Podebrad had industrialized his state. His people had been armed with steel swords and fiberglass bows and firearms. He’d built two armored steamboats, neither nearly as large as the Rex.
“Not for conquest but for defense. The other states were jealous of our mineral wealth and would have liked to possess it, but they didn’t dare attack. My ultimate object, however, was to build a large boat with screw propellers to travel to the headwaters of The River. I didn’t know at that time that there were two giant boats already coming up The River. If I had known, I would have built my own vessel anyway.
“Eventually I fell in with some adventurers who proposed to get to the headwaters by means of an airship. Their idea intrigued me and soon after I made the blimp and set out in it. But a storm wrecked it. I and my crew got out alive, and then the Rex came along.”
The game was over a few minutes later with Podebrad and Alice winners and Spallanzani angrily demanding why Podebrad had led with a diamond instead of a club. The Czech refused to tell him but said that he should be able to figure it out for himself. He congratulated Alice on her correct playing. Alice thanked him, but she still didn’t know any more than Spallanzani how Podebrad had done it.
Before they parted, however, she said, “Sinjorino Behn forgot to say exactly when you were born and died on Earth.”
He looked sharply at her.
“Perhaps that is because she doesn’t know. Why do you want to know?”
“Oh, I’m just interested in that sort of thing.”
He shrugged and said, “A.D. 1912 to 1980.”
Alice hurried off to find Burton before she had to go on duty and learn to set bones and make plaster-of-paris casts. She caught him in the corridor on the way to their cabin. He was sweating, his dark skin looking like oiled bronze. He’d just finished two hours of stick-fighting and fencing and had half an hour before he fell in for drill.
On the way to the cabin, she told him about Podebrad. He asked her why she seemed so excited about the Czech.
“It’s nonsense, that about his dream,” she said. “I’ll tell you what I think about it. I think he’s an agent who got stranded and who knew where that deposit of ores was. He used the dream as an excuse to get his people to dig it up. Then he built the blimp and tried to get to the tower itself, not just the headwaters. He must have!”
“Oh, reeeally,” Burton drawled in that infuriating manner. “What other slight evidence do you have, if it’s even slight? After all, the chap didn’t live past 1983.”
“That’s what he said! But how do we know that some agents… you’ve said so yourself.. .haven’t changed their story? Anyway…”
She paused, her whole being radiating eagerness.
“Yaas?”
“You described the council of twelve. He looks like he might be the one called Thanabur or maybe the one called Loga!”
That rocked him. But after a few seconds, he said, “Describe this man again.”
When he’d heard her out he shook his head.
“No. Both Loga and Thanabur had green eyes. Loga was red-headed, and Thanabur was brown haired. This Podebrad has yellow hair and blue eyes. He may look much like them, but I suppose there are millions who do.”
“But Richard! Hair color can be changed! He wasn’t wearing those plastic lens that can change the eye color that Frigate told us about. But don’t you think the Ethicals would have the means to change eye color without obvious aids?”
“It’s possible. I’ll take a look at the fellow.”
After showering, he bustled down to the grand salon. Not finding Podebrad there he returned to the engine room. Later when he next met Alice, Burton said, “We’ll have to see. He could be Thanabur or Loga. If one can be a chameleon, the other can. But it’s been twenty-eight years since I saw them, and our meeting was very brief. I really can’t say.”
“Aren’t you going to do anything about it?”