Did you see how he did that?
Primitive/effective. Even versus me unprepared. Concerned?
Appalled actually.
How effective torc restraint?
Adequate now while he still unuse full potential. Later silver never suffice will seize gold. Educators face dilemma that one. May require termination. Not my decision Tanabe thanked.
Capable vast mischief even when latent. Rare old human-type uncommon in Milieu: clown meddler.
Type not unknown among Tanu alas. Predict kid smash hit Muriah. Query Muriah survive impact.
Ironical just deserts to you slave masters. Humanity prey-perilous.
Ah Elizabeth.
Deny? Laugh. Manipucraftylators! Desocialization/re-socialization exiles shrewdly essayed. Example: castle environment anxietyprovoke. Follows party warmfriendshippower-sexgoodies. Reinforce lesson severed heads. Crude goodguy/badguy punish/reward terror/relief mindforming. Aiken + Raimo + (Sukey?) yours. Both Hunts victorious.
How else integrate minimal delay? Some types e.g., Aiken superhazard.
More like you than you?
Perceptive Elizabeth. Angelic aloof overflyer despising pathetic exile misfits.
“Ah, Elizabeth. We get to know one another better and better.”
The skipper who welcomed them to the unusual boat that would take them downriver wore khaki pants and a sweat-stained T-shirt. His belly overflowed his waistband. A crinkly peppered-salt mustache and fringe-beard bracketed the jovial smile on his mahogany face. He flicked Creyn a casual salute, one finger tapping the bill of a decrepit U.S. Navy cap of twentieth-century vintage.
“Welcome aboard, milord and ladies and gents! Skipper Highjohn at your service. Take any pew you like, but the best view is up forward. Bring that stretcher over here and lash it to the tie-downs.”
The human travelers came onto the strange craft and settled somewhat apprehensively into the seats, which were pneumatically cushioned and form-fitting, with elaborate harnesses that the skipper helped them to fasten.
“Is the river very rough, Captain?” Sukey inquired. She had positioned herself near Stein and kept darting uneasy glances at the sleeping giant while the attendants secured him with strong webbing.
“Don’t you be concerned. I’ve done this Rhône-Med run for sixteen years and never lost a boat.” Highjohn flipped a lid on the chair arm and revealed a hidden container. “Little barf-bucket if you need it.”
Aiken piped up, “You may not have lost a boat, but how about a passenger?”
“You look like you got a strong ticker, boy. If things get too wild for you, Lord Creyn will program a calmative into your torc. Everybody set now? We’ll be stopping for lunch at Feligompo Plantation around noon for any of you who have appetites. Tonight we’ll be at Darask, which is below the site of the future Avignon. You know, the place with the bridge. See you later.”
With a friendly wave, he went forward. The attendants from the mansion who had carried on Stein and their baggage now trooped ashore. Deckhands began scurrying about the vessel, preparing it for castoff. The passengers watched with mingled interest and unease.
The riverboat was similar in design to most of the others at the quayside, measuring about fourteen meters from its high, knife-sharp bow to its glutcally rounded stern. It was a distant cousin to the inflatable rafts and foldboats used by sportsmen and explorers on the whiter waters of the Galactic Milieu. The hull, stenciled on both sides with the name of the boat, Mojo, was a tough air-filled membrane with fat exterior corrugations and pillow-like fenders jutting out at regular intervals along the waterline. It looked as if it could be deflated and disassembled for shipment upstream via caravan. Tightly covered hatch openings fore and aft gave access to cargo holds, while the passenger accommodation was in an open area amidships that was arched over with a series of half-hoops. The dockworkers quickly covered this frame with panels of deeply tinted transparent film resembling decamole. When the last section of the bubbletop was sealed, an air blower began to operate inside the boat, providing ventilation for the occupants and rendering the waterproof canopy rigid.
Sukey turned to Elizabeth, who sat in the seat beside her. “I didn’t like the way the Captain talked. What are we getting into?”
“An interesting ride, at any rate, if the signs and portents add up. Bryan, do you know anything at all about the River Rhône?”
“It was all cut up with dams and locks and bypass channels in our time,” the anthropologist replied. “The gradient is probably a lot steeper here in the Pliocene, so there are bound to be rapids. When we approach the Avignon region about a hundred-fifty kloms south of here, we’ll be in an area that very likely has a deep gorge. In the twenty-second century it was stoppered by the Donzere-Mondragon Barrage, one of the largest dam projects in Europe. What we’ll find down there now… well, it can’t be too bad or they wouldn’t try to navigate it, would they?”
Aiken uttered a shaky laugh. “Good question. Well, ready or not, guys, we’re off to the races.”
A rather stout telescoping mast was rising up behind the passenger compartment. When it reached its full height of four meters, the top section opened to disgorge a boom with a roller sail, looking for all the world like an old-fashioned portable movie screen. The sail unfurled and gave a few tentative swiveling motions. Deckhands cast off the boat’s mooring warps, and vibration in the deck betokened the operation of a small auxiliary engine. The Mojo began threading in and out of the other shore traffic on its way to the mainstream, leading Bryan to deduce that it must utilize more than one rudder for maximum maneuverability.
They angled sharply away from the shore. As the current took them, the walled city of Roniah fell away astern with amazing swiftness. It was not easy to estimate their speed, since they were a good two hundred meters from either shore; but Bryan guessed that the sediment-laden flood was racing along at a minimum of twenty knots. What would happen when this great volume of water was compressed between high rock walls farther downstream challenged the imagination of the anthropologist. His speculations were of a decidedly queasy sort.
Raimo, in the seat next to him, had found his own brand of solace. He took a pull from his replenished silver flask and offered it to Bryan rather half-heartedly. “Tanu popskull. Hardly Hudson’s Bay standard, but not too bad.”
“Maybe later,” Bryan said, smiling Raimo grunted and took another swallow. The euphoria of his morning adventure had faded away, leaving the ex-forester brooding and ill at ease. Bryan tried to draw Raimo out with questions about the previous night’s revelry but received only the curtest replies.
“You hadda be there,” Raimo said, and lapsed into silence.
For nearly an hour they moved easily through a wide bluff-sided channel, the forested foothills of the Alps on their left hand and arid tablelands rising above the near-jungle of the humid bottoms on the right. Occasionally, Creyn pointed out the location of a plantation; but the threes were so thick that it was impossible to see any details of the settlements ashore. They glimpsed smaller boats plying the shallows and once they overhauled a long covered barge riding deep in the water, bare-masted and having only a small bubble over the midships steersman’s cockpit. The bargee greeted them with a toot from his airhorn, to which Skipper Highjohn responded with a syncopated blast of his own.
The river made a wide curve and the channel passed between a tall headland and a group of craggy islets. Small mechanical sounds announced the furling of their sail, the boom’s folding, and the withdrawal of the telescoping mast back into its housing. Far from losing speed, the boat moved along faster rounding the point. It seemed to Bryan that they must be making thirty knots or more. Simultaneously he became aware of a deep vibration transmitted by the water through the sealed hull of the boat, the inflated headrest of his seat, and the very bones of his skull. The vibration increased to an audible roar as the boat came charging around a sharp bend. The walls of a canyon rose on both sides.