sam turned away but spun at an exclamation from the operator.
“Jesus! The pilot just said, ‘We’re hit! The starboard’s motor is on fire! A rocket...!’”
He looked up with a pale strained face. “That’s all, Captain.”
Sam swore.
“John must’ve been waiting for it! He knew I’d sent it to find out what he was doing!”
Why hadn’t he let Anderson do as he wished, fly over the mountains? Then he would have been out of range of the rockets or at least have had time to take evasive maneuvers. But no, John knew his ex-partner, knew how impatient he’d be. So he had waited, and now he had the torpedo plane out of the combat.
But the Rex wouldn’t have been taken through the strait just to ambush the airplane. He...
De Marbot’s voice crackled. “Captain!, We just got Santiago! He’d been hiding behind a bulkwall section! He made a dash up a passageway and almost got to the deck railing! Johnston shot him through the head!”
“Give me the details later,” Sam said. “Continue the search for other agents. Look...”
“Rockets!” Detweiller screamed.
SAM CLEMENS TURNED AROUND. SOMETHING SWIFT AND SILvery from above struck the base of the pilothouse. The explosion was deafening; the deck shook. Another roar from above. The pilothouse vibrated. Smoke shrouded the windows on all sides for several seconds. Then the wind seized it and scattered it.
“What the hell!” Sam said over and over.
“It’s from up there,” Detweiller said. He released a control stick just long enough to point up and to his right.
“Get her away!” Sam yelled. “Downstream!”
The pilot had already applied full power. A cool one, that Detweiller.
Again, another flash of silver. Dozens of them. More explosions. A battery of rockets on the starboard disappeared in a thunder of fire and smoke. A direct hit from whoever was launching those missiles from wherever.
“Zigzag her!” Sam shouted.
There were three more direct hits. Other missiles plunged into the water on both sides and aft.
“Our radar’s gone,” Byron said. He ordered the rocket crews to fire back, using visual calculations.
“But where are they?” Sam said.
“Up on the cliff!” Byron and Detweiller said at the same time.
“Thee!” Joe said, pointing out the stern port.
While Byron was asking for reports on the damage and casualties, Sam looked along the titanthrop’s massive finger. About five hundred feet up, where there had been an unbroken wall of rock, there was now an opening. An oblong, it was thirty feet long and seven feet high. Tiny faces looked out from behind launchers, and the sun glinted on the silver of missiles and tubes.
“Jumping Jesus H. Christ!”
John’s men must have found a cave up on the face of the mountain, and they’d carried rockets and launchers to it. A shield of some sort, probably papier-mache simulating a patch of lichen, had been placed over the opening. While his rocketeers waited inside it, John had fled up the strait.
“Suckered!” Sam said, and he groaned.
A minute passed as the boat churned down-River. Then, making him jump though he knew they were coming, about twelve large missiles sped from the opening, the interior of the cave lit up for a second by flames.
“Hard aport!” Sam yelled.
Only one of the rockets hit. A steam machine gun disappeared in a cloud, pieces of bodies and metal flying out from it. When the smoke cleared, there was a large hole where the platform, gun, and three men and two women had been.
For a moment, Sam was numbed throughout, unable to move or to think anything except: War is not my element. War is no rational man’s element. I should have faced reality and given Byron the command. But no, my pride, my pride. John was wily, wily indeed, and he also had the great Dane, Tor-denskjold, as adviser.
Vaguely, he became aware that the boat was heading toward the bank. Byron’s voice, as if from a long distance, was saying, “Should I keep her on course, Captain?”
“Tham, Tham,” Joe rumbled behind him. “Chethuth Chritht, ve’re going to run into the bank!”
Sam forced himself to move, to speak.
“We won’t stay on course. Head her down-River and get back in the middle.”
There were bodies on the main deck. Youngblood, Czerny, and de Groot. And there was the upper part of the beautiful Anne Mathy, the former Hollywood star. She looked like a China doll which some sick child had mutilated.
He had seen corpses and blood before, and he wasn’t any youngster playing Confederate soldier. There was no Wild West to run away to, leaving the Civil War to those with a taste for it. He couldn’t desert now.
From fear he went to anger. The cup of bourbon that Joe— good old Joe!—handed him fueled his wrath. Damn John and his sneaky tricks! He’d send the man to hell, go with him if it was necessary.
He spoke to Byron. “Do you think we could blast those bastards out of that cave?”
The exec took a long look. “I think so. Of course, if their missile supply is exhausted, there’s no use wasting ours on them.”
“I don’t see any in the tubes,” Sam said. “But they might be keeping them out of sight, hoping we’ll come back to attack. Let’s go back and make sure. I don’t want those hyenas laughing at us.”
Byron raised his eyebrows. Evidently he thought it was foolish to risk more hits. He said, “Yes, sir,” and went back to the intercom. Sam told Detweiller what he wanted. And while the Not For Hire turned again, the rocket crews readied for their mission.
Byron gave his report in a flat cool voice. Twenty dead. Thirty-two badly wounded. Eleven of the wounded could be patched up and returned to duty. One steam machine gun, one rocket battery, and one cannon were destroyed. The rockets and the cannon shells had blown up also, doing more damage than the missiles themselves. There were two large holes in the flight deck, and the cabins in the lowest tier of the pilothouse had been blown out. Enough of the structure of the base remained to ensure stability. This couldn’t be guaranteed if another rocket hit the structure. Their firepower was reduced, but the boat’s performance was not affected.
Worst of all, the radar antennas had been destroyed.
A lookout told Sam that new rockets were being put into the tubes by the men in the cave.
“Byron, start firing when I give the word!” Sam said.
The exec relayed the order to sight in on the opening. The boat was now eight hundred yards from the base of the cliff. Sam told Detweiller to spin it, presenting its starboard side. He should then let the current carry it away until the starboard cannon batteries had fired. These were one 88-millimeter cannon, much more accurate than the rockets, and the compressed air cannon.
At Sam’s relayed order, the 88-millimeter belched fire, smoke, and thunder, and the other whooshed. One shell struck just above the opening; the other struck just below. No second round was necessary. The rockets in the cave must have been set off by the lower explosion. They went up in a cloud from which spewed fragments that could have been bodies.
When the smoke cleared, only some twisted metal could be seen.
“I think we can take it for granted they’re wiped out,” Sam said. He felt gratified. The enemy were not human beings. They were things that could kill him and had to be killed before they could do so.
“Take her back to the center about a quarter-mile from the pass,” Sam said. “Byron, order the helicopter brought up.”
“King John is using his, too,” Byron said. He pointed at the opening. Sam saw it, hanging about two thousand feet up, a tiny machine framed in the dark gate of the strait.
“I don’t want John to see what we’re doing,” he said. “Tell Petroski to get rid of it.”
Sam called in de Marbot. The instructions took two minutes. De Marbot saluted and went off to carry out the plan.
Petroski, the copter pilot, warmed up the motor, and took off with his two machine-gunners. The fuselage was fitted with ten small heat-seeking missiles, some of which, it was hoped, would down the enemy machine while others would strike the Rex.
Sam watched it as it climbed slowly, burdened with its deadly load. It took a while to climb up above the altitude of the craft in the mouth of the pass. Sam asked the Frenchman how he was coming. De Marbot, in the stern, replied that both launches were almost filled with rockets. He could leave in a few minutes.
“I’ll give the word when the coast is clear,” Sam said.
Petroski’s machine finally quit climbing. The other copter was still in its original position. Vftien its pilot saw the big all-white chopper moving to get above it, he spun his machine around and fled.
The radar operator, now posted as lookout, said, “Enemy aircraft is moving at an estimated eighty-five miles per hour.”
“Then it’s faster than ours,” Sam said. “It’s not carrying near as much weight. Byron, tell de Marbot he can go ahead.”
The huge hatch had been open for some time. The larger of the launches, Post No Bills, slid out of the water-filled compartment, kicking up a white wake. It turned and headed toward the shore. Close behind it came the After You, Gascon. Both were loaded with rockets, dismantled launching apparatus, and marines.
Petroski’s voice came from the set. “The enemy has gone around the bend. I’m going up another two thousand feet before I go around.”
While Sam waited for another report, he watched the launches. Their noses were against the low bank now, and men were jumping out of them into the water. They quickly waded ashore and began off-loading the weapons and equipment. Each man would then carry a forty-pound missile or part of a disassembled launcher.
“John must have sent men up first with tackles and ropes,” Sam said. “Then he must have winched those heavy rockets from the deck of the Rex. It would’ve been at night, of course, so the Virolanders wouldn’t see them. It must’ve been a hell of a job. Too bad we don’t have time to place heavy rockets. But those light rockets can do plenty of damage if they hit the right places on the Rex.”
He rubbed his hands and blew out a cloud of smoke from his cigar.
“There’s nothing like turning the tables on old John. Using his own trap to trap him.”
“If we have time,” Byron said. “What if the Rex comes barreling out of the strait before our weapons are situated?”
“That could happen, but it ain’t likely,” Sam said, frowning. “Once John reenters the pass, he can only go straight ahead. There isn’t room to turn around, even if he spins on one wheel. For all he knows, we might be waiting for him, just outside the exit, out of radar sight, and out of sonar detection, too. We could blast his ass off as he comes around.”
“Maybe he could back up,” Joe said.
“With two cannon and fifty rockets aiming at the pilothouse and four torpedoes at the hull?”
Sam snorted.
“Anyway, I’d like to see you trying to run that boat in reverse in that current with only thirty feet to spare on each side. Detweiller couldn’t do it. Even I couldn’t do it!”
They waited. Sam watched the long line of marines, each man loaded with a silvery cylinder or a piece of equipment. .Presently, de Marbot reported by walkie-talkie.
“I’ve found the path.”
“I see you waving your arm,” Sam said. “It should take you about an hour to get to the cave. It’s not so high up but the path must be a long one.”
“We’ll go as fast as possible,” the Frenchman said. “But we can’t go too fast if the trail is narrow.”
“I trust your judgment.”
“Petroski’s speaking again,” the operator said. Sam could hear the pilot before he got to the radio.
“We’ve dropped to the surface,” Petroski said. “I decided to come in at the height of the control room. They’ll pick us up on the radar as soon as we get around the last bend. But I’m counting on shaking them up, spoiling their aim. Six rockets for the pilothouse, six for the chopper, whether it’s in the air or the flight deck.”
Petroski sounded happy. He was a wild Pole who had flown for the RAF against Hitler. After the war, he had refused to live in communist Poland and so had emigrated to Canada and earned his living first as a bush pilot and later as a police copter pilot.
“Hot damn!” Petroski bellowed. “The boat’s just outside the entrance! Its nose is pointed straight at me. Only a quarter-mile to go! Wish me luck!”
The roar of motor and vanes was heavy, but his excited voice rode above that.
“Fire six!” Two seconds. Then, “Dead on! Missed the control room but blew the smokestacks all to hell! Can’t see through the smoke! Pulling up now! Flak all over the place! Can’t see through the smoke! Oh, oh! There’s the chopper, on the flight deck! I’ll...”
