35

By the time Jill got there,Firebrass was feeling the man's pulse.

"He's dead!"

"What happened, sir?" the ensign said.

Firebrass stood up.

"I wish I could say why it happened. All I can tell you is what happened. We were getting along fine, drinking and smoking, joking, and he was giving me the details of his professional career. Everything was A-okay. And then all of a sudden he leaps up, pulls a dagger, and tries to stab me!

"He must have gone crazy, although he seemed quite rational until the moment he attacked. Something went wrong in him. Otherwise, why would he drop dead of a heart attack?"

Jill said, "A heart attack? I haven't ever heard of anyone having a heart attack here. Have you?"

Firebrass shrugged and said, "There's always a first time. After all, the resurrections have stopped, too."

"He looks bloody cyanotic for a heart attack," Jill said. "Could he have swallowed a poison? I didn't see him put anything in his mouth."

"Where would he get cyanide or prussic acid or any poison except here in Parolando?" Firebrass said. "He hasn't been here long enough to do that."

He looked at Smithers. "Wrap up the body and take it into one of my bedrooms. Take it out after midnight and drop it into The River. The dragonfish can have him."

"Yes, sir," Smithers said. "What about that cut on your forehead, sir? Should I get a doctor?"

"No, I'll patch it up myself. And not a word about this to anybody. Have you got that, all of you? You, too, Jill. Not a word. I don't want to upset the citizens."

They all nodded. Smithers said, "Do you suppose that that bastard Burr sent this man, too?"

"I don't know," Firebrass said. "Or care. I just want you to get rid of him, okay?"

He turned to Jill. "What're you doing here?"

"I had something important to talk about," she said. "But I'll do it later. You're in no condition to talk."

"Nonsense!" he said, grinning. "Sure I am. You don't think this is going to shake me up, do you? Come on in, Jill, and we'll talk after I fix up this scratch."

Jill sat down in an overstaffed chair in the living room of the luxurious suite. Firebrass disappeared into the bathroom, returning after a few minutes with a white tape slanting across his forehead.

Smiling cheerily as if this were a typical day, he said, "What about a drink? It might settle your nerves."

"My nerves?"

"Okay. Both our nerves. I'll admit I'm a little shaken up. I'm no superman, no matter what people say about me."

He poured purplish skull-bloom into two tall glasses half-filled with ice cubes. Neither the ice nor the glasses, like the band-aid, were available anywhere but in Parolando-as far as she knew.

For a minute they sipped on the cool, tangy drink, their eyes meeting but neither saying a word. Then Firebrass said, "Okay. Enough of the social amenities. What did you want to see me about?"

She could scarcely get the words out. They seemed to jam in her throat, then come tumbling out, broken by the pressure.

After pausing to take a long drink, she continued more slowly and smoothly. Firebrass did not interrupt but sat immobile, his brown eyes, flecked with green, intent on hers.

"So," she finished, "there you are. I had to tell you about this, but it's the hardest thing I ever did."

"Why did you finally decide to spill it? Was it because you heard about the hypnosis?"

For a second, she thought of lying. Piscator would not betray her, and she would look so much better if she had not been forced to admit the truth.

"Yes. I heard about it. But I'd been thinking for some time that I should tell you about it. It was just... it was just that I couldn't bear the thought of being left behind. And I really don't think I'm a danger to the ship."

"It would be bad if you had an attack during a crucial moment of flight. You know that, of course. Well, here's the way I look at it, Jill. Barring Thorn, you're the best airshipman-I mean, person- that we have. Unlike Thorn, who was a keen airman but doesn't make aeronauting his whole life, you're a fanatic. I honestly think you'd pass up a roll in the hay for an hour's flight. Myself, I'd try to combine both.

"I wouldn't want to lose you, and if I had to, I'd worry about your killing yourself. No, don't protest, I really think you would. Which makes you unbalanced in that respect. However, I have to consider the welfare of ship and crew first, so I'd discharge you if I had to, no matter how much it would grieve me.

"So I'm putting you on probation. If you don't have another attack or hallucination from now until the ship takes off for the big voyage, then you'll be in.

"The only trouble with this is that I'll have to depend on your word for it that you've not had an attack. Well, not really. I could put you under hypnosis to find out if you've been telling the truth. But I don't like to do that. It'd mean I don't trust you. I don't want anybody on the ship I can't trust one hundred percent."

Jill felt like running over to him and throwing her arms around him. Her eyes filmed, and she almost sobbed with joy. But she stayed in her chair. An officer did not embrace the captain. Besides, he might misinterpret her behavior and try to take her into his bedroom.

She felt ashamed of herself. Firebrass would never take advantage of any woman. He would scorn using his influence. At least, she thought he would.

"I don't understand about this hypnosis," shesaid. "How could you make all the others go through with it but omit me? That's discrimination which the others ..."

"I've changed my mind about that."

He got up and walked to a rolltop desk, bent over it to write on a piece of paper, and then gave it to her.

"Here. Take this down to Doc Graves. He'll take an X-ray of you."

She was bewildered. "Whatever on earth for?"

"As your captain I could tell you to shut up and obey my order. I won't because you'd be resentful. Let's just say it's something the psychologists learned in 2000 A.D. It would defeat the purpose of the test if I told you what it was all about.

"Everybody else will have to be X-rayed, too. You have the honor of being the first."

"I don't understand," shemurmured. "But I'll do it, of course."

She rose. "Thank you."

"No thanks necessary. Now get your tail down to Doc Graves.''

When she arrived at the doctor's office, she found him talking on the phone. He was frowning and chewing his cigar savagely.

"All right, Milt. I'll do it. But I don't like it that you won't confide in me."

He hung the phone up and turned to her." Hello, Jill. You' ll have to wait until Ensign Smithers gets here. He'll pick up the X-ray photos as soon as they're made and run them up to Firebrass."

"He has a darkroom?"

"No. They don't need developing. Didn't you know? They're just like other photographs, electronically processed at the moment they're taken. Firebrass himself designed the equipment. It's a process developed about 1998, he said."

Graves began striding back and forth, biting hard oh the cigar.

"Damn it! He won't even let me see the X-rays! Why?"

"He said he didn't want anyone but himself to see the X-rays .It's part of the psychological evaluation tests-."

"How in hell could X-rays of the head tell you anything about a man's psyche? Is he nuts?"

"I suppose he'll tell us all about it when he's seen all the photos. By the way, speaking of a man's psyche, I'm not a man."

"I was speaking in the abstract."

He stopped and scowled even more fiercely. "I won't be able to sleep nights worrying about this. Man, I wish I'd lived longer. I shuffled off this mortal coil in 1980, so I didn't get to see the later developments in medical science. Just as well, I suppose. I couldn't keep up with the deluge of new stuff as it was."

Turning to Jill, and stabbing the cigar at her, he said, "Something I'd like to. ask you, Jill. Something that's been bothering me. Firebrass is the only one I've ever met who lived beyond 1983. Have you ever met anyone who did?"

She blinked with surprise. "No-o-o. No, I haven't, now I think about it. Firebrass excepted."

For a moment, she had been about to tell him about Stem. That was going to be a hard secret to keep.

"Neither have I. Damn peculiar."

"Not really," she said. "Of course, I haven't been all over The River, but I have traveled several hundred thousand kilometers and talked to thousands of people. The twentieth-century people seem to have been scattered thinly everywhere. If they were resurrected in clumps, as it were, I never heard of any. So that means that anywhere in the Valley you'll likely find a few, but most of the population segments will be from other centuries.

"So there's nothing remarkable in the rarity of people born after 1983."

"Yeah? Maybe so. Ah, here comes Smithers and two other thugs. Step into my X-rated parlor, my dear, as the spider said to the fly."

36

Extracts from various editions of The Daily Leak:

Dmitri "Mitya" Ivanovitch Nikitin is pro tempore pilot third officer of the Parseval. He was born in 1885 in Gomel, Russia, of middle-class parents. His father was a harness-factory owner; his mother taught piano. His qualifications for candidacy were based on his experience as chief steersman of the Russie, a French airship built by the Lebaudy-Juillot Company in 1909 for the Russian government.

Ms. Jill Gulbirra, chief airship instructor, says that Mit-ya's experience was rather limited from her viewpoint, but he has shown excellent ability. However, according to rumors, he is too fond of skull-bloom. Take a tip from us, Mitya. Lay off the booze.

. . . Charges will not be brought by the editor against Pilot Nikitin. During a necessarily brief interview in the hospital, Mr. Bagg said, "I've been laid out by better men than that big slob. The next time he comes charging into my office, I'll be prepared. The reason I'm not having him arrested isn't just because I have a big heart, however. I just want a chance to personally knock his brains out. Speak softly and carry a big stick."

. . . Ettore Arduino is Italian (what else?), but he is blond and blue-eyed and can pass for a Swede as long as he keeps his mouth shut and doesn't eat garlic. As all but new citizens know, he entered Parolando two months ago and was immediately signed up for training. He has an illustrious though tragic history, having been chief motor engineer on the airship Norge and then on the Italia under Umberto Nobile. (See page 6 for a minibiogrpahy of this son of Rome.) The Norge accomplished its primary mission to fly over the North Pole on May 12, 1926. It also established that there was no large land mass between the North Pole and Alaska as reported by that great explorer, Commodore Robert E. Peary (1856-1920), the first man to reach the North Pole (1909). (Though Peary was accompanied by a Negro, Matthew Henson, and four Eskimos whose names we don't remember, actually Henson was the first man to stand on the North Pole.)

The Italia, after passing over the Pole, found itself bucking a very strong headwind on its way to King's Bay. The controls jammed from heavy icing; a crash seemed assured. However, the ice melted, and the airship proceeded. Some time later, the vessel began to fall slowly. The helpless crew was forced to stand by while the queen of the skies struck the surface ice. The control gondola was torn off, a fortuitous event for those in it. These scrambled out and then looked up in shock as the dirigible, freed of the weight of the gondola, rose again.

Ettore Arduino was last seen standing on the gangway to the starboard engine gondola. As reported by a crew member, Dr. Francis Behounek of the Wireless Institute of Prague, Czechoslovakia, Arduino's face was a mask of utter disbelief. The Italia floated away, and nothing of it or the men still aboard was ever seen again. On Earth, that is.

Arduino relates that he perished of the cold after the Italia fell for the second and last time on the ice. His complete account of this horrendous experience will be printed in next Thursday's issue. After this blood-chilling event, no reasonable person could expect Ettore to volunteer again for airship travel. But he is undaunted by this and expresses eagerness for another polar expedition. We don't care what people say about Italians, and we have nothing but contempt for the attitude prevalent in Tombstone, where it was stated as a fact that all wops were yellow. We personally know that they have more guts than brains, and we are sure that Ettore will be a shining adornment to the crew.

... last seen paddling desperately toward the middle of The River while Mr. Arduino fired shots at him with the new Mark IV pistol. Either this weapon is not what it's cracked up to be, or Mr. Arduino's marksmanship was below normal that day.

. . . your new editor accepts the suggestion of President Fircbrass that this journal temper the privilege of free speech with discretion.

... Mr. Arduino was released after promising that he would no longer settle grievances, justified or unjustified, by violent means. The newly created Board of Civil Disputes will handle such matters from now on with President Firebrass as the court of last appeal. Though we will miss S.C. Bagg, we must confess that . . .

. . . Metzing had been chief of the Naval Airship Division of Imperial Germany in 1913. He was Korvettenkapitan of the Zeppelin L-l when it went down on September 9, 1913, during maneuvers. This was the first naval Zeppelin to be lost. The crash was not due to any deficiency on the part of crew or vessel but to the ignorance at that time of meteorological conditions in the upper air. In other words, weather forecasting was then a primitive science. A violent line squall lifted the L-1 up past her pressure height and then dashed her down. With propellers still spinning and ballast ejecting, the ship smashed into the sea off Heligoland. Metzing died with most of his crew . . . We welcome this experienced officer and likable gentleman to Parolando but hope he brings no bad luck with him.

. . . Flash! Just arrived! Another airship veteran, Anna Karlovna Obrenova from up-River some 40,000 kilometers. In the brief interview allowed before Ms. Obrenova was taken to President Firebass' HQ, we learned that she had been captain of the USSR freighter-dirigible Lermontov, logging 8584 hours of flight time in this and other airships. This exceeds Ms. Gulbirra's 8342 hours and Mr. Thorn's 8452 hours. A complete account of Obrenova should be in tomorrow's issue. All we can say at the moment is that she is a peach, a real pipperoo!

37

It was funny, though not laughing-funny.

She had been worried that a man with more airtime than herself would show up. One had, but he had not been aggressive. His only ambition was to be on the ship, and he did not seem to care what rank he got.

Somehow, she had never thought of being displaced by a woman. There were so few female airship officers in her time. And so few people who had lived past 1983 had come by-only one, in fact- that she had not worried about dirigibilists of that era. From what Firebrass said, post-1983 had been the great age of the large rigid airships. But the odds against aeronauts of that era showing were high.

Chance had thrown its dice, andsohere was Obrenova, a woman who had 860 hours flight time as captain of a giant Soviet airship.

So far, the officers' positions had not been announced. No matter. Jill knew that the little blonde newcomer would be first mate. Realistically, she should be. If Jill were in Firebrass' place, she would have had to appoint Obrenova as first mate.

On the other hand, there were only two months left before the Parseval took off for the polar voyage. The Russian might need more retraining than that. After thirty-four years of ground life, she would be rusty. She would have a month reacquainting herself with gasbags in the Minerva. Then she would have a month of training in the big ship with everybody else.

Could she do it? Of course, she could. Jill would have been able to do it in that time.

She had been in the conference, room with the officer candidates when Anna Obrenova was brought in by Agatha. On seeing her, Jill's heart had seemed to turn over like a sluggish motor. Before she heard Agatha's excited announcement of the newcomer's identity, she had known what it would be.

Anna Obrenova was short and slim but long legged and full breasted. She had long, shining yellow hair and large, dark blue eyes, a heart-shaped face, high cheekbones, a cupid's bow mouth, and a deep tan. She was, to quote another newspaper article, a "beaut."

Disgustingly delicate and feminine. Unfairly so. Just the type that men simultaneously wanted to protect and to bed.

Firebrass was on his feet, advancing toward her, his face aglow, his eyes seeming to drip male hormones.

But it was Thorn's reaction that surprised Jill. On seeing Obreno va enter, he had jumped to his feet and opened his mouth, closed it, opened it, then closed it again. His ruddy skin was pale.

"Do you know her?" Jill said softly.

He sat down and covered his face with his hands for a moment.

When he took them away, he said, "No! For a second I thought I did! she looks so much like my first wife! I still can't believe it."

Thorn remained shaking in his chair while others crowded around Obrenova. Not until the others had been introduced did he get up and shake her hand. He told her then how remarkably she resembled his wife. She smiled-"dazzlingly" was a cliche, but it was the only adverb appropriate-and she said, in heavily accented English, "Did you love your wife?"

That was a strange thing to say. Thorn stepped back a pace and said, "Yes, very much. But she left me."

" I am sorry,'' Obrenova said, and they did not exchange another word while in the room.

Firebrass sat her down and offered her food, cigarettes, and liquor. She accepted the former but declined the rest.

"Does that mean you have no vices?" Firebrass said. "I was hoping you'd have at least one."

Obrenova ignored this. Firebrass shrugged and began questioning her. Jill got depressed while listening to the account of her experience. She had been born in Smolensk in 1970, had been educated as an aeronautical engineer, and in 1984 had become an airship trainee. In 2001 she had been made captain of the passenger freighter Lermontov.

Finally, Firebrass said that she must be tired. She should go with Agatha, who'd find quarters for her.

"Preferably in this building," he said.

Agatha replied that no rooms were available. She would have to be satisfied with a hut near those of Ms. Gulbirra and Mr. Thorn.

Firebrass, looking disappointed, said, "Well, maybe we can find a place here for her later. Meantime, I'll go with you, Anna, and make sure you're not given a dump."

Jill felt even lower. How could she expect objectivity from him, when he was so obviously smitten by the Russian?

For a while, she indulged in some fantasies. How about abducting the little Russian and tying her up in a hidden place just before the Parseval was to take off? Firebrass would not hold up the flight until she was found. Jill Gulbirra would then become first mate.

If she could do that to Obrenova, why not to Firebrass? Then she would be the captain.

The images evoked were pleasing, but she could not do that to anyone, no matter how strongly she felt. To violate their human rights and dignities would be to violate, to destroy herself.

During the week that followed she sometimes beat her fists on the table or wept. Or both. The next week she told herself that she was being immature. Accept what was unavoidable and enjoy what was left. Was it so important that she should finally be captain of an airship?

To her, yes. To anyone else in the world, no.

So she swallowed her resentment and disgust.

Piscator must have known how she felt. Frequently, she caught him looking at her. He would smile or else just look away. But he knew, he knew!

Six months passed. Firebrass gave up trying to get Obrenova to move into his apartment. He made no secret of his desire nor did he hide the fact that she had finally rejected him.

''You win some, you lose some," he said to Jill with a wry smile. "Maybe she doesn't go for men. I know a score or more who've been panting for her, and she's as cool to them as if she were the Venus de Milo."

"I'm sure she isn't a lesbian," Jill said.

"Takes one to know one, heh? Haw, haw!"

"Damn it, you know I'm ambivalent," she said angrily, and she walked away.

"Indecisive is the right word!" he had shouted after her.

At that time Jill was living with Abel Park, a tall, muscular, handsome, and intelligent man. He was a Rivertad, one of the many millions of children who had died on Earth after the age of five. Abel did not remember what country he had been born in or what his native language had been. Though resurrected in an area the majority of whom were medieval Hindus, he had been adopted and raised by a Scots couple. These were eighteenth-century Lowlanders of peasant origin. Despite his poverty, the foster father had managed to become a medical doctor in Edinburgh.

Abel had left his area after his parents had been killed and had wandered down-River until he came to Parolando. Jill had liked him very much and had asked him to be her hutmate. The big fellow had gladly moved in, and they had had some idyllic months. But, though he was intelligent, he was ignorant. Jill taught him everything she could; history, philosophy, poetry, and even some arithmetic. He was eager to learn, but eventually he accused her of patronizing him.

Shocked, Jill had denied this.

"I just want to educate you, to give you knowledge denied you because you died so early."

"Yes, but you get so impatient. You keep forgetting that I don't have your background. Things which seem simple to you, because you were raised among them, are bewildering to me. I don't have your referents."

He had paused, then said, "You're a knowledge-chauvinist. In short, a... what's the word? ... a snob."

Jill was even more shocked. She denied this, too, though reflection showed her that he was perhaps right. By then it was too late to make reparations. He had left her for another woman.

She consoled herself by telling herself that he was too used to the idea of the man being the boss. He found it difficult to accept her as an equal.

Later, she realized that that was only partly true. Actually, she had, deep down, a contempt for him because he was not, and never would be, her mental equal. That had been an unconscious attitude, and now that she was aware of it, she regretted having it. In fact, she felt ashamed of it.

After that, she made no effort to have anything but the most impermanent liaisons. Her partners were men and women who, like her, wanted only sexual satisfaction. Usually, she and they got it, but she always felt frustrated afterward. She needed a genuine affection and companionship.

Obrenova and Thorn, she observed, must be doing the same thing as she. At least, no one moved into their huts. For that matter, though, she never observed them taking any interest in anybody which could be interpreted as sexual. As far as she knew, they were not even having one-night stands.

Thorn did, however, seem to like Obrenova's company. Jill often saw them talking earnestly together. Perhaps Thorn was trying to get her to be his lover. And perhaps the Russian refused because she thought she would only be a substitute for his first wife.

Three days before the final liftoff, a holiday was declared. Jill left the plains area because it was so crowded and noisy with people from up and down The River. She estimated that there were already several hundred thousands camping in Parolando and that there would be over twice that number by the time the Parseval left. She retired to her hut, leaving it only for a little fishing. The second day, as she was sitting on the edge of the little lake, looking emptily into the water, she heard someone approaching.

Her irritation at the invasion died when she saw Piscator. He was carrying a fishing pole and a wickerwork basket. Silently, he sat down beside her and offered her a cigarette. She shook her head. For some time they stared at the surface, rippled by the wind, broken now and then by a leaping fish.

Finally, he said, "It won't be long before I must reluctantly say goodbye to my disciples and to my piscatorial pursuits."

"Is it worth it to you?"

"You mean, giving up this pleasant life for an expedition that may end in death? I won't know until it happens, will I?"

After another silence, he said, "How have you been? Any more experiences such as that night?"

"No, I'm fine." "But you have been carrying a knife in your heart.''

"What do you mean?" she said, turning her head to look at him. She hoped her puzzlement did not look as faked as it felt to her.

''I should have said three knives. The captaincy, the Russian, and most of all, yourself."

"Yes, I have problems. Don't we all? Or are you an exception? Are you even human?"

He smiled and said, "Very much so. More than most, I can say with seeming immodesty. Why is that? Because I have realized my human potentiality almost to its fullest. I can't expect you to credit that. Nor will you, unless, some day ... but that day may never come.

"However, regarding your question of my humanity. I have sometimes wondered if some people we have met are human. I mean, do they belong to Homo sapiens?

"Isn't it possible, even highly probable, that the Whoevers responsible for all this have agents among us? For what purpose, I don't know. But they could be catalysts to cause some kind of action among us. By action, I do not mean physical action, such as the building of the Riverboats and airships, though that may be part of it. I refer to psychic action. To a, shall we say, channeling of humanity? Toward what? Perhaps toward a goal somewhat similar to that which the Church of the Second Chance postulates. A spiritual goal, of refinement of the human spirit. Or perhaps, to use a Christian-Muslim metaphor, to separate the sheep from the goats."

He paused and drew on his cigarette.

"To continue the religious metaphor, there may be two forces at work here, one for evil, one for good. One is working against the fulfillment of that goal."

"What?" she said. Then, "Do you have any evidence for that?"

