Over the railing of the boiler deck Prince John would sail. Slyboots John, screaming, cursing in his Frenchaccented Middle English or in Anglo-Norman French or in Esperanto. Then the gangplank would be drawn up, bells would ring, whistles would blow, and Sam Clemens, standing behind the pilot, would give the order to begin the voyage.
The voyage! Up a River for maybe ten million miles or maybe twenty million miles, for maybe forty years or a hundred years. Such a Riverboat, such a River, such a voyage had never been dreamed of on Earth, long dead Earth! Up The River, the only one on this world, on the only boat like this, with Sam Clemens as La Sipestro, The Captain, and also addressed as La Estro, The Boss. He was so happy!
And then, as they headed out toward the middle of The River, just to test the current, which was strongest in the center of the mighty stream, as the thousands along the bank waved and cheered or wept after the boat, after him, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, alias Mark Twain—The Captain, The Boss—he saw a man with long yellow hair and broad shoulders pushing through the crowd.
The man wore a towellike cloth, secured by magnetic tabs under the material, as a kilt. His leather sandals were made of the hide of the whale-sized Riverdragon-fish, Around his thickly muscled neck he wore a string of brilliantly colored hornfish vertebrae. In his huge powerful hand he gripped the wooden shaft of a large war ax of iron. His pale-blue eyes were fixed on Samuel Clemens and that broad hawk-nosed face was grim.
Sam Clemens screamed to the pilot, “Faster! Faster! Full speed ahead!”
The great paddle-wheels began to dip into the water more swiftly—Chunk—chunk. Even through the fiberglass-insulated deck the vibrations made the deck quiver. Suddenly the blond man, Erik Bloodaxe, tenth-century Viking King, was in the pilothouse.
He shouted at Sam Clemens in Old Norse. Traitor! Droppings of Ratatosk! I told you I would wait along the banks of The River! You betrayed me so you could get the iron from the fallen star and build your great Riverboat!
Sam fled the pilot house and down the ladders from deck to deck and down into the dark bowels of the hold, but Erik Bloodaxe was always two steps behind.
Past the colossal rotating electric motors Sam Clemens ran, and then he was in the chemistry room, where the engineers were making potassium nitrate from human excrement and mixing it with sulfur and charcoal to make gunpowder. Sam grabbed hold of a lighter and a resin torch, pressed the slide, and a white-hot glowing wire slid out of the case. Stop, or I’ll blow up the whole boat! Sam screamed.
Erik had stopped, but he was swinging the big ax around and around over his head. He grinned and said, Go ahead! You haven’t got the guts! You love the Riverboat more than you love anything, even your faithless but precious Livy! You wouldn’t blow her up! So I’m going to split you down the middle with my ax and then take the Riverboat for myself!
No! No! Sam screamed. You wouldn’t dare! You can’t! You can’t! This is my dream, my love, my passion, my life, my world! You can’t!
The Norseman stepped closer to him; the ax whistled over his head. I can’t? Just stand there and see!
Over his shoulder Sam saw a shadow. It moved forward and became a tall, faceless figure. It was X, the Mysterious Stranger, the renegade Ethical who had sent the meteorite crashing into the Rivervalley so that Sam could have the iron and nickel to build his Riverboat on this mineral-poor planet. And so he could sail up The River to the North Polar Sea where the Misty Tower, the Big Grail, call it what you would, was hidden in the cold fog. And there Sam, with the eleven men chosen by X for his as-yet-unrevealed plan, would storm the Tower, and find—find what? Whatever was there. Stranger! Sam called. Save me! Save me!
The laughter was like a wind from the polar sea, turning his guts to crystal. Save yourself, Sam!