The radio operator looked up at Sam.
“Sorry, Captain. It’s dead.”
Sam ground the end of his cigar to shreds on the set and cast it on the deck.
“A rocket must’ve got him.”
“Probably.”
The operator’s eyes were moist. Petroski had been his good friend for ten years.
“We don’t know if he got John’s chopper or not,” Sam said.
He wiped his eyes with his knuckles. “Shit, I feel like ramming right on it, making him pay...”
Byron raised his eyebrows again at this unprofessional attitude.
“Yeah, I know,” Sam said. “We’d fall into his trap. Forget it. And I know what else you’re thinking. It would have been better to have retained our observation facilities, to put it in cold military language. Now John can keep an eye on us with his chopper, if Petroski didn’t destroy it.”
“We took a chance, and perhaps it paid off,” Byron said. “Perhaps both the copter and the control room were hit. Petroski wouldn’t have had enough time to make an accurate assessment.”
Sam strode back and forth some more, puffing so hard the airconditioning couldn’t keep up with the clouds. Finally, he stopped, thrust his cigar out as if he was spearing an idea. Which, in a sense, he was.
“John isn’t going to come back unless he knows where we are. So, he’ll either scout with his chopper or a launch. In either case, we’ll not fire on it. Byron, tell de Marbot to hold his fire if either leaves the strait. And to lie low.
“Detweiller, take her to a grailstone near the temple. We’ll dock there and do some repairing.”
“How come, Tham?”
“How come? So John’s spies will see us there. Then, if he’s going to attack, he’ll know he won’t be ambushed. In fact, he might think the rockets from the cliff did us so much damage we’re badly hurt. And he’ll know he can get through the strait before we could even get near him. Then it’ll be the last deal, with us holding a royal flush. I hope.”
“But, Tham,” Joe said, “vhat if Petrothki did blow up the control room? And Bad Chohn vath killed? Maybe they ain’t in no pothithyon to fight.”
“I don’t see anybody under a white flag and offering to surrender. We’ll just retreat and hope that John will come out to do battle. In the meantime, we’ll do a little scouting of our own. Byron, send the Gascon out. Tell Plunkett to go through the strait at top speed, take a quick look, and get to hell back here.”
“May I offer a suggestion?” Byron said. “The Gascon has torpedos.”
“No, by thunder! I’m not going to sacrifice any more good men on suicide missions! It’s dangerous enough as it is, as the old bachelor said to the spinster who proposed marriage. They could be attacked by the chopper, though I think it’s more than an even match for the Gascon there. In fact, if the chopper should chase the launch out, de Marbot should then fire on it. We’ll have our information, and John will wonder what in hell happened to his chopper. He won’t be able to resist sending a launch out to scout. We’ll let the launch get back.
“In any event, John isn’t going to come through until nightfall. I think.”
Byron transmitted the messages. Presently, the whitely shining Gascon swung away from the bank and headed toward the strait. Its commander was the younger son of an Irish baron and had been a naval aide-de-camp to King George V and then an admiral. He was a veteran of the battles of Heligoland, Dogger Bank, and Jutland, and a recipient of the Grand Cross, the Order of Orange-Nassau of Holland, and the Russian Order of St. Stanislas, Second Class, with swords. He was also a distant relative of the great fantasy writer, Lord Dunsany, and, through Dunsany, of the famous English explorer, Richard Francis Burton.
“Sir,” John Byron said, “I think we’ve overlooked something. The marines are still a long way from having their rockets set up. If the enemy helicopter or launch should pursue the Gascon, they won’t be in any danger from de Marbot’s fire. And they might well see his men on the mountain path. Then they would know we’re setting up an ambush.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Sam said reluctantly. “Okay. Tell His Lordship to come back until de Marbot is situated. No use his wasting power circling around.”
“Yes, sir,” Byron said. He spoke on the radio to Plunkett, then turned swiftly on Sam. “Only... the admiral is not properly referred to as His Lordship. He is the younger son of a peer, which legally makes him a commoner. And since his father was a baron, the lowest in the rank of peers, he does not even have an honorary title.”
“I was being facetious,” Sam Said. “Lord preserve me from British sticklers!”
The little Englishman looked as if he thought facetiousness had no place in the control room. He was probably right, Sam thought. But he had to kid around a little. It was the only way he could let off pressure. If he didn’t, he’d blow his mental boiler sky-high. See the pretty pieces flying through the air. Those are Sam Clemens.
Byron was tough, unperturbed in any situation, as calm as a man who’s sold his stock just before the market crashed.
The boat was still far out in the lake, though cutting at an angle toward the bank. Big black clouds were visible to the north. Smoke from the fires started by the fallen airplanes. There would be even more fires tomorrow—unless the rain quenched them. The locals certainly would have no love for either King John or himself. It was a good thing they were pacifists. Otherwise, they might be objecting violently when one of their grailstones was borrowed this evening by those whom they could only regard as killers and arsonists. The giant batacitor of the Not For Hire had to be recharged, even though it was far from empty, and the crew had to refill their grails. He did not think that the Rex would show during this time. It had the same needs.
Unless... unless John thought he could catch them sitting. It was possible he might try to do that. His motors had not used up all the energy stored; the Rex had not traveled all day. He could have many hours’ electrical supply left.
No, John wouldn’t attempt it. Not knowing that his enemy was radarless, he would think that the Rex would be detected the moment it showed its nose. And he’d have to cross three miles of lake to get to the Not For Hire. Before he could do that, the enormous hemispherical plate covering the grailstone could be swung aboard and stored and the boat well on its way to meet the Rex.
If only he had an aircraft left to tell him when John’s boat was being recharged. If the Rex was connected to a grailstone near the inlet of the strait, the Not For Hire could be on it before it could get into action. No, John would think of that. He’d go far enough up The River so he’d have time to get ready. And he’d know that Sam Clemens would take the same precaution.
But if he would think of that, why not charge on through and catch John with his royal pants down?
If only he knew the topography, the width of The River on the other side of the mountain. But Plunkett would get the data needed.
Byron said, “Would you like to bury the dead now, sir?”
“HEH?” SAM SAID. “On, YES, MIGHT AS WELL GET IT OVER WITH now. We won’t have time later. Are there enough marines left for the burial squad?”
“Exactly forty-two, sir,” Byron said with some satisfaction at having anticipated his captain.
“Good. That’s enough to bury everybody, including themselves. In fact, we’d better just use three rifles. We need to conserve all the powder we can.”
The services were short. The bodies were laid out on the stern of the flight deck, wrapped in cloths, weighted with stones. Half the crew was assembled; the rest stayed on duty.
“... for now we know that resurrection is possible, all having experienced its truth. Thus we consign your bodies to the deeps of The River in the hope that you will once again walk the face of this world or some other. For those who believe in God, may He bless you. So long!”
The rifle salute was given. One by one the bodies in fishskin bags were picked up and swung out into the air. Weighted with stones, they would sink to be eaten by the small and the big fish prowling, pressing, dark, thousands of feet below.
The Not For Hire put into the bank, and its anchors were dropped. Sam went ashore to face an intensely angry La Viro. The big dark hawk-faced man raged at the stupidity and cruelty of both parties. Sam listened stony-faced. This was no time for a wisecrack. But when La Viro demanded that he leave the area, Sam said, “There is no way to avoid this conflict. One of us must go down. Now, do I have your permission to use a grailstone?”
“No!” La Viro shouted. “No! You do not!”
“I am indeed sorry,” Sam said. “But I am using one anyway. If you interfere, you and your people will be fired upon.”
La Viro said nothing for a minute. Finally, his breathing became lighter and the redness faded from his skin. “Very well. We will not use force. You knew we wouldn’t. All I can do is appeal to your humanity. That has failed. On your own head be the consequences.”
“You don’t understand,” Sam said. “We have to get to the polar sea. Our mission is vital to this world. I can’t explain why, but, believe me, it is.”
He looked up at the sun. In an hour, it would touch the top of the western range.
At that moment, Hermann Goring joined the small group behind La Viro. He said something to his chief in a low voice. La Viro said loudly, “Very well. Evacuate them.”
Goring turned and spoke in a trumpet voice. “You heard La Viro! We will go east and get away from this hellish conflict. Spread the word! Everybody east! Martin, you send up the signal balloon!”
Goring turned to Clemens.
“You can see now, or should be able to see, that I was right! I objected to the building of your boat because your purpose was evil! We weren’t raised from the dead and put here to glorify ourselves or indulge in mindless sensuality, in hate, and in bloodshed! We...”
Sam turned away. Followed by Miller, Sam walked out on the floating dock and up the gangplank to the hurricane deck. Joe said, “Thon of a bitch, Tham. He really chewed you out.”
“He’s not even in the race,” Sam said. “I’ve been.eaten out by the best. You should have heard my mother. Or my wife. They could give him a thousand-word start and catch up in ten seconds flat. Forget him. What does he know? I’m doing this for him and all the rest of those mealy-mouthed Chancers. For everybody, whether they deserve it or not.”
“Huh? I alvayth thought you vath doing it for yourthelf.”
“Sometimes you get too smart-alecky,” Sam said. “You don’t talk to the captain like that.”
“I chutht call them am I thee them,” Joe said. He was grinning. “Anyvay, I’m not talking to you Jike a deckhand to the captain. I’m talking to you ath your friend, Choe Miller.”
John Byron spoke to them as they entered the control room.
“Sir, de Marbot reports that the launchers are set up.”
“Good. Tell him to get back down to the launch. And tell Plunkett he can go ahead now.”
The Gascon responded immediately, heading for the strait. The tiny figures of the marines were dimly visible against the blue-black stone and green-black algae as they walked down the ledge cut upon the mountain’s face. They would be using their flashlights before they reached the bottom. The Post No Bills was cutting along the bank for the stone to the west. The noise of machinist’s mates aluminum-welding supports across the shattered base of the pilothouse came to him. Torches flared bluely as men cut away the wreck of the steam machine gun in the bow. Others busied themselves with rockets and a tube-battery to be set up in place of the gun. A party worked furiously to replace the radar antennas.
A half-hour passed. The chief medic reported that five of the wounded had died. Sam ordered that their bodies be taken out in a small boat and dropped in the center of The River. It was done without fanfare, since he did not want to lower the morale of the crew anymore. No, he wouldn’t say service over them first. Let one of the medics do it.
Sam looked at the chronometer. ‘”Plunkett should just about be at the exit of the strait.”
“Then we should see him coming back out in about ten minutes,” the exec said.
Sam looked at the marines halfway down the path. “You did give de Marbot orders that he and his men should flatten out on the ledge if John’s chopper or his launch appears?”
“Of course,” Byron said stiffly.
Sam looked at the bank; There were thousands of men and women there, moving slowly in a closely packed mass eastward. There wasn’t much noise coming from them. Most were burdened with bundles of cloths, pots, vases, statuettes, chairs, fishing poles, carpenter tools, disassembled gliders, and, of course, their grails. They looked at the great boat as they went by, and many held up their hands, the three middle fingers extended in blessing. That made Sam feel guilty and furious. “That thyure ith a pretty balloon,” Joe said.