"No, only speculation. Don't get me wrong. I don't think that Shaitan, Lucifer if you will, is actually conducting a cold war against Allah, or God, whom we Sufis prefer to name The Real .But I sometimes wonder if there isn't a parallel to that in some sense ... well, it is all speculation. If there are agents, then they look like human beings."

"Do you know something I don't?"

"I have 'probably observed certain things. You have, too, the difference being that you have not put them into a pattern. A rather dark pattern it is. Though it is possible that I am looking at the wrong side of the pattern. If it were turned over, the other side might be blazing with light."

"I wish I knew what you were talking about. Would you mind letting me in on this .. . pattern?"

He rose and tossed the cigarette stub into the lake. A fish rose, swallowed it, and splashed back.

"There are all sorts of activity going on beneath that mirror of water," he said, pointing to the lake. "We can't see them because water is a different element from the air. The fish know what's going on down there, but that doesn't do us much good. All we can do is to lower our hooks into the darkness and hope we catch something.

"I read a story once in which a fish sat down on the bottom of a deep, dark lake and extended his fishing pole into the air over the bank. And he caught men with his bait."

"Is that all you're going to say about that?"

He nodded, and said, "I presume you are coming to Firebrass' farewell party tonight."

"It's a command invitation. But I hate going. It'll be a drunken brawl."

"You don't have to soil yourself by joining the pigs in their swinishness. Be with but not of them. That will enable you to enjoy the thought of how superior you are to them."

"You're an ass," she said. Then, quickly, "I'm sorry, Piscator. I'm the ass. You read me correctly, of course."

"I think that Firebrass is going to announce tonight the ranking of the officers and pilots."

She held her breath for a moment. "I think so, too, but I am not looking forward with pleasure to that."

"You prize rank too highly. What is worse, you know it but will do nothing about it. In any event, I think you have an excellent chance."

"I hope so."

"Meanwhile, would you care to go out in the boat with me and participate in the angling?"

"No, thanks."

She rose stiffly and pulled in the line. The bait was gone off the hook.

"I think I'll go home and brood a while."

"Don't lay any eggs," he said, grinning.

Jill snorted feebly and walked away. Before she reached her hut, she passed Thorn's. Loud, angry voices were issuing from it. Thorn's and Obrenova's.

So, the two had finally gotten together. But they did not seem happy about it.

Jill hesitated a moment, almost overcome with the desire to eavesdrop. Then she plunged on ahead, but she could not help hearing Thorn shout in a language unknown to her. So-it would have done her no good to listen in. But what was that language? It certainly did not sound like Russian to her.

Obrenova, in a softer voice, but still loud enough for Jill to hear her, said something in the same language. Evidently, it was a request to lower his voice.

Silence followed. Jill walked away swiftly, hoping they would not look outside and think she had been doing what she had almost done. Now she had something to think about. As far as she knew, Thorn could speak only English, French, German, and Esperanto. Of course, he could have picked up a score of languages during his wanderings along The River. Even the least proficient of linguists could not avoid doing that.

Still, why would the two talk in anything but their native languages or in Esperanto? Did both know a language which they used while quarreling so that nobody would understand them?

She would mention this to Piscator. He might have an illuminating viewpoint on the matter.

As it turned out, however, she had no chance to do so, and by the time the Parseval took off, she had forgotten about the matter.

38

Discoveries in Dis

Jan. 26, 20 a.r.d.

Peter Jairus Frigate

Aboard the Razzle Dazzle

South Temperate Zone

Riverworld

Robert F. Rohrig Down-River (hopefully)

dear bob:

In thirteen years on this ship I've sent out twenty-one of these missives. Letter from a Lazarus. Cable from Charon. Missive from Mictlan. Palaver in Po. Tirades from Tir na nOc. Tunes from Tuonela. Allegories from al-Sirat. Sticklers from the Styx. Issues from Issus. Etc. All that sophomoric alliterative jazz.

Three years ago I dropped into the water my Telegram from Tartarus. I wrote just about everything significant that'd happened to me since you died in St. Louis of too much living. Of course, you won't get either letter except by the wildest chance.

Here I am today in the bright afternoon, sitting on the deck of a two-masted schooner, writing with a fishbone pen and carbonblack ink on bamboo paper. When I'm done, I'll roll the pages up, wrap them in fish membrane, insert them in a bamboo cylinder. I'll hammer down a disc of bamboo into the open end. I'll say a prayer to whatever gods there be. And I'll toss the container over the side. May it reach you via Rivermail.

The captain, Martin Farrington, the Frisco Kid, is at the tiller right now. His reddish-brown hair shines in the sun and whips with the wind. He looks half-Polynesian, helf-Celtic, but is neither. He's an American of English and Welsh descent, born in Oakland, California in 1876. He hasn't told me that, but I know that because I know who he really is. I've seen too many pictures of him not to recognize him. I can't name him because he has some reason for going under a pseudonym. (Which, by the way, is taken from two of his fictional characters.) Yes, he was a famous writer. Maybe you'll be able to figure it out, though I doubt it. You once told me that you had read only one of his works, Tales of the Fish Patrol, and you thought it was lousy. I was distressed that you'd refuse to read his major works, many of which were classics.

He and his first mate, Tom Rider, "Tex," and an Arab named Nur are the only members of the original crew left. The others dropped out for one reason or another: death, ennui, incompatibility, etc. Tex and the Kid are the only two people I've met on The River who could come anywhere near being famous people. I did come close to meeting Georg Simon Ohm (you've heard of "ohms") and James Nasmyth, inventor of the steamhammer. And lo and behold! Rider and Farrington are near the top of the list of the twenty people I'd most like to meet. It's a peculiar list, but, being human, I'm peculiar.

The first mate's real surname isn't Rider. His face isn't one I'd forget, though the absence of the white ten-gallon hat makes it seem less familiar. He was the great film hero of my childhood, right up there with my book heroes: Tarzan, John Carter of Barsoom, Sherlock Holmes, Dorothy of Oz, and Odysseus. Out of the 260 western movies he made, I saw at least forty. These were second or third runs in the second-class Grand, Princess, Columbia, and Apollo theaters in Peoria. (All vanished long before I was fifty.) His movies gave me some of my most golden hours. I don't remember the details or the scenes of a single one-they all blur into a sort of glittering montage with Rider as a giant figure in the center.

When I was about fifty-two years old, I became interested in writing biographies. You know that I had planned for many years to write a massive life of Sir Richard Francis Burton, the famous or infamous nineteenth-century explorer, author, translator, swordsman, anthropologist, etc.

But financial exigencies kept me too busy to do much on A Rough Knight for the Queen. Finally, just as I was ready to start full time on Knight, Byron Farwell came out with an excellent biography of Burton. So I decided to wait a few years, until the market could take another Burton bio. And just as I was about to start again, Fawn Brodie's life of Burton- probably the best-was published.

So I put off the project for ten years. Meanwhile, I decided to write a biography of my favorite childhood film hero (though I ranked Douglas Fairbanks, Senior, as my other top favorite).

I'd read a lot of articles about my hero in movie and western magazines and newspaper clippings. These depicted him as having led a life more adventurous and flamboyant than those of the heroes he played in films.

But I still did not have the money to quit writing fiction long enough to travel around the country interviewing people who'd known him-even if I could have found them. There were some who could have given me details of his careers as a Texas Ranger, a U.S. Marshal in New Mexico, a deputy sheriff in the Oklahoma Territory, a Rough Rider with Roosevelt at San Juan Hill, a soldier in the Philippine Insurrection and the Boxer Rebellion, a horse breaker for the British and possibly as a mercenary for both sides in the Boer War, as a mercenary for Madero in Mexico, as a Wild West show performer, and as the highest-paid movie actor of his time.

The articles about him couldn't be trusted. Even those who claimed to have known him well gave differing accounts of his life. His obituaries were full of contradictions. And I knew that Fox and Universal had put out a lot of publicity stories about him, most of which had to be checked out for exaggeration or downright lies.

The woman who thought she was his first wife had written a biography of him. You'd never know from it that he had divorced her and married twice thereafter. Or had two daughters by another woman. Or that he had a "drinking problem." Or an illegitimate son who was a jeweler in London.

She thought she was his first wife, but, as it turned out, she was his second or third. Nobody's too sure about that.

That he was still a flawless hero to her even after all this says much about the man, though. It says even more about her.

A good friend of mine, Coryell Varoll (you remember him, a circus acrobat, juggler, tightrope walker, gargantuan beer drinker, a Tarzan fan) wrote me about him. In 1964, I think.

"I remember the first time I met him I thought I was meeting God ... over the years, being on the same lot with him many times" (in the circus, he means) "the awe fell apart but he was always liked by most people and always idolized by the kids even after he quit making pix ... I know that sober he was a swell guy, drunk he'd fight at the least excuse and do some of the damnedest things (don't we all?). .. I've a few dozen stories about him that never made the publications. I'll tell them the next time we get together."

But somehow Cory never did.

Even his birthdate was in doubt. His studios and his wife claimed he was born in 1880. The monument near Florence, Arizona (where he died doing 80 mph on a dirt road), says 1880. But there was contrary evidence that it was 1870. Whether he was sixty or seventy, though, he looked like a young fifty. He always kept himself in great shape.

Also, a friend who saw him off on his fatal trip said he was driving a yellow Ford convertible. His wife said it was white. So much for eyewitnesses. The studio publicity departments claimed he was born and raised in Texas. I found out myself that that was a lie. He was born near Mix Run, Pennsylvania, and he left there when he was eighteen to enter the Army.

Just as I was about to write to the War Department to get a copy of his military record-and find out for myself just what he had done in the Army-a novel by Darryl Ponicsan came out. I was stymied again; again, too late. Though the book was semifictional, its author had done the job of research that I'd been planning to do.

So-my hero wasn't the grandson of a Cherokee chief. Nor was he born in El Paso, Texas. And, though he was in the Army, he hadn't been severely wounded at San Juan Hill nor wounded in the Philippines.

Actually, he'd enlisted the day after the Spanish-American War started. I'm sure-as was Ponicsan-that he hoped to get into action. There is no doubt that he had great courage and that he desired to be where the bullets were the thickest.

Instead, he was kept at the fort, then honorably discharged. He thereupon reenlisted. But still, no action. So he deserted in 1902.

He did not go to South Africa, as the studios claimed. Instead, he married a young schoolteacher and went with her to the Oklahoma Territory. Either her father got the marriage annulled or she just left him and a divorce was never filed. Nobody's sure.

While working as a bartender, shortly before he went to work for the 101 Ranch in Oklahoma, he married another woman. This didn't work out, and he apparently failed to divorce her, too.

Most of what the studio publicity departments-and Rider himself-claimed was false. These tales were made up to glamorize a man who did not need it. Rider went along with these tales, maybe made up some himself for the studios. After a while he got to believing them himself. I mean, really believing them. I should know. I've heard him relate almost all of the prevarications, and it's evident that by now the fiction is as genuine as the reality to him.

This blurring of distinction between reality and fantasy in no way interfered with his competency in real life, of course.

He did, however, reject Fox's wish to advertise him as the illegitimate son of Buffalo Bill. That might have started inquiries which would have exposed the whole truth.

And he never says a word about having been a great movie star. He does tell stories about his film experiences, but in these he's always an extra.

Why is he using a pseudonym? I don't know.

His third wife described him as tall, slender, and dark. I suppose that in the early 1900's he would have been considered a tall man, though he's shorter than I am. His slim body does contain steelwire muscles. Farrington is shorter than he but very muscular. He's always after Tom to Indian wrestle him, especially when he (Farrington) has been drinking. Tom obliges. They put an elbow on the table, lock raised hands, and then try to force each other's hand down to the table. It's a long struggle, but Tom usually wins. Farrington laughs, but I think he's really chagrined.

I've wrestled with both of them, coming out about fifty percent winner (or loser). I can beat both of them in the dashes and the long jump. But when it comes to boxing or stick fighting, I usually get licked. I don't have their "killer instinct." Besides, this macho thing never was important to me. Though that may be because I suppressed it from some unconscious fear of competition.

It's important to Farrington. If it is to Tom, he never shows it.

Anyway, it was a thrill to be with these two. It still is, though familiarity breeds, if not contempt, familiarity.

Tom Rider has been up and down The River for hundreds of thousands of kilometers and has three times been killed. Once he was resurrected near the mouth of The River. By near I mean he was only about 20,000 kilometers distant. This was in the arctic region. The River's mouth is, like its headwaters, near the North Pole. However, the two seem to be diametrically opposite, the waters issuing from the mountains in one hemisphere and emptying into the mountains in the other hemisphere.

From what I've heard, there's a sea around the North Pole, and it's walled by a circular mountain which would make Mount Everest look like a wart. The sea pours out of a hole at the base of the mountains, winds back and forth in one hemisphere, finally curving around the South Pole to the other hemisphere. There it wriggles like a snake up and down from the antarctic to the arctic and back again a thousand or so times, and finally empties into the north polar mountains. (Actually, it's one mountain-like a volcanic cone.)

If I drew a sketch of The River, it'd look like the Midgard Serpent of Norse myth, a world-girdling snake with its tail in its mouth.

Tom said that the areas near the mouth are populated chiefly by Ice Agers, ancient Siberians, and Eskimos. There's a scattering of modern Alaskans, upper Canadians, and Russians, though. And some others from everywhere and every time.

Tom, being the adventurer that he is, decided to travel to the mouth. He and six others made some kayaks and paddled downstream from the land of the living into the wasteland of the fog shrouds. Surprisingly, vegetation grew in the mists and the darkness all the way to the mouth. Also, the grailstones extended for a thousand kilometers into the fog. The expedition had its last grail meal at the last stone and then, laden with dried fish and acorn bread and what they'd saved from the grails, they paddled on, the ever increasing current speeding them toward their goal.

The last hundred kilometers was in a current against which there was no turning back. They couldn't even try for the shore; sheer canyon walls soared up from the edge of the water . The voyageurs were forced to eat and sleep sitting up in their kayaks.

It looked like curtains, finit, for them, and it was. They plunged into a great cave the ceiling and walls of which were so far away that Tom's torchlight could not reach them. Then, with a horrible roaring, The River entered a tunnel. By then the ceiling was so low that Tom's head was knocked against it. That's all he remembers. Undoubtedly, the kayak was torn to pieces against the ceiling.

Tom woke up the next day somewhere near the south polar region.

39

(Frigate's letter continued)

"There's a tower in the middle of a sea surrounded by the polar mountains," Tom said.

"A tower?" I said. "What do you mean?"

"Haven't you heard about that? I thought everybody knew about the tower."

"Nobody ever mentioned it to me."

"Well," he said, looking somewhat peculiar, "It is a hell of a long River. I suppose there are plenty of areas where nobody's heard the tale."

And he proceeded to tell me that that was just what it was, a tale. No proof. The man who told Tom about it may have been a liar, and God knows there are just as many here as there were on Earth. But this wasn't an account heard from a man who'd heard it from another who'd heard it from still another and so on and so on. Tom himself had actually talked to a man who claimed to have seen the tower.

Tom had known this man for a long time, but he'd never said a word about it until he got stumbling drunk with Tom one night. After he sobered up, he refused to talk about it. He was too scared.

He was an ancient Egyptian, one of a party led by the Pharaoh Akhenaten or Ikhnaton, as some pronounced it. You know, the one who tried to found a monotheist religion about the thirteenth century B.C. Apparently, Akhenaten was resurrected in an area of people from his own time. The teller of the tale, Paheri, a nobleman, was recruited by Akhenaten along with forty others. They built a boat and started off, not knowing how far they had to go. Or, indeed, what their goal was, except the source of The River. Akhenaten believed that Aton, God, the sun, would live there and that he would receive any pilgrim with great honor. Would, in fact, pass him on to paradise, a place better than The Riverworld.

Paheri, unlike the Pharaoh, was a conservative polytheist. He believed in the "true" gods; Ra, Horus, Isis, all the Old Bunch. He went along with his Pharaoh, thinking that he would lead them to the seat of the gods and would then get his just deserts for having abandoned the old religion on Earth. Poetic justice. But he, Paheri, would be suitably rewarded for his faith.

Fortunately for their quest, the area in which they'd been first resurrected was in the northern hemisphere, far up The River. Also fortunately, they passed through areas mainly inhabited by late-twentieth-century Scandinavians. These were comparatively peaceful, so the boat's crew wasn't enslaved, and there was no problem using the grailstones.

As they got closer to the polar mountains, they came into an area populated by giant subhumans. These seem to have been a species the fossils of which were never found on Earth. Eight to ten feet high (2.45 to 3.048 meters), believe it or not. With noses like proboscis monkeys. Language users, though their speech was simple.

Any one of these behemoths could have wiped out the whole crew singlehanded, but the boat frightened them. They thought it was a living monster, a dragon. Apparently, their area, which extended for several thousand kilometers, was cut off from the area below them by a very narrow valley. The River boiled through it at great pressure, making a current against which a boat could not be rowed.

The Egyptians weren't stopped by this. It took them six months, but they made it. Using flint tools and some iron tools-there was some iron in this area for which they traded booze and tobacco from their grails-they chopped out a narrow ledge about 3 meters above the water. They disassembled the boat and, carrying the parts on their backs, they crawled the kilometer or so to the end of the narrow part.

In the land of the giants, the Egyptians recruited an individual whose name they couldn't pronounce. They called him Djehuti (the Greek form of this name was Thoth) because his long nose reminded them of that god. Thoth had the head of an ibis, a long-beaked bird.

The boat proceeded up The River, to where the grailstones ceased. This area was in perpetual fog. Though The River had given up much of its heat while going through the sea behind the polar mountains, it still had enough left to form clouds when it encountered the colder air.

They came to a cataract that was wide enough to float the moon on, or so said Paheri. The boat had to be left behind then, and for all anybody knows it is still on a platform in a sheltered cove. Rotten by now, what with all that moisture.

Now, here comes one of the strangest parts of the tale. The expedition came to a cliff which seemed insurmountable. But they found a tunnel which someone had cut through the cliff. And then, later, at the bottom of another insurmountable cliff, they found the end of a rope made from cloths. Up it they went, and though their path was anything but smooth from then on, they did get to the polar sea beyond the mountains.

Who made the tunnel and who left the rope? And why? It seems obvious to me that someone prepared the way for us Earthlings. I doubt that it was Riverdwellers who cut the tunnel and who planted the rope. The mountain which contained the tunnel was made of hard quartz. The tunnel would have worn out a large number of steel tools, which would not in any event have been available in large numbers. Moreover, Paheri said that there was no debris, no cuttings and shavings which would have to be piled outside the tunnel. Even with iron tools, a party would not have time enough to cut the tunnel. They couldn't possibly have brought along enough food for the time it would take to do the job.

In addition, how could anyone have gotten up the aforementioned cliff without a rope? Maybe some mysterious party preceding the Egyptians fired a rocket trailing a rope? But there was only one projection, a tall, thin spire of rock, for the hypothetical rope with hypothetical grapnels to catch on. The chances of the rocket hitting it (especially when it's invisible from below) and the grapnels catching on it are highly remote. Also, there was no empty rocket case around. Whoever had lowered the rope had tied the end of the rope around the projection. And Paheri said that it looked as if the projection had been cut out of a larger spire.

Anyway, after crawling on a ledge through a dark cave through which a cold wind howled, they came out onto the sea. Clouds covered the sea from rim to rim of the unbroken range circling the sea. Only it wasn't really unbroken. On the other side there must have been a great gap between two mountains. Djehuti saw it first; he went around a corner just as the sun broke through for a moment. Those behind him heard a cry, then a bellow, and then a long, dwindling wail. They inched around the corner and got to the edge of the ledge just in time to see Djehuti's body disappear in the clouds below.

Afterward, they reconstructed what had happened. He had rounded the corner and seen a grail a few paces before him. Yes, a grail. Someone had preceded them. Apparently, Djehuti saw it, too, and then the sun shone through the gap in the mountain. Blinded, or startled, he had stepped backward and tripped over the grail.

There was just enough light from the passing sun to give a glimpse of something in the middle of the sea. It looked like the upper end of a colossal grail sticking from the clouds. Then the sun passed the gap and the clouds rolled back up and covered the big grail.

You're probably asking, how could the Egyptians see the sun? Even if the break in the mountains extended to the horizon, wouldn't the clouds still cover it? The answer is, yes, the clouds would cover it under normal circumstances. But there was a combination of wind which cleared the clouds away momentarily just as the sun passed the gap. An unhappy combination of circumstances, for Djehuti, anyway.

The winds are peculiar in that region. Twice, they cleared the clouds away so that the Egyptians could see, briefly, the upper portion of the tower. Without the direct rays of the sun, in the gloomy twilight of reflection from the skies, they could see only a dark bulk. But it was enough. There was an object out there, a vast object. Not necessarily a manmade object, since we don't know if the owners and operators of this planet are human. But it was an artifact; it was too smoothly cylindrical to be anything else. Though, at that distance, it could have been a spire of rock, I suppose.

But here's another clincher. Several hours later the Egyptians saw an object rise up from the clouds around the tower. It was round, and for them to see it from where they stood, it must have been enormous. When it got far up, it reflected light from the never setting sun. Then it rose so high it became invisible.

That really excited me. I said, "That tower could be the headquarters, the home base, of Whomever is behind all this?"

"That's what Frisco and I think."

The Egyptians had become fond of Djehuti. Despite his ogreish appearance, he had a good heart, and he liked to joke. He wasn't above making puns in Egyptian, which shows a considerable intelligence on his part. Humankind is unique in the animal kingdom; it's the only species that can pun. Homo agnominatio? I don't know. My Latin gets weaker by the day. If I could find an ancient Roman or a Latin scholar I'd take a refresher course.

Back to Paheri's tale. And Djehuti. If it hadn't been for his gorillan strength, the Egyptians wouldn't have gotten as far as they did. So they said some prayers over him and pushed on down the path.

The narrow ledge inclined, generally, at a 45-degree angle and was slippery with moisture. It was just wide enough for one man to walk along, his shoulder brushing the cliff. There were several narrowings where they had to face the cliff and slide along it, their chests against the rock, their heels hanging over the edge, their fingers clutching every tiny roughness.

