Philip Jose Farmer
The Dark Design
Though some of the names in The Riverworld Series are fictional, the characters are or were real. You may not be mentioned, but you're here.
To Sam Long and my godson David, son of Doctor Doctor
And still the Weaver plies his loom, whose warp and woof is wretched Man Weaving th' unpattern'd dark design, so dark we doubt it owns a plan.
-The Kasidah of Haji Abdu al-Yazdi
"Sentence first-verdict afterwards."
-Alice in Wonderland
Foreword
THE BOOK AT HAND IS VOLUME III OF THE RIVERWORLD SERIES.
Originally, it was to be the conclusion of a trilogy. However, the Ms. was more than 400,000 words long. Published under one cover, it would be too heavy and unwieldy for the reader.
Therefore, the publisher and myself decided to cut it into two. Volume TV, The Magic Labyrinth, will follow this book. It will definitely conclude this phase of the series, explain all the mysteries set forth in the first three volumes, tie up all ends in a knot, Gordian or otherwise.
Any novels about the Riverworld after volume IV are not to be considered as part of the mainstream of the series. These will be the "sidestream," stories not directly concerned with mystery and the quests of the first three. My decision to write these is based on my belief-and that of many others-that the Riverworld concept is too big to compress within four volumes. After all, we have a planet on which a single river, or a very long and narrow sea, runs for 16,090,000 kilometers, or about 10,000,000 miles. More than thirty-six billion people live along its banks, human beings who existed from the Old Stone Age through the first part of the Electronic Age.
There is not room in the first four volumes to chronicle many events which might interest the reader. For instance, the resurrectees were not distributed along The River according to the chronological sequence in which they had been born on Earth. There was a considerable mixture of races and nationalities from different centuries. Take as an example one of the many thousands of blocs along the banks. This would be in an area ten kilometers long, and the people comprising it would be 60 percent 3rd-century A.D. Chinese, 39 percent 17th-century A.D. Russians, and 1 percent men and women from anywhere and anytime.
How would these people manage to form a viable state from anarchy? How would they succeed, or fail, in their efforts to get along with each other and to form a body which could defend itself against hostile states? What problems would they have?
In the book at hand, Jack London, Tom Mix, Nur ed-din el-Musaf ir, and Peter Jairus Frigate sail on the Razzle Dazzle II up The River. There is considerable characterization of Frigate and Nur in volumes III and IV. However, there was not enough space to fully develop the characters of the others. So, the "sidestream" stories will give me scope to do this.
These will also relate how the crew of the Razzle Dazzle meet some major and minor representatives of various fields of human endeavor. These should include da Vinci, Rousseau, Karl Marx, Rameses II, Nietzsche, Bakunin, Alcibiades, Eddy, Ben Jonson, Li Po, Nichiren Daishonin, Asoka, an Ice Age cavewife, Joan of Arc, Gilgamesh, Edwin Booth, Faust et al.
It's been apparent to some that Peter Jairus Frigate remarkably resembles the author. It is true that I am the basis for that character, but Frigate has approximately the similarity to me that David Copperfield has to Charles Dickens. The author's physical and psychic features are only a springboard for propelling reality into that parareality-fiction.
I apologize to the readers for the cliffhanger endings of the first three volumes. The structure of the series was such that I could not emulate that of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. In these each volume seemed to have a definite conclusion, the mystery seemingly solved, only to reveal in the sequel that the previous ending was false or misleading.
I hope to finish the series, volumes I through V (or possibly VI), before it's my time to lie down and rest while waiting to board the fabulous riverboat.
-Philip Jose Farmer
1
Dreams haunted the Riverworld.
Sleep, night's Pandora, was even more generous than on Earth. There, it had been this for you and that for your neighbor. Tomorrow, that for you and this for next door.
Here in this endless valley, along these unceasing Riverbanks, she dumped her treasure chest, showering everybody with all gifts: terror and pleasure, memory and anticipation, mystery and revelation.
Billions stirred, muttered, groaned, whimpered, laughed, cried out, swam to wakefullness, sank back again.
Mighty engines battered the walls, and things wriggled out through the holes. Often, they did not retreat but stayed, phantoms who refused to fade at cockcrow.
Also, for some reason, dreams recurred more frequently than on the mother planet. The actors of the nocturnal Theater of the Absurd insisted on return engagements, performances which they, not the patrons, commanded. The attendees were powerless to jeer or applaud, to throw eggs and cabbages or walk out, to chatter with their seatmates or doze.
Among this captive audience was Richard Francis Burton.
2
Fog, grey and swirling, formed the stage and the backdrop.
Burton stood in the pit like an Elizabethan too poor to afford a seat. Above him were thirteen figures, all in chairs which floated in the mist. One of them faced the others, who were arranged in a semicircle. That man was the protagonist-himself.
There was a fourteenth person mere, though it stood in the wings and could be seen only by the Burton in the pit. It was a black, menacing shape which, now and then, chuckled hollowly.
A not quite similar scene had happened before, once in reality and many times in dreams, though who could be sure which was which? There he was, the man who'd died seven hundred and seventy times in a vain effort to elude his pursuers. And there sat the twelve who called themselves the Ethicals.
Six were men; six, women. Except for two, all had deeply tanned or heavily pigmented skins and black or dark brown hair. The eyes of two men and a woman had slight epicanthic folds, which made him think that they were Eurasians. That is, they were if they had originated on Earth.
Only two of the twelve had been named during the brief inquisition-Loga and Thanabur. Neither name seemed to be of any language he knew, and he knew at least a hundred. However, languages change, and it was possible that they might be from the fifty-second century A.D. One of their agents had told them that he came from that time. But Spruce had been under threat of torture and might have been lying.
Loga was one of the few with comparatively pale skins. Since he was sitting and there was (and had been) nothing material to measure him against, he could be short or tall. His body was thick and muscular, and his chest was matted with red hair. The hair on his head was fox-red. He had irregular and strong features: a prominent, deeply clefted chin; a massive jaw; a large and aquiline nose; thick pale-yellow eyebrows; wide, full lips; and dark green eyes.
The other light-skinned man, Thanabur, was obviously the leader. His physique and face were so much like Loga's that they could be brothers. His hair, however, was dark brown. One eye was green, though a rare leaf-green.