The huge pear-shaped globe, painted a bright yellow, rose from a roofless building. It soared swiftly upward at an angle, carried east by the wind. At an estimated four thousand feet of altitude, the balloon was a small object. But it was not so small that Sam could not see the sudden blazing red flare.
“They blew it up!” he said. “That must be the real signal!”
Burning, visible on both sides of the lake and for many miles up and down The River, the balloon fell. In a few minutes, it plunged into the water.
“Well, at least we don’t have to worry anymore about civilian casualties,” Byron said.
“I don’t know about that,” Detweiller said. “It looks like La Viro and some others are staying behind.”
That was true. But the group was walking back toward the temple.
Sam snorted and said, “They’re probably going to pray for us!”
“The Gascon’s in sight!” a watchman said.
There it was, the sun white upon her, her bow up as she poured on full power. And there, about five hundred feet almost directly above her, was the enemy helicopter. It was slewing around, tilting, so that its machine-gunners could fire downward.
“Byron, tell de Marbot to fire upon the chopper!” Sam said loudly, but at that moment the roar of discharging grailstones drowned his voice. When the thunder had subsided, he repeated the order.
“Enemy launch sighted!” the lookout said.
“What...?” Sam said. Now he too saw the red sharp-nosed bow and the curving armor-plated back and gun turrets of the original Post No Bills, stolen by King John. It was coming out of the towering gap.
A single rocket leaped from the opening in the face of the cliff. It flew straight, locked into the red-hot exhaust of the copter. It shone like a long line drawn against the black mountain with a flaming pencil. And then it and the chopper became a round ball of scarlet.
“There goes the last flying machine on this world,” Sam said.
The ever-cool Byron said, “Better wait, sir, until the helicopter has hit The River. Otherwise, the rockets’ll go for it. It’s the hottest object out there.”
The blazing main body and its satellites of metal pieces fell with what seemed an unnaturally slow pace. Then they struck the water and disappeared.
Byron spoke into the radio reserved for communication with de Marbot’s walkie-talkie. “Direct one rocket volley at the enemy vessel.”
“Jesus, sir!” the lookout said. “The Rex is coming out too!” Byron looked once, and he punched the alarm button. Sirens began whooping. The crowd that had been standing on the flight deck quickly disappeared.
Sam forced himself to speak calmly though his heart was racing. “Drop the grail-connector. Telescope the crane.”
Byron had already told the deckhands to cast off the lines. Detweiller sat waiting for his orders, his hands on the sticks. Byron looked out the port. “Lines all clear, sir!”
“Back her out, pilot,” Sam said.
Detweiller eased the sticks from neutral, pulling them toward him. The giant wheels began turning, and the vessel slid by the dock.
There was smoke all around the launch of the Rex. It was swept quickly away, revealing a blackened boat. It wasn’t moving, so perhaps it had been badly damaged. But three inches of duraluminum armored it. It could take a hell of a lot of punishment. Maybe the crew was just stunned by the explosions.
Now the Rex Grandissimus was halfway out of the darkened strait. It shone whitely, then became pale as the sun slid all the way behind the mountains. Twilight fell on the lake. The sky darkened. The mass of closely packed stars and gas sheets in the sky began to glow as the sunlight faded. By the time complete night came, the light above would be as bright as a full moon on a cloudless Earth.
The two launches were smudges of paleness. The Rex was a greater whiteness, like an albino whale seen just before it burst through the surface of the sea.
So, old John had decided to attack while the Not For Hire was tied up for recharging. He was not turning back. He’d take his punishment whether he liked it or not.
How had John known that the boat was tied up? Easy to explain. Somewhere up on the mountain on a ledge above the mouth of the strait was a lone observer with a transceiver. That would also explain the readiness of the Rex’s defenses against Petroski’s attack.
Sam spoke quietly to the pilot. Detweiller stopped the vessel, then turned her toward the Rex and applied full speed ahead. Byron said, “What should the Post No Bills do?”
Sam waited a moment to reply while he watched the arc traced by the rockets from the cave. But surprise was dead now. John knew that the missiles came from his now usurped cave. Before the rockets had gone halfway, flames spurted from the Rex, and trails of fire rose from it. The two packs met about fifty feet above the boat, and the roar rolled across The River. Smoke covered the vessel and was whisked away.
If the Rex had been hit, it could not be determined from this distance.
John’s rockets would not have hit so many of his unless they, too, had heat-seekers in their noses. Which meant that the enemy did have some of the devices. Apparently, John had had some manufactured. But how many did he have? Whatever their number, some had been sacrificed to stop the attack.
A second covey darted from the cave. This time, they were met halfway, and a flame-centered cloud spread out to be swiftly dissipated. Almost before that happened, a third flight shot from the Rex. Its arc ended against the cliff. Some had hit the cave itself, though. Flame belched like gas from a dragon’s mouth. Mark off thirty good men and women.
Now the leviathans headed toward each other. Sam could see one light in it, that from the control room. Like his boat, it was blacked-out except for the one illumination needed.
The lookout reported that the enemy launch had resumed motion.
“Neither of his launches originally had torpedo tubes,” Sam said to Byron. “But John may have fitted them with tubes. I’m betting he has. Where is his other launch, by the way?”
A moment later, the lookout reported that it was now detected. It must have just emerged from the stern launching compartment.
The Post No Bills was cutting toward the Rex. It had two torpedoes set to go and four waiting.
The Gascon was racing toward the motherboat, under orders to get into her compartment and take on torpedoes. Sam doubted that it could be gotten aboard soon enough.
“There goes the smaller enemy launch, sir,” the lookout said. “Headed toward the Bills.”
Sam told Byron to order the Gascon to assist its sister boat.
Four rockets sprang from the Rex. An explosion announced the end of one curve. A moment later, Admiral Anderson spoke over the radio. “That bird knocked us silly, sir. But we’re on our way again. No damage to the boat—that I know about.”
The Gascon, firing rockets at the enemy launch, swung about it. Little spurts of flame showed that their machine guns were operating. The other enemy launch continued doggedly toward the Bills, shedding warheads and bullets alike. The distance between the two larger vessels, as estimated by the eye, was five hundred feet. Neither was loosing its rockets. Evidently they were waiting until they got within close range.
The Gascon was circling behind the enemy now. Plunkett’s voice came. “I’m going to ram.”
“Don’t be a fool!” Sam shouted, in his fear bypassing Byron, who should have relayed the message.
“Is that an order, sir?” Plunkett said calmly. “The crew has left—at my orders, sir. I think that I can wreck the enemy’s propellers.”
“This is the captain!” Sam said. “I order you not to do that! I don’t want you to kill yourself!”
There was no answer. The smaller of the two white objects crept upon the stern of the bigger. At least, it seemed to be moving slowly. Actually it was overtaking the slower craft at about fifteen miles an hour. Not much speed, but the weight of the heavy armor-plated boat gave it a fearful amount of energy.
“Gascon and enemy launch closed, sir,” the lookout said.
“I can see that, hear it, too,” Sam said, looking through his night glasses.
All motion of the Gascon had stopped completely except for its drift with the current. The other launch was slowing down. Now it had stopped.
“By Jesus!” Sam said. “He did it! Poor bastard!”
“Maybe he ain’t hurt,” Joe said. “He voud’ve been thtrapped in.”
The Post No Bills was closing in. It came within perhaps a hundred feet of its target. Then it swung sharply away. Several seconds later, the enemy boat rose in water and flames and came down in pieces.
“He torpedoed it!” Sam yelled with exultation. “Good old Anderson! He torpedoed it!”
Byron said coolly, “Good show, that.”
“NFH! Anderson! What are my orders?”
“Find out if Plunkett’s all right,” Sam said. “And if the Gascon is still serviceable. And pick up the men who jumped.”
“Sir, the Rex is an estimated fifty-two hundred feet away,” the lookout said.
“Okay, Admiral,” Sam said to Byron. “You take over the cannons.”
Byron said, “Yes, sir,” and he turned to the intercom. Sam heard him giving orders to the fore port-cannon lieutenant, but his eyes were on the launches. If the Gascon was operable, it could be used to harass the Rex with its small rockets. There wasn’t enough time to fit it with torpedoes.
Byron, standing by the intercom, was repeating the range as the gunnery lookout reported it.
“Forty-nine hundred. Forty-seven hundred. Forty-five hundred.”
“That’s going to be a hell of a shock to John,” Sam said to Joe Miller. “He doesn’t know we have cannons.”
“Fire!”
Sam counted the seconds. Then he swore. The first shell had missed.
The second struck, apparently just by the waterline near the fore. But the Rex continued steadily toward its enemy.
“Bring her around so we can give them a broadside from the port,” he told Detweiller.
Both cannons spoke now. Columns of smoke roiled out from the Rex. A large fire was burning on the flight deck. Still, the boat came on. And now it was close enough to launch its larger rockets.
“Enemy within twenty-six hundred feet,” the gunnery lookout said.
“Are the big birds ready?” Sam said to Byron.
“Yes, sir, all.”
“Tell the officers to fire as soon as the Rex does.”
Byron relayed the order. He had no sooner quit speaking than Sam saw a multitude of flames on the Rex. The coveys met about 450 feet away, headlong in the air. The explosions deafened Sam.
Joe Miller said, “Chehuth Chritht!”
Suddenly, shells struck the Rex. The starboard wheelhousing went up in flames, and smoke covered the pilothouse. Immediately following, gouts of flame arose along the starboard side. The shell had touched off a rocket battery, and the detonation of that had set off others in a series.
“Hot damn!” Sam said.
The smoke around the pilothouse cleared, though not so swiftly. The wind had died down, and the Rex had lost considerable speed.
“It’s turning its port side to us!” Sam said.
Another flight of missiles arose, this time from the opposite side. Again, the Not For Hire’s countermissiles struck, and the result was a blast in midair that shook the boat. But no damage was done.
By then Sam could see that the Rex was in serious trouble. Its decks on the starboard were blazing here and there, and it was turning away from them.
For a moment he thought that the Rex was fleeing. But no. It continued to turn. It was describing a small circle.
“The starboard wheel is malfunctioning or destroyed,” he said, “They can’t maneuver.”
That knowledge relaxed him somewhat. Now all he had to do was to get out of effective rocket range and blast the Rex out of the water with his 88-millimeter and compressed-air cannons.
He gave the orders to do so. Detweiller turned the boat to put the necessary distance between it and its victim.
“Well, we didn’t do so badly,” he said exultingly to Byron.
“Not so far, sir.”
“It’s practically over! Don’t you ever give way to human emotion, man?”
“Not on duty,” Byron said.
Joe Miller said, again, “Chehuth Chritht!”
“What’s the matter?” Sam said, grabbing Joe’s enormous arm.
The titanthrop, his eyes goggling, strangling noises coming from his open mouth, pointed up and out to the stern. Sam stepped in front of him to look, but he did not get there.