Halfway down, Akhenaten almost fell off. He'd stumbled in the fog over a skeleton. Yes, a skeleton, undoubtedly the one who'd abandoned the grail. None of his bones seemed to be broken, so they guessed that he had died of starvation. The Pharaoh said a prayer over the bones and cast them into the sea. After a while they came to the end of the path. This was at sea level. They despaired then, but Akhenaten grabbed hold of an outcropping with one hand and with a torch in his other hand looked around the projection.

On the other side was an opening, the mouth of a cave. He eased around the outcropping, the sea up to his knees, his feet on the underwater continuation of the ledge. His torch showed him a smooth rock floor that slanted upward at a 30-degree angle. The others followed him without mishap.

Akhenaten in the lead, they walked up the slope. Their hearts beat hard, their skins were cold, their teeth chattered. One man-our Paheri-was so scared that he had nervous diarrhoea:

Was this the entrance to the hall of the gods? Was jackal-headed Anubis waiting to conduct them to the great judge who would balance their good deeds against the bad?

It was then that Paheri got to thinking about the mean and unjust things he'd done, his pettinesses and cruelties, his greed and treachery. For a moment he refused to go on. But when the others kept walking, and the darkness began to press in on him, he resumed walking-though at a distance behind them.

The cave became a tunnel, the rock walls evidently worked by tools. It began curving gently and then, after a hundred meters, it entered a very large circular chamber. This was lit by nine black metal lamps on tall tripods. The lamps were ball shaped, and they burned with a cold, steady light.

There were several things in the chamber to astonish them. The nearest, though, was another skeleton. Like the other, it was still clothed. The right arm was fully extended as if it had been reaching out for something. Beside it was a grail. At the moment, they didn't examine the bones, but I'll describe it now. It was the skeleton of a female, and the skull and some still unrotted patches of hair showed that it was a Negress's.

She had probably died of starvation. That was tragically ironic, since she had died a few meters from food.

After her companion had died, she'd gone on, probably crawling part of the way, summoning enough strength to stand up and edge around the very narrow places. Then, with salvation in sight, she had died.

I wonder who she was? What drove her to take that perilous journey? How many of her party died or turned back before they got through the vast cave through which the waves of the polar sea rush out? How did they get past the hairy, big-nosed colossi? What was her name, and why was she so fiercely determined to drive on into the heart of darkness?

Perhaps she may have left a message inside her grail. However, its lid was closed, and so only she could open it. Anyway, it's very unlikely that the Egyptians could have read her writing. This was before the Chancers spread Esperanto around the world. Furthermore, billions who can speak this language don't know how to read it.

The Egyptians said a prayer over the bones and then silently inspected the largest objects in the chamber, metal boats. There were eleven, some large, some small, all in low, metal V-shaped supports open at both ends.

There were also supplies of food. They didn't know that at first, since they'd never seen plastic cans. But diagrams on plastic sheets indicated how to open them, which they did. They contained beef, bread, and vegetables. They ate heartily, and then they slept for a long time, being very fatigued from their journey.

But they felt that the gods (in Akhenaten's view. The God) had provided for them. A path had been prepared for them, though it had not been an easy one. The road to immortality had never been easy, and only the virtuous and hardy would traverse it. Perhaps Djehuti had sinned in some way and so had been hurled from the ledge by the gods.

There were diagrams, how-to-do-it sketches using signs, in the boats. They studied these and then carried one of the large boats through the tunnel. It could hold thirty people, but four people could lift it easily or one strong man could drag it. It was shoved under the ledge into the sea, which was moderately rough, and the party got into it. There was a small control board by the wheel. Though he was a Pharaoh and so above work of any kind, Akhenaten nevertheless took over the controls. Following the diagrammed instructions, he punched a button on the board. A screen lit up, and a bright orange outline of the tower appeared on it. He punched another button, and the boat moved of its own accord outward into the sea.

Everybody was scared, of course, though their leader did not show it. Yet they felt that they were in the right place and were welcome-in a sense. The boat they likened to the barge in which, in their religion, the dead journeyed across the waters of the Other World, Amenti.

(Amenti comes from Ament, a goddess whose name meant "the Westerner." She wore a feather, as did the Libyans, the people to the west of Egypt. She may have been a Libyan goddess borrowed by the Egyptians. A feather was also the sign or hieroglyph for the word "Western." In later times, "the West" meant the Land of the Dead, and Ament became the goddess of the country of the dead. She it was who welcomed them at the gate of the Other World. She proffered them bread and water and, if they ate it, they became "friends of the gods.")

Naturally, the food they'd found in the cave reminded them of this, just as the boat was an analog of the barge used by the dead in the Other World. The Egyptians, like many people, had been upset, not to mention outraged, when they woke from death upon The Riverworld. This was not what the priests had said would happen to them after death. Yet, there were parallels here, physical analogs, to the promised land. Also, that there was a River was comforting. They had always been a riparian folk, living close to the Nile. And now they had been guided by a divine being to the heart of the Other World.

They wondered if they should have named the giant subhuman Anubis instead of Djehuti. Anubis was the jackal-headed god who conducted the dead in the Underworld to the Double Palace of Osiris, the Judger, the Weigher of Souls. Still, Djehuti was the spokesman of the gods and the keeper of their records. Sometimes, he took the shape of a dog-headed ape. Considering their companion's features and his hairiness, he did look like that avatar of Djehuti.

Note: These two aspects of Thoth (Djehuti) indicate that there may have been a fusion of two different gods in early times.

This world did have some similarities to the Other World. Now that they were in the Abode of Osiris, the similarities were even more striking. The Riverworld could be that country between the world of the living and the dead vaguely described by the Priests. The priests had told confusing, contradictory stories. Only the gods knew the full truth.

Whatever the truth was, it would soon be found. The tower didn't look like their picture of the Double Hall of Justice, but perhaps the gods had changed things. The Riverworld was a place of constant change, a reflection of the state of mind of the gods themselves.

Akhenaten turned the wheel so that the orange tower was bisected by the vertical line splitting the screen. At times, just to reassure himself that he had control of the speed, he would squeeze the bulb fixed to the right side of the steering wheel. The boat's speed would increase or decrease according to the force of the squeezing.

The boat headed straight through the choppy, fog-shrouded sea for the tower at a speed frightening to its passengers. Within two hours the image on the screen had become enormous. Then the image burst into a flame which covered the entire screen, and Akhenaten let the boat proceed very slowly. He punched a button, and they all cried out in fright and wonder as two round objects on the prow of the boat shot forth two bright beams of light.

Ahead lay a vast bulk-the tower.

Akhenaten punched a button indicated by the diagram. Slowly, a large, round door, a port, swung open from what had been a smooth, seamless surface. Light sprang into being. Inside was a wide hall, its walls of the same grey metal.

Akehnaten brought the boat alongside the entrance. Some of the crew grabbed the threshold. The Pharaoh pressed the button which shut off the invisible power that moved the boat. He stepped onto the side of the boat, which was just below the threshold. After jumping inside the hall, he took the ropes attached to the inside of the hull and secured them around hooks set into the hall. Apprehensively, silently, the others followed him.

All, that is, except for Paheri. The terror was now almost unendurable. His teeth clicked uncontrollably. His knees shook. His heart beat in his frozen flesh like a frightened bird's wings. His mind moved sluggishly, like winter mud flowing down a hillside warmed by the sun.

He was too weak to get up from the seat and step into the corridor. He was sure that if he could go on, he'd face his judge and be found wanting.

I'll say one thing for Paheri. Two. He did have a conscience, and he wasn't afraid to admit to Tom Rider that he'd been a coward. That takes courage.

Akhenaten, as if he had nothing to fear from The One God, walked steadily toward the end of the corridor. The others were bunched behind him at a dozen paces. One looked back and was surprised that Paheri was still in the boat. He gestured for him to come on. Paheri shook his head and hung oh to the gunwale.

Then, without a single cry from anyone, those in the corridor slumped to their knees, fell forward on their hands; tried to rise, failed, and sagged onto their faces. They lay as still and limp as putty models.

The door swung slowly shut. It closed silently, leaving no evidence that there was a door, not even a thin seamline, and Paheri was alone in the dark fog and the cold sea.

Paheri wasted no time in getting the boat turned around. It moved at its former speed, but now there was no signal on the scope, no bright image, to direct it. He could not find the cave, and so he went up and down the base of the cliff until he gave up trying to locate the cave. Finally, he directed it alongside the cliff until he came to the archway through which the sea rams into the mountains. He got through the long and giant cave there, but when he came to the great cataract, he could find no place to beach the boat. It was carried over the falls. Paheri remembered the bellowing of the waters, being turned over and over, and then . . . unconsciousness.

When he awoke from his translation, he was lying naked in the dark fog under the overhang of a grails tone. His grail-a new one, of course-and a pile of cloths lay by him. Presently he heard voices. The dim figures of people coming to place their grails on the stone approached. He was safe and sound-except for the terrible memory of the hall of the gods.

Tom Rider was translated to Paheri's area after he'd been killed by some fanatical medieval Christians. He became a soldier, met Paheri, who was in the same squad, and heard his story. Rider worked up to a captaincy and then he was killed again. He awoke the next day in an area where Fanington lived.

Several months later they went up-River together in a dugout. Then they settled down for a while to build the Rattle Dazzle.

What's my reaction to all this? Well, Paheri's story makes me want to go see for myself if it's true or not. If he wasn't making it up, and Tom says Paheri was as stolid and as unimaginative as a wooden cigarstore Indian, then this world, unlike Earth, may have answers to the Big Questions, a mirror to the Ultimate Reality.

Towerward ho!

40

(Frigate's letter continued)

There's more to the story than what Rider told me. I chanced to overhear Frisco and Tex several days ago. They were in the main cabin, and the hatch was open. I had sat down, my back against the cabin, and had lit up a cigar. (Yes, for the nonce, I've fallen into the clutches of Ole Devil Nicotine.) I really wasn't paying much attention to their voices, since I was occupied with thoughts resulting from a conversation with Nur el-Musafir.

Then I heard the captain, who has a loud voice, say, "Yes, but how do we know he isn't using us for some reason of his own? Some reason beneficial to him but not so good for us? And how do we know we can get into the tower? That Egyptian couldn't. Is there another entrance? If there is, why didn't he tell us? He did say he'd tell us more about the tower later on. But that was sixteen years ago! Sixteen! We ain't seen him since!

"I mean, you ain't seen him. Of course, I never did see him. Anyway, maybe something happened to him. Maybe he got caught. Or maybe he doesn't need us anymore!"

Rider said something I couldn't catch. Farrington said, "Sure, but you know what I think? I think he didn't have the slightest idea those Egyptians got to the tower. Or that one got away. At least, not when he talked to you."

Rider said something. Farrington replied, "The tunnel and the rope and the boats and probably the path must have been prepared for us. But others got there first."

The wind strengthened then, and I couldn't hear anything for a minute or two. I moved closer to the companionway well. Farrington said, "You really think some of them, one, anyway, might be on this ship? Well, it's possible, Tex, but so what if it is?

"Why weren't we told who the others were so we could recognize each other and get together? When are we going to be told? Where do we all meet? At River's end? What if we get there and nobody shows up? Do we wait a hundred years or so there? What if..."

Rider broke in once more. He must have talked a long time. I was straining my ears, so lit up with curiosity that I almost shone with a sort of St. Elmo's fire. Mustafa, at the wheel, was looking at me with a strange expression. He must have known, or guessed, that I was eavesdropping. This made me uneasy. I wanted desperately to hear the rest. But if the Turk told those two I'd been listening to them, I might get tossed off the ship. On the other hand, he couldn't know that they were discussing any thing I shouldn't be hearing. So I puffed on my cigar, and when it was out, I pretended to fall asleep.

The situation reminded me of Jim Hawkins' experience in the apple barrel in Treasure Island, when he overheard Long John Silver plotting with his pirate cronies to take over the Hispaniola after the treasure was found. Only, in this case, Farrington and Rider weren't planning anything evil against anybody at all. They seemed to be more plotted against.

Farrington said, "What I'd like to know is why he needs us? Here's a man with more power than a dozen gods, and if he's going against his buddies, what help can he get from mere mortals like us? And if he wants us in the tower, why doesn't he just ferry us to it?"

There was another interruption, followed by the clink of grail cups against each other. Then Rider spoke loudly. "... must have damn good reasons. Anyway, we'll find out in time. And what else do we have to do?"

Farrington bellowed laughter, then said, "That's right! What else? Might as well use our time for some end, good or bad. But I still feel like we're being exploited, and I'm fed up with that. I was exploited by the rich and the middle class when I was young, and then when I became famous and rich, I was exploited by editors and publishers and then by my relatives and friends. I ain't going to let anybody exploit me here on this world, use me like I was a dumb beast fit for nothing but shoveling coal or canning fish!"

"You did some self-exploiting, too," Rider said. "Didn't we all? I made plenty of money and so did you. And what happened? We spent more'n we made on big houses and fast cars and bad investments and booze and whores and putting on a big front. We could've played it smart and tight and saved our money and taken it easy and lived to ripe old ages in ease and plenty. But ..."

Farrington exploded into laughter again. "But we didn't, did we? That wasn't our nature, Tex, and it ain't now. Live it up, burn the candle at both ends, spin off fire and beauty like a St. Catherine's wheel instead of trudging along like a steer turning a mill wheel! So the deballed beast gets turned out to pasture instead of going to the glue factory? So what? What does he have to think about while he's munching grass? A long, grey life and a short, grey future?"

More clinking. Then Farrington started to tell Rider about a train trip he'd taken from San Francisco to Chicago. He had introduced himself to a beautiful woman who was accompanied by her child and a maid. It wasn't more than an hour after meeting her that he and the woman went to his compartment, where they coupled like crazed minks for three days and nights.

I decided that then was a good time to leave. I got up and strolled to the foremast where Abigail Rice and Nur were talking. Mustafa apparently never suspected me of eavesdropping.

Since then, I've been wondering. Who was the he referred to? It's obvious that he must be one of Those who have made this world for us and then raised us from the dead. Could it really be? The idea seemed so tremendous, so difficult to grasp. Yet-Somebody has to have done this, Somebodies, I should say. And they are truly gods, in many senses, anyway.

If Rider is telling the truth, there is a tower in the north polar sea. And by implication it's a base for Whomever made this world, our secret masters. Yes, I know this sounds paranoid. Or like a science fiction tale, most of which were paranoid, anyway. But, except for the very few who got rich, science fiction writers were convinced that their secret (or not so secret) masters were the publishers. Even the rich ones questioned their royalty statements. Maybe the tower is inhabited by the cabal of super-publishers. (Just kidding, Bob. I think.)

Maybe Rider is lying. Or his informant, Paheri, was lying. I don't believe so. It's obvious that Rider and Farrington have been approached by one of these Whomever^ They weren't just making up this story to fool an eavesdropper.

Or were they?

How paranoid can you get?

No, they were discussing something that had really happened. If they were careless, left the hatch open, didn't talk subduedly, it was only natural. After all those years, who wouldn't get careless? As far as that goes, why shouldn't they tell everybody?

Somebody might be looking for them. Who? Why?

My mind yaws, pitches, and rolls. So many speculations, so many possibilities. And I think, wow! What a story! Too bad I hadn't thought of something like this when I was writing science fiction. But the concept of a planet consisting of a many-millions-kilometer-long river along which all of humanity that ever lived had been resurrected (a good part of it, anyway) would have been too big to put in one book. It would have taken at least twelve books to do it anywhere near justice. No, I'm glad I didn't think of it.

In light of those developments, what do I do now? Should I mail this letter or tear it up? It won't fall into your hands, of course, not a chance of that. Into whose, then?

Probably it'll be picked up by someone who can't even read English.

Why am I afraid it might fall into the wrong hands? I really don't know. But there is a dark, secret struggle going on under the seemingly simple life of this Valley. I intend to find out just what it is. I'll have to proceed cautiously though. A small voice tells me that I might be better off if I don't know anything about this.

Anyway, to whom am I really writing these missives? To myself, probably, though I hope hopelessly that just possibly impossibly one might drift into the hands of someone I knew and loved or at least was fond of.

And yet, this very moment, as I stare across the water at the many people on the bank, I might be looking directly at the person to whom I've written one of these letters. But the ship is in the middle of The River just now, and I'm too far away to recognize anyone recognizable.

Great God, the faces I've seen in twenty years! Millions, far more than I ever saw on Earth. Some of the faces came into being three hundred thousand years ago or more. Undoubtedly, the faces of many of my ancestors, some of them Neanderthals. A certain number of Homo neanderthalis was absorbed by miscegenation into Homo sapiens, you know. And considering the flux and reflux of large groups through prehistory and history, migrations, invasions, slavery, individual travel, some, maybe many, of the Mongolian, Amerindian, Australoid, and Negro faces I've seen belong to my ancestors.

Consider this. Each generation of your ancestors, going back in time, doubles its number. You were born in 1925. You had two parents, born in 1900. (Yes, I know you were born in 1923 and your mother was forty when she bore you. But this is an ideal case, an average.)

Your parents' parents were born in 1875. That makes four. Double your ancestors every twenty-five years. By 1800, you have thirty-two ancestors. Most of them didn't even know each other, but they were "destined" to be your great-great-great-grandparents.

In 1700 a.d., you have five hundred twelve ancestors. In 1600 a.d. 8192 ancestors. In 1500 A.D., 131,072 ancestors. In 1400, 2,097,152. In 1300, 33,554,432. By 1200 A.D., you have 536,870,912 ancestors.

So do I. So does everybody. If the world population was, say, two billion in 1925 (I don't remember what it was), then multiply that by the number of your ancestors in 1200 A.D. You get over one quadrillion. Impossible? Right.

I just happen to remember that in 1600 the estimated world population was five hundred million. In 1 a.d. , it was an estimated 138,000,000. So, the conclusion is obvious. There was a hell of a lot of incest, close and remote, going on in the past. Not to mention the present. Probably from the dawn of humankind. So, you and I are related. And, in fact, it may be possible that we're all related, many times over. How many Chinese and black Africans born in 1925 were distant cousins of you and me? Plenty, I'd say.

So, the faces I see on both banks as I sail along are my cousins'. Hello, Hang Chow. Yiya, Bulabula. What's happening, Hiawatha? Hail, Og, Son of Fire! But even if they knew this, they wouldn't feel any more friendly toward me. Or vice versa. The most intense quarreling and the most vicious bloodletting take place in families. Civil wars are the worst wars. But then, since we're all cousins, all wars are civil. Mighty uncivil, at the same time. The paradox of human relations. I'll shoot your ass off, brother.

Mark Twain was right. Did you ever read his Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven ? Old Stormfield was shocked when he got past the Pearly Gates because there were so many dark people. Like all of us pale Caucasians, he had envisioned Heaven as being full of white faces with here and there a few yellow, brown, and black ones. But it wasn't that way. He'd forgotten that the dark-skinned peoples had always outnumbered the whites. In fact, for every white face he saw there were two dark ones. And that's the way it is here. My hat is off to you, Mr. Twain. You told it like it was gonna be.

So, here we are in the Rivervalley, knowing not why and whence. Just like on Eath.

Of course, there are plenty of people who say they know. There are the two dominant churches, the Chancers and the Nichirenites, and a thousand sects of reformed Christians, Moslems, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and God knows what all. The former Taoists and Confucianists say they don't give a damn; this is a better life, on the whole, than the last one. The totemists are in a bit of a bind, since there are no animals here. But that doesn't mean the totem spirits aren't here. Many's the savage I've run into who sees his totem in dreams or visions. The majority of them, though, have been converted to one of the "higher" religions.

There's also Nur el-Musafir. He's a Sufi. He was just as shocked as anybody to wake up here. He wasn't outraged, however, and he reordered his thinking tout de suite. He says that whatever beings have made this world have done so with only our eventual good in mind. Otherwise, why go to all this great expense and trouble? (In this, he sounds like a barker for a circus. But he's sincere. Which doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about.)

We shouldn't concern ourselves with the Who or the How, he says. Just with the Why. In this respect, he sounds like a Chancer. But I see I'm about to run out of my quota of paper. So, adiau, adios, selah, amen, salaam, shalom, and so long. (The English so long is from selang, the Moslem Malayan's pronunciation of the Arabic salaam.)

Amicably and didactically yours in the bowels of Whomever,

Peter Jairus Frigate

P.S. I still don't know if I'll mail this in toto, censor it, or use it for toilet paper.

41

On the average, the river was 2.4135 kilometers or a mile and a half wide. Sometimes it narrowed into channels always lined by high hills; sometimes it widened into a lake. Whatever its breadth, its depth was everywhere about 305 meters or a trifle over 1000 feet.

Nowhere along The River was there water erosion of the banks. The grass on the plains merged into an aquatic grass at the water level, and the latter flourished on the sides and bottom of the channel. The roots of this fused with the roots of the surface grass to form an interconnected mass. The grass was not separate blades; it was one vast vegetable entity.

The water plants were eaten by a multitude of fish life from surface to bottom. Many species cruised about in the upper stratum, where the sunlight penetrated. Others, paler creatures but no less voracious, swarmed in the middle layer. In the darkness of the bottom many weird forms scuttled, crawled, wriggled, jetted, swam.

Some ate the leprous-white rooted things that looked like flowers or were in turn enfolded and digested by them. Others, large and small, slid steadily along, mouths gaping, collecting the microscopic life that also lived in the fluid strata.

The largest of all, vaster than the blue whale of Earth, was a carnivorous fish called the river dragon. It shared with a much smaller water dweller the ability to roam the bottom or skim the surface without harm from change in pressure.

The other creature had many names, but in English it was generally called "croaker." It was the size of a German police dog, as slow as a sloth, and as undiscriminating in appetite as a hog. The chief sanitation engineer of The River, it ate anything that did not resist it. The greater part of its diet, however, was the human turd.

A lungfish, it also foraged ashore at night. Many a human had been frightened on seeing its huge goggle eyes in the fog or when stumbling over its slimy body as it crawled around seeking garbage and crap. Almost as scary as its appearance was its loud croak, evoking images of monsters and ghosts.

