Riverworld06- Tales of Riverworld (1992) Read online

  Stafford said good morning and asked them if they intended to stay in New Albion.

  The three said that they would like to be citizens.

  Stafford said, 'Very well. But you have to realise that a citizen owes the state certain duties in return for its protection. I'll enumerate these later. Now, what position in the army or navy are you particularly fitted for? If any?'

  Mix had already told him what his skills were, but he repeated them. The lord-mayor told him that he would have to start as a private, though his experience qualified him to be a commissioned officer.

  'I apologise for this, but it is our policy to start all newcomers at the bottom of the ranks. This prevents unhappiness and jealousy among those who've been here for a long time. However, since you have stone weapons of your own, and these are scarce in this area, I can assign you to the axeman squad. Axemen are treated as elite, as something special. After a few months, you may be promoted to sergeant if you do well, and I'm sure you will.'

  'That suits me fine,' Tom said. 'But I can also make boomerangs and instruct your people in throwing them.'

  Stafford said 'Hmm!' and drummed his fingers on the desk for a moment.

  'Since that'll make you a specialist, you deserve to be sergeant immediately. But when you're with the axe squad, you'll still have to take orders from the corporals and sergeants. Let's see. It's an awkward situation. But... I can make you a nonactive sergeant when you're in the squad and an active sergeant when you're in the capacity of boomerang instructor.'

  'That's a new one on me,' Mix said grinning. 'Okay.'

  'What?' Stafford said.

  'Okay means "all right." It's agreeable with me.'

  'Oh! Very well. Now, Yeshua, what would you like to do?'

  Yeshua said that he had been a carpenter on Earth and had also done considerable work in this field here. In addition, he had learned how to flake stone. Moreover, he had a small supply of flint and chert. The boat they'd fled in happened to have a leather bag full of unworked stone brought down from a distant area.

  'Good!' Stafford said. 'You can start by working with Mr Mix. You can help him make boomerangs.'

  'I'm sorry,' Yeshua said. 'I can't do that.'

  Stafford's eyes widened. 'Why not?'

  'I am under a vow not to shed the blood of any human being nor to take part in any activity which results in the shedding of blood.'

  'But what about when you were running away? Didn't you fight then?'

  'No, I did not.'

  'You mean that if you'd been captured you would not have defended yourself? You'd have just stood there and allowed yourself to be slain?'

  'I would.'

  Stafford drummed his fingers again while his skin became slowly red. Then he said, 'I know little of this Church of the Second Chance, but I have heard some reports that its members refuse to fight. Are you one of them?'

  Yeshua shook his head.

  'No. My vow is a private one.'

  'There isn't any such thing,' Stafford said. 'Once you've told others of your vow, it becomes a public thing. What you mean is that you made this vow to your god.'

  'I don't believe in gods or a God,' Yeshua said in a low but firm voice. 'Once I did believe, and I believed very strongly. In fact, it was more than a belief. It was knowledge. I knew. But I was wrong.

  'Now I believe only in myself. Not because I know myself. No man really knows anything, including himself, or perhaps I should say that no man knows much. But I do know this. That I can make a vow to myself which I will keep.'

  Stafford gripped the edge of his desk as if he were testing its reality.

  'If you don't believe in God, then why make such a vow? What do you care if you shed blood while defending yourself? It would only be natural. And where there is no God, there is no sin. A man may do what he wants to do, no matter how he harms others, and it is right because all things are right or all things are wrong if there is no Upper Law. Human laws do not matter.'

  'The vow is the only true thing in the world.'

  Bithniah laughed and said, 'He's crazy! You won't get any sense out of him! I think that he refuses to kill to keep from being killed because he wants to be killed! He would like to die, but he doesn't have guts enough to commit suicide! Besides, what good would it do! He'd only be resurrected some other place!'

  'Which,' Stafford said, 'makes your vow meaningless. You can't really kill anybody here. You can put out a person's breath, and he will become a corpse. But twenty-four hours later, he will be a new body, a whole body, though he had been cut into a thousand pieces.'

  Yeshua shrugged. 'That doesn't matter. Not to me, anyway. I have made my vow, and I will not break it.'

