21
The afternoon of the next day arrived. Sam Clemens and John Lackland had been arguing all morning. Finally Sam, exasperated past caution and reasonableness, said, “We can’t afford to have the bauxite cut off by Hacking! We can’t afford anything that will put a stop to building the Riverboat! Maybe you’re doing this to force a war between us and Soul City! It isn’t going to work, Your Majesty!”
Sam had been walking back and forth, waving a panatela as he spoke. John sprawled before the oaken round table in Sam’s pilothouse. Joe Miller sat in a corner on a big chair specially built for him. The massive paleolithic Mongolian, Zaksksromb, stood behind John.
Suddenly, Sam whirled and planked both fists on the table. Leaning on the table, his cigar in one corner of his mouth, the reddish tangle of his eyebrows drawn down, he snarled at John.
“You gave in once, at Runnymede, when you signed the Magna Carta. It was about the only decent thing you ever did during your reign—and there are some who say you had your fingers crossed then. Well, this is another showdown, John, Your Majesty. You apologize to Abdullah, who has a right to an apology—or I’ll call a special session of the Council and we’ll determine your fitness to continue as co-Consul!”
John glowered at him for a full minute at the least. Then he said, “Your threats don’t scare me. But it’s evident that you would sooner plunge our land into civil war than go to war with Soul City. I do not understand this madness, but then a rational man always has trouble understanding irrationality. So I will apologize. Why not? A king can afford to be gracious to a commoner. It costs him nothing and enhances his graciousness.”
John rose and swaggered out, his huge bodyguard behind him.
Ten minutes later, Sam heard that John had appeared at the state guest house and offered his apology. Abdullah X accepted it, though sullenly. It was evident that he had been ordered to do so.
Just before the factory whistles announced the end of lunch hour, Cawber entered. He sat down without waiting for Sam to invite him. Sam raised his eyebrows, because this was the first time that this had happened. There was something indefinable in Cawber’s attitude. Sam, watching him carefully, listening to every inflection of his voice, decided that his attitude was that of a slave who has decided to be a slave no more.
Cawber knew that he would be the emissary to Soul City. He sat leaning forward, huge black arms resting on the oak, his hands spread out. He spoke in Esperanto and, Like many people, mostly in the present tense, using an adverb of time to indicate future or past if he wanted to clarify.
Cawber’s team had talked to every one of the approximately three thousand undoubted Negroes (there was some confusion of classification about some of the prehistorics). A third of these was willing, though not eager, to go to Soul City in exchange for Hacking’s unwanted citizens. Most were late-twentieth-century blacks. The others maintained that they had work that gave them prestige, that they Like being on an equal footing with the whites, and that they did not want to give up their chance to be on the Riverboat.
The latter was probably the biggest determinant, Sara thought. He was not the only one who dreamed of the Riverboat. It drove through the minds of many during sleep, gleaming Like a jewel with a firefly trapped inside it.
Firebrass and his people were requested to come to the conference room. Firebrass was late because he had been inspecting the airplane. He was laughing about its quaintness, fragility and slowness, and yet he was envious that von Richthofen would be the one to fly it.
“You’ll certainly get a chance to fly it, too,” Sam said. “Provided that you are still here, of course, when—”
Firebrass became serious. “What is your decision, gentlemen, regarding my government’s proposal?”
Sam looked at John, who gestured that Sam had the floor. John intended that any possible ill feelings should first be directed at Sam.
“This is a democracy,” Sam said. “And we can’t tell our citizens to get out unless they’ve been guilty of illegal behavior. So, as I see it—as we see it—any citizen of Parolando may go to Soul City if he wishes. I think we actually reached .basic agreement on this when we last met. It will be up to your government to negotiate with each citizen. As for taking in your Arabs and Dravidians and so forth—we’ll give them a chance to come with us if they want to. But we reserve the right to get rid of them if they don’t work out. Where they’ll go then is up to them.”