The explosion tore the bulletproof glass out of the frame of the rear window in a solid piece and slammed it against him.
THE MOUSE HAD SPRUNG THE TRAP ON THE CAT.
While the Not For Hire was still two days’ journey away, the crew of the Rex had removed from storage the envelope of a small airship made from the intestinal linings of dragonfish over two years ago. The hydrogen-generating equipment was set up on shore, and the envelope was inflated within the bamboo and pine hangar built two weeks ago.
The Azazel, as John had christened it, was a semirigid airship. The envelope depended upon the pressure of gas to fill it out, but a metal keel was attached to it. The control cabin and the two motor gondolas, salvaged from the wreck of Pode-brad’s blimp, were fitted to the keel. The electrical and mechanical connections between control gondola and motor gondola and the elevators and rudder were attached. The fuel tanks were filled with methyl alcohol. The bomb and the torpedo were fitted to the release mechanisms halfway along the underpart of the ship.
The bombardier and the pilot got aboard the airship and took it up for a two-hour shakedown cruise. Everything worked well. And when the Rex left to do battle with the Not For Hire, the dirigible lifted to the desired height and began circling. Not until it became dark would it go through the high part of the strait.
As the Rex circled, imitating a crippled duck, the blimp was down-River behind the enemy vessel. It had come over the strait and then had turned right, cruising alongside, but not too near to, the mountains. Its black color would keep it from being visually observed by the enemy. There was a chance that the enemy radar would detect it. It was John’s hope that it would be centered on the Rex. Clemens would think that the Rex had no more aircraft, so why make a radar sweep at a high altitude?
When the radar of the Not For Hire was destroyed, John was jubilant. Though his boat and crew had suffered terrible punishment, he danced with joy. Now the Azazel could creep up on the enemy, avoiding all but visual observation. And in this pale light, with the enemy’s eyes only for the Rex, the airship had a good chance to get within striking distance.
The plan had worked out. The airship had hugged the mountains to the north, coming down to an altitude below the tops of the highest hills at times. It had gone east for some distance, then had eased out over the treetops to The River. And it had sped full power then, the bottom of its control gondola only a foot or so above the surface.
All was going well, and now the Azazel was behind the Not For Hire. Its bulk was shielded by the enemy boat, undetectable by its mother vessel’s radar.
Burton, standing near John, heard him mutter, “By the Lord’s loins! Now we’ll see if the airship is swift enough to catch up with Sam’s boat! My engineers had better be right! It would be ironic if, after all this work and planning, it was too slow!”
Salvoes from the enemy struck the Rex along the starboard decks. Burton felt stunned as the roar deafened him, shook the deck beneath him, and blew in a starboard port. The others looked as shocked as he felt. Immediately afterward, John was yelling at Strubewell to get the damage and casualty reports. At least, that is what his mouth must have been voicing. Strubewell understood. He spoke into the intercom, but it was difficult to hear him. Within a short time, he was able to get in some reports and to tell his captain. By then, Burton could hear well enough, though not as well as he would have liked to.
This had been the worst punishment suffered yet. There were huge holes in many places on all the decks. The explosions had not only punched these on the decks and in the hull, but corridors filled with people had been blown open. A number of rocket-launching mechanisms, loaded with missiles, had gone up, adding their explosions. Several steam machine-gun turrets were knocked off their foundations.
The starboard paddlebox or wheelhousing had been almost blown off by two shells. But the paddle wheel was still operating at one-hundred-percent efficiency.
“Clemens must have seen those shells hit the paddlebox,” John said. “He could be fooled into thinking that he’s crippled us. By Christ’s cup, we’ll make him think so!”
He gave the order to put the boat into a wide circle. The inner or starboard wheel was turned slowly while the outer or port wheel rotated under two-thirds power.
“He’ll come arunning like a dog panting to finish off a wounded deer!” John said. He rubbed his hands and chuckled.
“Ay, he’s bound toward us like a great beast out of Revelation1.” John said. “But he doesn’t know that there’s an even more fearsome monster hot on his tail, about to vomit death and hellfire all over him! It’s the vengeance of God!”
Burton felt disgusted. Was John actually equating himself with his Creator? Had his brains become a trifle addled from the shock of shells and rockets? Or had he always secretly felt that he and God were co-partners?
“They’ll have to estimate distance with the eye, and in this light they won’t do well,” John said. “Their sonar isn’t going to do any range calculation, either!”
The enemy would be getting more than return pulses from the beam directed at the Rex. The sonar operators were going to be confused. They’d see pulses from four different targets on their screens. Three would be from tiny remotely controlled boats circling in the lake, each emitting sound pulses of the same frequency as those of the enemy transmitter. The little vessels also contained noise generators which simulated the pounding of giant paddlewheels against the water.
Burton could see the upper structures of the Not For Hire silhouetted against the blazing stars and the shimmering gas sheets on the eastern horizon.
And then he saw a dark semicircle, the upper part of the Azazel, against the celestial illumination just above the Not For Hire.
“Fire your torpedo!” John said loudly. “Fire now, you fools!”
Peder Tordenskjold, the chief gunnery officer, said, “Distances are deceiving now, sir. But the airship must’ve launched the torpedo already.”
All glanced at the panel chronometer. The torpedo, if it hit, should do so within thirty seconds. That is, it would if the dirigible were as close to the boat as it seemed to be. The Azazel would have dropped the missile while it was only a few feet above The River. Lightened by the release of the heavy missile, it would have risen swiftly. Its speed would be increased also by the loss of weight. So, if it were now over, or almost over, the enemy, the torpedo should be about to strike.
The Not For Hire should be taking evasive action by now. Though the airship may not have been seen by the eye, the torpedo would be detected by the sonars of the enemy. Its location and speed would be instantly known, its shape and size indicated. The enemy would know that a torpedo was speeding toward its stern, as John inelegantly put it, “driving right up Sam Clemens’ asshole.”
John stopped. His face was a study in fury. “By God’s teeth, how could it have missed at such close range?”
“It couldn’t have,” Strubewell said. “Maybe it malfunctioned. Didn’t go off.”
Whatever had happened, the enemy had escaped the torpedo. Behind it the semicircle of the Azazel, which had disappeared for a moment, rose again. The pilot and the bombardier would either have jumped out or be just about ready to jump. Their parachutes, equipped with a compressed-gas device, would unfold fully the moment they leaped clear of the gondola. Without that, they would not open before the two hit The River.
Burton estimated that the two men had to have left the semirigid by now. It would be set on automatic pilot now, and the clock in the release mechanism of the bomb would be ticking away. Another mechanism would be valving off hydrogen to lower the craft. When the bomb fell, the airship would be lightened and would rise. But not far. A few seconds afterward, if the explosion did not ignite the gas, a fourth mechanism would detonate a smaller bomb.
Burton looked out the port screen. The decks of the Rex were blazing in a dozen places; from the shells and rockets. Firefighters, clad in insulation suits, were spraying the flames with water and foam. Within about two or three minutes, the fires would be extinguished.
Burton heard the captain say, “Hah!”
He turned. Everybody except the pilot was gazing out of the port screen. The sausage shape of the dirigible was directly above the Not For Hire. Its nose would soon touch the back of the pilothouse.
“Incredible!” Burton said.
“What?” the captain said.
“That no one on the boat has seen it yet.”
“God is with me,” John said. “Now, even if it is seen, it will be too late. It can’t be shot down without imperiling the boat.”
Tordenskjold said, “Something happened to the torpedo release mechanism. It’s malfunctioning. But when the bomb goes off, it’ll set the torpedo off.”
John spoke to the pilot. “Get ready to bring her around. When I give the word, head directly for the enemy.”
The chief radio operator said. “The two launches are heading for us, sir.”
“Surely they can see the Azazel now!” John said. “No, they haven’t!”
“P’raps the Not For Hire’s radio is knocked out, too,” Burton said. ‘
“Then He is indeed on our side!” John said.
Burton grimaced.
A lookout said, “Sir! The enemy launches are approaching on the port sternside.”
Radar reported that both launches were at a range of four hundred yards. They were separated from each other by one hundred and twenty feet.
“They’re planning to take us in our starboard side when we’re on the other side of our circle,” Strubewell said. “They think the motherboat should be firing on us by then.”
“I can see that,” John said somewhat testily. “You’d think by now that they’d be trying to signal the Hire. The radio must be out, too, but surely they could send up flares.”
“There goes one,” Strubewell said, pointing at the bright bluewhite glare in the sky.
“Now they’ll see the Azazel]” John cried.
It was about thirty feet above the flight deck of the enemy or at least it seemed to be. It was difficult to estimate at that distance. It was not up to the pilothouse yet. That was apparent, since if it had been, it would have collided with the structure.
Something dark and small dropped through the area of bright sky between the airship and the Not For Hire.
“There goes the bomb!” John cried.
Burton couldn’t be sure, but it seemed to him that the bomb had fallen on the stern of the flight deck, perhaps at its edge. The bombardier must have set its timed automatic-release mechanism, and then he and the pilot had jumped. But the timing had not been right. The release should have been activated when it was in the middle of the deck. Or, better, as close to the pilothouse as possible.
The explosion wreathed the flight deck in flames and silhouetted the pilothouse and the tiny figures in it.
The airship soared upward, bending in the middle, its keel twisted by the blast. And its envelope burst into flames, the hydrogen in it one huge ball of fire.
“The torpedo!” John shouted. “The torpedo! Why didn’t it fall?”
Perhaps it had, and it couldn’t be seen from the Rex.
But it should have been set off by now.
Now Burton could see the dirigible drift down, flaming. Its forward part fell upon the stern of the Not For Hire and then slid off into The River through the great hole made by the forty-pound bomb. The Not For Hire plowed on, leaving the blazing and spreading-out envelope behind it. The stem was aflame, too, the wooden flight deck burning furiously.
John yelled, “God tear those two to pieces in the deepest pits of Hell! They’re cowards! They should have waited a few seconds more!”
Burton thought that the pilot and the bombardier had been very brave indeed. They must have waited until what seemed to them to be the last possible second before being able to jump. Under such pressure, they couldn’t be blamed for having made such a slight miscalculation. Nor was it their fault that the torpedo had not exploded. They’d made several trial runs with a dummy torpedo, and the release mechanism had worked then. Mechanical devices frequently malfunctioned, and it was their bad luck, and the bad luck of their comrades, that it had failed now.
However, the torpedo might still go off. Unless it had slid off the stern with the wreck.
John was not so unhappy when he saw that the blast had ripped off all of the two lower decks of the pilothouse structure except for two vertical supporting metal beams and the elevator shaft. And these were bending forward slowly under the weight of the control room.
Somehow, a few people in the room had survived. They were silhouetted against the holocaust on the rear of the flight deck.
“God’s balls!” John said. “He has spared Clemens so that I may take him prisoner!”
He paused, then said, “They won’t be able to steer! We have them in our hands!”
He spoke to the pilot.
“Bring us up along the enemy’s port at pointblank range!”