  'Crazy!' Bithniah said.

  'You're not intending to start a new religion, are you?' Mix said.

  Yeshua looked at Mix as if he were stupid.

  'I just said that I don't believe in God.'

  Stafford sighed. 'I don't have time to dispute theology or philosophy with you. This issue is easily disposed of, however. You can leave our state at once, and I mean this very minute. Or you can stay here but as an undercitizen. There are ten such living in New Albion now. They, like you, won't fight, though for different reasons from yours. But they have their duties, their work, just like all citizens. They do not, however, get any of the bonuses given to citizens every three months by the state, the extra cigarettes, liquor, and food. They are required to contribute a certain amount from their copias to the state treasury. And they must work extra shifts as latrine-cleaners. Also, in case of war, they will be kept in a stockade until the war is over. This is so they will not get in the way of the military. Another reason for this is that we can't be sure of their loyalty.'

  'I agree to this,' Yeshua said. 'I will build you fishing boats and houses and anything else that is required as long as they are not directly connected with the making of war.'

  'That isn't always easy to discern,' Stafford said. 'But, never mind, we can use you.'

  After they were dismissed and had gone outside, Bithniah stopped Yeshua.

  Glaring, she said, 'Goodbye, Yeshua. I'm leaving you. I can't endure your insanity any longer.'

  Yeshua looked even sadder. 'I won't argue with you. It will be best if we do separate. I was making you unhappy, and it is not good to thrust one's unhappiness upon another.'

  'No, you're wrong about that,' she said. Tears trickled down her cheeks. 'I don't mind sharing unhappiness if I can help relieve it, if I can do something about it. But I can't help you. I tried, and I failed, though I don't blame myself for failing.'

  Yeshua walked away.

  Bithniah said, 'Tom, there goes the unhappiest man in the world. I wish I knew why he is so sad and lonely.'

  Mix glanced at his near-double, walking swiftly away as if he had some place to go, and said, 'There but for the grace of God go I.'

  And he wondered again what strange meeting of genes had resulted in two men, born about one thousand and eighty years apart in lands five thousand miles apart, of totally different ancestry, looking like twins. How many such coincidences had happened during man's existence on Earth?

  Bithniah left to report to a woman's labour force. Mix looked up a Captain Hawkins and transmitted Stafford's orders to him. He spent an hour in close-order drill with his company and the rest of the morning practising mock-fighting with axe and shield and some spear-throwing. That afternoon, he showed some craftsmen how to make boomerangs. In a few days he would be giving instruction in the art of throwing the boomerang.

  Several hours before dusk, he was dismissed. After bathing in The River, he returned to his hut. Bithniah was in hers, but Yeshua had left.

  'He went up into the mountains,' she said. 'He said something about purifying himself and meditating.'

  Mix said, 'He can do what he wants with his free time. Well, Bithniah, what about moving in with me? I like you, and I think you like me.'

  'I'd be tempted if you didn't look so much like Yeshua,
' she said, smiling.

  'I may be his spitting image, but I'm not a gloomy cuss. We'd have fun, and I don't need dreamgum to make love.'

  'You'd still remind me of him,' she said. Suddenly she began weeping, and she ran into her hut.

  Mix shrugged and went to the nearest stone to put his copia upon it.

  Chapter 8

  * * *

  While eating the goodies provided by his copia, holy bucket, miracle pail, grail, or whatever, he struck up a conversation with a pretty but lonely-looking blonde. She was Delores Rambaut, born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1945. She'd been living in the state across The River until this very afternoon. Her hutmate had driven her crazy with his unreasonable jealousy, and so, after putting up with him for a long time, she'd fled out of the hut, but he was likely to try to kill her.

  'How was it living with all those Huns?' he said.

  She looked surprised.

  'Huns? Those people aren't Huns. They're what we call Scythians. At least, I think they are. They're mostly a fairly tall white-skinned people, Caucasians. They were great horsemen on Earth, you know, and they conquered a wide territory in southern Russia. In the seventh century B.C., if I remember right what I read about them.'

