The Merry Men of the Riverworld Read Free Page B

bloodless coup. Al Capone had taken over.
    He was a clever man, I admit. When we met with him in the Technocrat Council's chambers—us on the floor, him on a low throne—he made it clear who was in charge. When Leonardo da Vinci dared speak against him, Capone bludgeoned him to death with a wooden club. The blood, the blood! It was horrible ... the most horrible moment of my life.
    I longed to see Capone dead, but there was nothing any of us could do but agree to whatever he demanded. Perhaps we should have spoken against him, should have joined Leonardo in death. That would have been the proper thing to do. Even though I knew I would be resurrected somewhere else along the River, I could not stand up against him. I'm ashamed to say I was afraid of death, and of the pain it would bring.
    Capone kept us on tight leashes after that. We never appeared alone in public, never spoke to anyone except on scientific projects, and then always under the close scrutiny of our guards. Capone wanted my pet project, the riverboat, completed as quickly as possible; I assume that's why I had what little freedom I did. Most of the other technocrats were locked in their rooms, forced to work on blueprints for machines which others would fully execute in their absence.
    The greater body of engineers and working scientists, I found out later, had deduced most of what had happened. Capone was a greedy pig. He renamed our little city New Chicago and began taxing everyone of their tobacco, marijuana, and dreamsticks. Anyone who didn't have a useful skill suddenly found himself drafted into a labor gang and sent into the hills to mine metal or cut lumber to fuel New Chicago's technological machinery.
    The next year was, indeed, a grim one. But the riverboat was nearing completion, and though Capone had decided to turn it into a floating brothel and casino, its presence offered hope to many of our scientists.
    On the night before the Belle Dame 's test voyage, they staged a revolt. Using crossbows they had made in their spare time, they shot the guards on the building where I and the other technocrats were quartered and set us free.
    It took seconds for them to explain their mad plan. We would seize the riverboat and set off to start a new technocratic state. This time we would not repeat the mistakes that had brought Capone to power. This time we really would create a perfect world.
    To make things short, Capone somehow found out about the rescue attempt. He sent the bulk of his men to stop us—to kill us, rather, since the riverboat was finished. If none of the scientists could be trusted, our usefulness to him was ended.
    It came down to hand-to-hand fighting. I had written about it, had studied fisticuffs, but still found myself little prepared for true mortal combat. One of Capone's lieutenants slashed my belly open with a sword. I fell, unconscious.
    I awakened here, aboard the Belle Dame . A handful of men had rallied around my fallen body, fought their way free to the riverboat, and launched. We were searching the river for another suitable site for our technocracy when you contacted us.
    Robin sat in thought when Jules Verne finished his tale. Every word of it rang true; he had no doubts about its veracity.
    “What you are looking for,” Robin said at last, “is a place like the last one, with abundant metals and wood, with easy access to the River, and a Provider—what we call a grail.”
    “That is correct.” Verne leaned forward again, wincing a bit from pain. “Do you know of such a place?”
    “We've travelled thousands of miles along the River, always heading upstream,” Robin said. “I've kept an eye out for metal along the way, and I know of places where lead and copper have been found. But iron ore? No, there's none.”
    Verne sank back, face ashen. “Then perhaps we truly are lost,” he said. “Providence led us to that spot, and in our pride we failed to see the dangers we courted.”
    “Providence may have brought