On this day of year 25 a.r.d., one of these vilely stinking scavengers was near a bank. Here the current was weaker than in the middle. Even so, its fin-legs were going at near top speed to keep it from being moved backward. Presently, its nose detected a dead fish floating toward it. It moved out a little and waited for the carcass to drift into its mouth.

Along came the fish and another object immediately behind it. Both went into the croaker's mouth, the fish sliding down the gullet easily, the large object sticking for a moment before a convulsive swallow drew it in.

For five years, the watertight bamboo jar containing Frigate's letter to Rohrig had been carried downstream. Considering the vast numbers of fishers and voyagers, it should have been picked up and opened long before. However, it was ignored by all creatures except for the fish whose primary object had been the delectable rotting chub.

Five days before the container came to journey's end, it had drifted past the area in which its intended recipient lived. But Rohrig was in a hut, surrounded by the stone and wood sculptures he fashioned for trade in booze and cigarettes, snoring off the effects of a big party.

Perhaps it was just coincidence, perhaps some psychic principle was responsible, a vibratory link between the addresser and the addressee. Whatever the cause, Rohrig was dreaming of Frigate that early morning. He was back in 1950 when he had been a graduate student supported by the G.I. Bill and a working wife.

It was a warm, late-May day (Mayday! Mayday!). He was sitting in a small room, facing three Ph.D.s. This was the day of reckoning. After five years of labor and stress in the halls of learning he would gain or lose the prize, a Master of Arts in English literature. If he passed his oral defense of his thesis, he would go out into the world as a teacher of high-school English. If he failed, he would have to study for six months and then try for a second and final chance.

Now the three inquisitors, though smiling, were shooting questions at him as if they were arrows and he was the target-which was the case. Rohrig was not nervous since his thesis was on medieval Welsh poetry, a subject he'd chosen because he believed that the professors knew very little about it.

He was right. But Ella Rutherford, a charming lady of forty-six, though prematurely white haired, had it in for him. Some time ago they'd been lovers, meeting, twice a week in her apartment. Then one afternoon they had gotten into a furious drunken argument about the merits of Byron as a poet. Rohrig wasn't crazy about his verse, but he admired Byron's lifestyle, which he considered to be true poetry. Anyway, he liked to take the opposite side of an argument.

As a result, he had stormed out of the apartment after saying some very cruel things to her. He had also shouted at her that he never wanted to see her in private again.

Rutherford believed that he had seduced her just to get a high grade in her course, that he was using the argument as an excuse to quit making love to a middle-aged woman. She was wrong. He was compulsively attracted to older women. However, he was finding her demands too great a strain. He could no longer satisfy her, his wife, two female sophomores, two of his friends' wives, a female bartender who gave him free drinks, and the superintendent of the apartment building in which he lived.

Five, he could handle; eight, no. He was being drained of time, energy, and semen, and he was falling asleep in class. Thus, he had craftily started violent arguments with his professor, one of the sophomores (it was rumored that she had the clap), and the wife of a friend (she was too emotionally demanding, anyway).

Now, Rutherford, her watery blue eyes narrowed, said, "You've done very well in your defense, Mister Rohrig. So far."

She paused. He felt suddenly chilled. His anus tightened. Sweat poured down his face and from his armpits. He had visions of her sitting up late nights thinking of some way to get him, some horrible, peculiarly humiliating way.

Doctors Durham and Pur quit drumming their fingers. This was getting interesting. Their colleague was burning bright, like the eyes of a tiger about to spring on a tethered lamb. Lightning was going to strike, and the unfortunate candidate was without a grounding rod, unless it was up his ass.

Rohrig gripped the arms of his chair. Sweat popped out on his forehead like mice scared from a Swiss cheese; sweat, acid sweat, nibbled at the armpits of his shirt. What in hell was coining?

Rutherford said, "You seem to know your subject thoroughly. You've given a remarkable demonstration of knowledge of a rather obscure field of poetry .I'm sure we're all proud of you. We haven't wasted our time with you in the classroom."

The sly bitch was telling him that she had wasted her time outside of the classroom with him. But this was only a sideswipe, a remark meant to injure but not to kill. She was setting him up for the big fall. It was seldom, if ever, that the examining professors congratulated the candidate during the torture. Afterward, perhaps, when the board had voted that he be passed.

"Now . . . tell me," Rutherford drawled.

She paused.

Another him of the crank of the rack.

"Tell me, Mister Rohrig. "Just where is Wales?"

Something in him lost its hold and slid bumping down to the bottom of his stomach. He clapped his hand on his forehead, and he groaned.

"Mother of mercy! Trapped! Holy shit!"

Doctor Pur, dean of women, turned pale. This was the first time in her life she had ever heard that vile word.

Doctor Durham, who wept when reciting poetry to his students, looked as if he was about to swoon.

Doctor Rutherford, having hurled her thunderbolt, smiled without pity or compassion upon the remains of her victim.

Rohrig rallied. He refused to go down without his flags flying, the band playing Nearer My God to Thee. He smiled as if the gold in the pot at rainbow's end had not suddenly been transmuted into turds.

"I don't know how you did it, but you got me! O.K. I never said I was perfect. What happens now?"

Verdict: failed. Sentence: six months of probation with another and final inquisition at its end.

Later, when he and Rutherford were alone in the hall, she said, "I suggest you study geography, too, Rohrig. I'll give you a clue. Wales is near England. But I doubt my advice will help you. You couldn't find your ass if it was handed to you on a silver platter.''

His friend, Pete Frigate, was waiting at the end of the hall for him. Pete was one of the group of older students dubbed "The Bearded Ones" by a sophomore girl who liked to hang around them. They were all veterans whose college education had been interupted by the war. They and their wives or mistresses led a life which was then called "Bohemian." They were the unknown forerunners of the beatniks and the hippies.

As Rohrig drew near, Frigate looked questioningly at him. Though Rohrig was near tears, he put on a big smile and then began laughing uproariously.

"You won't believe this, Pete!"

Frigate did find it difficult to believe that anyone past the sixth grade of grammar school did not know where Wales was. When he was finally convinced, he too laughed.

Rohrig shouted, "How in hell could that white-haired fox have found out my weak spot?"

Frigate said, "I don't know, but she's magnificent. Listen, Bob. Don't feel so bad. I know a distinguished surgeon who doesn't remember if the sun goes around the earth or the earth goes around the sun. He says it's not necessary to know that when you're digging into people's bodies.

"But an English major ... he ought at least to know .. . ooh, haw, haw!"

In one of those non sequiturs the Dream Scripter so often writes, Rohrig found himself elsewhere. Now he was in fog and chasing a butterfly. It was beautiful, and what made it so valuable was that it was the only one of its kind and only Rohrig knew that it existed. It was striped with azure and gold, its antennae were scarlet, its eyes were green emeralds. The king of the dwarfs had fashioned it in his cave in the Black Mountains, and the Wizard of Oz had dunked it in the waters of life.

Fluttering only an inch beyond his outstretched hand, it led him through the mists.

"Hold still, you son of a bitch! Hold still!"

He plunged after it for what seemed like miles. Dimly, out of the corner of his eye, he could see shapes in the clouds, things standing as motionless and quietly as if they were carved from bone. Twice he distinguished a figure; one wore a crown, the other had a horse's head.

Suddenly, he was confronted by one of the objects. He stopped since it seemed impossible for some reason to go around it. The butterfly hung for a moment above the top of the thing, then settled down upon it. Its green eyes glowed, and its front legs shook the antennae mockingly.

Moving forward slowly, Rohrig saw that it was Frigate who was blocking his path.

"Don't you dare touch it!" Rohrig whispered fiercely. "It's mine!"

Frigate's face was as expressionless as a knight's visor. It always looked deadpan when Rohrig was in one of his many furies and chewing out everybody in sight. That had made Rohrig even more angry, and now it rocketed him to the point of utter madness.

"Out of the way, Frigate! Step aside or get knocked down!"

The butterfly, startled by the outburst, flew off into the fog.

"I can't," Frigate said.

"Why not?" Rohrig thundered as he hopped up and down in frustration.

Frigate pointed downward. He was standing on a large red square. Adjoining it were other squares, some red, some black.

"I got misplaced. I don't know what's going to happen now. It's against the rules to put me on a red square. But then, who cares about rules? Besides the pieces, I mean."

"Can I help you?" Rohrig said.

"How could you do that? You can't help yourself."

Frigate pointed over Rohrig's shoulder.

"It's going to catch you now. While you've been chasing the butterfly, it's been chasing you."

Rohrig suddenly felt utterly terrified. There was something after him, something which would do something horrible to him.

Desperately, he tried to move forward, to go over or around Frigate. But the red square held him as it held Frigate.

"Trapped!"

He could still see the butterfly, a dot, a dust mote, gone. Forever.

The fog had thickened. Frigate was only a blur.

"I make my own rules!" Rohrig shouted.

A whisper came from the mists before him. "Quiet! It'll hear you!"

He awoke briefly. His hutmate stirred.

"What's wrong, Bob?"

"I'm drowning in a surf of uncease."

"What?"

"Surcease."

He sank bank into the primal ocean down to where drowned gods leaned in the ooze at crazy angles, staring with fish-cold eyes under barnacled crowns.

Neither he nor Frigate knew that he could have answered one of the questions in the letter. Rohrig had awakened on Resurrection Day in the far north. His neighbors were prehistoric Scandinavians, Patagonian Indians, Ice Age Mongolians, and late-twentieth-century Siberians. Rohrig was quick at learning new languages and was soon fluent in a dozen, though he never mastered the pronunciation and he murdered the syntax. As he always did, he made himself at home, and he was soon friends with many. For a while, he even set himself up as a sort of shaman. Shamans, however, must take themselves seriously if they would succeed, and Rohrig was only serious about his sculpturing. Also, he began to tire of the cold. He was a sun worshipper; his happiest days had been in Mexico where he was the first mate on a small coastal ship transporting frozen shrimp from Yucatan to Brownsville, Texas. He had been briefly involved in gun-smuggling there but had quit it before spending a few days in a Mexican jail. He had also quit Mexico. The authorities could not prove his guilt, but they suggested that he leave the country.

He was just about to take a dugout down-River for a warm climate when along came Agatha Croomes. Agatha was a black woman, born 1713, died 1783, a freed slave, a backwoods Baptist preacher, a holy roller, four times married, mother of ten children, and a pipe smoker. She had been resurrected a hundred thousand grailstones away, but here she was. A vision had come to her, a vision in which God told her to come to His dwelling at the North Pole, where He would hand her the keys to kingdom come, to glory and salvation forever, to understanding of time and eternity, space and infinity, creation and destruction, death and life. She would also be the one to cast the devil into the pit, lock him up, and throw the key away.

Rohrig thought she was crazy, but she intrigued him. Also, he wasn't so sure that the solution to the mystery of this world did not lie at the beginning of The River.

He knew that no one had ventured into the fog-laden land further north. If he accompanied her party of eleven, he would be among the first to reach the North Pole. If he had anything to do with it, he would be the very first person to get there. When their goal was in sight he was going to sprint ahead and plant on the site of the North Pole a stone statuette of himself, his name incised at the base.

From then on, anybody who got there would know that he'd been beat out for first place by Robert F. Rohrig. Agatha wouldn't take him, however, unless he believed in the Lord and the Holy Book. He hated to lie, but he told himself that he wasn't really deceiving her. Deep down, he did believe in a god, though he wasn't sure whether its name was Jehovah or Rohrig. As for the Bible, it was a book, and all books told the truth in the sense that their authors believed they were writing a kind of truth.

Before the expedition reached the end of the grailstones, five had turned back. When they got to the enormous cave out of which The River fell, four decided that they would starve to death if they kept on going. Rohrig went on with Agatha Croomes and Winglat, a member of an Amerind tribe that had crossed from Siberia to Alaska sometime in the Old Stone Age. Rohrig would have liked to turn back, but he wasn't going to admit that a crazy black woman and a paleolithic savage had more courage than he.

Besides, Agatha's preachings had almost convinced him that she had had a true vision. Maybe Almighty God and sweet Jesus were waiting for him. It wouldn't do to hold up the schedule.

After they had crawled along the ledge in the cave and Winglat had slipped and fallen into The River, Rohrig told himself that he was as crazy as Agatha. But he went on.

When they came to the place where the ledge sloped downward into the fog, the fog that covered a sea the sounds of which faintly reached them, they were very weak from hunger. There was no turning back now. If they did not find food within the day, they would die. Agatha, however, said that all they could eat was close at hand. She knew it was so because she had had a vision while they slept on the ledge within the cave. She had seen a place where meat and vegetables were in abundance.

Rohrig watched her crawl away from him. After a while, he followed. But he'left his grail behind because he was too weak to drag it. If he survived, he could always come back for it. The statuette was in the grail, and for a few seconds he considered removing it and taking it with him. To hell with it, he thought, and he went down the path.

He never made it. Weakness overcame him; his legs and arms just would not obey his will.

Thirst killed him before starvation did its job. It was ironic that The River had rushed by him, and he could not drink because he had no rope with which to lower his grail and collect the precious fluid.

A sea was booming against the rocks at the base of the cliffs, and he could not descend it it.

"Coleridge would appreciate this," he thought. "I wish I did."

He muttered, "Now I'll never get the answers to my questions. Maybe it's just as well. I probably wouldn't have liked them anyway.";

Now Rohrig was sleeping uneasily in a hut by The River in the equatorial zone. And Frigate, standing watch on the deck of a cutter, was chuckling. He was recalling Rohrig's ordeal while defending his thesis.

Perhaps it was telepathy that evoked the incident in their minds at the same time. It's preferable to use Occam's razor, that never dull but seldom used blade. Call it coincidence.

The croaker placed itself directly in the path of the floating dead fish. The body went into the wide mouth of the amphibian. Frigate's letter and its container, only a centimeter behind the carcass, were also engulfed, and both slid into the gullet and became lodged in the croaker's belly.

Its stomach could easily handle garbage, excrement, and rotting flesh. But the cellulose fibers of the bamboo case were too tough for it to convert into absorbable form. After feeling sharp pain for a long time, the croaker died trying to pass the container.

The letter often kills the spirit. Sometimes, the envelope does it.

42

Almost everybody was cheering. people were crowding around Jill and hugging and kissing her, and for once she did not mind. Most of the display of affection was due to booziness, she knew, but she still felt a warm glow within herself. If they had not been pleased, their very drunkenness could have resulted in open hostility. Perhaps she was not as disliked as she had thought. Here was David Schwaitz, whom she had once overheard calling her "Old Frozen Face,'' patting her on the back and congratulating her.

Anna Obrenova was standing by Barry Thorn, though neither had spoken much to the other all evening. She was smiling as if she were pleased that Jill Gulbirra had been chosen over her. Perhaps she really did not care. Jill preferred to believe that the little blonde was seething with hate, though she could be wrong. Anna might have a rational attitude toward her. After all, she was a Johnny-come-lately, and Jill had devoted thousands of hours to the construction of the ship and the training of the crew.

Firebrass had shouted for silence. The loud chatter and singing had finally stopped. Then he had said that he was announcing the roster of officers, and he had grinned at her. She had felt sick. His grin was malicious, she was sure of that. He was going to pay her back for all the cutting remarks she had made to him. Justified remarks, because she was not going to allow anyone to run over her just because she was a woman. But he was in a position to get revenge.

Yet, he had done the right thing, and he seemed to be happy about doing it.

Jill, smiling, made her way through the crowd, threw her arms around Firebrass and burst into tears. He thrust his tongue deep into her mouth and then patted her fanny. This time, she did not resent unasked-for familiarities. He wasn't taking advantage of her emotions or being condescending. He was, after all, fond of her, and perhaps he was sexually attracted to her. Or perhaps he was just being ornery.

Anna, still smiling, held out her hand and said, "My sincerest congratulations, Jill." Jill took the delicate and cool hand, felt an irrational, almost overpowering impulse to yank her arm out of its socket, and said, "Thank you very much, Anna."

Thorn waved to her and shouted something, congratulations, probably. He did, however, make no effort to come to her.

A moment later, she stumbled weeping out of the ballroom. Before she had gotten home, she hated herself for having shown how strongly she felt. She had never cried in public, not even at the funerals of her parents.

The tears dried as she thought of her father and mother. Where were they? What were they doing? It would be nice if she could see them. That was all: nice. She did not want to live in the same area with them. They were not her old mother and father, grey baked, wrinkling, and fat, their main concerns their grandchildren. They would look as young as she, and they would have little in common with her except some shared experiences. They would bore her and vice versa. It would be a strain to pretend that the child-parent relationship had not died.

Besides, she thought of her mother as a cipher, a passive appendage to her father, who was a violent, loud, domineering man. She did not really like him, though she had grieved somewhat when he had died. But that was because of what might have been, not because of what had been.

For all she knew, they might be dead again.

What did it matter now?

It did not matter. Then why the second flood of tears?

43

"Well, folks, here we are again. this time it's the big one.

The final take-off. Heigh-ho for the Big Grail, the Misty Tower, the house of the Santa Claus at the North Pole, the Saint Nick who gave us the gifts of resurrection, eternal youth, free food, booze, and tobacco.

"There must be at least a million people here. The stands are full, the hills are crowded, people are falling out of the trees. The police are having a hell of a time keeping order. It's a beautiful day, isn't it always? The uproar is really something, and I don't think you can hear a word I'm saying even through this PA system. So, folks, up yours!

"Aha! Some of you heard that. Just kidding, folks, just trying to get your attention. Let me tell you again about the Parseval. I know that you have pamphlets describing this colossal airship, but most of you are illiterates. Not that it's your fault. You speak Esperanto, but you've never had an opportunity to learn to read it. So here goes. Only, wait a moment while I moisten my parched throat with some skull-bloom.

"Ah! That was smoo-oo-ooth! The only trouble is that I've been quenching my thirst since before dawn, and I'm having trouble seeing straight. I hate to think of tomorrow morning, but what the hell. You have to pay for everything good in this world, not to mention the others.

"There she is, folks, though it's hardly necessary to point her out to you. The Parseval. Named by Firebrass for the man who first suggested that the airship be built though there was a lot of argument at first about what name'd be painted on her silver sides.

"Third mate Metzing wanted to name her the Graf Zeppelin III, after the man who was responsible for the first airship commercial line and chiefly responsible for the military Zeppelins.

"First Mate Gulbirra thought that she ought to be called Adam and Eve, after the whole human race, since she represents all of us. She also suggested Queen of the Skies and Titania. A little bit of female chauvinism there. Titania sounds too much like Titanic, anyway, and you know what happened to that ship.

"No, you don't. I forgot most of you never heard of her.

"One of the engineers, I forget his name at the moment, he was a crewman on the ill-fated Shenandoah, wanted to name her Silver Cloud. That was the name of the airship in a book called Tom Swift and His Big Dirigible.

"Another wanted to name her the Henri Giffard after the Frenchman who flew the first self-propelled lighter-than-air craft. Too bad old Henri couldn't be here to see the culmination of the airship, the acme of dirigible art, the last and the best and the greatest of all aerial vessels. Too bad the whole human race can't be here to witness this challenge to the gods, the flying gauntlet flung against the face of the powers on high!

"Pardon me a moment, folks. Time for another libation to the gods to be poured down this dry throat instead of being wasted by pouring on the ground.

'' Aaah! Mighty good, folks! Drink up! The liquor's free, compliments of the house, which is the nation of Parolando.

"So, folks, our esteemed ex-president, Milton Firebrass, ex-American, ex-astronaut, decided to call this colossus the Parseval. Since he's the chief honcho, the big enchilada, the boss, that's what she's titled.

"So ... oh, yeah, I started to give you her statistics. Captain Firebrass wanted to build the biggest dirigible ever built, and he did. She's also the biggest that will ever be built, since, there won't be any more. Maybe he should have called her The Loft Is the Best.

"Anyway, the Parseval is 2680 feet or 820 meters long. Its widest diameter is 1112 feet or 328 meters. Its gas capacity is 120,000,000 cubic feet or 6,360,000 cubic meters.

"The skin is of stressed duraluminum| and it contains eight large gas cells with smaller cells in the nose and tail fairings. Originally, she was to have thirteen gondolas suspended outside the hull, the control gondola and twelve motor gondolas, each containing two motors. This exterior mounting was required because of danger from the highly flammable hydrogen. But tests of the gas-cell material, the Riverdragon intestinal layers, showed that it did pass some gas-that's a joke, folks!-and so Firebrass ordered his scientists to make a plastic material that wouldn't-in a manner of speaking-break wind.

"They did so-when Firebrass says jump, everybody sets a new record-and . . . ? What? My assistant, Randy, says everybody can't set a record at once. Who cares? Anyway, the hydrogen leakage is nil.

"So, the control room and all the motors are inside the hull except for those in the nose and tail gondolas.

"The hydrogen, by the way, is 99.999 percent pure.

"In addition to the crew of ninety-eight men and two women, the Parseval will carry two helicopters, each with a thirty-two person capacity, and a two-man glider.

"But there won't be any parachutes. One hundred parachutes makes a heavy load, so it was decided not to carry any. That's sheer confidence for you. More than I have.

"Look at her, folks! Ain't she something! The sun shines on her as if she's the glory of God herself! Beautiful, beautiful, and magnificent!

"A great day for mankind! There goes the orchestra, playing The Lone Ranger Overture. Ha! Ha! Just a little joke that'd take too long to explain to you folks. It's really the William Tell Overture by Rossini, I believe." Chosen by Firebrass as the take-off music, since he's hung up on that fiery piece. Not to mention a few others, some of whom I see in the crowd.

"Hand me up another glass of ambrosia, Randy. Randy's my assistant M.C., folks, a writer of fantasies on Earth and now Parolando's chief quality-control inspector for the alcohol works. Which is like appointing a wolf to guard a steak.

"Aah! Great stuff! And here comes the Parseval now, moving out of the hangar! Her nose is locked into the only mobile mooring mast in the world. The take-off will occur in just a few minutes. I can see through the windscreen of the control room or bridge, which is set in the nose.