  'The people here call them Huns,' he said. ‘Maybe it's just an insulting term and has no relation to their race or nationality. Or whatever. Anyway, I'm glad you're here. I don't have a mate, and I'm lonely.'

  She laughed and said, 'You're kind of rushing it, aren't you? Tom Mix, heh? You couldn't be...?'

  'The one and only,' he said. 'And just as horseless as the ancient Scythians are now.'

  'I should have known. I saw enough pictures of you when I was a child. My father was a great admirer of yours. He had a lot of newspaper clippings about you, an autographed photo, and even a movie poster. Tom Mix in Arabia. He said it was the greatest movie you ever made. In fact, he said it was one of the best movies he ever saw.'

  'I kind of liked it myself,' he said smiling.

  'Yes. It was rather sad, though. Oh, I don't mean the movie. I mean about all your movies. You made... how many?'

  'Two hundred and sixty – I think.'

  'Wow! That many? Anyway, my father said, oh, it was years later, when he was a very old man, that all of them had disappeared. The studios didn't have any, and the few still existing were privately owned and fading fast.'

  Tom winced, and he said, 'Sic transit gloria mundi. However, I made a hell of a lot of money and enjoyed blowing it. So, what the hell!'

  Delores had been born five years after he'd rammed his car into a barricade near Florence on the highway between Tucson and Phoenix. He'd been travelling as advance agent for a circus and was carrying a metal suitcase full of money with which to pay bills. As usual, he was driving fast, ninety miles an hour at the time. He'd seen the warning on a barrier that the highway was being repaired. But, also as usual, he'd paid no attention to the sign. One moment, the road was clear. The next... there was no way he could avoid the crashing into the barricade.

  'My father said you died instantly. The suitcase was behind you, and it snapped your neck.'

  Tom winced again.

  'I always was lucky.'

  'He said the suitcase flew open, and there were thousand-dollar bills flying all over the place. It was a money shower. The workmen didn't pay any attention to you at first. They were running around like chickens with a fox loose in the henhouse, catching the money, stuffing it in their pockets and under their shirts. But they didn't know who you were until later. You got a big funeral, and you were buried in ForestLawnCemetery.'

  'I had class,' he said. 'Even if I did die almost broke. Was Victoria Forde, my fourth wife, at the funeral?'

  'I don't know. Well, what do you know? I'm eating and talking with a famous movie star!'

  Tom had felt hurt that the workers had been more interested in scooping up the money that was whirling like green snowflakes than in finding out whether he was dead or not. But he quickly smiled to himself. If he'd been in their skins, he might have done the same thing. The sight of a thousand-dollar bill blown by the wind was very tempting – to those who didn't earn in ten years what he'd made in a week. He couldn't really blame the slobs.

  'They put up a monument at the site of the accident,' she said. 'My father stopped off to see it when he took us on a vacation trip through the Southwest. I hope knowing that makes you feel better.'

  'I wish the locals knew what a big shot I was on Earth,' he said. 'Maybe they'd give me a rank higher than sergeant. But they hadn't heard of movies until they came here, of course, and they can't even visualise them.'

  After two hours, Delores decided that they'd known each other long enough so that he was no longer rushing it. She accepted his invitation to move into his hut. They had just reached its door when Channing appeared. He'd been sent to summon Mix at once to the lord-mayor.

  Stafford was waiting for him in the Council Hall.

  'Master Mix, you know so much about Kramer and have such an excellent military background that I'm attaching you to my staff. Don't waste time thanking me.

  'My spies in Kramer's land tell me he's getting ready for a big attack. His military and naval forces are completely mobilised, and only a small force is left for defence. But they don't know where the invasion will be. Kramer hasn't told even his staff, as yet. He knows we have spies there, just as he has his spies here.'

  'I hope you still don't suspect that I might be one of his men,' Mix said.

  Stafford smiled slightly.

  'No. My spies have reported that your story is true. You're not a spy unless you're part of a diabolically clever plot to sacrifice a good boat and some fighting men to convince me you're what you claim to be. I doubt it, for Kramer is not the man to let go of Jewish prisoners for any reason whatsoever.'