The pilot looked wide-eyed at his captain, but he said, “Aye, aye, sir.”
John spoke to Strubewell and Tordenskjold then, telling them to ready the crew for broadsides first and then for boarding.
Burton hoped that he would be ordered to join his marines. They had been sitting deep within the hurricane deck, behind locked doors, waiting. During the entire battle, they had not been informed of anything. All they knew was that the boat had rocked and shaken from time to time, and thunder had roared outside their room. Doubtless, they were all keyed up, nervous, sweating, wondering when they would see action.
The Rex plowed The River in a furrow angling in toward the stricken vessel. The gap between the two swiftly shortened.
“Batteries B2, C2, and D2 will aim for the pilothouse top deck,” John said.
Strubewell relayed the orders. Then he said, “Battery C2 doesn’t reply, sir. Either the communication’s cut or it’s out of action.”
“Tell C3 to aim for the pilothouse control room.”
“You forget, sir. C3’s definitely out of action. The last salvo got it, sir.”
“B2 can do it then,” John said.
He turned to Burton. His face looked purplish in the night-light. “Get to your men now, Captain,” he said. “Be prepared to lead a boarding party from the midport side.”
Burton saluted and sped down the spiral ladder. He got off at the hurricane deck and hurried down a corridor. His men and women were inside a large chamber outside the armory. Lieutenant Gaius Flaminius was outside the hatch with two guards. His face lit up when he saw Burton.
“We’re going into action?”
“Yes,” Burton said. “Very quickly. Get them out here into the corridor.”
While Flaminius bawled orders, Burton stood at the corner of the two corridors. He would have to lead his force down the corridor going to the outside. They would have to wait there until the command came down to board the Not For Hire. Or, if the communication system wasn’t working, he would have to judge for himself when to order the attack.
It was while the marines were being lined up in the corridor that the broadside from the Not For Hire struck. The explosions were deafening; they made Burton’s ears ring. A bulkhead down the corridor bulged in. Smoke poured in from somewhere, setting everybody to coughing. There was another roar that shook the decks and deadened their ears even more.
Up on the bridge, John hung on to the railing and shuddered as the boat vibrated. At a range of only thirty feet, the portside rocket batteries of four decks of the Rex and the starboard rocket and cannon and steam gun batteries—those still in force—of the Not For Hire had poured fire into each other. Great pieces of the hull had flown spinning into the air. Entire batteries of rockets and their crews had disintegrated in flame and smoke. The two remaining cannons on Clemens’ boat had been torn from their mounts as the shell supplies behind them were touched off by rockets. Two steam machine-gun turrets, one on each vessel, had caved in, opened as a can opens to a metal punch, then had been peeled apart as rockets or shells came in through the tears in the metal.
The great boats were wounded beasts, cut open, their insides exposed, bleeding heavily.
In addition, certain batteries on each craft had aimed volleys at the control rooms, the brains of the beasts. A number of missiles had shot by their marks, either splashing harmlessly into the water or striking elsewhere. A few plumped ashore, starting more fires. None had hit the pilothouses directly. How they could miss at that range was inexplicable, but this often happened in combat. Shots that should have gone astray did not, and dead-certain shots went awry.
The sharp nose of the Not For Hire turned, whether from design or accident, John could not know. Its prow sliced into the giant port wheelguard of the Rex, tearing it off, lifting its many tons up and off and precipitating it into The River. The prow continued on, crushing the paddles, bending the frame of the wheel, and then snapping off the massive wheelshaft. In the midst of the eardrum-shattering explosions, the screech of tearing metal, the screams of men and women, the roar of burning hydrogen, both boats stopped. The impact of the collision hurled everyone who wasn’t strapped in to the deck. The prow crumpled in and up, and water poured in through several rents in the hull.
At the same time, the pilot house of the Not For Hire toppled forward. It seemed to those within it, Miller, Clemens, and Byron, the only ones left alive in the structure, that it fell slowly. But it did not, being attracted by gravity as fully as any other object. It crashed upon the foredeck of the hangar deck, and out of it hurled Clemens and Miller. Sam landed on top of the giant, whose own fall was softened somewhat by the padded and insulated uniform and helmet.
They lay there for several minutes dazed, bruised, deafened, bleeding, too numbed to realize that they were lucky to be alive.
SAM CLEMENS AND JOE MILLER CLIMBED DOWN THE LADDER leading from the hangar deck. The fire raged behind them. Then they were on the hurricane deck. Joe carried his colossal axe in one hand. He said, “You okay, Tham?”
Sam did not reply. He grabbed one of the titanthrop’s fingers and pulled him oh around the corner. A bullet struck the bulkhead, its plastic fragments whizzing around them. None hit flesh, however.
“The Rex is right alongside us!” Clemens said.
“Yeah, I thaw that,” Joe said. “I think they’re going to try to board uth.”
“I can’t control my boat!” Sam cried. He looked as if he were going to weep.
Joe seemed as calm and as impervious to destruction as a mountain. He patted Sam on the shoulder. “Don’t vorry. The boat’ll chutht drift athyore. It von’t think. And ve’ll knock Chohn and hith aththholeth thilly.”
Then both were hurled to the deck. Sam lay for a while, groaning, unaware that the Not For Hire had ripped off a paddlebox and wheel of the Rex. During the firing that broke out as soon as the boats had come to a stop, he continued to lie with his face pressed against the cold hard deck. A hand reached down and grabbed his shoulder and picked him up by it. He yelled with agony.
“Thorry, Tham,” Joe rumbled. “I forgot mythelf.”
Sam held his one shoulder. “You dumbbell, I won’t ever be able to use that arm again!”
“You egthaggerate ath uthual,” Joe said. “You’re alive vhen by all rightth you thyouldn’t be. Tho am I. Tho get vith it, Tham. Ve got vork to do.”
Clemens looked up at the flight deck. The flames had by now covered not only that but had reached down into the hangar deck. There was not much to burn, however. The barrels of methanol that were usually stored there had been taken to the lowest deck before the battle had started. Though the flaming hydrogen was hot, it would burn itself out quickly.
As he thought this, he saw the flight deck cave in on itself. From this angle, he could only see its edges sticking out. But the crash that went with the falling parts told him that at least half of the structure had collapsed. And flame gusted out, like a dragon breathing at him.
Joe leaped forward, yelling, “Chethuth Chritht!”
He picked up Sam and continued forward until he had reached the edge of the hurricane deck. Then he dropped Sam.
“Tham, I think I’m burned!”
“Turn around,” Clemens said. On inspecting the back, he said, “You clown! The armor saved you. You may be a little hot under the collar, but you’re not hurt.”
Joe went back to get the axe he’d dropped. Sam looked at the bulk of the Rex. Its port side was against the starboard port prow of his boat. Grappling lines were being shot or hurled from both sides on all three of the lower decks, and the boarding bridges were already extended. The walkways and the ports and hatches, as far as he could see, were crowded with men and women. All were either firing at pointblank range or getting ready to attack as soon as the lines were secured. The boarding bridges would be manned in a very short time.
He did not have a gun. Fortunately, there were plenty on the decks, dropped from nerveless hands. He picked one up, checked its chambers, removed a bandolier from a corpse, put it on himself, and removed bullets from the belt to put in the pistol. Joe’s form loomed up from around the corner, startling him. He did not reproach Joe for being so silent, since Joe was supposed not to make noise. But he had thought his heart would stop.
“Vhat’ll ve do now, Tham?”
“Join our men and let them know we’re still alive and kicking,” Clemens said. “That’ll recharge their morale.”
They arrived just in time to see the last of a large group storm onto the hurricane deck from the Rex. Below them, however, John’s men were forcing back the would-be boarders from the Not For Hire. In fact, John’s men were boarding his—Sam’s boat—on some of the bridges.
Sam leaned over and emptied his pistol into the rear-guard of the boarders below. Two men fell, one going down in the narrow gap between the two vessels. But one of the boarders, still on the Rex, looked up and then shot his own pistol. Sam ducked as the first bullet screamed by his ear. The other missiles shattered against the railing or the hull just below the railing.
Joe was going to look over the railing then, but Sam yelled at him that if he did he’d get his head blown off.
After waiting until he was sure that the boarding bridges below were empty, he looked over and down. The deck below was jammed with struggling, shouting people and was noisy with ringing metal. Sam told Joe what he wanted to do. Joe nodded, lifting his great proboscis up and down like a log floating in a rough sea.
They ran across the boarding bridge, Joe bellowing to the men there that he and the captain were coming.
On both sides of their group were a few of the Rex crew, rapidly backing away before the superior force. These broke on seeing the great head and shoulders of the titanthrop above the crowd of Clemens’ men. They ran as fast as they could, some diving into hatches, others leaping over the railing or through the gaps and into The River.
“That thyure ath hell didn’t take long, did it, Tham?”
“No,” Sam said. “I wish it was always that easy. Okay, Joe, you give them the orders.”
The titanthrop yelled at the top of his voice at the men. They had no trouble hearing him. Indeed, at least half of the people halfway down both boats on this side must have heard the thunder. In fact, on one deck below and opposite, the battlers stopped for a few seconds.
The men ahead of Joe cleared to one side. Joe proceeded to the nearest ladder, Sam immediately behind him, and the others following. They went down the ladder to the hurricane deck and along it until they came to the boarding bridges. Here the men spread out, forming lines of two abreast at each of the eight bridges.
Sam checked that everybody was ready. Attacking John’s men from behind them, from their own boat, tickled him. They would be demoralized when the titanthrop swung that Brobdingnagian axe upon their heads from behind them.
“Okay, Joe!” Sam yelled. “Go get ‘em!”
Joe, bellowing a war cry in his native language, ran across the metal strip. Sam came behind him. There was not room on the bridge for another person where Joe went. Besides, it was more discreet to stay behind him. ,
Things happened so swiftly that only in retrospect was Sam able to figure out what happened.
A great noise deafened him, and a shock traveled through the bridge and hurled him onto it. Almost immediately after, the far end of the bridge lifted up, bending as its hooks kept their hold on the railing, then tearing loose with a screech of metal.
Sam, clinging stunned to the edges of the bridge, both arms extended to their utmost, the fingers clinging to the edges, looked up.
Joe had dropped his enormous axe. It slid along the upward and sidewise tilting bridge and fell off into the gap between the boats.
Joe had not fallen, but now/he was bellowing in wrath. Or was it fear? It didn’t matter. He was bellowing because both his arms were caught about his body by a noose.
The other end of the rope was being tied to a railing on the deck above. The man who had lassoed Joe from the hangar deck wore a Western sombrero, white enough to gleam in the pale light. His teeth flashed briefly below the wide brim.
Then Joe had fallen off the bridge. But, instead of going straight down into the chasm between the vessels, he swung down and then slammed against the hull of the Not For Hire. Joe quit bellowing then. His head lolled to one side, and he hung like a giant fly caught in the strand of an even larger spider.
Sam cried out, “Joe! Joe!”
