"Philip Jose Farmer - Riverworld 4 - The Magic Labyrinth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

captain, Samuel Clemens, an American, had renamed it the Not For Hire.
Apparently, he'd heard that King John was calling his own boat, the original
Not For Hire, the Rex Grandissimus. So Clemens had taken back the name and
ceremoniously had it painted on the hull.

The boat stopped off to recharge its batacitor and to charge its grails.
Malory didn't get a chance to talk to the captain, but he did see him and his
surprising bodyguard. Joe Miller was indeed an ogre, ten feet high and
weighing eight hundred pounds. His body was not as hairy as Malory expected
from the tales. He was no more hirsute than many men Malory had seen, though
the hairs were longer. And he did have a face with massive prognathic jaws and
a nose like a gigantic cucumber or a proboscis monkey's. Yet he had the look
of intelligence.

I
ON DROVE THE PURSUER.

It was an hour to high noon. In another hour, the fabulous riverboat would be
anchored, and a very thick aluminum cable would connect a copper cap placed
over a grailstone to the batacitor in the vessel. When the stone delivered its
tremendous voltage, the batacitor would be charged again and the grails on
another copper plate in the boat would be filled with food, liquor, and other
items.

Its hull was white except over the paddle boxes, or wheel guards, over the
four paddlewheels. On these were painted in big black letters: NOT FOR HIRE.
Under this in smaller letters: Samuel Clemens, Captain. And under this line,
in still smaller letters: Owned and Operated By The Avengers, Inc.

Above the pilothouse was a jack staff flying a square light-blue flag on which
was a scarlet phoenix.

From the stern or verge staff, leaning at a forty-five-degree angle from the
stern of the lowest deck, was another flag with a light-blue field and bearing
a scarlet phoenix.

Sam's boat was 550 feet and eight inches long. Its breadth over the
paddleboxes, or paddlewheel guards, was 115 feet. Its draft was 18 feet when
fully loaded.

There were five major decks. The lowest, the A or boiler deck, held various
storage rooms, the enormous batacitor, which rose from a well into the next
deck, the four electrical motors which drove the paddlewheels, and a huge
boiler.

The batacitor was an enormous electrical device fifty feet

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The Magic Labyrinth I 15 тАФ