“Norn d’un con! Va te fair foutre!” the tall man said. “Must I always be insulted, no matter where I go? Is this the hospitality you give strangers? Did I travel ten thousand leagues under incredibly harsh conditions to find the man who can put good steel in my hand once more, only to have him verbally tweak my nose? Know, ignorant insolent lout, that Savinien de Cyrano II de Bergerac does not turn the other cheek. Unless you apologize, immediately, most sincerely, plead with the tongue of an angel, I will stab you through with this nose that you so mock!”
Sam apologized abjectly, saying that his nerves had been frayed by the battle. He looked in wonder at the legendary figure, and he wondered if he could be one of the chosen twelve.
The second man, a blond-haired and blue-eyed youth, introduced himself as Herrman Goring. A spiral bone, taken from one of the Riverfishes, hung from a cord around his neck, and by this Sam knew that he was a member of the Church of Second Chance. This meant trouble, because the Second Chancers preached absolute pacifism.
The third stranger threw the hood back and revealed a pretty face with long black hair done in a Psyche knot. Sam staggered and almost fainted. “Livy!”
The woman started. She stepped closer to him and, silently, pale in the torchlight, looked at him. She was weaving back and forth, as shocked as he. “Sam,” she said weakly.
He took a step toward her, but she turned and clung to de Bergerac for support. The Frenchman put his arm around her and glared at Sam Clemens. “Courage, my little lamb! He will not harm you while I am here! What does he mean to you?”
She looked up at him with an expression that Sam could not mistake. He howled and shook his fist at the stars, just coming out from the clouds.
15
The Riverboat moved through his dream like a glittering, twenty-million-carat diamond.
There had never been a boat like it nor would there ever be another.
It would be named the Not For Hire. No one would ever be able to take it away from him, it would be so strongly armored and weaponed. Nor would anyone be able to buy or rent it from him.
The name glowed in great black letters against the white hull. NOT FOR HIRE.
The fabulous Riverboat would have four decks: the boiler deck, the main deck, the hurricane deck and the landing deck for the aerial machine. Its overall length would be four hundred and forty feet and six inches. The beam over the paddle-wheel guards would be ninety-three feet. Mean draft, loaded, twelve feet. The hull would be made of magnalium or, perhaps, plastic. The great stacks would spout smoke now and then, because there was a steam boiler aboard. But this was only to propel the big plastic bullets for the steam machine guns. The giant paddle-wheels on the sides of the Riverboat would be turned by enormous electrical motors.
The Not For Hire would be the only metal boat on The River, the only boat not propelled by oars or wind, and it would make anybody sit up and stare, whether he was born in 2,000,000 B.C. or in A.D. 2000.
And he, Sam Clemens, would be The Captain, capital T, capital C, because, aboard this vessel, carrying a crew of one hundred and twenty, there would be only one Captain.
King John of England could call himself Admiral if he wished, though if Sam Clemens had anything to do with it, he’d be First Mate, not Admiral. And if Sam Clemens really had anything to do with it, King John—John Lackland, Rotten John, Dirty John, Lecher John, Pigsty John—would not even be allowed on the boat. Sam Clemens, smoking a big green cigar, wearing a white cap, dressed in a white kilt with a white towel over his shoulders for a cape, would lean out of the starboard port of the great pilothouse and yell, Avast there, you lubbers! Grab hold of that putrescent mass of immortality and treachery and toss him off the gangplank. I don’t care if he lands in The River or on the bank! Get rid of that human garbage!