r
166
Phillip C. Jennings
Things went from bad to worse for Snookers, utter humiliation approaching in chapter twelve. New historical consultants popped in and became Wodehouse’s neighbors. The Sijill rolled off its wooden press. Hakim’s dhows and godowns paddled east and west, hawking a sugarcoated religion the Occult Master claimed not to believe.
Silence. Where were the raves to the editor? The press interviews? The literary luncheons? According to rumor, a hill-size node of metal had been dug up on the far side of the planet. Antipodeans used it to make steamships and radios. This business of ferrying the magazine beyond Hakim’s borders facilitated gossip of all sorts: Druze immigrants confirmed talk about a metal steamer “approaching this way!”
None of this got into issue two. Maria’s “institute” won six column-inches of glory, laud, and honor, touching only lightly on the facts: extract of dreamgum had made mental children of a few experimental subjects, who gibbered and ran mad in the ideal classroom she’d set up.
The good news was that this most potent of drugs had a permanent effect on their “winter” personalities. The bad news? It made them animals. “I have to find then-souls,” Maria told Plum on her next nocturnal visit. “I still have hope. Once they regain speech, we may discover what we did wrong. How we traumatized them. They might tell us.”
“What does Hakim say?” Plum asked.
Maria sighed. “I have to,repair my damage, or—ft could be bad. I’ve lost influence. He’s a politician. This business of summer people and winter people—he adopted the idea as his own for a while, but…”
BLANDINGS ON RTVERWORLD
167
“He took a flier, eh? And now he means to cut his losses.”
She shook her head. “Not quite yet.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Wouldn’t I deserve it if he did punish me? But the makers of this world provided us with no experimental animals. What else could we do?”
“Shh. I hear voices. People are shouting out mere.”
“God!” Maria felt around the side of the bed for her domes..
“Quick. Get under. I’ll go see what’s on.”
A metal steamship is fast. At an unflagging twenty miles an hour, the Potemkin outpaced anything she had ever encountered. She was almost faster than rumor. No one in Hakim’s domain had considered the possibility of such speed until the lights of her portholes gleamed on the River. Summoned from some women’s-garden bed, Hakim called out the militia. An armed and vigilant citizenry crowded the shores. The Potemkin slid by, and dwindled, her name blazoned in characters few Druze could read. The valley narrowed to the left, and the mighty monster puffed on to the next regime in sequence.
Clouds bulked up for the predawn rain, and still the buzzing populace didn’t go back to bed. In the men’s garden, historical consultants and Druze guards chattered in excited clumps. Plum went in and told Maria the bad news. How could she sneak out of here?
For the purpose of these furtive rendezvous, someone had supplied her with the robes of a Druze elder. “Do I look male?” she asked nervously, wrapped to the nines. “I shall walk stiffly to the exit, as if I had a poker up my ass.”
Plum winced. As a man she seemed woefully uncon-
168
Phillip C. Jennings
BLANDINGS ON RIVERWORLD
169
vincing. “Wait a minute. I’ll create a diversion.” He ran outside. “Jim! Jim! Let’s fight.”
“What?” Weary of the night’s drama, the Apache had returned to his blanketed repose under the tree. He hoisted himself on one elbow.
Plum dropped to his knees and shouldered into him. “You bloody redskin. I’ll take your scalp!” “Hey!”
“Whoop it up. That’s good!” Jim tumbled Wodehouse to the right. He stood. Plum stood too, bellowed, and charged again.
Jim kicked. Plum grabbed his foot and danced around. A gaggle of Dnize guards converged on them. “Stop that! What are you doing?”
Plum dropped Jim’s pedal appendage and squatted like a frog. “Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote,” he roared with a mad glint in his eye, and hopped in frog fashion. “The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote—”
“You want to get killed?” Jim shouted. “Are you crazy?”