It seemed impossible that anything serious could happen to Joe Miller. He was so enormous, so muscular, so ... invincible. A man the size of a cave lion or a Kodiak bear should not be . ,. . mortal . . . vulnerable.
He did not have much time for such thoughts.
The bridge continued to tilt upward as the Rex rolled over. Sam clamped his hands on the sides of the bridge, his head turned away from Joe now. He saw men and women on the other bridges lose their holds and, screaming, fall into the narrow well of darkness between the vessels.
How ironic that the fabulous Riverboat Rex, which he had built, should be responsible for killing its builder. What a joke that the first boat should catch him halfway between the second boat and itself. Suspended him like Mohammed between heaven and earth.
Then he had let loose, had slid backward down the bridge, fallen into the angle made by the vertical deck and the horizontal bulkhead, had scrambled up it, and was sliding face down on the hull. He was up on his feet somehow and running down toward The River. Then he was slipping and rolling down the curve and into The River.
He went down, down, struggling to get rid of his cuirass. His helmet had come loose sometime during the struggle. He was terrified now that he could not get the armor from his body in time to keep from being sucked on down by the sinking Rex. That colossal sinking body would make a great whirlpool which, when it collapsed, would take all jetsam and flotsam, all debris, inanimate or animate, deep down with it. And if he was heavily burdened by his armor and weapons, he’d go down, too. Even if he were unburdened, he might sink.
At last, his belt and the bandolier and his chain-mail shirt and the attached skirt were off. He rose then, his chest seeming to burst, the ancient horror of drowning threatening to tear apart his hammering heart, his ears ringing with a tolling from the deeps. He had to breathe but dared not. Down there was the mud, as black and as evil as and far deeper than the mud of the Mississippi, and around him was water, squeezing like an Iron Maiden made of putty, and above—how far away?— was air.
It was too dark to see anything. For all he knew, he was going deeper, heading in the blackness the wrong way. No, his ears would hurt if he were diving instead of ascending.
He could not hold out much longer. Not more than a few seconds. Then... the death that his Mississippi boyhood had made him fear more than any other. Except one. If he had to die, he would do it in water rather than in fire.
For half a second, or however swiftly such thoughts went, he visualized Erik Bloodaxe.
At least that nemesis would not get him. The Viking, as a prophet and a nemesis, an avenging human machine, was a failure. All those nightmares of all those years had been wasteful torture. That the man could see into the far future, in fact assure it, was a superstition.
All those people in Hannibal who had prophesied that he would hang had been twice wrong.
Strange how such amusing thoughts could flash through the mind of a man whose only thought should be on the blessed air. Or was he actually drowning, almost dead, had forgotten the horror of having to open his nostrils and gulp in water, was thinking dying thoughts, his body flaccid and sinking, his eyes glazed, mouth open as any finny denizen, a tiny flicker of electricity in some cells of his brain the only life left in him?
Then his head was in the air, and he was drinking in oxygen and glad, glad, glad because he was not dead.
His flailing hand touched a rope, moved back, felt it, seized it. He was hanging on to a rope the other end of which was tied on to a stanchion from the main deck of his boat. He was near the stern. A few more seconds, and he would have found the boat out of reach.
He was lucky that he had come across the line at once. The River pulled at him, forcing him to clutch the line as tightly as he had the bridge. The Rex’was gone, but it was dragging along a broad and deep hollow, waters whirling and sinking. There was an even greater pull on him as the walls of the whirlpool collapsed.
What had sunk the Rex! A torpedo from the Post No Bills!
He looked up. He couldn’t see Joe’s body hanging from the rope. It could still be there, but the decks were set too far back for him to see Joe from the surface of The River. Was he still hanging? Or had the man who’d lassoed him cut the rope? If so, Joe might have fallen onto the deck below, a long hard fall but still better than plunging into the water. But he could be dead or dying already. That long swing inward, ending up against the metal bulkhead, could have smashed his ribs, caved in his skull.
Never mind Joe now. He had to save himself.
For some time, while the howling and blasting went on above, and occasionally a man or woman would topple over the railing and fall with a splash near him, he hung on to the line. When the sound of immediate battle died down rather suddenly, he started to climb up. It was not easy, since so much of his strength had been squeezed out of him. He finally got his feet against the hull and, leaning outward above the water, pulled himself up puffing and panting, his muscles hurting, until he was near the railing. He eased himself down until his face was against the hull, and he began hauling himself up by his arms alone. Now he wished that he had not avoided daily exercise so much. For several minutes, as he rested, unable to hitch himself up until he had regained his breath, he thought that his clenched hands would come apart. He would drop back into The River and all would be over.
Finally, he got one hand up to grip the upright to the railing. He got his other hand around it. The long painful pull began. Then it was over, and he had managed to throw one leg over the edge of the deck. Wheezing, he squirmed until he had half his body on the deck. Then he was able to roll onto the deck, to lie there face up while he tried to get all the air in the world inside his lungs.
After a while, his narrow chest quit rising and falling so hard, like a pair of worn-out blacksmith’s bellows. He rolled around to look back and up alongside the decks. He still could not see Joe.
Perhaps he was too far away and the angle of sight was too oblique. He needed to get further away, which he could not do, or get upon the same deck.
For that moment, he had to get weapons.- And he also had to get at least a kilt. During his struggle his magnetically attached cloths had come off. Naked I came into this world, and naked... nonsense. He was not leaving. Not yet.
He got unsteadily to his feet. Bodies and parts of bodies lay along the deck in both directions. The parts of bodies or legs stuck out from hatches. Weapons were everywhere. So were cloths.
Shivering from fatigue or fear or both, he stripped a body. The cloths he made into a long kilt and a short cape. A belt went around his waist, a bandolier, over his shoulder; a loaded pistol, into a holster; a cutlass, into his hand. He was armed, but that did not mean that he was ready for combat. He had had enough today to last him for the rest of his life, even if it were a thousand years long.
What he wanted to do was to get back to Joe. The two of them would round up or join a large body of men. And he would be secure again, or as secure as it was possible to be under the circumstances.
For a moment he thought about taking refuge inside a cabin. He could hole up and then come out when the people from the Rex had been cleared out.
It was a nice thought, one which anyone with a logical mind and common sense would have.
Down along the deck, something struck with a metallic clang. A man cursed softly; somebody else spoke just as quietly but harshly, a reprimand. Sam stopped, his shoulder pressed against the cold bulkhead. Near the prow, the shadowy figures of men were coming down the steps from the hurricane deck. There seemed to be about twenty.
He slid backward, his shoulder against the metal. His left hand felt behind him. When he touched the edge of the open hatch, he turned swiftly and went into it. He was in another unlit passageway which went straight to the hatch on the other side. This was open, showing a pale oblong lit only by starlight and a flickering from the burning flight deck. Sam decided to get to that side, and he started trotting. Then he stopped.
It was his duty to ascertain who the men were and what they were doing. He’d feel like a fool if they were his people. And if they weren’t, he should determine what they were up to.
Of course, they would be looking into every open entrance before they went past it. He opened the door to a cabin and stepped inside, leaving the door partly open. From this angle, he could see them but they couldn’t see him in the darkness.
He had opened another cabin door across the corridor so he could take refuge in that if he had to. He did not want to be trapped.
There was, however, nothing he could do about his situation now. The first of the party had bounded through the opening, stopped against the side of the hatchway, where he was barely visible, and pointed a pistol. A second man also leaped in and hurled himself toward the other side of the hatchway, his pistol ready.
Sam did not fire. If they would only be content to look along the passageway. They were. After several seconds, one said, “All clear!”
Both left for the walkway, and figures began filing past the oblong. The fourth one went by, and Sam gasped. The profile against the indirect light of the stairs was that of a short broad-shouldered man. The figure walked with John’s gait. It had been thirty-three years since he had seen the ex-monarch, but he had forgotten little about him.
RAGE OVERCAME FEAR, A RAGE THAT WAS A COMPRESSION OF all the rages he’d felt on Earth and here. He did not even think about the consequences. At last! Here it was! Vengeance!
He stepped outside the cabin and went softly across the deck. Though he was so exuberant that he was almost dizzy, he still had not lost all discretion. He wasn’t going to warn them so they could shoot him before he got to John.
The only bad part about this was that he’d have to shoot John in the back. The bastard would never know who had killed him. But you couldn’t have everything. He desired passionately to call out John’s name, identify himself, and then squeeze the trigger. But John’s men would shoot him down the second they were aware of his presence.
Just as he reached the hatchway, hell exploded outside. There was a crash of gunfire that deafened him and made him pin himself against the bulkhead as if he were a two-legged butterfly. His fluttering heart was the wings.
More shooting. Cries and screams. A man reeled backward into the passageway. Sam leaped for the open door of the cabin, spun, shut it, then opened it again. He looked through the narrow opening in time to see others come into the passageway. One was the bulky form of John, no mistake about that, outlined briefly against the light.
Sam opened the door fully (thank God it was well oiled!), leaned out, and rapped John over the side of the head with his pistol barrel. John grunted and fell. Sam stooped, dropped the pistol on the chest of the fallen man, gripped him by his long hair, and pulled him into the cabin. Once the feet were past the entrance, he shut the door and pressed the locking button. Outside, the explosions of gunfire were loud, but nothing struck the door. Apparently, the snatching of their leader had happened so swiftly and in such confusion and dark that they had not yet noticed his absence. Perhaps, when they did, they would assume that he had been downed in the corridor.
Sam quivered with delight. He was in great danger, but at the moment that meant nothing. By the Providence that did not exist, events had worked out perfectly. Whatever he had suffered, it was worth it—well, almost worth it. To have his greatest enemy, the only person he had ever really hated, in his power! And in such strange circumstances! Even John, when he awoke, would not be more surprised than he. Truth was stranger than fiction, and he could go on quoting many more cliches.
He pressed the light switch plate with one hand, the pistol held in the other. The ceiling globes shed a flickering light. John groaned, and his eyelids fluttered. Sam tapped him not too lightly on the head again. He did not want to kill him or to damage his brain overly much. John had to have all his senses operating one hundred percent. Otherwise, he wouldn’t appreciate to the fullest what had happened to him.
Sam opened the drawers of a chest attached to the bulkhead.
He withdrew some of the thin semitransparent cloths used as brassieres. With these he tied John’s hands together behind his back and then bound his feet together. Puffing and grunting, he dragged the unconscious man to a chair bolted to the deck. Managing to get the heavy body onto the chair, he tied John’s hands to the rungs of the back. Then he went into the head, drank two cups of water from the faucet, and filled a third cup. As this was done, the faucet rattled, and the flow thinned to a trickle. The water pump had suddenly quit.
Sam returned to the main cabin and threw the water in John’s face. John gasped, and his eyelids opened. For a minute, he did not seem to know where he was. Then, recognizing Samuel Clemens, his eyes opened fully, and he drew in his breath with a harsh noise as if he had been struck in the pit of his stomach. Where his skin was not covered with smoke, it became gray-blue.
“Yes, it’s me, John.”
Sam grinned widely.
