The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

Gaining the deck, he found that his head was above the fog. Frigate was his same height, and his head seemed to float bodiless above the swirling wool of the mists. The sky was bright, though The Riverworld had no moon. It blazed with stars and with vast, shining gas clouds. Frigate believed that this planet was near the center of Earth’s galaxy. But it could be inside some other galaxy, for all anybody knew.

Burton and his friends had built a vessel and had sailed from Theleme. The Hadji II, unlike its predecessor, was a cutter, a fore-and-aft rigged single-master. Aboard it were Burton, Hargreaves, Frigate, Loghu, Kazz, Besst, Monat Grrautut, and Owenone. The latter was a woman of ancient pre-Hellenic Pelasgia who did not mind at all sharing the Arcturan’s bunk. With his peculiar crew (Burton had a not always fortunate talent for collecting an unhomogeneous band of followers), he had voyaged up-River for twenty-five years. One of the men with whom he had shared many adventures, Lev Ruach, had decided to stay in Theleme.

The Hadji II had not gotten as far as Burton had hoped. Since the crew had little elbow room, its members were in too close and constant contact with each other. It had been necessary to take long shore leaves so they could cool off their cabin fever.

Burton had decided that it was about time for another long liberty when the boat had sailed into this area. This was one of the rare widenings of The River, a lake about 20 miles or 32 kilometers long and 6 miles or 9.6 kilometers wide. At its western end the lake narrowed into a strait about a quarter-mile or 321 meters wide. The current boiled through this, but fortunately the prevailing wind here was behind a vessel going upstream. If the Hadji II had had to sail against the wind, it would have had little space to tack.

After looking at the strait, Burton thought that the passage could be made, though it would be close. However, now was the time to take a long rest. Instead of putting into one of the banks, he had stopped the boat alongside one of the scores of rocks that jutted up from the middle of the lake. These were tall spires With some level land at their bases. Some of them had grailstones, and around these were gathered a few huts.

The island-spire nearest the strait had a few floating docks. They would have been more convenient if they had been on the down-current side, but they were not, so the boat was taken alongside one. It was secured by lines to the posts and against the bumpers, bags of tough skins of alligator-fish filled with grass. The island’s inhabi­tants approached them cautiously. Burton quickly assured them of his peaceful intentions, and he politely asked if his crew could use the grailstone.

There were only twenty islanders-short, dark people whose native language was unknown to Burton. They spoke a degraded form of Esperanto, however, so there was little language barrier.

The grailstone was a massive mushroom-shaped structure of grey red-flecked granite. The surface of its top was as high as Burton’s chest and bore seven hundred round indentations in concentric circles.

Shortly before sunset, each person put in one of the shallow holes a tall cylinder of grey metal. English-speakers called it a grail, a pandora (or its shortened form, dora), a tucker box, lunch pail, glory bucket, and so on. The most popular name was that given it by the missionaries of the Church of the Second Chance. This was the Esperanto pandora. Though the grey metal was as thin as a sheet of newspaper except for the base, it was unbendable, unbreakable, and indestructible.

The owners of the grails retreated about fifty paces and waited. Presently, intense blue flames roared upward from the top of the stone to 20 feet or a little over 6 meters. Simultaneously, every one of the stones lining the banks of the lake spat fire and shouted thunder.

A minute later, several of the little dark people climbed onto the stone and handed down the grails. The party sat down under a bamboo roof by a fire of bamboo and driftwood and opened the lids of the cylinders. Inside were racks holding cups and deep dishes, all filled with liquor, food, crystals of instant coffee or tea, cigarettes and cigars.