Burton had to act quickly to counteract this, though it was doubtful that any authorities of the small states would arrest the crew of the Snark. Oskas was not popular because of the troubles he had given them over the years. However, individuals might organize privateering groups.
Burton went ashore with a box of tobacco and liquor and some oak rings. With these he paid the head of the local branch of the signal company to send out a message for him. This was that Oskas lied, and the truth was that the chief had wanted to take a female crew member by force and so she and her companions had been compelled to flee. Oskas had pursued them but his warcanoe had been sunk when he had tried to board the Snark.
Burton then added that he knew that the chief and his councillors had a great treasure, a hoard of free-grails numbering at least a hundred.
This was a lie, since Oskas, when drunk, had told Burton that the headmen only had twenty. Burton did not mind stretching the truth. Attention would now be diverted from him to the chief. His people would hear this, and they would be raising hell about it. Undoubtedly, they would demand that the proceeds of the free-grails be added to the communal stockpile. Also, Oskas would now have to worry about thieves. Not only would these be of his own people, but many from other states would be planning how they could steal the grails.
Oskas was going to be too busy to worry about revenge.
Burton chuckled as he thought about this.
The Snark came to an area where the current of The River slowed down considerably. The boat had encountered many of these, places where a river should no longer be able to flow downward. On Earth this would have meant that The River would have spread out into a lake, deluging the Valley.
However, after passing through the almost dead current, the cutter came to an area where the water picked up speed. Once again, it was running toward the faraway mouth, that legendary great cavern leading to the north polar sea. There were a number, of explanations for this phenomenon, none of which had so far been proved valid.
One was that there were enough variations in local gravity to permit the impetus of The River to overcome the lack of downward gradient. Those who favored this theory said that the unknown makers of this world might have installed underground devices which caused a weaker gravity field in appropriate areas.
Others suggested that water was pumped under great pressure from pipes deep beneath The River.
A third school speculated that the ceaseless current-flow was caused by a combination of pressure pumps and "light-gravity" generators.
A fourth maintained that God had decreed that the water go uphill and so there was no use wondering about the phenomenon.
The majority of people never thought about it.
Whatever the cause, The River never stopped rolling along its many-million-meter course.
At the end of the second day, the Snark docked in the locality where the great metal boat should stop. The news here was that the Rex had stopped traveling for several days. Its crew was taking a short shore leave.
"Excellent!" Burton said. "We can get to it by tomorrow and have a whole day to talk Captain John into enlisting us."
Though he sounded cheerful, he did not feel so. If his plan did not work, he'd have to take the Snark through Oskas' area in daylight since there was little wind at night. Warned by the signal system that it was coming, the chief would be waiting for it with his full force. Burton felt that he should have turned back up-River after getting rid of the. Indians and sailed far past their land. However, the paddle-wheeler might then have passed by the Snark, and Burton would have had no chance to talk to its commander.
Sufficient unto the day is .the evil thereof, and the best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley. He'd enjoy tonight and take care of tomorrow tomorrow. Despite which reassurance, he worried.
The locals here were a majority of sixteenth-century Dutch, a minority of ancient Thracians, and the usual small percentage of people from many places and many times. Burton met a Fleming who had known Ben Jonson and Shakespeare, among other famous persons. He was talking to him when a newcomer joined the crowd sitting around a bonfire. He was a Caucasian of medium stature, thin bodied, black haired, and blue eyed. He stood for a minute, looking intently at Frigate. Then he smiled broadly and ran up to him.
He cried out in English, "Pete! For God's sake, Pete! It's me, Bill Owain! Pete Frigate, by the Lord! It is you, isn't it, Pete?"
Frigate looked startled. He said, "Yes? But you, you're ... what did you say your name was?"
"Bill Owain! For Christ's sake, you haven't forgotten me, Bill Owain, your old buddy! You look a little different, Pete. For a moment, I wasn't sure! You don't quite look like I remember you! Bill Owain! I didn't recognize you at first, it's been so long!"
They embraced then and both talked swiftly, laughing now and then. When they let loose of each other, Frigate introduced Owain.
"He's my old schoolmate. We've known each other since fourth grade in grammar school. We went to Peoria Central High together and buddied around for some years afterward. When I finally settled down in Peoria after working around the country, we used to see each other now and then. Not very often, since we had our own lives to live and belonged to different circles."
"Even so," Owain said, "I don't see how you could have failed to recognize me right off. But then I wasn't quite sure about you either. I remembered you differently. Your nose is a little longer and your eyes are greener and your mouth isn't quite as broad and your chin seems bigger. And your voice-you remember how everybody kidded you because it was a dead ringer for Gary Cooper's? It doesn't sound like it used to, like I thought it did. So much for memory, eh?"
"Yeah, so much for memory. You know, Bill, mine was never very good. Besides, we remember each other as middle-aged and old men, and now we look like we did when we were twenty-five. Also, we're not wearing the clothes we did then, and it's a shock, a real shock, to run across somebody I knew then. I was stunned!"
"I was, too! I wasn't quite sure! Listen, do you know you're the first person I've met that I knew on Earth?"
Frigate said, "You're the second for me. And that was thirty-two years ago, and the guy I met wasn't one I cared to associate with!"
That, Burton thought, would be a man called Sharkko. A publisher of hardcover science fiction books in Chicago, he had cheated Frigate in a rather complicated deal. The business had taken several years, at the end of which Frigate's writing career had been almost wrecked. But one of the first persons Frigate had encountered after being resurrected was Sharkko. Burton had not witnessed the meeting, but Frigate had recounted how he had avenged himself by punching the fellow in the nose.
Burton himself had met only one person he had known on Earth, though his acquaintances had been numerous and worldwide. That was also a meeting he could have passed up. The man had been one of the porters on his expedition to find the source of the Nile. On the way to Lake Tanganyika (Burton and his companion Speke were the first Europeans to see it), the porter had purchased a slave, a girl about thirteen years old. She had become too sick to continue with them, so the porter had cut off her head rather than allow someone else to own her.
Burton had not been present to prevent the murder, nor would it have been discreet to punish the man. He had the legal right to do with his slave as he wished. However, Burton would punish him for other things, such as laziness, thievery, and breakage of goods, and he laid the whip on him whenever the opportunity arose.