War World X: Takeover by John F. Carr Page A

cargo for the town. What’s your hurry, anyway? It’s not like anything’s going to change in four days. Besides, you’ll need to collect your own provisions for the trip, unless you want to stop at local settlements every T-day—which I can’t guarantee, anyway. I’d say, bring two weeks’ provisions—just in case.”
    With that Sanchez had to be content. He went stomping back to the Starman’s Inn, pausing only to buy a cheap packet of euph-leaf and make an offer to another Red-Scarf, one that spoke a civilized language this time. He was already starting to hate this planet. Besides the usual discomforts of gravity that didn’t feel right, air that didn’t smell right and light that didn’t look right, there was something about the people here that turned him off. Even the whores seemed harder and more secretive than usual.
    Makhno found work enough to occupy him for the stated four days, but after that he had no further excuses. He arranged for one of Himself’s crew to come along as unofficial bodyguard, took Sanchez and his gear aboard, and made a short speech about the time and hazards of river travel.
    “Don’t trail your hands in the water; plenty of newcomers have lost fingers, and more, that way. Use the chamber-pots under the seats, and then empty them over the side. Do not, under any circumstances, hang your bare butt out over the water; riverjacks can jump. Once on the water, obey my orders instantly. This is a rough world, and there are a lot of dangers on the river. With any luck, we’ll reach Kenny-Camp in twelve to fourteen T-days.”
    “Twelve days!” fumed Sanchez. “With the speed this craft can make?”
    “In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s going to be dim-dark soon. That makes river-traffic risky enough. After that comes truenight, and nobody with any sense travels in that. If we’re lucky, we’ll be near a settlement by then, where we can pull up and spend the night on shore. If not, I put down anchor and we wait it out on the water. When we get light again I’ll start the boat, but we don’t travel fast until full-light when we can see everything around us. That’s the way it is on the river. If you’ve got a problem with that, I’ll pull over to shore and you can walk. Got it?”
    Sanchez grumbled, but agreed to stay put. The Dragon was making fairly good time right now. After a year’s travel to reach this benighted ice-ball world, he could wait another dozen days to confront Van Damm.
    Besides, there were questions he could ask this ornery captain. The big miner coming down river with them spoke only in monosyllables, but Makhno might be made to yield some useful information, better than the scraps he’d gotten from the Red-Scarf.
    “Less than ten years ago, the companies brought in riverboat designs and encouraged building the ships to facilitate river traffic. What happened to them?”
    “Well…” Makhno scratched his chin. “The Rosie ’s engine blew up. The Putty Princess just plain sank. The Rockhammer was sunk in a storm. The Elisabet got her guts ripped out on the rocks near shore, and nobody could agree on how much money and labor to spend on salvage. The Last Resort … Well, I expect you heard what happened to her.”
    “No, I hadn’t.”
    “A thug named Jomo commandeered her to take his army upstream and rob the farms. The farmers shot back, and sank her in shallow water a good ways upstream, and they salvaged her afterward. There’s talk of building another boat from the pieces, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting.” Makhno frowned. “Kenny-Co promised it would bring in supplies for half a dozen more, but they never arrived: something about ‘production shortfalls’ and ‘restricted budgets’ and crap like that. So anyway, everybody built what they could from their own designs, from local wood and metal-scrap and bits brought in from the off-world trade.”
    Sanchez fell silent, wondering if the companies could be pressured into footing