"The man in the middle, sitting at the control panel-you can see his head, I'm sure-is chief pilot Cyrano de Bergerac. In his day he was an author, too, wrote novels about travel to the moon and the sun. Now he's in an aerial machine the likes of which he never dreamed of, just as he never envisioned himself on such a voyage. Flying to the North Pole of a planet which nobody, not a single soul on Earth, as far as I know, had described in the wildest of tales. Soaring in the wild blue yonder in the greatest zeppelin ever built, the greatest that will ever be built. Headed for a fabled tower in a cold, foggy sea. An aerial knight, a post-Terrestrial Galahad, questing for a giant grail!

"Cyrano's running the whole operation all by himself. The ship's completely automated; its motors and rudder and elevators are tied into the control panel with electromechanical devices. There's no need to have ruddermen and elevator men and telegraph signals to the motor engineers as they did in the old dirigibles. One man could pilot the ship all the way to the North Pole, if he could stay awake three and a half days, the estimated flight time. In fact, theoretically, the ship could fly itself there without a soul aboard.

"And there by Cyrano's right is the captain, our own Milton Firebrass. He's waving now to the man who's succeeded him as president, the ever popular Judah P. Benjamin, late of Louisiana and ex-attorney general of the late but not necessarily lamented Confederate States of America.

"What? Get your hands off me, friend! No offense intended to any ex-citizen of the C.S. A. Take the drunken bum away, officers!

"And there, standing at the extreme left, is pilot third officer Mitya Nikitin. He promised to be sober during the flight and not hide any booze behind the gas cells, ha! ha!

"To Nikitin's right is first mate Jill Gulbirra. You've given some of us a hard time, Ms. Gulbirra, but we admire . . .

"There go the trumpets again. What a blast! There's Captain Firebrass, waving at us. So long, man capitalne, ban voyage! Keep us informed by radio.

"And there go the cables from the tail. The ship is bobbing a little, but she's settling down. I saw the balancing done a couple of hours ago. The ship's so equili-bub-bub-rated that one man standing on the ground under that mighty mass could lift it with one hand.

"Now her nose is uncoupled from the mobile mooring mast. There goes a little of the water ballast. Sorry about that, folks. We told you to stand back, not that some of you couldn't stand a shower.

"Now she's rising a little. The wind's carrying her backward, southward. But the propellers have already been swivelled at an angle to drive the ship up and northward.

"There she goes! Bigger than a mountain, lighter than a feather! Off to the North Pole and the dark tower!

"My God, I'm crying! Must have had too much of the cup that cheers!"

44

Up above the world so high, the airship twinkled, threading the needle eye of the blue.

At an altitude of 6.1 kilometers or a little over 20,000 feet, the crew of the Parseval had a broad view of The Riverworld. Jill, standing at the front windscreen, saw the twisting parallels of the valleys, running north and south directly below her but taking a great bend to the east about 20 kilometers ahead. Then the lines ran for 100 kilometers like thin Malayan krises, wavy blades, side by side, before turning northeastward.

Now and then, The River bounced back a ray of the sun. The millions along its banks and on its surface were invisible from this height, and even the biggest vessels resembled the backs of surface-cruising dragonfish. The Riverworld looked as it was just before Resurrection Day.

A photographer in the nose dome was making the first aerial survey of this planet. And the last. The photographs would be matched against the course of The River as reported via radio by the Mark Twain. However, there would be large gaps in the map made by the Parseval's cartographer. The paddlewheeler had traveled far south, to the edge of the south polar regions, several times. So the airship's cartographer could only compare his pictures with the maps transmitted by the surface vessels in the northern hemisphere.

But he could make one sweep of his camera and cover areas where the Mark Twain would travel some day.

The radar was also making altitude measurements of the mountain walls. So far, the highest point was 4564 meters or 15,000 feet. At most points, the mountains were only 3048 meters or 10,000 feet. Sometimes the walls dipped as low as 1524 meters or 5000 feet.

Before coming to Parolando, Jill had assumed, along with everybody else she knew, that the mountains were from 4564 to 6096 meters high. These were eyeball estimates, of course, and no one she had known had ever tried to make a scientific measurement. Not until she was in Parolando, where late-twentieth-century devices were available, did she learn the true altitude of the mountains.

Perhaps it was the comparative closeness of the walls that deceived people. They reared straight up, sheer, so smooth after the first 305 meters that they were unscalable. Often they were thicker at the top than at the bottom, presenting an overhang that would daunt any would-be climber even if he had steel pitons. And these were available only at Parolando, as far as she knew.

At the top, the width of the mountains averaged 403 meters or a little more than a quarter of a mile. Yet that relatively small thickness of hard rock was impenetrable without steel tools and dynamite. It would be possible to sail north up The River until it curved for one of its southward travels. There, with enough drilling and blasting equipment, a hole could be bored through the mountain wall. But who knew what invulnerable ranges lay behind that?

The Parseval had bucked the northeasterly surface winds of the equatorial zone. Passing through the horse latitudes, it had picked up the tail winds of the temperate latitudes. In twenty-four hours it had traveled approximately a distance equal to that from Mexico City to the lower end of Hudson Bay, Canada. Before the second day was over, it would run into headwinds from the arctic region. Just how strong these would be was not known. However, the winds here seldom matched the winds of Earth because of the lack of differential between land and water masses.

A difference in mountain altitude and valley width between the equatorial and temperate zones was apparent. The mountains were generally higher and the valleys narrower in the hotter region.

The narrowness of the valleys and the height' of the mountains made for conditions comparable to those in the glens of Scotland. Generally, it rained every day about 15:00 hours or 3 p.m. in the temperate areas. Usually, a thunderstorm accompanied by rain occurred about 03:00 hours or 3 A.M. in the equatorial zone. This was not a natural phenomenon in the tropics or at least it was believed that it was not. The Parolando scientists suspected that some sort of rain-making machines concealed in the mountains caused this on-schedule precipitation. The energy requirements for this would be enormous, colossal, in fact. But beings who could remake this planet into one Rivervalley, who could provide an estimated thirty-six billion people with three meals a day through energy-matter conversion, could undoubtedly shape the daily weather.

What was the energy source? No one knew, but the best suspect was the heat of the planet's core.

There was speculation that some kind of metal shield lay between the crust of the earth and the deeper layers. That there was no volcanic activity or earthquakes tended to strengthen this hypothesis.

Since there were no vast ice or water masses making a temperature differential comparable to that of Earth, the wind conditions could have been different. But, so far, the pattern seemed to be Terrestrial.

Firebrass decided to take the ship down to 3600 meters altitude, a little over 12,000feet. Perhaps the wind there might be weaker. The mountain tops were only 610 meters or about 2000 feet below the vessel, and the effect of the up- and downdrafts were strong at this time of the day. But the ability to change the angle of the propellers swiftly compensated somewhat for this roller-coaster motion. The ground speed increased.

Before 15:00, Firebrass ordered that the vessel be taken up above the rainclouds. He brought it back down at 16:00, and the Parseval rode majestically above the valleys. As the sun descended, both the horizontal and vertical winds would weaken, and the ship could plow through the air more evenly.

When night came, the hydrogen in the cells would cool, and the vessel would have to lift its nose even higher to give it more dynamic lift to compensate for the loss of buoyancy.

The pressurized control room was wanned by electric heaters. Its occupants were, however, in heavy cloths. Firebrass and Piscator were smoking cigars; most of the others, cigarettes. The fans sucked the smoke away but not quickly enough to remove the cigar odor which Jill so detested.

Hydrogen-emission detectors placed by the gas cells would transmit a warning if there were any leaks. Nevertheless, smoking was permitted only in five areas: the control gondola or bridge, a room halfway along the vessel's axis, the auxiliary control room in the lower tail fin, and rooms attached to the quarters of the crew fore and aft.

Barry Thorn, first officer of the tail section, reported some magnetic readings. According to this, the North Pole of The River-world coincided with the north magnetic pole. The magnetic force itself was much weaker than that of Earth's, so slight, in fact, that it would have been undetectable without the use of instruments known only in the late 1970's.

"Which means," Firebrass said, laughing, "that there are three poles on one spot. The North Pole, the magnetic pole, and the tower. Now, if only one of our crew was a Pole, we could have four on the same place."

Radio reception was excellent today. The ship was high above the mountains, and the transceiver of the Mark Twain was carried by a balloon towed by the boat.

Aukuso said, "You can talk now, sir."

Firebrass sat down by the Samoan's side and said, "Firebrass here, Sam. We just got word from Greystock. He's on the way, heading northeastward, ready to alter course the moment he gets wind of the location of the Rex."

"In some ways I hope you don't find Rotten John," Sam said. "I'd like to catch up with him and so have the pleasure of sinking him myself. That's not a very practical attitude, though it's mighty satisfying. I'm not a vindictive man, Milt, but that hyena would make St. Francis himself long to kick him off a cliff."

"The Minerva's carrying four forty-six-kilogram bombs and six rockets with nine-kilogram warheads,'' Firebrass said. "If only two of the bombs make a direct hit, they could sink the boat."

"Even so, that royal thief might get away safe and sound to shore," Clemens said. "He has all the good luck of the wicked. How would I ever find him then? No, I want to see his body. Or if he's taken alive, I want to wring his neck myself."

De Bergerac spoke softly to Jill. "Clemens talks big for a man who's appalled by violence. It's easy to do as long as the enemy's sixty thousand kilometers away."

Firebrass laughed and said, "Well, if you can't twist his head off, Sam, Joe's the man to do the job."

An unhumanly deep voice rumbled, "No, I'll tear off hith armth and legth. Then Tham can turn hith head around tho he can thee vhere he'th been. He von't like where he'th going."

"Tear off an ear for me," Firebrass said. "Old John almost hit me when he shot at me."

Jill presumed that he was referring to the fight aboard the Not For Hire when John had seized it.

Firebrass said, "According to calculations, the Rex should be in the area we'll be over in about an hour. You should be in the same area but about one hundred forty kilometers to the west of the Rex. Of course, we could be way off. For all we know, the Rex may not be traveling as fast as it could, or King John could've decided to dock for repairs or a very long shore leave."

An hour's conversation followed. Clemens talked to some of the crew, mostly those he had known before he'd left Paiolando. She noticed that he did not ask to speak to de Bergerac.

Just as Sam was about to sign off, the radar operator reported that the Rex Grandissimus was on the scope.

45

Staying at 452 meters altitude, the Parseval circled the boat. From that height it looked like a toy, but photographs, quickly enlarged, showed that it was indeed King John's vessel. It was magnificent. Jill thought that it would be a shame to destroy such a beautiful craft, but she did not say so. Firebrass and de Bergerac felt very strongly about the man who had hijacked their fabulous River-boat.

Aukuso transmitted the location to Greystock, who said that the Minerva should reach the Rex the following day. He also checked the location of the Mark Twain.

"I'd like to fly over her so that Sam can get a good look at the ship that's going to sink the Rex," Greystock said.

"It won't take you out of your way to do that," Firebrass said. "And it'll give Sam a big thrill."

After he had quit talking to Clemens, Firebrass said, "I really think Greystock's on a suicide mission. The Rex is loaded with rockets, and it carries two planes armed with rockets and machine guns. It all depends on whether or not Greystock can catch the Rex by surprise. Not much chance of that if John's radar detects the Minerva. Of course, it might be off. Why should it be on? The sonar is good enough for daytime navigation."

"Yes," Piscator said. "But the people on the Rex must have seen us. They'll be wondering about us, though they won't know who we are, and they might start using the radar because they'll be suspicious."

"I think so, too," Jill said. "They can figure out easily enough that only Parolando could build a dirigible.''

"Well, we'll see. Maybe. By the time the Minerva gets to the Rex, we'll be behind the polar mountains. I don't think we can expect good radio reception there. We'll have to wait until we come back over them."

Firebrass looked thoughtful, as if he were wondering if the Parseval would return.

The sun sank behind the ground horizon, though at this altitude the sky remained bright for a long time. Finally, night came with its blazing star clouds and gas sheets. Jill talked for a few minutes with Anna Obrenova before going to her cabin. The little Russian seemed warm enough, but there was something in her manner which indicated that she was not at ease. Was she really resentful because she had not been given the first mate's position?

Before going to her quarters, Jill took a long walk through the semipressurized passageway to the tail section. Here she drank some coffee and chatted briefly with some of the officers. Barry Thorn was present, but he, too, seemed a little nervous, even more reticent than usual. Perhaps, she thought, he was still unhappy at being rejected by Obrenova. If, indeed, that had been the cause of their argument.

At that moment, she was reminded that the two had spoken in a language unknown to her. Now was not the time to ask him about that. It was possible she might never be able to bring up the subject. To do so would be to admit that she had been eavesdropping.

On the other hand, she was very curious. Some day, when there were not more pressing things to consider, she would ask him about it. She could claim that she just happened to walk by-which was the truth-and had heard a few words of the dialog. After all, if she did not understand what they were saying, she could not be eavesdropping, could she?

She went to her cabin, where she crawled into the bunk and went to sleep almost at once. At 04:00 hours a whistle from the intercom awoke her. She went to the control room to relieve Metzing, the third mate. He stood around a while, talking about his experiences as commander of the LZ-1, then left. Jill did not have much to do, since Piscator was a very competent pilot and the atmospheric conditions were normal. In fact, the Japanese had set the automatic controls on, though he kept a close watch on the indicator panel.

There were two others present, the radio and the radar operators.

"We should see the mountains at about 23:00," she said.

Piscator wondered aloud if they were as high as Joe Miller had estimated. The titanthrop had guessed them to be about 6096 meters or 20,000 feet. Joe, however, was not a good judge of distances, or, at least, not good at converting distances into metrics or the English system.

"We'll know when we get there," Jill said.

"I wonder if the mysterious occupants of the tower will allow us to return?" he said. "Or even to enter the tower?"

That question had the same answer as the previous ones. Jill did not comment.

"Perhaps, though," Piscator said, "they may allow us to survey it."

Jill lit a cigarette. She did not feel nervous now, but she knew that, when they were close to the mountains, she was going to be at least a little spooked. They would be entering the forbidden, the tabu, the area of the Castle Perilous.

Piscator, smiling, his black eyes shining, said, "Have you ever considered the possibility that some of Them might be on this ship?"

Jill almost strangled as she sharply drew in cigarette smoke. When she was through coughing, she said, wheezing, "What in hell do you mean?"

"They could have agents among us."

"What makes you think that?"

"It's just an idea," he said. "After all, isn't it reasonable to believe that They would be watching us?"

"I think you have seen more than you're admitting. What makes you think this? It won't hurt to tell me."

"It's just an idle speculation."

"In this idle speculation, as you call it, is there someone you think could be one of Them?"

"It wouldn't be discreet to say so, even if there was someone. I wouldn't want to point the finger at a possibly innocent party."

"You don't suspect me?"

"Would I be stupid enough to tell you if I did? No, I am just thinking aloud. A most regrettable habit, one which I should rid myself of."

"I don't remember you ever thinking aloud before."

She did not pursue the subject, since Piscator made it evident he was not going to add anything. The rest of the watch she tried to think of what he might have observed and then put together to make a pattern. The effort left her head buzzing, and she went back to bed feeling very frustrated. Perhaps he had just been putting her on.

In the afternoon, only two minutes short of the time she had predicted, the tops of the polar mountains were sighted. They looked like clouds, but radar gave a true picture. They were mountains. Rather, it was one continuous mountain wall circling the sea. Firebrass, reading its indicated height, groaned.

"It's 9753 meters high! That's taller than Mount Everest!"

There was good reason for him to groan and the others to look disturbed. The airship could not go higher than 9144 meters, and Firebrass would hesitate to take it to that altitude. Theoretically, that was the pressure height of the gas cells. To go above that meant that the automatic valves on top of the cells would release hydrogen. If they did not do so, the cells would explode, having reached their inflation limit.

Firebrass would not like to take the vessel near the pressure height. An unexpectedly warm layer of air could cause the hydrogen in the cells to expand even more, thus making the ship more buoyant than was safe. Under those conditions, the Parseval would rise swiftly. The pilot would have to act swiftly, pointing the vessel's nose down and also tilting the propellers to give a downward drive. If this maneuver failed, the gas, expanding under the lessened atmospheric pressure, would stretch the cell walls to the rupture point.

Even if the ship got through this situation, its loss of valved-off gas would mean that it would become heavy. The only way to lighten the ship would be to discharge ballast. If too much ballast was dropped, the Parseval would be too buoyant.

Firebrass said, "If it's like this all the way around, we're screwed. But Joe said . . ."

He stood for a moment, thinking, watching the dark, ominous mass gradually swell. Below them the Valley wriggled snakily, eternally covered with fog in this cold area. They had long ago passed the last of the double line of grailstones. Yet the radar and the infrared equipment showed that thick, high vegetation grew on the hills. One more mystery. How could trees flourish in the cold mists ?

Firebrass said, "Take her down to 3050 meters, Cyrano. I want to get a good look at the headwaters."

By "look" he meant a radar view. No one could see through the massive, boiling clouds covering the mighty hole at the base of the mountains. Bat radar showed a colossal exit for The River, an opening 4.9 kilometers or a little over 3 miles wide. The highest point of the arch was 3.5 kilometers.

The mighty flood rushed straight for 3 kilometers, then tumbled over the edge of a cliff and fell straight for 915 meters, over 3000 feet.

"Joe may have been exaggerating when he said you could float the moon on The River where it comes out of the cave," Firebrass said, "but it is impressive!"

"Yes," Cyrano said, "it is indeed grand. But the air here is almighty rough."

Firebrass ordered the Parseval to a higher altitude and on a course which would parallel the mountain at a distance of 12 kilometers. Cyrano had to crab the dirigible and swivel the propellers to keep from being blown south, and it crept alongside the towering range.

Meanwhile, the radio operator tried to get into contact with the Mark Twain.

"Keep it up," Firebrass said. "Sam'11 want to know how we're doing. And I'm interested in finding out how the Minerva made out."

To the others he said, "I'm looking for that gap in the mountains. There has to be one. Joe said the sun momentarily flashed through a hole or what he thought was a hole. He couldn't see the break, but since the sun never gets more than halfway up the horizon here, it couldn't shine inside the sea unless there's a break that starts at ground level.

Jill wondered why They would have erected such a mighty barrier only to leave an opening.

At 15:05, radar reported that there was a break in the verticality. Now the airship was over mountains outside the main wall. These mountains were not the continuous process surrounding the sea but were peaks, some of which reached 3040 meters. Then, as they came closer to the break, they saw that between the lesser mountains and the wall was an immense valley.

"A veritable Grand Canyon, as you have described it to me," Cyrano said. "A colossal chasm. No one could get down its walls unless he used a rope 610 meters long. Nor could he ever get up the other wall. It is of the same altitude and its sides are as smooth as my mistress' bottom."

On the other side of the lesser mountains reared the mountain that walled The River. If a man could get over the nearer height and out of the Valley, he would men have to cross a rugged precipitous range for 81 kilometers or over 50 miles. After which, he would be confronted by the uncrossable valley.

"Ginnungagap," Jill said.

"What?" Firebrass said.

"From Norse mythology. The primal abyss in which Ymir, the first of created life, the ancestor of the evil race of giants, was born."

Firebrass snorted, and said, "Next you'll be telling me that the sea is populated by demons."

Firebrass looked cool enough, but she thought that this was a facade. Unless he had superhuman nerves, his body was under stress, the juices of the adrenals pouring out, his blood pressure up. Was he also thinking, as she was, that a much more experienced pilot should be at the controls? The Frenchman's judgment and reflexes were probably swifter than anybody else's. They had been tested scores of times in simulated emergencies during training. But-he just did not have thousands of hours of airship travel under Terrestrial, that is, swiftly changing, conditions. So far, the voyage had been uneventful. But the polar environment was unknown, and passing over these mountains might bring the ship into sudden unexpected forces. Not might. Would.

Here at the top of the world, the sun's rays were weaker and thus it was colder. The River emptied into the polar sea on the other side of the circular range where it gave up the heat remaining after thousands of kilometers of wandering through the arctic region. The contact of cold air with warm waters caused the fog reported by Joe Miller. Even so, the air was relatively colder man that outside the mountains. The high-pressure cold air inside the ring of mountains would flow outward. Joe had described the wind that howled through the passes.

She wanted desperately to ask Firebrass to replace Cyrano with her. Or with Anna or Barry Thorn, the only other persons with much experience. Both were, objectively considered, as good as she. But she wanted to be in control. Only then would she feel at ease. Or as much at ease as the situation allowed.

Firebrass might have been of the same opinion. If so, he was not going to act on it, just as she was not going to express it. An unwritten, in fact, unspoken, code prevented that. It was Cyrano's watch. To order him to give it up for a more qualified pilot would humiliate him. It would show a lack of confidence, make him seem to be less a "man."

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. The entire mission and one hundred lives were at stake.

Despite which, she would have said nothing even if she had thought she might be needed. Like the others, she was bound by the code. Never mind how antisurvival it was. She could not shame Cyrano. Besides, for her to suggest that he be replaced would shame her, too.

Now they were opposite the gap. It was not the V-shaped notch they had expected. It was a perfect circle cut into the mountain wall, a hole 3 kilometers across and 1000 meters above the base. From it sped clouds, driven by a wind which, if they could have heard it, would be "howling." Cyrano was forced to point the dirigible directly into the hole to keep it from being blown southward. Even so, with motors operating at top speed, the Parseval could advance into it at only 16 km/ph or less than 10 mph.

"What a wind!" Firebrass said. He hesitated. The air flowing down from the top of the mountain would add its force to that streaming through the hole. And the pilot would have to rely on radar to sense the nearness of the sides of the hole.

"If the mountains aren't any thicker than they are along The River," Firebrass said, "we can get through the hole faster than a dog through a hoop. However ..."

He bit down on his cigar, then said through clenched teeth, "Let's take her through the gates of hell!"

46

Convergence of paths through chance fascinated peter Frigate.

Pure chance had brought his in potentio into essems.