  Stafford, Mix learned, had been impressed by the showing of Mix in the fight on The River and by the reports of Mix's superiors. Also, Mix's Earthly military experiences had given Stafford some thought. Tom felt a little guilty then, but it quickly passed. Moreover, Mix knew the topography and the defences of Deusvolens well. And he had said the night before that the only way to defeat Kramer was to beat him to the punch.

  'A curious turn of phrase but clear in its meaning,' Stafford had said.

  'From what I've heard,' Mix said, 'Kramer's method of expansion is to leapfrog one state and conquer the one beyond it. After he consolidates his conquest, he squeezes the bypassed area between his two armies. That's fine, but it wouldn't work if the other states would unite against Kramer. They know he's going to gobble them all up eventually. Despite which, they're so damned suspicious they don't trust each other. Maybe they got good reason, I don't know. Also, as I understand it, no one state's willing to submit itself to another's general. I guess you know about that.

  'I think that if we could deliver one crippling blow, and somehow capture or kill Kramer and his Spanish sidekick, Don Esteban de Falla, we would weaken Deusvolens considerably. Then the other states would come galloping in like Comanches so they could really crush Deusvolens and grab all the loot that's for the grabbing.

  'So, my idea is to make a night raid, by boat, of course, a massive one that would catch Kramer with his pants down. We'd burn his fleet and burst in on Kramer and de Falla and cut their throats. Knock off the heads of the state, and the body surrenders. His people would fall apart.'

  'I've sent assassins after him, and they've failed,' Stafford said. 'I could try again. If we make enough diversion, they might succeed this time. However, I don't see how we could carry this off. Sailing up-River is slow work, and we couldn't reach Kramer's land while it's still dark if we left at dusk. We'd be observed by his spies long before we got there, most probably when we amassed our boats. Kramer would be ready for us. That would be fatal for us. We have to have surprise.'

  'Yeah,' Mix said. 'But' you're forgetting the Huns across The River. Oh, by the way, I just found out they're not really Huns, they're ancient Scy
thians.'

  'I know that,' Stafford said. 'They were mistakenly called Huns in the old days because of their savagery and our ignorance. The terminology doesn't matter. Stick to the relevant points.'

  'Sorry. Well, so far, Kramer has been working on this side of The River only. He's not bothered the Huns. But they aren't dumb, according to what I've just heard.'

  'Ah, yes, from the woman, Delores Rambaut,' Stafford said.

  Tom Mix tried to repress his surprise. 'You've got spies spying on your own people.'

  'Not officially. I don't have to appoint people to spy on their own countrymen. There are enough volunteers to come running to me with accounts of everything that goes on here. They're gossips, and they're nuisances. Occasionally, though, they tell me something important.'

  'Well, what I meant when I said the Huns weren't dumb was that they know that Kramer's going to attack them when he has enough states on this side of The River under his belt. They must know he'll move against them then so he can consolidate this whole area. They know it'll be some years from now, but they know it's coming. So, they might be receptive to some ideas I've been hatching. Here's what we could do.'

  They talked for another hour. At the end, Stafford said that he'd do what he could to develop Mix's plan. It was a desperate one, in his opinion, chiefly because of the very little time left to carry it out. It meant staying up all night and working hard. Every minute that passed gave Kramer's spies just that much more opportunity to find out what was happening. But it had to be done. He didn't intend to sit passively and wait for Kramer to attack. It was better to take a chance than to let Kramer call the shots. Stafford was beginning to pick up some of Mix's twentieth-century Americanisms.

  Chapter 9

  * * *

  Intelligence reported that Kramer was not using his entire force. Though he theoretically had available enough soldiers and sailors to overwhelm both New Albion and Ormondia, in fact he was afraid to withdraw many from his subject states. His garrisons there were composed of a minority of men from Deusvolens and a majority of collaborators in the occupied states. They kept the people terrorised and had built earth and wooden walls on the borders and stationed troops in forts along these. The copias of most citizens were stored in well-guarded places and only passed out during charging times. Anyone who wished to flee either had to steal his copia or kill himself and rise somewhere else on The River with a new copia. The former was almost impossible to do, and the latter course was taken only by the bravest or most desperate.