“You can’t believe it, can you? But you’ll get used to the idea in a moment. Though you won’t like getting used to it.”
John croaked, “Water!”
Sam looked into the red-shot eyes. Despite his hatred, he felt sorry for John. Not sympathy, just pity. After all, he wouldn’t let a rabid dog suffer, would he?
He shook his head. “The water is all gone.”
“I’m dying of thirst,” John said hoarsely.
Sam snarled, “Is that all you can think about after what you’ve done to me? After all these years?”
John said, “Satisfy my thirst, and I’ll satisfy yours.”
His skin had recovered its normal color, and his eyes looked steadily into Sam’s. Knowing John, Sam could see what strategy the cunning fellow had already formulated. He would talk reasonably to his captor, would talk quietly and logically, would appeal to his humanity, and would, in the end, avoid execution.
The hell of it, Sam realized, was that John would succeed.
The anger was draining out of him now. The thirty-three years of vengeance fantasies were blown away like farts in a high wind.
What was left was a man who was basically Christian, though a howling atheist, to use a phrase applied to him by one of his Terrestrial enemies.
He should have shot John in the head the moment he had turned on the light. He should have known what would happen if he did not. But he could not kill a man who was unconscious. Not even King John, whose blood he had lusted for all these years and who had been tortured so ingeniously and so excruciatingly in his daydreams. Never in his night-time dreams. Then it was John who was about to do something to a paralyzed or hopelessly trapped Sam Clemens. Or, mostly, it was Erik Bloodaxe who was about to be revenged upon him.
Sam grimaced and went back into the head. As he suspected, the shower pipes contained enough water for several cupfuls. He drank one and filled a second. Returning to the cabin, he put the cup to his captive’s lips and tilted it as the man drank. John smacked his lips and sighed.
“Another, please?”
“Another! Please?” Sam said loudly. “Are you crazy! I just gave you one so you’ll be able to stand up to what I’m going to do to you!”
John smiled briefly. He was as undeceived as his captor.
Knowing that infuriated Sam so much that he almost became capable of doing what he had threatened. The anger ebbed swiftly, leaving him with the pistol upraised to strike.
John’s smile faded, but only because he did not wish to push Sam too far.
“Why are you so sure of yourself, of me?” Sam said. “Do you think I wouldn’t have blasted you out of the water, sunk you to hell, watched you drown, and shoved you away if you had tried to get aboard?”
“Of course,” John said. “But that was in the heat of battle. You won’t torture me, much as you’d like to do so. Nor will you shoot me in cold blood.”
“But you’d do all that to me, wouldn’t you, you heartless bastard?”
John smiled.
Sam started to reply, then closed his mouth. The uproar in the passageway had suddenly stopped. John also started to say something, but at a sign from/’Sam he stopped. Apparently, he knew that if he tried to yell, he would regret it. His enemy was not that soft.
Minutes passed. Sam stood by the door, his ear against it, one eye on John. Now he could hear the faint voices of men. These cabins were soundproofed, so there was no determining how far away the voices were. He went back to John and placed a cloth over his mouth, tying it tightly behind his head.
“Just in case,” he said. “But if you do manage to shout for help, I’ll be forced to shoot you. Remember that.”
And I hope you do cry out, he thought.
He turned off the light, unlocked the door, and pushed it slowly out, holding the pistol in his other hand. It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. There were more bodies than there had been before. He looked cautiously around the door and down the corridor. Still more bodies. It looked as if the fight had progressed down it to the other side and on out. The handgun firing had ceased sometime during the struggle. It was replaced by the ring of blade on blade. And the distant din was composed only of voices and metal clash. It seemed that both sides had run out of ammunition.
He did not see how the numerically smaller boarders could hold out for long against his own people. He’d wait a little while to make sure that it was safe to emerge with his prisoner.
But, wasn’t he rationalizing? Wasn’t it his duty to get out there and lead his people? Yes, it was. But what about his prisoner?
That was easy. He would lock John in the cabin with the key now hanging by the door. Then he’d look for his crew. It wouldn’t be difficult to find it. A good part would be where the noise was.
He returned to the cabin, shut the door, and turned on the light. John looked curiously at him.
“It’s just about over,” Sam said. “Your crew’s about cleaned out. I’m going now, but I’ll be back soon. And sometime in the future you’ll be on trial.”
He paused. John’s expression did not change. Gurgling sounds came from behind the gag. Evidently, he wanted to speak. But what could he say? Why waste time?
“I don’t want it said that I am not fair or that I am too personally involved to be just,” Sam said. “So, you’ll get a trial. It won’t be by your peers. How many kings are running loose out there or within easy call? But it’ll have a jury of twelve good men and true. That’s only a phrase, since the ladies’ll be represented too.
“Anyway, you’ll get a fair hearing, and you can pick your own defense lawyer. I’ll abide by the verdict, I won’t even act as judge. Whatever the jury says, I’ll go along with it.”
Mangled words came through the gag.
“You can have your say at the proper time,” Sam said. “Meantime, you can sit here and meditate on your sins.”
He closed and locked the door, hesitated, then unlocked it, reached in, and switched off the light. John would suffer more if he was in darkness.
He should have been jubilant. He was not. Somehow, in some way he could not define, his old enemy had triumphed.
Most things were disappointments, but this, this should have been one of the most enjoyable events in his life. His victory was as unappetizing as a steaming dog turd served under glass.
Where to hide the key? Ah, of course^ in the first cabin with an unlocked door. That was three cabins down. He threw the key onto the floor and closed the door. Now to get to Joe. To do that, he would have to have a large number of men behind him.
He went down a corridor which ran longitudinally through the vessel. The lights were off, but he dared turn them on briefly. He ran down its length for a hundred feet, then stopped at another corridor. Here was a stairway that led up to the hurricane deck. After turning the lights off, he went up the steps, aided by a pale square at the top. Once on the hurricane deck, he trotted down the passageway to the starboard side. Noise came to him, but it seemed far off. He peered around the corner onto the walkway. Joe should be somewhere near.
“Why’re you hanging around here, Joe? Don’t you have anything to do?”
“I’m vaitingfor a buth, Tham.”
“A buss? Who’d kiss your ugly mug, Joe?”
“No, not a buthth vith two etheth, you nincompoop. A buth vith vone eth, Vith vheelth and a motor. How in hell vould I know, Tham? I never theen a buth. Get me down off of here before I get mad and tear you apart, you thap.”
Thus went the imaginary conversation, modeled on so many previous ones. But there was no great bulk hanging helpless from a rope. There was a rope, severed at one end and noosed at the other, lying on the deck.
Sam smiled with joy. Joe was alive, unhurt! Joe was on the loose, undoubtedly tearing up th£ opposition.
He turned but stopped halfway. A bellow had come from out on The River. It was a deep cry, one which would have been attributed to a lion or a tiger if it had been heard on Earth. Sam knew better. He ran to a staircase and sped down it, taking two steps at a time, one hand sliding on the railing. On the main deck, he paused. He could not ignore the enemy. But the two fights he heard were far away, one at the prow and one at the stern. There was no gunfire, only the clang of blades against blades.
He ran to the railing and leaned out. “Joe! Where are you, Joe?”
“Tham! Here I am, Tham!”
“I can’t see you, Joe!” Clemens called, peering into the darkness. There were objects floating out there, pieces of timber or bodies, unidentifiable flotsam. Though the boat had been drifting with the current, and the fires on the south bank were bright, the starboard side was now toward the dark northern bank. Starlight was not enough there.
“I can’t thee you either, Tham!”
He looked on both sides and behind him to make sure no one was creeping up on him. On turning back to look outward, he called, “Can you get back to the boat?”
“No!” Joe bellowed. “But I’m floating! I got hold of a piethe of vood! My left arm’th broken, Tham!”
“I’ll get you back, Joe! Hang on! I’ll save you!”
He had no idea how he could help Joe but he was determined to find a way somehow. The thought that Joe might drown panicked him. ‘ “Joe, are you still in armor?”
“No, you thilly athth. I’d be on the bottom, food for the fithyeth if I had all that iron on. I got rid of it after I fell in, though my broken arm almotht killed me. Chethuth! The pain! You ever been kicked in the ballth, Tham? Lithten, that ain’t nothin’ compared to trying to undrethth vith a broken arm.”
“Okay, Joe!” Sam said, and he looked around nervously again. Somebody was running his way from the prow, pursued by two men. All were too far away for him to identify them. Behind them was stillness.
The group near the stern was still battling, though it seemed that it had thinned out somewhat.
“I got cut down by thomebody!” Joe bellowed. “And I got loothe then. I grabbed a fire akthe and cleaned up around me and chathed vhat vath left down to the main deck. And then damned if thomebody didn’t knock me over the railing, chuth like that! He mutht have been a hell of a thtrong man, the aththole!”
Joe kept on talking, but Sam didn’t hear him. He crouched by the railing, unable to decide what to do. Though the runners were much nearer now, and coming swiftly, they were still unidentifiable in the dark. He was in agony. In the confusion and haste, his own men might attack him.
He raised the pistol in his left hand, keeping the cutlass in his right. He could aim with either hand, though not well. At this range, though, he could not miss. But did he have to shoot?
The decision never had to be made. As he waited, eyes straining, finger tight on the trigger, he was lifted up and hurled over the railing.
For a minute or so, he was so stunned that he had no idea of what had happened. He knew he was in the water, choking, spitting, struggling. But how had he gotten there? And why?
He bumped into something. His hands felt cold flesh. A corpse. He shoved it away and slipped off the heavy bandolier.
Before him, but now about sixty feet away, was the vast boat. How had he gotten so far away from it? Had he been swimming? Or floating? It didn’t matter. He was here, and the boat was there. He would swim back to it. This was the second time he’d been in The River. What I dip you in three times is true.
As he thrashed toward the vessel, he saw that the railing of the boiler deck was closer to the water than it should be. The boat was sinking!
Now he knew what had tossed him off the deck like a fly shrugged off by a horse. Except that he had no wings. It had been an explosion below the water line. In the boiler deck where ammunition was stored. And it would have been set off, of course, by John’s men.
He had gone through too much. Even the imminent loss of his beautiful Not For Hire, which should have brought tearing pain and tears, did not affect him much. He was too tired and too desperate. Almost, he told himself, too tired to be desperate.
He swam toward the boat. His right hand came down hard on something. He cried out with pain, then reached out again. Wet slippery wood curved under his hand. Gasping with joy, he seized it and pulled himself forward. He didn’t know what it was, a piece of canoe or dugout, but it was enough to buoy him.
Where was Joe?
He called out. There was no answer. He tried again and got the same silence.
Had the explosion gotten Joe? The detonation would have hurled a strong pressure wave through the water. Anyone near it would probably have been killed. But Joe wasn’t close enough. Or was he? It must have been a hell of a blast.
Or perhaps Joe had just lost consciousness from the pain of his broken bone and slipped off into The River.
He called twice more. Someone shrieked from far away, a woman’s voice. Some other poor soul floating in The River.