His father was born and brought up in Terre Haute, Indiana; his mother, in Galena, Kansas. Not much chance for them to get together and beget Peter Jairus Frigate, right? Especially in 1918 when people did not travel much. But his grandfather, the handsome, affluent, gambling, womanizing, boozing William Frigate, was forced to take a business trip to Kansas City, Missouri. He thought his eldest son, James, should learn the details of handling his various interests throughout the Midwest. So he took the twenty-year-old along. Instead of driving in the new Packard, they took the train.

Peter's mother was in Kansas City, living with her German relatives while she attended a business school. The Hoosier and the Jayhawk had never heard of each other. They had nothing in common except being human and living in the Midwest, an area larger than many European countries.

And so, one hot afternoon, his mother-to-be had gone to a drugstore for a sandwich and a milkshake. His father-to-be had gotten bored listening to a business conference between his father and a farm machinery manufacturer. When lunch hour came, the two older men had headed for a saloon. James, not wanting to start boozing so early, had gone into the drugstore. Here he was greeted by the pleasant odors of ice cream and vanilla extract and chocolate, the swishing of two big overhead fans, a view of the long marble counter, magazines on a rack, and three pretty girls sitting on wire chairs around a small marble-topped table. He eyed them, as would any man, young or old. He sat down and ordered a chocolate soda and a ham sandwich, then he decided he'd look the magazine rack over. He leafed through some magazines and a paperback fantasy about time travel. He didn't care much about such romances. He'd tried H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, H. Rider Haggard, and Frank Reade, Jr. but his hard Hoosier head rejected such implausibilities.

On the way back, just as he passed the table at which the three giggling girls sat, he had to leap to one side to avoid a glassful of Coke. One of the girls, waving her hand while telling a story, had knocked it off. If he hadn't been so agile, his pants leg would have been soaked. As it was, his shoe was stained.

The girl apologized. James told her that there was nothing to be concerned about. He introduced himself and asked if he could sit with them. The girls were eager to talk to a good-looking young man from the faraway state of Indiana. One thing led to another. Before the girls had gone back to the nearby school, he had arranged a date with "Teddy" Griffiths. She was the quietest of the trio and not quite the best looking, but there was something about the slim girl with the Teutonic features, the Indian-straight, Indian-black hair, and large dark-brown eyes that attracted him.

Elective affinity, Peter Frigate called it, not above borrowing a phrase from Goethe.

Courting in those days was not as free and easy as in Peter's day. James had to go to the Kaiser residence on Locust Street, a long trip by streetcar, and be introduced to her uncle and aunt. Then they sat on the front porch with the old folks, eating homemade ice cream and cookies. About eight o'clock, he and Teddy went for a walk around the block, talking of this and that. On returning, he thanked her relatives for their hospitality and said goodbye to Teddy without kissing her. But they corresponded, and, two months later, James made another trip, this time in one of his father's cars. And this time they did a little spooning, mostly in the back row of the local movie house.

On his third trip, he married Teddy. They left immediately after the wedding to take the train to Terre Haute. James was fond of telling his eldest son that he should have named him Pullman. "You were conceived on a train, Pete, so I thought it would be nice if your name commemorated that event, but your mother wouldn't have it."

Peter didn't know whether or not to believe his father. He was such a kidder. Besides, he couldn't see his mother arguing with his father. James was a little man, but he was a bantam rooster who ruled the roost, a domestic Napoleon.

This was the concatenation of events that had slid Peter Jairus Frigate from potentiality into existence. If old William had not decided to take his son along to Kansas City, if James had not been more tempted by a soda than by beer, if the girl hadn't happened to knock over the Coke, there would have been no Peter Jairus Frigate. At least, not the individual now bearing that name. And if his father had had a wet dream the night before or had used a contraceptive on the wedding night, he, Peter, would not have been born. Or if there had been no mating, if it had been put off for some reason, the egg would have drifted off and out and into a menstruation pad. What was there about that one spermatozoan, one in 300,000,000, that had enabled it to beat all the others out in the race to the egg?

May the best wriggler win. And so it had been. But it had been close, too close for comfort when he thought about it.

And then there was the horde of his brothers and sisters in potentio, unhoarded. They had died, arriving too late or not at all. A waste of flesh and spirit. Had any of the sperm had the potentiality for his imagination and writing talent? Or were those in the egg? Or were they in the fusion of sperm and egg, a combination of genes only possible in that one sperm and that one egg? His three brothers had no creative and little passive Imagination; his sister had a passive imagination, she liked fantasy and science fiction, but she had no inclination to write. What had made the difference?

Environment couldn't explain it. The others had been exposed to the same influences as he. His father had purchased that library of little red pseudoleather-bound books, what in hell was its name? It was a very popular home library in his childhood. But they hadn't been fascinated by the stories in them. They hadn't fallen in love with Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler in A Scandal in Bohemia, or sympathized with the monster in Frankenstein, or battled before the walls of Troy with Achilles, or suffered with Odysseus in his wanderings, or descended the icy depths to seek out Grendel with Beowulf, or journeyed with the Time Traveller of Wells, or visited those wild weird stars of Olive Schneider, or escaped from the Mohegans with Natty Bumppo. Nor had they been interested in the other books his parents bought him, Pilgrim's Progress, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Treasure Island, The Arabian Nights, and Gulliver's Travels. Nor had they prospected at the little library branch, where he first dug the gold of Frank Baum, Hans Andersen, Andrew Lang, Jack London, A. Oman Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Rudyard Kipling, and H. Rider Haggard. And don't forget the lesser, the silver, ore: Irving Crump, A.G. Henty, Roy Rock-wood, Oliver Curwood, Jeffrey Famol, Robert Service, Anthony Hope, and A. Hyatt Verrill. After all, in his personal pantheon, the Neanderthal, Og, and Rudolph Rassendyll ranked almost with Tarzan, John Carter of Barsoom, Dorothy Gale of Oz, Odysseus, Holmes and Challenger, Jim Hawkins, Ayesha, Allan Quartermain and Umslopogaas.

It tickled Peter at this moment to think that he was on the same boat with the man who bad furnished the model for the fictional Umslopogaas. And he was also a deckhand for the man who had created Buck and White Fang, Wolf Larsen, the nameless subhuman narrator of Beyond Adam, and Smoke Belle w. It delighted him also that he talked daily with the great Tom Mix, unequaled in cinema flair and fantastic adventure except by Douglas Fairbanks, Senior. If only Fairbanks were aboard. But then it would also be delightful to have Doyle and Twain and Cervantes and Burton, especially Burton, aboard. And... The boat sure was getting crowded. Be satisfied. But then he never was.

What had he drifted off from? Oh, yes. Chance, another word for destiny.

He didn't believe, as Mark Twain did, that all events, all characters, were rigidly predetermined. "From the time when the first atom of the great Laurentian sea bumped into the second atom, our fates were fixed.'' Twain had said something like that, probably in his depressing What Is Man? That philosophy was an excuse for escaping guilt. Ducking responsibility.

Nor did he believe, as had Kurt Vonnegut, the late-twentieth-century avatar of Mark Twain, that we were governed entirely by the chemical makeup of our bodies. God wasn't the Great Garage Mechanic in the Sky or the Divine Pill Pusher. If there was a God. Frigate didn't know what God was and often doubted that He existed.

God might not exist, but free will did. True, it was a limited force, repressed or influenced by environmental conditioning, chemicals, brain injuries, neural diseases, lobotomy. But a human being was not just a protein robot. No robot could change its mind, decide on its own to reprogram itself, lift itself by its mental bootstraps.

Still, we were born with different genetic combinations, and these did determine to some extent our intellect, aptitudes, leanings, reactions, in short, our characters. Character determines destiny, according to the old Greek, Heraclitus. But a person could change his/her character. Somewhere in there was a force, an entity, that said, "I won't do it!" Or-"Nobody's going to stop me from doing it!" Or-"I've been a coward but this time I'm a raging lion!"

Sometimes you needed an outside stimulus or stimulator, as had the Tin Woodsman and the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion. But the Wizard only gave them what they had had all the time. The brains of mixed sawdust, bran, pins and needles, the silk sawdust-stuffed heart, and the liquid from the square green bottle marked Courage were only antiplacebos.

By thought you could change your emotional attitudes. Frigate believed that, though his practice had never matched his theory. He'd been reared in a Christian Scientist family. But when he was about eleven his parents had sent him to a Presbyterian church, since they were having a fit of religious apathy then. His mother cleaned up the kitchen and took care of the babies Sunday mornings while his father read The Chicago Tribune. Like it or not, he went off to Sunday School and then the sermon. So, he had gotten two contrary religious educations.

One believed in free willl, in evil and matter as illusion, in Spirit as the only reality.

The other believed in predestination. God picked out a few here and there for salvation and let the others go to hell. No rhyme or reason to this. You couldn't do a thing to change that. Once the divine choice had been made, it was done. You could live purely, agonizedly praying and hoping all your life. But when the end of life on Earth came, you went to your appointed place. The sheep, those whom God for some unexplainable reason had marked with His grace, went up to sit on His right side. The goats, rejected for the same mysterious reasons, slid down the prearranged chute into the fire, sinner and saint alike.

When he was twelve, he had had many nightmares in which Mary Baker Eddy and John Calvin had fought for his soul.

It was no wonder, when he was fourteen, that he had decided to blazes with both faiths. With all faiths. Still, he had been the epitome of the prudish puritan. No foul words escaped his lips; he blushed if told a dirty joke. He couldn't stand the odors of beer or whiskey, and even if he'd liked them, he would have rejected them with scorn. And he' d have luxuriated in a feeling of moral superiority for doing so.

His early puberty was a torment. In the seventh grade he would be called on to stand up and recite, his face red, his penis thrusting against his fly, having risen at the trumpet call of his teacher's large breasts. Nobody seemed to notice, but he was sure every time he stood up that he would be disgraced. And when he accompanied his parents to a movie in which the heroine wore a low-cut dress or displayed a flash of garter, he put his hand on his pants to hide the swelling.

The flickering light from the screen would reveal his sin. His parents would know what his thoughts were, and they would be horrified. He'd be ashamed to look in their faces forever after.

Twice, his father talked to him about sex. Once, when he was twelve. Apparently, his mother had noticed some blood on his bath towel and spoken to his father, James Frigate, with a good deal of hemming and hawing and a twisted grin, had asked him if he was masturbating. Peter was both horrified and indignant. He had .denied it, though his father acted as if he really did not believe him.

Investigation revealed, however, that, when bathing, Peter had not been peeling back his foreskin to wash under it. He had not wanted to touch his penis. As a result, the smegma had built up under the skin. How this could cause a bleeding neither he nor his father knew. But he was advised to wash thoroughly every time he took a bath. Also, he was told that jacking-off rotted the brain, and he was given the example of the village idiot of North Terre Haute, a boy who publicly masturbated. With a grave face, his father told him that anybody who jerked off would become a drooling imbecile. Maybe his father believed that. So many of his generation did. Or maybe he'd just passed on that horrifying tale, purveyed for only God knew how many centuries or even millennia to scare his son.

Peter would find out that that was superstition, a reasoning from effect to cause, totally invalid. It was in a class with the belief that if you ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while you were sitting in the outhouse, the devil would get you.

Peter hadn't lied. He had not been indulging in the sin of Onan. Though why it was called Onanism he didn't know, since Onan hadn't masturbated. Onan had just used what Peter overheard his father refer to as the IC (Illinois Central) railroad technique. Pulling out in time.

Some of his junior high school acquaintances-the "racy" ones-bragged about beating their meat. One of these low-lifers, a wild kid named Vernon (died in a crash in 1942 while training to be an Air Force bombardier) had actually masturbated in the rear of a streetcar on the way home from a basketball game. Peter, watching, had been fascinated and sickened at the same time. The other kids had just giggled.

Once he and a friend, Bob Allwood, as puritanical as he, had been going home on a streetcar after a late movie. There was no one else aboard except the operator and a hard-looking peroxide blonde in the front seat. As the trolley came up toward the end of the line on Elizabeth Street, the operator had closed the curtain around himself and the blonde and turned the overhead light off. Bob and Pete, watching from the back of the car, saw the woman's legs disappear. It wasn't until a few minutes later that Peter understood what was happening. The woman had to be sitting on the ledge in front of him, or on the control post itself, facing the operator, while he screwed her. Peter didn't say a thing about it to Bob until after they'd gotten off the car. Bob had refused to believe it.

Peter was surprised at his own reaction. He'd been more amused than anything. Or perhaps envious was more appropriate. The "proper" reaction came later. That man and his doxy would go to hell for sure.

47

That was a long time ago. The time had come when Peter had laid a woman in front of the altar of an empty church, though he was drunk when he did it. This was in a Roman Catholic cathedral in Syracuse, and the woman had been Jewish. It had been her idea. She hated the religion because the tough Polish Catholic kids in the Boston high school she attended had roughed her up several times because she was a Jew. The idea of defiling the church had seemed like a good idea at the time, though next morning he sweated thinking of what would have happened if they'd been caught. But doing it in a Protestant church wouldn't have appealed to him so much. Protestant churches had always seemed barren places to him. God wouldn't be caught dead there, but He did like to hang around Catholic places of worship. Peter had always had a leaning toward Romanism and had twice been on the verge of converting. You could only blaspheme where God was.

Which was a curious attitude. If you didn't believe in God, why bother to blaspheme?

As if that wasn't bad enough, he and Sarah had entered a number of apartment houses on a street whose name he couldn't recall now. It had once been a very posh district where the rich had built huge, gingerbreaded, many-cupolaed houses. Then they'd moved out, and the houses had been made into apartments. Mostly affluent old people, widows and aged couples, lived there. The two of them had wandered through the halls of three buildings where all the doors were locked tight and not a sound except the muffled voice of TV sets was heard. They'd been on the third floor of the fourth building, and Sarah was down on her knees before him, when a door opened. An old woman stuck her head out into the hall, screamed, and slammed the door shut. Laughing, he and Sarah had fled out into the street and up to her apartment.

Later, Peter had sweated thinking about what would have happened if they'd been caught by the police. Jail, public disgrace, the loss of his job at General Electric, the shame felt by his children, the wrath of his wife. And what if the old woman had had a heart attack? He searched the obituary columns and was relieved to find that no one on that street had died that night. This in itself was a rarity, since Sarah said that she couldn't look out of the window from her apartment without seeing a funeral procession going down that street.

He also looked for a report of the incident in the papers. If the old lady had called the police, however, there was nothing in the papers about it.

A thirty-eight-year-old man shouldn't be doing stupid childish things like that, he had told himself. Especially if innocent people might be hurt. Never again. But as the years passed, he chuckled when he thought of it.

Though an atheist at fifteen, Frigate had never been able to rid himself of doubts. When he was nineteen, he had attended a revival meeting with Bob Allwood. Allwood had been raised in a devout fundamentalist family. He, too, had become an atheist, but this lasted one year. In that time, Bob's parents had died of cancer. The shock had set him thinking about immortality. Unable to endure the idea that his father and mother were dead forever, that he'd never see them again, he had begun visiting revival meetings. His conversion had taken place when he was eighteen.

Peter and Bob used to see much of each other, since they had been playmates in grade school and had gone to the same high school. They argued much about religion and the authenticity of the Bible. Finally, Peter agreed to go with Bob to a mass meeting at which the famous Reverend Robert Ransom was preaching.

Much to Peter's astonishment, he found himself deeply stirred, though he had come to ridicule. He was even more amazed when he found himself on his knees before the reverend, promising to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord.

That promise was broken within a month. Peter just could not hold fast to his convictions. In Allwood's parlance, he had "backslid," "fallen from grace."

Peter told Bob that his early religious conditioning and the passionate exhortations of the converts had been responsible for putting him in a fine frenzy of faith.

Allwood continued to argue with him, to "wrestle with his soul." Peter remained adamant.

Peter approached the age of sixty. His schoolmates and friends were dying off; he himself was not in good health. Death was no longer a long way off. When he was young, he had thought much about the billions who had preceded him, been born, suffered, laughed, loved, wept, and died. And he thought of the billions who would come after him, who would be hurt, be hated, be loved, and be gone. At the end of Earth, all, caveman and astronaut, would be dust and less than dust.

What did it all mean? Without immortality, it meant nothing.

There were people who said that life was the excuse for life, its only reason.

These were fools, self-deluded. No matter how intelligent they might be in other matters, they were fools -in this. Self-blinkered, emotional idiots.

On the other hand, why should human beings have another chance at an afterlife? They were such miserable, conniving, self-deceiving, hypocritical wretches. Even the best were. He knew no saints, though he admitted that there might have been and might be some. It seemed to him that only saints would be worthy of immortality. Even so, he doubted the claims of some of those who had been awarded halos.

Take Saint Augustine, for instance. "Asshole" was the only word that fitted him. A monster of ego and selfishness.

St. Francis was about as saintly as a person could be. But he was undoubtedly psychotic. Kissing a leper's sores to demonstrate humility, indeed!

Still, as Peter's wife had pointed out, no one was perfect.

Then there was Jesus, though there was no proof that he was a saint. In fact, it was evident from the New Testament that he had restricted salvation to the Jews. But they had rejected him. And so, St. Paul, finding that the Jews were not about to give up the religion for which they had fought so hard and suffered so much, had turned to the Gentiles. He made certain compromises, and Christianity, better named Paulism, was launched. But St. Paul was a sexual pervert, since total sexual abstinence was a perversion.

That made Jesus a pervert, too.

However, some people just did not have much sex drive. Perhaps Jesus and Paul had been such. Or they had sublimated their drive in something more important, their desire to have people see the Truth.

Buddha was perhaps a saint. Heir to a throne, to riches and power, married to a lovely princess who had borne him children, he had given all these up. The miseries and wretchedness of the poor, the stark unavoidability of death, had sent him wandering through India, seeking the Truth. And so he had founded Buddhism, eventually rejected by the very people, the Hindus, whom he had tried to help. His disciples had taken it elsewhere, however, and there it had thrived. Just as St. Paul had taken the teachings of Jesus from his native land and planted its seeds among foreigners.

The religions of Jesus, Paul, and Buddha had started to degenerate before their founders were cold in their graves. Just as St. Francis' order had begun corrupting before its founder's body was rotten.

48

On an afternoon while the Razzle Dazzle was sailing along, a good breeze behind its sails, Frigate told Nur el-Musafir these thoughts. They were sitting against the bulkhead of the forecastle, smoking cigars and looking idly at the people on the bank. The Frisco Kid was at the wheel, and the others were talking or playing chess.

"The trouble with you, Pete-one of the troubles-is you worry too much about other people's behavior. And you have too high ideals for them, ideals which you yourself don't try to live up to."

"I know I can't live up to them, so I make no pretense," Frigate said.

"But it bothers me that others claim to have these ideals and to be living up to them. If I point out that they aren't, they get angry."

The little Moor chuckled. "Naturally. Your criticism threatens their self-image. If that were to be destroyed, they, too, would be destroyed. At least, they think so."

"I know that," Frigate said. "That's why I quit doing that long ago. I learned on Earth to keep quiet about such matters. Besides, people got very angry and some even threatened violence. I can't stand anger or violence."

"Yet you are a very angry person. And I think your abhorrence of violence stems from fear of being violent yourself. You were- are-afraid that you'd hurt someone else. Which is why you suppressed that violence in yourself.

"But as a writer, you could express it. It would be done impersonally, as it were. You wouldn't be doing it in a face-to-face situation."

"I know all that."

"Then why haven't you done something about it?"

"I have. I tried various therapies, disciplines, and religions. Psychoanalysis, dianetics, scientology, Zen, transcendental meditation, Nichirenism, group therapy, Christian Science, and fundamental Christianity. And I was strongly tempted to become a Roman Catholic.''

"I never heard of most of those, of course," Nursaid. "Nor do I need to know what they were. The fault lies in yourself, regardless of the validity of these. By your own admission, you never stuck to any of them long. You didn't give them a chance."

"That," Frigate said, "was because, once in them, I could see their flaws. And I had a chance to study the people practicing them. Most of these religions and disciplines were having some beneficial effect on their practitioners. But hot nearly what was claimed for them. And the practitioners were fooling themselves about much of the benefits claimed."

"Besides, you didn't have the stick-to-itiveness needed," Nur said. "I think that comes from fear of being changed. You desire change, yet dread it. And the fear wins out."

"I know that, too," Frigate said.

"Yet you have done nothing to overcome that fear."

"Not nothing. A little."

"But not enough."

"Yes. However, as I got older, I did make some progress. And here I have made even more."

"But not nearly enough?"

"No."

"What good is self-knowledge if the will to act on it is lacking?"

"Not much," Frigate said.

"Then you must find a way to make your will to act overcome your will not to act."

Nur paused, smiling, his little black eyes bright.

"Of course, you will tell me you know all that. Next, you will ask me if I can show you the way. And I will reply that you must first be willing to let me show you the way. You are not as yet ready, though you think you are. And you may never be, which is a pity. You have potentiality."

"Everybody has potentiality."

Nur looked up at Frigate. "In a sense, yes. In another sense, no.''

"Mind explaining that?"

Nur rubbed his huge nose with a small, thin hand and then pitched his cigar across over the deck and over the railing. He picked up his bamboo flute and looked at it but laid it down.

"When the time comes, if it ever does."

He looked sideways at Frigate.

"You feel rejected? Yes. I know that you react too strongly to rejection. Which is one reason that you have always tried to avoid situations in which you might be rejected. Though why you should then have become a fiction writer is a mystery to me. Or is it? You did persist in your intended profession despite initial rejections. Though, according to your own story, you often let long periods of time elapse before you tried again. But you persisted.

"Be that as it may, it is up to you to decide if you will be disheartened by my refusing you at this time. Try me later. When you know that you are at least a fit candidate."

Frigate was silent for a long while. Nur put the flute to his lips and presently a weird wailing, rising and falling, issued. Nur was never without the instrument when off duty. Sometimes he would content himself with short pieces, lyrics, presumably. Other times, he would sit cross-legged on top of the forecastle for hours, the flute silent, his eyes closed. At such time, his request that he not be interrupted was honored. Frigate knew that Nur was putting himself into some sort of trance then. But so far he had not asked him more than one question about it.

