Read Online The Fabulous Riverboat by Philip José Farmer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Philip José Farmer
Tags: SF
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satisfy the most eager. He could be lazy, could fish, could talk night and day, wouldn't ever have to work for a living, could drift for a thousand years doing exactly as he pleased.
The trouble was that he could not do exactly as he wanted. There were too many areas where grail-slavery was practiced. Evil men took captives and deprived their prisoners of the luxuries given by their grails: the cigars, liquor, dreamgum. They kept the prisoner half starved, just alive enough so his grail could be used. They tied the slaves' hands and feet together, like chickens on the way to market, so they could not kill themselves. And if a man did succeed in committing suicide, then he was translated someplace else thousands of miles away and like as not would find himself in the hands of grail-slavers again.
Moreover, he was a grown man and just would not be as happy as a boy on a raft. No, if he went journeying on The River, he needed protection, comfort and, undeniable desire, authority. Also, there was his other great ambition to be pilot of a Riverboat. He had attained that for a while on Earth. Now, he would be a captain of a Riverboat, the largest, fastest, most powerful Riverboat that had ever existed, on the longest River in the world, a River that made the Missouri-Mississippi and all its tributaries, and the Nile, the Amazon, the Congo, the Ob, the Yellow River, all strung together, look like a little Ozark creek. His boat would be six decks high above the waterline, would have two tremendous sidewheels, luxurious cabins for the many passengers and crew, all of whom would be men and women famous in their time. And he, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Mark Twain, would be the captain. And the boat would never stop until it reached the headwaters of The River, where the expedition would be launched against the monsters who had created this place and roused all of mankind again to its pain and disappointments and frustrations and sorrows.
The voyage might take a hundred years, maybe two or three centuries, but that was all right. This world did not have much, but it had more than enough time.
Sam warmed himself in the glow of his images, the mighty Riverboat, himself as captain in the wheelhouse, his first mate perhaps Mr. Christopher Columbus or Mr. Francis Drake, his Captain of Marines—no, not Captain, Major, since there would be only one aboard with the title of Captain—Sam Clemens, himself—his Major would perhaps be Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar or Ulysses S. Grant.
A pinprick of a thought pierced the glorious balloon sailing along in the wind of his dream. Those two ancient bastards, Alexander and Caesar, would never submit long to a subordinate position. They would plot from the very beginning to seize the captainship of the paddle-wheeler. And would that great man, U. S. Grant, take orders from him, Sam Clemens, a mere humorist, a man of letters in a world where letters did not exist?
The luminescent hydrogen of bis images whistled out. He sagged. He thought of Livy again, so near but snatched away by the very thing that had made his other dream possible. She had been shown to him briefly, as if by a cruel god, and then taken away again. And was that other dream possible? He could not even find the vast store of iron that must be somewhere around here.
9
"You look tired and pale, Sam," Lothar said. Sam stood up and said, "I'm going to bed."
"What, and disappoint that seventeenth-century Venetian beauty who's been making eyes at you all evening?" Lothar said.
"You take care of her," Sam said. He walked away. There had been some moments during the past few hours when he had been tempted to take her off to his hut, especially when the whiskey from the grail had first wanned him. Now he felt listless. Moreover, he knew that his guilt would return if he did take Angela Sangeotti to bed. He had suffered recurrent pangs during the twenty years here with the ten women who had been his mates. And now, strangely
The trouble was that he could not do exactly as he wanted. There were too many areas where grail-slavery was practiced. Evil men took captives and deprived their prisoners of the luxuries given by their grails: the cigars, liquor, dreamgum. They kept the prisoner half starved, just alive enough so his grail could be used. They tied the slaves' hands and feet together, like chickens on the way to market, so they could not kill themselves. And if a man did succeed in committing suicide, then he was translated someplace else thousands of miles away and like as not would find himself in the hands of grail-slavers again.
Moreover, he was a grown man and just would not be as happy as a boy on a raft. No, if he went journeying on The River, he needed protection, comfort and, undeniable desire, authority. Also, there was his other great ambition to be pilot of a Riverboat. He had attained that for a while on Earth. Now, he would be a captain of a Riverboat, the largest, fastest, most powerful Riverboat that had ever existed, on the longest River in the world, a River that made the Missouri-Mississippi and all its tributaries, and the Nile, the Amazon, the Congo, the Ob, the Yellow River, all strung together, look like a little Ozark creek. His boat would be six decks high above the waterline, would have two tremendous sidewheels, luxurious cabins for the many passengers and crew, all of whom would be men and women famous in their time. And he, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Mark Twain, would be the captain. And the boat would never stop until it reached the headwaters of The River, where the expedition would be launched against the monsters who had created this place and roused all of mankind again to its pain and disappointments and frustrations and sorrows.
The voyage might take a hundred years, maybe two or three centuries, but that was all right. This world did not have much, but it had more than enough time.
Sam warmed himself in the glow of his images, the mighty Riverboat, himself as captain in the wheelhouse, his first mate perhaps Mr. Christopher Columbus or Mr. Francis Drake, his Captain of Marines—no, not Captain, Major, since there would be only one aboard with the title of Captain—Sam Clemens, himself—his Major would perhaps be Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar or Ulysses S. Grant.
A pinprick of a thought pierced the glorious balloon sailing along in the wind of his dream. Those two ancient bastards, Alexander and Caesar, would never submit long to a subordinate position. They would plot from the very beginning to seize the captainship of the paddle-wheeler. And would that great man, U. S. Grant, take orders from him, Sam Clemens, a mere humorist, a man of letters in a world where letters did not exist?
The luminescent hydrogen of bis images whistled out. He sagged. He thought of Livy again, so near but snatched away by the very thing that had made his other dream possible. She had been shown to him briefly, as if by a cruel god, and then taken away again. And was that other dream possible? He could not even find the vast store of iron that must be somewhere around here.
9
"You look tired and pale, Sam," Lothar said. Sam stood up and said, "I'm going to bed."
"What, and disappoint that seventeenth-century Venetian beauty who's been making eyes at you all evening?" Lothar said.
"You take care of her," Sam said. He walked away. There had been some moments during the past few hours when he had been tempted to take her off to his hut, especially when the whiskey from the grail had first wanned him. Now he felt listless. Moreover, he knew that his guilt would return if he did take Angela Sangeotti to bed. He had suffered recurrent pangs during the twenty years here with the ten women who had been his mates. And now, strangely
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