The Fabulous Riverboat by Phillip Jose Farmer

Cyrano stood with his rapidly dwindling crew of Marines, shouting orders. Then John’s men charged, firing, and Cyrano went down. But he was up again, his sword silvery and then red. The enemy broke and ran away, and Cyrano ran after them. Sam shouted, “You fool! Go back!” but he was not heard, of course.

He tried to struggle up out of his shock. John had slipped something into their drinks, poison or a sedative, and only Joe’s subhumanly sensitive nose had saved them from drinking and then keeling over and allowing John to take over the pilothouse with little trouble.

He looked out the starboard port. Only a half mile ahead was the huge breakwater behind which the boat was to anchor for the night. Tomorrow, the long journey would officially begin. Would have begun, he thought. He flicked off the automatic pilot toggle switch and took the control sticks in his hands.

“Joe,” he said, “I’m going to run this right up alongside the bank. I may even ground us. Get out the bullhorn. I’ll tell the people ashore what’s happened, and we’ll get help.”

He pulled back on the starboard stick and advanced the port stick. “What’s wrong?” he yelled.

The boat was proceeding straight on its course up The River, holding to a distance of about a hundred yards off the shore.

He moved the sticks back and forth, frantically, but the boat did not deviate. John’s voice came from the intercom.

“It’s no use, Samuel, Boss, Captain, swine! I have control of the boat. My engineer, the man who will be chief engineer, put in a duplicate set of controls . . . never mind where. I have cut off your controls, and the boat will go where I want it to. So you don’t have any advantage at all. Now my men will storm the pilothouse and take you. But I would prefer that there be as little damage as possible. So, if you will just get off the boat, I will let you go unharmed. Provided, that is, that you can swim a hundred yards.”

Sam raged and swore and pounded his fists on the instrument panel. But the boat continued on past the dock, while the crowds gathered there waved and cheered and wondered why the boat did not stop.

Lothar, looking out of the stern port, said, “They’re trying to sneak up on us!” and he fired at a man who had appeared around the far end of the texas on the hurricane deck.

“We can’t hold out long!” Firebrass said. “We don’t have much ammunition!”

Sam looked at the fore ports. Some men and women had run out onto the boiler deck and then turned for a stand. Livy was among them.

There was another charge. A man thrust at Cyrano, who was engaged in running his rapier through the man next to him. Livy tried to knock the blade aside with her pistol, which must have been empty, but the sword went into her stomach. She fell backward with the sword still sticking out of her. The man who had killed her died a second later, when Cyrano’s rapier went through his throat.

Sam cried, “Livy! Livy!” and he was out through the door of the pilothouse and running down the ladder. Bullets screamed by him and smashed against the bulkheads and the ladder. He felt a stinging and then heard a shouting behind him, but he did not stop. He was vaguely aware that Joe Miller and the others had run out after him. Perhaps they were trying to rescue him or perhaps they knew that they might as well get out now before they were overwhelmed in the trap of the pilothouse.

There were corpses and wounded everywhere. John’s men had not been numerous; he had depended upon surprise, and it had not failed him. Dozens had been shot down in the first volleys, and dozens more had been shot during the panic. Many more had jumped into the water, seeing that there was no way to escape, no place to hide, and they were not armed.

Now the boat was turning into shore, its paddle-wheels operating at full speed, the water flying, the wheels chuffchuffing, the deck trembling. John was turning the boat into shore, where a number of heavily armed men and women awaited him.