Nur had said, "You need not know. As yet."

Nur-ed-din ibn Ali el-Hallaq (Light-of-the-faith, son of Ali the barber) fascinated Frigate. Nur had been born in 1164 a.d. in Cordoba, held by the Moslems since 711 A.D. Moorish Iberia was then near the apotheosis of Saracenic civilization, which Nur had beheld in all its glory. Christian Europe, compared to the brilliant culture of the Moslems, was still in the Dark Ages. Art, science, philosophy, medicine, literature, poetry flourished in the great centers of population of Islam. The Western cities: Iberian Cordoba, Seville, and Granada, and the Eastern cities: Baghdad and Alexandria, had no rivals, except in faraway China.

The wealthy Christians sent their sons to the Iberian universities to get an education unobtainable in London, Paris, and Rome. The sons of the poor went there to beg for bread while they learned. And from these schools the Christians went back to transmit what they had imbibed at the feet of the robed masters.

Moorish Iberia was a strange and splendid country, ruled by men who differed in degree of faith and dogmatism. Some were intolerant and harsh. Others were broadminded, tolerant enough to appoint Christians and Jews as their viziers, inclined to the arts and the sciences, welcoming all foreigners, eager to learn from them, soft on matters of religion.

Nur's father plied his trade in the vast palace outside Cordoba, the near city of Medinat az-Zahra. In Nur's time this had been fabled throughout the world, but in Frigate's there was scarcely a trace left. Nur was born there and teamed his father's craft. He desired to be something else, and, since he was bright, his father used his connections with his wealthy patrons to advance his son. Having demonstrated his aptitude for literature, music, mathematics, alchemy, and theology, Nur went to the best school in Cordoba. There he mingled with the rich and the poor, the important and the insignificant, the Northern Christian and the Nubian black.

It was also there that he met Muyid-ed-din ibn el-Arabi. This young man was to become the greatest love poet of his times, and echoes of his songs would be found in those of the Provencal and German troubadors. The rich and handsome youth, liking the poor and ugly son of a barber, invited him in 1202 to accompany him to a pilgrimage to Mecca. During the journey through North Africa, they met a group of Persian immigrants, Sufis. Nur had encountered this discipline before, but talking to the Persians decided him to be a disciple. However, at the moment, he found no master who would accept his petition for candidacy. Nur continued with el-Arabi to Egypt, where both were accused of heresy by fanatics and narrowly escaped being murdered.

After completing their hajj in Mecca, they journeyed to Palestine, Syria, Persia, and, India. This took four years, at the end of which they returned to their native city, spending a year on the voyage. In Cordoba both were, for a time, the pupils of the Sufi woman, Fatima bint Waliyya. The Sufis regarded men and women as being equal and so scandalized the orthodox. These were sure that if men and women mingled socially, it could only be for sexual purposes.

Fatima sent Nur to Baghdad to study under a famous master there. After some months, his master sent him back to Cordoba to another great teacher. But when the Christians took Cordoba after a savage war, Nur went with his master to Granada.

After several years mere, Nur started on the series of wanderings that earned him his lackab, his nickname, el-Musafir, the Traveler. After Rome, where letters of introduction from el-Arabi and Fatima gave him safe conduct, he journeyed to Greece, to Turkey, Persia again, Afghanistan, India again, Ceylon, Indonesia, China, and Japan.

Settling down in holy Damascus, he earned his living as a musician and, as a tasawwuf or Sufi master, accepted a number of disciples. After seven years, he set out once more. He went up the Volga and across Finland and Sweden, then across the Baltic Sea to the land of the idol worshippers, the savage Prussians. Here, after escaping sacrifice to a wooden statue of a god, he made his way westward through Germany. Northern France and men England and Ireland became part of his itinerary.

At the time Nur was in London, Richard I, surnamed Coeur de Lion, was king. Richard was not in England then, being engaged in the siege of the Castle of Chalus in the Limousin, France. Richard was killed by an arrow from the castle the following month, and his brother John was crowned in May. Nur witnessed the ceremonies in the city. Some time after, he actually succeeded in gaining an audience with King John. He found him to be a charming and witty man, interested in Islam culture and in Sufism. John was especially fascinated by Nur's reports of far-off lands.

"Traveling in those days was at best arduous and dangerous," Frigate said. "Even the so-called civilized countries were no picnic. Religious hatred was prevalent. How could you, a Moslem, alone, without protection or money, travel safely in the Christian lands? Especially when the Crusades were going on then and religious hatred was endemic?"

Nur had shrugged. "Usually I put myself under the protection of the dignitaries of the state religions of those countries. And these got me civil protection. The church leaders were more concerned with heretics in their own faith than in infidels. In their own provinces, anyway.

"At other times, my very poverty was my safeguard. Robbers were not interested in me. When I traveled in rural areas, I would earn my keep and provide amusement by my flute playing and by my skill as a juggler, acrobat, and magician. Also, I am a great linguist, and I could pick up the language or the dialect of a place very quickly. I also told stories and jokes. You see, people everywhere were crazy for novelty, for entertainment. They welcomed me most places, though I did have a number of hostile receptions here and mere. What did they care if I was a Moslem? I was harmless, and I gave them joy.

"Besides, I radiated an assurance of friendliness. That is something that we can do."

Returning to Granada, and finding the atmosphere there changed, not friendly to Sufis, he had gone to Khorasan. After teaching there for several years, he made another trip to Mecca. From southern Arabia he had traveled on a trading ship to the shores of Zanzibar and then to southeast Africa. Returning to Baghdad, he lived there until his death at the age of ninety-four.

The Mongols under Hulagu, Jcngbiz Khan's grandson, stormed into Baghdad, slaughtering and plundering. Within forty days, hundreds of thousands of its citizens were slain. Nur was one of them. He was sitting in his little room playing on the flute when a squat, slant-eyed, blood-drenched soldier burst in. Nur continued his song until the Mongol brought his sword down upon his neck.

"The Mongols devastated the Mideast,"Frigate had said. "Never in history has such desolation been wrought in such a short time. Before the Mongols left, they murdered half the population, and they had destroyed everything from canals to buildings. In my time, six hundred years later, the Mideast still had not recovered."

"They were indeed the Scourge of Allah," Nur had said. "Yet there were good men and women among them."

Now, sitting by the little man, watching the dark-skinned betel-nut chewers on shore, Frigate was thinking about chance. What destiny had crossed the paths of a man born in midwestem America in 1918 and of one born in Moslem Spain in 1164? Was destiny anything but chance? Probably. But the odds against this happening on Earth were infinity to one. Then the Riverworld had changed the odds, and here they were.

It was that evening, after his conversation with Nur, that all sat in the captain's cabin. The ship was anchored near the shore, and fish-oil lamps lit their poker game. After Tom Rider had cleaned up the final big pot-cigarettes were the stakes-they had a bull session. Nur told them two tales of the Mullah Nasruddin. Nasruddin (Eagle-of-the-Faith) was a figure of Moslem folktales, a mad dervish, a simpleton whose adventures were really lessons in wisdom.

Nur sipped on his scotch whiskey-he never drank more than two ounces a day-and said, "Captain, you've told the tale about Pat and Mike, the priest, rabbi, and minister. It's a funny story, but it does tell a person something about patterns of thinking. Pat and Mike are figures of Western folklore. Let me tell you about one from the East.

"One day a man came by the house of the Mullah Nasruddin and observed him walking around it, throwing bread crumbs on the ground.

" 'Why in the world are you doing that,Mullah?"the man said.

" 'I'm keeping the tigers away.'

" 'But,' the man said, 'there are no tigers around here.'

" 'Exactly. It works, doesn't it?' "

They laughed, and then Frigate said, "Nur, how old is that story?"

"It was at least two thousand years old when I was born. It originated among the Sufis as a teaching tale. Why?"

"Because," Frigate said, "I heard the same story, in a different form, in the 1950's or therabouts. There was this Englishman, and he was kneeling in the street, chalking a line on the curb. A friend, coining along, said, 'Why are you doing that?'

" 'To keep the lions away.'

" 'But there are no lions in England.'

" 'See?' "

"By God, I heard the same story when I was a kid in Frisco," Fanington bellowed. "Only it was an Irishman then."

"Many of the instructive Nasruddin stories have become mere jokes," Nur said. "The populace tells them for fun, but they were originally meant to be taken seriously. Here's another.

"Nasruddin crossed the border from Persia to India on his donkey many times. Each time, the donkey carried large bundles of straw on his back. But when Nasruddin returned, the donkey carried nothing. Each time, the customs guard searched Nasruddin, but he could not find any contraband.

"The guard would always ask Nasruddin what he was carrying. The Mullah would always reply, 'I am smuggling,' and he would smile.

"After many years, Nasruddin retired to Egypt. The customs man went to him and said, 'Very well, Nasruddin. Tell me, now it's safe for you. What were you smuggling?'

" 'Donkeys..' "

They laughed again, and Frigate said, "I heard the same story in Arizona. Only this time the smuggler was Pancho, and he was crossing the border from Mexico to the United States."

"I suppose every story is an old one," Tom Rider drawled. "Probably started with the cave man."

"Perhaps," Nursaid. "But it is a tradition that these stories were originated by the Sufis long before Mohammed was born. They are designed to teach people how to change their patterns of thinking, though they are amusing in themselves. Of course, they are used in the simplest, the first, stage of teaching by the masters.

"However, since then these tales have spread throughout East and West. I was amused to find some of them, in altered form, told in Ireland in Gaelic. By word of mouth, over thousands of leagues and two millennia of time, Nasruddin had passed from Persia to Hibemia."

"If the Sufis originated them before Mohammed," Frigate said, "then the Sufis must have been Zoroastrians in the beginning."

"Sufism is not a monopoly of Islamism," Nur said. "It was highly developed by the Moslems, but anyone who believes in God can be a Sufi candidate. However, the Sufis modify their method of teaching to conform to the local cultures. What will work for Persian Moslems in Khorasan won't necessarily work for black Moslems in the Sudan. And the difference in effective methods would be even greater for Parisian Christians. The place and the time determine the teaching."

Later, Nur and Frigate stretched their legs on land, walking around a huge bonfire through a crowd of chattering Dravidians. Frigate said, "How can you adapt your medieval Iberian-Moorish methods to teaching in this world? The people are so mixed, from everywhere and every time. There are no monolithic cultures. Besides, those that do exist are always changing."

"I am working on that," Nur said.

"Then, one of the reasons you won't take me as a disciple is that you are not ready as a teacher?"

"You can console yourself with that," Nur said, and he laughed. "But, yes, that is one reason. You see, the teacher must always be teaching himself."

49

The grey clouds moved through the boat, filling every room.

Sam Clemens said, "Oh, no, not again!" though he did not know why he said that. The fog not only pressed against the bulkheads and seeped into everything that could absorb moisture, it rolled down his throat and enveloped his heart. The water soaked it, and drops fell off of it, dripping into his belly, gurgling down inside his groin, running over, spilling down into his legs, waterlogging his feet.

He was sodden with a nameless fear which he had experienced before.

He was alone in the pilothouse. Alone in the boat. He stood by the control panel, looking out of the window. Fog shoved against it. He could see no more than an arm's length through the plastic. Yet, somehow, he knew that the banks of The River were empty of life. There was no one out there. And here he was in this gigantic vessel, the only one aboard. It didn't even need him, since the controls were set for automatic navigation.

Alone and lonely as he was, he at least could not be stopped from reaching the headwaters of The River. There was no one left in the world to oppose him.

He turned and began pacing back and forth from bulkhead to bulkhead of the pilothouse. How long was this journey going to take? When would the fog lift and the sun shine brightly and the mountains surrounding the polar sea be revealed? And when would he hear another human voice, see another face?

"Now!" someone bellowed.

Sam jumped straight up as if springs had been unsnapped beneath his feet. His heart opened and closed as swiftly as the beating of a hummingbird's wings. It pumped out water and fear, forming a puddle around his feet. Somehow, without being aware of it, he had spun around and was facing the owner of the voice. It was a shadowy figure in the clouds swirling in the pilothouse. It moved toward him, stopped, and reached out a vague arm. A pseudopod flicked a switch on the panel.

Sam tried to cry out, "No! No!" The words ran into each other in his throat and shattered as if they were made of thin glass.

Though it was too dim to see which control the figure had touched, he knew that the boat was now set on a course which would send it full speed into the left bank.

Finally, the words came . . . screeching.

"You can't do that!"

Silently, the shadowy mass advanced. Now he could see that it was a man. It was the same height as he, but its shoulders were much broader. And on one shoulder was a long wooden shaft. At its end was a truncated triangle of steel.

"Erik Bloodaxe!" he cried.

Now began the terrible chase. He fled through the boat, through every room of the three-tiered pilothouse, across the flight deck, down the ladder into the hangar deck and through every one of its rooms, down a ladder and through every room of the hurricane deck, down a ladder and through every room of the main deck, down a ladder and into the vast boiler deck.

Here, aware of the waters pressing against the hull, aware that he was below the surface of The River, he ran through the many rooms, large and small. He passed between the giant electric motors turning the paddlewheels which were driving the vessel toward destruction. Desperately, he tried to get into the large compartment holding the two launches. He would rip the wires out of the motor of one and take the other out into The River and so leave his sinister pursuer behind. But someone had locked the door.

Now he was crouching in a tiny compartment, trying to slow his rasping breath. Then, the hatch opened. Erik Bloodaxe's figure loomed in the greyness. It moved slowly toward him, the great axe held in both hands.

"I told you,'' Erik said, and he lifted the axe. Sam was powerless to move, to protest. After all, this was his own fault. He deserved it.

50

He awoke moaning. The cabin lights were on, and Gwenafra's beautiful face and long honey-blonde hair were above him.

"Sam! Wake up! You've been having another nightmare!"

"He almost got me that time," he mumbled.

He sat up. Whistles were shrilling on the decks. A minute later, the intercom unit shrilled. The boat would soon be heading for a grailstone and breakfast. Sam liked to sleep late, and he would just as soon have missed breakfast. But as captain it was his duty to rise with the others.

He got out of bed and shambled into the head. After a shower and tooth-brushing, he came out. Gwenafra was already in her early-morning outfit, looking like an eskimo who had traded her furs for towels. Sam got into a similar suit but left his hood down to put on his captain's cap. He lit a corona and blew smoke while he paced back and forth.

Gwenafra said, "Did you have another nightmare about Bloodaxe?"

"Yes," he said. "Give me some coffee, will you?"

Gwenafra dropped a teaspoonful of dark crystals into a grey metal cup. The water boiled as the crystals released both heat and caffeine. He took the cup, saying, "Thanks."

She sipped her coffee, then said,' "There's no reason to feel guilty about him."

"That's what I've told myself a thousand times," Sam said. "It's irrational, but when did knowing that ever make a fellow feel better? It's the irrational in us that drives us. The Master of Dreams has about as much brains as a hedgehog. But he's a great artist, witless though he is, like many an artist I've known. Perhaps including yours truly."

"There isn't a chance that Bloodaxe will ever find you."

"I know that. Try telling the Dream Master that."

A light flashed; a whistle blew from a panel on a bulkhead. Sam flicked its switch.

"Captain? Detweiller here. Arrival time at designated grailstone will be five minutes from now."

"Okay, Hank," Sam said. "I'll be right out."

Followed by Gwenafra, be left the stateroom. They passed down a narrow corridor and went through a hatch into the control room or bridge. This was on the top deck of the pilothouse; the other senior officers were quartered in the cabins on the second and third decks.

There were three persons in the control room: Detweiller, who had once been a river pilot, then a captain, then owner of an Illinois-Mississippi River steamboat company; the chief executive officer, John Byron, ex-admiral, Royal Navy; the brigadier of the boat's Marines, Jean Baptiste Antoine Marcellin de Marbot, ex-general for Napoleon.

The latter was a short, slim, merry-looking fellow with dark-brown hair, snub nose, and bright blue eyes. He saluted Clemens and reported in Esperanto.

"All ready for duty, my captain."

Sam said, "Fine, Marc. You can take your post now."

The little Frenchman saluted and left the pilothouse, sliding down the pole behind it to the flight deck. Lights flooded this, showing the Marines in battle array lined up in its middle. The standard bearer held a pole on top of which was the boat's flag, a light-blue square bearing a scarlet phoenix. Near him were rows of pistoleers, men and women in grey duraluminum coal-scuttle helmets topped by roaches of human hair stiff with grease, plastic cuirasses, knee-length leather boots, their broad belts holding bolstered Mark IV revolvers.

Behind them were the spearmen; behind them, the archers. To one side was a group of bazookateers.

Off to one side stood a colossus clad in armor, holding an oaken club which Sam could lift with two hands only with difficulty. Officially, Joe Miller was Sam's bodyguard, but he always accompanied the Marines at these times. His chief function was to awe the locals.

"But as usual," Sam often said, "Joe goes too far. He scares the hell out of them just by standing around."

This day started out like every other day. It was destined to be, however, quite different. Some time during the day, the Minerva would attack the Rex Grandissimus. Sam should have felt jubilant. He wasn't. He hated the idea of destroying such a beautiful boat, one he had designed and built. Moreover, he'd been deprived of the joy of wreaking a personal revenge on John.

On the other hand, it was a lot safer this way.

There was a bonfire on the right side about half a kilometer away. It revealed a mushroom-shaped grailstone and gleamed on white cloths covering bodies. The fog over The River was lower and thinner here than that usually encountered. It would clear away quickly once the sun got over the peaks. The sky was brightening, washing out the flaming giant stars and gas clouds.

Per usual procedure, the Firedragon III, an armored amphibian launch, preceded the mother boat. When it got to an area where the boat would have to recharge its batacitor, its commander parleyed with the locals for the use of two grailstones. Most areas were pleased to do this, their remuneration being the thrill of observing the mammoth vessel at close range.

Those locals who objected found their grailstones temporarily confiscated. They could do nothing about it except to protest. The boat had overwhelming firepower, though Clemens was always reluctant to use it. When forced to resort to violence, Clemens refrained from massacre. A few spurts of .80-caliber plastic bullets from the big steam machine guns on the boat and from the armored steam-spurting amphibian tearing around on shore, usually sufficed. It wasn't even necessary to kill anybody in most cases.

After all, what did the locals lose if two grailstones were used by somebody else for one time only? Nobody had to miss a meal. There were always enough unused spots on nearby stones to take up the slack. In fact, most of those who surrendered their meal did not even bother to travel to the next stone. They preferred to stay there so they could ooh and ah at the magnificent beauty of the boat.

The four enormous electrical motors of the boat required tremendous energy. Once a day, a giant metal cap was placed over the grailstone by which the boat was stationed. A launch would carry the boat's grails to the next stone for filling. A crane extended from another launch would lift the cap and place it over the head of the stone. When the stone discharged, its energy flashed via thick cables into the batacitor. This was a huge metal box which rose from the boiler deck into the main deck. It stored the energy instantly in its function of capacitor. As demanded, it would release the energy in its function of battery.

Sam Clemens went ashore and talked briefly with the local chief officials, who understood Esperanto. This universal language had degraded here into a form which was difficult but not impossible for Sam to understand. He gravely thanked them for their courtesy, and he returned to the boat on his small private launch. Ten minutes later, Firedragon IV returned with a cargo of full grails.

Whistles blowing and bells clanging to give the locals a thrill, the boat headed on up-River. Sam and Gwenafra sat at the head of the great nine-sided table in the dining room in the main deck salon. The chief officers, except those on duty, sat with him. After some orders for the day, Sam retired to the billiards table, where he played against the titanthrop. Joe was not very good with a cue or with cards because of his huge hands. Sam almost always beat him. Then Sam would play against a more skilled person.

At 07:00, Sam would make an inspection of the boat. He hated to walk, but he insisted on this because he needed the exercise. Also, it helped keep up the appearance of a naval vessel. Without the drills and the inspections, the crew were likely to become sloppy civilians. They would get too off-hand, too familiar with their superiors when on duty.

"I run a tight boat," Sam had often boasted. "At least, the crew is tight, though no one has ever been found drunk on duty."

The inspection did not take place that morning. Sam was called to the pilothouse because the radio operator had gotten a message from the Minerva. Before Sam could get off the elevator, the radar scope had blipped an object coming over the mountain to port side.

51

The blimp came down out of the brightness as if it were a silver egg just laid by the sun. To the startled people on the ground, few of whom had ever seen or even heard of an airship before, it was a frightening monster. No doubt some believed that it was a vessel carrying the mysterious beings who had raised them from the dead. A few may even have hailed it with a mixture of dread and joy, sure that a revelation was at hand.

How had the Minerva found the Mark Twain so easily? The great boat was towing a large kite-shaped balloon which was above the top of the mountains and which carried a transmitter sending powerful dots and dashes. Hardy, the Minerva's navigator, knew the boat's general location from the map of The River on his table. During the years of its voyaging, the Mark Twain had sent out data by radio which had enabled the Parolanders to trace its route. Furthermore, on spotting the boat, the navigator of the Parseval had sent a message which gave the Minerva a rough location.

Having also been given the location of the Rex, the captain of the Minerva knew that John Lackland's boat was almost on a straight line with Sam's due east. The Rex was only 140 kilometers away if a line as straight as a Prussian officer's back was followed. To follow The River, however, Sam's boat would have to go perhaps 571,195 kilometers or 355,000 miles before it arrived where the Rex was now.

Greystock, speaking over the transceiver in the control nacelle, asked permission to pass over the Mark Twain.

Sam's voice was flat over the transceiver. "Why?"

"To salute you," the Englishman said. "Also, I think that you and your crew might like to get a close look at the vessel that is going to destroy King John. And, to tell the truth, my men and I would like to see your splendid boat at close range."

He paused, and men said, "It may be our last chance."

It was Sam who paused this time. Then, sounding as if he were choking back tears, he said, "Okay, Greystock, You may pass by us, but not over us. Call me paranoid. But it makes me uneasy to have an airship carrying four big bombs directly over me. What if they were accidentally released?"