The boat was visibly settling down. There would be many compartments, large and small, with closed doors and hatches. There might even be enough enclosed air to keep the Riverboat afloat. Eventually, she would drift into shore; she could even be towed in by sailing ships or rowboats or both.
For such a deep-shaded pessimist, he was incredibly optimistic.
He wasn’t going to make it. The prow of the vessel—it was drifting backward—slid by him. And now he saw the launch, the Post No Bills. It was moving very slowly, apparently looking for swimmers. Its searchlight probed across the waters, stopped, moved back, and centered on something. It was too far away for him even to see whatever the beam was on. The launch was also too distant to hear his cries.
Suddenly, he remembered King John. The man was bound and helpless in a locked cabin. He was doomed unless someone got to him. He couldn’t cry out, and it was doubtful that anyone would be near enough to hear him, if he could be heard. And even then there was no key available. The lock could be shot off, but.. .why speculate? John was doomed. He would sit there not even knowing that the boat was going down. The water would flood the main deck, and he still wouldn’t know. Those cabins were watertight. Not until the air suddenly became stuffy would he guess what had happened. Then he would struggle desperately, squirm, twist, writhe, calling out for help through the gag. The air would get fouler and fouler, and he would slowly choke to death.
His last moments would be horrible.
It was a scene which Sam would once have projected on his mind’s screen with great pleasure.
Now he could only wish that he could get to the boat and rescue John. Not that he’d let him go scot-free. He’d see that he got that promised trial. But he did not wish John to suffer so or to die so terribly. He did not want anybody to go through that.
. Yes, he was soft, John would have enjoyed thinking of him if he were in such a situation. No matter. He wasn’t John, and he was glad of it.
He forgot about John as the launch started up again. It .headed for the other side of the Riverboat and then had disappeared. Was Anderson now about to pick up the survivors from the stricken vessel? If he was, he’d have to help finish the last hold-outs from the Rex, the jackasses who didn’t know when to quit. Maybe they would have sense enough now to surrender.
“Tham!”
The bellow came from behind him. He turned, keeping one arm halfway around the curving wood. “Joe! Where are you?”
“Over here, Tham! I paththed out! I chutht came to, Tham, but I don’t think I can make it!”
“Hang on, Joe!” Clemens shouted. “I’ll get to you! Keep yelling! I’ll be there soon! Keep yelling so I’ll know where you are!”
It wasn’t easy to turn the big piece of flotsam and get going straight toward the bank. He had to hang on with one arm and paddle with the other. He kicked his feet, too. Now and then he had to stop to catch his breath. Then he would shout, “Joe! Where are you? Joe! Yell so I can hear you!”
Silence. Had Joe fainted again? If so, had he strapped himself to whatever was holding him up? He must have. Otherwise, he would have sunk when he passed out the first time. But maybe he’d been lying on something. Maybe...
Since he had to rest for a moment, anyway, he looked behind him. The boat had slid even further downstream. The River was creeping up along the walls of the main deck. In a short time, John’s cabin would be under water.
He began pushing the wood toward the bank. The fires on shore illuminated the surface somewhat. Though he could see plenty of debris, he couldn’t distinguish any as Joe Miller.
Now he could see that the people on shore were putting out in boats and canoes. Their torches burned brightly by the hundreds. Coming to the rescue, though why they should want to help the people who’d burned down a quarter of their buildings was incomprehensible.
No. They were doing for the destroyers what he would have done for John if he could have. And, actually, the Virolanders did not have cause to hate the Riverboat people as he had to hate John.
By then he understood that he had drifted in much closer to shore than he had thought. It was only about a half mile to the bank. The dark silhouettes of the rescue craft were coming swiftly, considering they were all being paddled or rowed. Not swiftly enough, though. He was getting cold. The water was warmer than the air, but it wasn’t warm enough. About forty-five degrees Fahrenheit in this area if he remembered correctly.
The River had lost much heat while passing over the north pole, and it hadn’t picked up much yet. He was suffering from intense fatigue, aided and abetted by the shock of combat and chilly water. It would be ironic if he perished before the rescuers got to him.
Just like life. Just like death.
It would have been nice to quit stroking and kicking. So easy to give up, drift, and let others do the work. But he had to find Joe. Besides, if he did quit exercising, he’d lose his body warmth that much quicker. It would be so comfortable... he shook his head, breathed deeply, and tried to urge his dead limbs into life.
Presently—or was it presently, how much time had elapsed?— there was a boat alongside him. Many torches burned on it. Strong arms were hoisting him up, and he was laid shivering on the deck. Warm thick cloths were laid over him. Hot coffee was being poured down him. He sat up and shivered as the cloths fell off and the air struck him.
“Joe!” he said. “Joe! Get Joe!”
“What’s he saying?” someone said in Esperanto.
“He’s speaking English,” a woman said. “He says to get Joe.”
A woman’s face was next to his. She said, “Who’s Joe?”
“My best friend,” Sam said weakly. “And he’s not even human. Maybe that accounts for it.” He laughed tiredly. “Ho, ho, ho! Maybe that’s it.”
“Where is this Joe?” the woman said. She was a good-looker. The flaming torches showed a heart-shaped face, big eyes, a broad high forehead, a retrousse’ nose, wide full lips, a strong chin and jaw. Long yellow wavy hair.
What was he doing admiring a woman at this time? He should be thinking of... Gwenafra.
Vaguely, he felt ashamed that not once since the action had started had he worried about Gwenafra. Where was she? And why hadn’t he thought about her? He really loved her.
“This Joe?” the woman said again.
“He’s a titanthrop, an ape-man. A hairy giant with a gigantic schnozzola. He’s out there, somewhere close. Save him!”
The woman stood up and said something in Esperanto. A man beyond her held a torch out and looked into the darkness. There were many other torches out there, but they didn’t seem to help. The sky was clouding up swiftly, the starlight was being shut out.
He looked around his immediate area. He was sitting on the raised deck of a longboat. Below him, on each side, were about a dozen paddlers.
“There’s something floating out there,” the man with the torch said. “It looks bulky. Maybe it’s this titanthrop.”
The man had his back turned to Sam. He wore an Eskimo suit of white cloths over head, body, and feet. He wasn’t tall, but his shoulders were very broad. And his voice sounded vaguely familiar. Somewhere, a long time before, Sam had heard that voice.
The man called out to nearby boats and told them what to look for. Presently, there was a shout. Sam looked at the source. Some men on another longboat were attempting to haul something huge out of the water.
“Joe!” he croaked.
The man in the white suit turned then. He was holding the flaming pine so that his face was fully illumined.
Sam saw his features clearly, the broad handsome face, the thick straw-colored eyebrows, the square massive jaw, the even white teeth. His grin was evil.
“Bloodaxe!”
“Ja,” the man said. “Eirikr B/0S4>x.” Then, in Esperanto, “I have waited a long long time for you, Sam Clemens.”
Screaming, Sam rose and leaped from the boat.
The cold dark waters closed upon him. He went down, down, then straightened out and began swimming. How far could he go before he had to surface for air? Could he get away from his nemesis long enough to get aboard another boat? Surely the Virolanders would not permit Erik to kill him? That would be against their principles. But Erik would wait until he had a chance, and then he would strike.
Joe! Joe would protect him! Joe would do more than that. He would kill the Norseman.
Gasping, sputtering, Sam’s head broke through into the air. Ahead was a boat filled with people. The torches showed their faces clearly. All were looking at him.
Behind came the splashing of a swimmer.
Sam turned around. Erik was only a few feet from him.
Sam yelled again, and once more he dived. If he could come up on the other side of that boat, if he could get aboard it before...
A hand closed around his ankle.
Sam turned and fought, but the Norseman was bigger and far stronger. Sam was helpless, he would be drowned out of sight of the others, and Erik could claim that he had just been trying to save the poor mad devil.
An arm came from behind him and hooked around his neck. Sam struggled like a fish caught in a net, but he knew that he was done for. After all this time, after all these narrow escapes, to die like this...
He awoke in the deck of the longboat, coughing and choking. Water gushed from his mouth and nose. Two strong warm arms held him.
He looked up. Erik Bloodaxe was still holding him.
“Don’t kill me!” Sam said.
Erik was naked and wet. The water on his body glistened in the torchlight. It also fell upon a white object connected to a cord around Erik’s neck.
It was the spiral bone of a hornfish, the symbol worn by members of the Church of the Second Chance.
TWO MEN HAD COME TO THE SAME CONCLUSION.
They’d had enough of this senseless bloodshed. Now they’d do something they would have done if each hadn’t been so sure that the other was on the other boat. But, during the long struggle, neither had seen the other. The other had never been on the boat or had wisely left it before the battle or had been blown to bits or into the water.
Each believed that if he died, the great project was doomed to failure, though each visualized the failure differently.
They saw an opportunity to escape now. In the heat and confusion of the combat, no one would notice their desertion. Or, if anyone did, he’d not be able to do anything about it. They would leap into The River and swim to shore and continue their long long journey. Neither had his grail, one being locked up in the sunken Rex and the other inside a locked storage room of the Not For Hire. They would steal free grails from the Virolanders and go on up The River in a sailboat.
One man had doffed his armor and dropped his weapon on the deck and had grasped the railing to vault over it when the other spoke behind him. The first man whirled, stooping, and picked up his cutlass. Though he hadn’t heard the voice of the other for forty years, he instantly recognized it.
When he slowly turned around, though, he did not recognize the face and body he identified/with the voice.
The man who’d come from the hatchway behind him spoke in a language which, now, only two on this boat could understand. His tone was harsh.
“Yes, it’s I, though much changed.”
The man by the railing said, “Why did you do it? Why?”
“You would never understand why,” the man in the doorway said. “You’re evil. So were the others, even...”
‘”Were!” the man by the railing said.
“Yes. Were.”
“They’re all dead then. I’d suspected as much.”
He glanced at the helmet and cutlass on the deck. It was too bad that he hadn’t been halted before he discarded them. His enemy had an advantage now. The man by the railing also knew that if he tried to leap over the railing or flip backward over it, the other was swift and skilled enough to skewer him with his weapon by throwing it.
“So,” he said, “you plan on killing me, too. You’ve reached bottom; you’re lost forever.”
“I had to kill the Operator,” the first man said emotionlessly.
“I couldn’t even think of doing such evil,” the man by the railing said.
“I am not evil!” the other cried. “It is you who...”
He struggled with himself, then got the words out.
“There is no use arguing.”
The man by the railing said, “Is it too late even now for you to change your mind? You would be forgiven, you would be sent to the Gardenplanet for therapy. You could join me and the agents and work with us to get to the tower...”
“No,” the first man said. “Don’t be stupid.”
He lifted his cutlass and advanced on the other, who assumed the onguard position. The duel was short and savage and ended when the unarmored man, bleeding from a dozen slashes, fell with the other’s point in his throat.
The killer dragged the body to the railing, lifted it up in his arms, kissed the mouth of the corpse, and dropped it into the water. Tears streamed down his cheeks; he shook with sobs.