The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

“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.