Greystock rolled his eyes in disgust and grinned savagely at the other men in the nacelle.

"Nothing could possibly go wrong," he said.

"Yeah? That's what the commander of the Maine said just before he went to bed. No, Greystock, you do as I say."

Greystock, obviously unhappy, replied that he would obey.

"We'll circle you once and then get to the job."

"Good luck on that," Sam's voice said. "I know that you fine fellows might not be ..."

He seemed unable to complete his sentence.

"We know we might not get back,'' Greystock said. "But I think we have an excellent chance of taking the Rex by surprise."

"I hope so. But remember that the Rex has two airplanes. You'll have to hit the flight deck first so they can't get off." "I don't need advice," Greystock said coldly.

There was another pause, longer than the others.

Sam's voice came over the speaker loudly. "Lothar von Richthofen is coming up to greet you. He wants to fly alongside and give you his personal blessing. That's the least lean do for him. I've had a hell of a time keeping him from convoying you. He'd like to be in on the attack, too.

"But our planes have a flight ceiling of only 3660 meters. That makes them too susceptible to downdrafts over those mountains. Anyway, they'd have to carry an extra fuel tank to get back."

Lothar's voice cut in. "I told him you could spare enough fuel from your ship, Greystock. We could fly back."

"Nothing' doing!''

Greystock looked down through the forward port. The balloon was being reeled in, but it would be twenty minutes before it was landed.

The giant boat was a beauty, a fourth longer than the Rex and much taller. Jill Gutturra had claimed that the Parseval was the most beautiful and the grandest artifact on The Riverworld. Earth had never had anything to equal it. But Greystock thought that this vessel, to use Clemens' phrase, "won the blue ribbon by a mile.''

As Greystock watched, an airplane rose on an elevator to the landing deck while a crew readied a catapult.

The stocky man looked with arctic-grey eyes around the control gondola. The pilot, Newton, a World War II aviator, was at his post. Hardy, the navigator, and Sarnhradh, the Irish first mate, were at the port screen. Six others were aboard, stationed in the three engine gondolas.

Greystock walked to the weapons cabin, opened it, and took out two of the heavy Mark IV pistols. These were steel four-shooter revolvers using duraluminum cartridges holding .69-caliber plastic bullets. He held one by the grip in his left hand; the other, he reversed. Keeping an eye on the two at the port screen, he walked over to a position behind Newton. He brought the butt end of the gun in his right hand against the top of Newton's head. The pilot fell off his chair onto the floor.

He quickly reached over with his left hand and flicked the transceiver switch off with his thumb. The two men turned at the crack of the impact of metal against bone. They froze, staring at a totally unexpected scene.

Greystock said, "Don't move. Now ... put your hands up behind your neck."

Hardy, goggling, said, "What be this, man?"

"Just keep quiet."

He waved a pistol at a cabinet. "Put on your parachutes. And don't try to jump me. I can shoot both of you easily."

Samhradh stuttered, his face going from pale to red. "Y . . . y ... you bastard! You're a traitor!"

"No," Greystock said, "a loyal subject of King John of England." He smiled. "Though I have been promised that I will be second-in-command of the Rex when I bring this airship to His Majesty. That ensured my loyalty."

Samhradh looked out the stern port. The action in the control gondola was visible from the engine gondolas.

Greystock said, "I was gone for half an hour, checking with the engineers, remember? They're all tied up, so they won't be of any help to you."

The two men crossed the gondola, opened the cabinet and began to put on their parachutes. Hardy said, "What about him?"

"You can put Newton's chute on and throw him out before you

go-"

"And what about the engineers?"

"They'll have to take their chances."

"They'll die if you're shot down!" Samhradh said.

"Too bad."

When the two men had strapped on their packs, they dragged Newton to the middle of the gondola. Greystock, holding pistols on them, backed away while they did this. He then pushed the button which lowered the port plexiglas screen. Newton, groaning, half-conscious, was pushed over the ledge. Samhradh pulled Newton's ripcord as he fell out. A moment later, the Irishman leaped. Hardy paused with one leg outside the port.

"If I ever run across you, Greystock, I'll kill you."

"No, you won't," Greystock said. "Jump before I decide to make sure you won't ever have a chance."

He turned the transceiver on.

Clemens bellowed, "What in blue blazes is going on?"

"Three of my men drew lots to see who leaves the ship," Greystock said smoothly. "We decided that the ship should be lightened. It's better that way; we need all the speed we can get."

"Why in hell didn't you tell me?" Clemens said. "Now I'll have to put about and fish them out of the water."

"I know," Greystock said under his breath.

He looked out the port screen. The Minerva was past the Mark Twain now. Its decks were crowded with people looking up at the dirigible. The airplane, a low-wing single-seater monoplane, was on the catapult, which was being swung around to face the wind. The balloon was still being reeled in.

Greystock seated himself before the control panel. Within a few minutes he had brought the ship down to about 91 meters or 300 feet from The River. He turned it then and headed toward the boat..

The vast white vessel was stopped in The River, its four paddle-wheels spinning just enough to hold it steady. A big launch had put out from its port in the stern and was gbing around the boat to pick up the parachutists, now struggling in the water.

Both banks were crowded with sightseers, and at least a hundred watercraft were sailing or being paddled toward the three chutists.

Steam spurted from the catapult, and the monoplane, shot out from the deck. Its silvery fuselage and wings shone greyly as it began to climb toward the airship.

Clemens' voice yammered from the receiver. "What the damna-tion-to-hell-and-gone are you doing, John?"

"Just coming back to make sure that my men are safe," Grey-stock said.

"Of all the numbskulls!" Clemens screeched. "If your brains were expanded tenfold, they would still rattle around in a gnat's ass! This is what comes from trying to make a mink cap from a pig's anus! I told Firebrass that he shouldn't let a medieval baron near a dirigible!

" 'Greystock's from the dumbest, most arrogant, most untrustworthy class you could find!' I told him. 'A medieval nobleman!' ,

"Jumping Jesus H. Christ! But no, he argued that you had the potentiality, and it would be a nice experiment to see if you could adjust to the Industrial Age!"

Joe Miller's yoke rumbled. "Take it eathy, Tham. If you pithth him off, he'll refuthe to attack Chohn'th boat."

"Thyove it up your athth!" Clemens said mockingly. "When I need advice from a paleoanthropus, I'll ask for it."

"You don't need to get inmulting chutht becauthe you're mad, Tham," Miller said. "Thay! Did it occur to Your Machethty that maybe Greythock ith up to thomething rotten? Maybe he thold out to that aththhole, King Chohn?"

Greystock cursed. That hairy, comical-looking colossus of an apeman was much shrewder than he looked. However, Clerhens, in his towering fury, might ignore him.

By then the airship, her nose down at ten degrees to the horizontal, was heading straight for the boat. Her altitude was now 31 meters and dropping.

Von Richthofen's plane zoomed by within 15 meters. He waved at Greystock, but he looked puzzled. He would have been listening in on the radio conversation, of course.

Greystock punched a button. A rocket sprang from its launch under the port fore engine gondola. The dirigible gained altitude as it was relieved of the weight of the missile. Spurting tailfire, the long, slim tube swerved toward the silver plane, the heat locater in its nose sniffing the craft's exhausts. Richthofen's face wasn't visible, but Greystock could imagine his expression of horror. He had about six seconds to get out of the cockpit and take to his parachute. Even if he escaped, he'd be lucky at this altitude if it opened in time.

No, he was not going to jump. Instead, he had wing-overed the plane and sent it diving at the water. Now it was straightening out just above the surface. There flashed the rocket. And now the missile and the aircraft disappeared in a ball of flame.

By then, the flight crew was frantically running another plane to the catapult. The balloon crew, distracted by the sirens and horns and the sudden frenzied activity, had stopped hauling their charge down. Greystock hoped they would not have the presence of mind to cut it loose. The huge aerostat would be a drag when the boat tried to maneuver swiftly.

Through the transceiver, the wail of sirens and Clemens' voice, almost as high pitched as the alarms, came faintly.

The boat began to pick up speed and to turn at the same time. Greystock smiled. He had hoped that the Mark Twain would present her broadside. He punched a button, and the airship, relieved of the weight of two heavy torpedoes, soared. Greystock raised the elevators to depress the ship's nose even further, and he pushed the throttles in to full-speed position.

The torpedoes struck the water with a splash. Two wakes foamed from behind them. The transceiver yelped with Clemens' voice. The giant boat quit turning and sped at an angle toward the bank to the left. Rockets spurted up from its decks. Some of them arced down toward the torpedoes and exploded immediately after plunging below the surface. Others headed toward the dirigible.

Greystock swore in Norman French. He hadn't been quick enough. But the torpedoes would surely hit the boat, and if they did, King John's orders would have been carried out.

But he did not want to die. He had his own mission.

Perhaps he should have dropped the bombs while he was passing over the boat. She had veered off when he had tried to get directly over her, and be had not wanted to change course too abruptly. He should have neutralized the crew earlier and then told Clemens he was bringing the airship in close so everybody could have a good look at her.

During these thoughts, he had automatically punched the button which released all his rockets. They headed toward the boats' missiles, their heat detectors locked into the tailflames of the boat's, just as the boats' rockets were locked into the tailflames of his missiles.

The explosions from rockets meeting rockets shook the airship. Smoke spread before him, veiling the boat. Then he was through the dark clouds and almost on the Mark Twain.

By God's wounds! One torpedo had just missed the starboard corner of the stem, and the second was going to hit it! No, it wasn't! Its side had touched the corner, and it had veered off! The boat had somehow escaped both!

Now Clemens' voice, yammering, told him that no more rockets would be released. Clemens was afraid that the airship would explode and, carried by the wind, would fall flaming onto the boat.

The balloon, trailing its plastic cable, was floating down-River, rising at the same time.

Clemens had forgotten that the airship's bombs had not yet been released.

The second airplane, a two-seater amphibian, shot below him. Its pilot looked upward in frustration at him. They were too close to each other and he was going too fast to swing up to the right and shoot the nose machine guns. But the gunner in the cockpit behind the pilot was swinging his twin machine guns around. Every tenth bullet would be a tracer, phosphorous coated. Only one in a gas cell was needed to ignite the hydrogen. The Minerva was only 152 meters from the Mark Twain and was closing fast. Its motors were going at top speed. This, plus a 16-km/ph tailwind, meant that the boat could not possibly get away in time.

If only he could drop the bombs before the tracer bullets struck. Perhaps the gunner would miss. By the time he got his guns around, the airplane would be past the airship.

The side of the boat loomed up. Even if the dirigible wasn't hit by the tracers, she was so near the boat that the bombs would blow up both vessels.

Estimating the arrival tune of the. Minerva over the paddlewheel-er, he set the release mechanism of the bombs with a twist of his wrist. Then he got out of the seat and dived through the open port. no time to put on a parachute. Besides, he was too near the water for it to open in time. As he fell, he was struck by a wave of air like a colossal winnowing fan. He spun, unconscious, unable even to think fleetingly of how he had lost his second-in-command under John Lackland. Or his plans to get rid of John and take over the captainship of the Rex Grandissimus for himself.

52

Peter Frigate had boarded the Razzle Dazzle a week after New Year's Day of year 7 A.R.D. Twenty-six years later, he was still on the schooner. But he was getting sailweary and discouraged. Would the ship ever arrive at the headwaters?

Since he had first stepped aboard, he had passed, to starboard, 810,000 grailstones. That meant he'd traveled about 1,303,390 kilometers or 810,000 miles.

He had started in the equatorial zone, and it had taken a year and a half to get into the arctic regions, going not as the crow flies but as the snake wriggles. If The River had been as straight as a ruler, it would have taken the ship there in less than six months, maybe five. Instead, it was as twisted as a politician's campaign promises after election.

The first time the ship was in the arctic, just after The River had definitely turned for its southward journey, Frigate had proposed that they proceed northward on foot. The polar mountains could not be sees, yet they must be relatively near. Tantalizingly so.

Fanington had said, "And just how in blue blazes can we get over those?"

He had gestured at the unbroken stone verticality to the north. Here it rose to an estimated 3630 meters or a little less than 12,000 feet.

"In a balloon."

"Are you nuts? The wind blows south here. It'd take us away from the polar mountains."

"The surface wind would. But if the meteorological patterns are the same here as on Earth, the upper polar winds should be flowing northeastward. Once the balloon got high enough to get in their stream, it'd reverse direction, get blown toward the pole.

"Then, when we got near mountains that're supposed to ring the supposed sea, we'd come down. We'd have no chance of getting over those mountains in the balloon, if they're as high as they are said to be."

Farrington had actually turned pale when he'd heard Frigate's proposal.

Rider, grinning, said, "Didn't you know that the Frisco Kid doesn't even like the idea of air travel?"

"That isn't it!" Martin said, glaring. "If a balloon could get us there, I'd be the first to board it. But it won't! Anyway, how by the high muckamuck are we going to make a balloon even if we could travel on one?"

Frigate had to admit that it couldn't be done. At least, not in this area. To make a balloon and fill it with hydrogen was impossible. There were no necessary materials here. Or anywhere else, as far as he knew.

However, there was another method they might consider. How about a hot-air balloon to carry a rope up to the top of the mountain?

Even as he spoke, he had to laugh. How could they make a rope 3650 meters long, one strong enough not to break under its own weight? What size of balloon would be needed to lift the enormous weight of the rope? One as big as the Hindenburg?

And how could they anchor the rope at the top of the mountain?

Grinning, Frigate proposed sending a man up in the rope-carrying aerostat. He could get off at the top and secure the balloon.

"Forget it!" Farrington said.

Frigate was happy to do this.

The Razzle Dazzle continued to sail southward, the wind behind it, its crew glad to get away from this gloomy, chilly area. There were some Old Stone Age people living here, but they had dwelt in the arctic regions on Earth. They did not know any better.

Since men, the schooner had crossed the equator and entered the south polar region nine times. At the moment, they were in the equatorial zone again.

Peter Frigate was sick of shipboard life. Nor was he the only one. Shore leave had been getting longer and longer for some time.

One day, while eating lunch on the bank, Frigate experienced two thrills in rapid sequence. One was the offering of his grail. For years he had been hoping to get peanut butter and a banana at the same time. Now, as he opened the lid of his grail, he saw the realization of his dream. '

A grey metal cup in a rack was filled with smooth, delicious-odored peanut butter. Across another rack was the yellow-brown-spotted form of a banana.

Grinning, slavering, chortling, he unpeeled the fruit and smeared one end with the peanut butter. Close to crooning with delight, he bit off the combination.

It was worth being resurrected if only for the food.

A moment later, he saw a woman walking by. She was very attractive, but it was what she wore that widened his eyes. He got to his feet and, speaking Esperanto, approached her.

"Pardonumin, sinjorino. I couldn't help observing that unusual armlet. It looks like brass!"

She looked down, smiling, and said, "Estas brazo."

She accepted his proffered cigarette with a murmured, "Dank-on," and lit it. She seemed to be very amiable. Too much so, one person thought. Scowling, a tall, dark man strode up to them.

Frigate hastily assured him that his interest was not in her but in the armlet. The man looked relieved; the woman, disappointed. But she shrugged and made the best of it.

"It comes from up-River," she said. "It cost one hundred cigarettes and two hornfish horns."

"Not to mention some personal favors on her part," the man said.

The woman said, "Oh, Emil, that was before I moved in with you."

"Do you know where it came from?" Frigate said. "I mean, where it was made?"

"The man who sold it to me came from Nova Bohemujo."

Frigate gave the man a cigarette, and this seemed to ease the tension. Ernil said that New Bohemia was a rather large state about nine hundred grailstones up The River. Twentieth-century Czechs made up its majority. The minority was composed of some ancient Gaulish tribe with, of course, the usual one or two percent of peoples from everywhere and every time.

Until three years ago New Bohemia had been small, just one of the mingled Slavic-Gaulish peoples in this area.

"But its chief, a man named Ladislas Podebrad, launched a project about six years ago. He thought there might be mineral treasures, especially iron, buried deep under the soil. His people started digging at the base of the mountain, and they made an enormous and deep hole. They wore out much flint and bone. You know how tough the grass is."

Frigate nodded. The grass seemed designed to resist erosion. Its roots were very deep and intertwined. In fact, he wasn't sure that it was not one plant, a single organism extending on both sides of The River and perhaps beneath it. And its roots were tough silicon bearers.

"It took a long time to get below the grass, and when it was done, • there was nothing but dirt beneath that. They kept on, and after going sixty meters, they came to rock. I believe it was limestone. They almost gave up then. But Podebrad, who's something of a mystic, told them he'd had a dream that there were great quantities of iron below the rock."

"Of course," the woman said, "I can't see you working like that."

"You're not so dedicated yourself."

Frigate did not give them long to stay together, but he said nothing. He could be wrong. He'd known couples like this on Earth who had verbally stung and stabbed each other from marriage to death. For some sick reason, they needed each other.

Three years ago, Podebrad's dream and the hard work of his people had paid off.

They had come across an immense store of minerals: iron ore, zinc sulfide, sand, coal, salt, lead, sulfur, and even some platinum and vanadium.

Frigate blinked and said, "You mean, in layers, strata? But they wouldn't occur naturally in that fashion."

"No," Emil said. "At least, the man told Marie that they shouldn't. What he said, and I've heard others from New Bohemia say this, too, it looked as if a gigantic truck had just dumped the ores there.

"Whoever made this world had pushed the stuff there, you know, as if by a gigantic bulldozer. Then the rock had been put over it, then the soil, then the grass."

Podebrad had gotten the minerals out, was, in fact, still bringing them up. All his people were armed with steel weapons now. And New Bohemia had expanded from its 12-kilometer-long boundaries to 60 kilometers on both sides of The River.

However, this had not been done by conquest. Neighboring states had asked to be absorbed, and Podebrad had welcomed them. There was wealth enough for all.

Meanwhile, other states along here had launched their own digging projects. They had been at it about three years but had gained only sweat, worn-out tools, and disappointment.

Podebrad's original site seemed to be the only one to contain minerals. Or else other dumpheaps-as Emil called them-were buried even deeper.

Emil pointed at the hills.

"Our own country has a hole sixty meters deep. But it's being filled up now. The caprock is dolomite. Podebrad was lucky. His was soft limestone."

Frigate thanked them and excitedly hurried off. As a result, the Razzle Dazzle anchored off the bank of Podebrad's capital eleven days later.

The crew smelled New Bohemia half a day before arriving at its southern limits. The fumes of sulfur and coal stank throughout the area.

High earth walls had been erected along the banks. Steel weapons, including flintlock firearms, were everywhere. The River was patrolled by four large, steam-powered paddlewheeled boats, each carrying two cannons, and a large number of smaller boats with machine guns.

The crew of the Razzle Dazzle were astonished. Also, somewhat depressed. The fair valley was blighted. For too long, they had taken the clean air and pure blue skies, the green plains and hills, for granted.

Nur asked a local why it was necessary to foul the land and make all those weapons.

"We had to do so," the man said. "If we hadn't, then other states would have tried to take our ores away from us. And they would have embarked on conquest by arms. We made the weapons for self-defense.

"Of course, we make other artifacts, too. We trade these, and we get more tobacco, liquor, food, and ornaments than we can use."

The man patted his fat paunch.

Nur smiled and said, "The grails provide enough for any person's needs and some luxuries, too. Why tear up the land and make a stench to get far more than you need?"

"I just told you why."

"It would have been best to have filled up the hole again,'' Nur said. "Or never to have dug it in the first place."

The man shrugged. Then, looking surprised, he walked up to Rider.

"Say, aren't you the movie star Tom Mix?"

Tom smiled and said, "Not me, amiko. People have told me I look a little like him, though."

"I saw you . . . him... when he came to Paris during his European tour. I was on a business trip then, and I stood in the crowds and cheered you ... him ... as he rode along on Tony. It was a great thrill for me. He was my favorite cowboy actor."

"Mine, too," Tom said, and he turned away.

Frigate called the captain and first mate to one side.

"You look excited, Pete," Martin Farrington said. "You must be thinking of the same thing Tom and I were discussing just a minute ago."

Frigate said, "Now, how could you do that? What is it?"

Martin looked sidewise at Tom and smiled. "Sure, what else could it be? We were talking about, just speculating, mind you, about how nice it would be if we had one of those small steamboats."

Frigate was astonished. "That wasn't what I was thinking of! What do you mean, you'd steal it?"

"Sort of," Tom drawled. "They could always make another one. We were thinking of how much faster we could get up-River on one of those handy-dandy paddle wheelers."

"Aside from the ethics of the thing," Frigate said, "it'd be dangerous. I assume they guard them at night."

"Look who's talking of ethics," Martin said. "You stole your spear and bow and arrows, remember?"

Frigate's face became red.

"Not really. I had made them myself. They were mine."

"It was stealing," Martin said. He gave one of his wonderfully charming smiles and slapped Frigate on the shoulder. "No need to get huffy. Your need was greater than the state's, and you took something that could be easily replaced. We're in the same situation. We need to get up-River a lot faster."

"Not to mention a lot more comfortably," Tom said.

"You want us to risk getting killed?"

"Would you volunteer? I wouldn't order anybody to do this. If you don't care to do it, you won't peach on us, will you?"

"Of course not!'' Frigate said, getting red in the face again. "I'm not objecting because I'm afraid! Listen, I'd do it, if it was necessary. But what I have in mind is not that. It's something that would get us far north a hell of a lot faster than a steamboat."

"You mean have this Podebrad build us a speedboat?" Martin said. "A steam yacht?"

"No, I don't. I-mean something that won't go up The River. It'll go over it!"

"Rub me for a saddlesore," Tom said. "You mean an airplane?"

Tom looked eager. Martin turned pale.

"No, that wouldn't work. I mean, a plane could get us a lot farther faster. But we'd have to land several times and make more fuel, and there's no way of making more.

"No, I'm thinking about another type of air travel?'

"You can't be thinking of a balloon?"

"Sure, why not? A balloon, or, better yet, a blimp."