Philip Jose Farmer (22 page)

The whist game was resumed. When the train was in Nebraska, a voice familiar to three of the players spoke behind them.

“I should play a diamond!”

It was Proctor, who pretended that he had not recognized the Englishman until that moment.

“Ah, it’s you, the limey? It’s you who’re going to play a spade?”

“And who does play it,” Fogg said, throwing down the ten of spades.

“Well, it pleases me to have it be diamonds,” Proctor said. He reached out as if to grab the card, saying, “You don’t know anything about whist.”

“Perhaps I do, as well as another,” Fogg said as he got to his feet.

Fix also rose. He said, “You forget that it is I whom you have to deal with, sir. It is I whom you not only insulted but struck.”

Fogg understood what Stamp was doing. He would try to kill Fogg openly in a duel of honor. These were not uncommon in the territories, but Nebraska had been admitted as a state on the first of March, 1867. Did the state forbid duels and enforce the law with harsh penalties? It did not matter. Proctor did not seem to think that legal retribution would follow. Indeed, he was doing exactly what Fogg had expected. That was why Fogg had endured Proctor’s insults and had forced him to come to him. If 
Fogg won and was then arrested, he could plead that he was not the aggressor.

“Pardon me, Mr. Fix,” Fogg said. “This is my affair alone.”

The colonel said, indifferently, that the time, place, and weapons were up to Fogg.

Out on the platform, however, Fogg did try to talk Proctor into a delay. Proctor sneeringly refused and intimated that Fogg was a coward who, once safe in England, would never dare return. Seeing that the colonel was set on having the duel now, and that he had plenty of witnesses to prove that he had tried to put off the affair, Fogg agreed to exchange shots at the next stop. Unflustered, he returned to his car. Aouda tried to talk him out of it but without success. Fogg asked Fix if he would be his second. Fix replied that he would be honored. Passepartout understood that this request was one more test of the detective.

A little past eleven in the morning, the train stopped at Plum Creek. Fogg got off, only to be told that the train could not delay more than a minute. It was twenty minutes behind schedule, and the time must be made up. Fogg got back on. The conductor then approached the two participants with the suggestion that they fight in transit.

Fogg and the colonel agreed. The duelists, their seconds, and the conductor walked to the rear car. There the conductor asked the dozen or so passengers if they would leave until the two gentlemen concluded their argument. They left, happy at some excitement relieving the tedium.

The car was fifty feet long. Fogg stood at one end; Proctor, at the other. Each held two six-shooter revolvers. The conductor left, and the two seconds closed the doors of the car. After the 
engineer blew the whistle of the locomotive, the two would advance toward each other, firing as they wished.

Before Fogg and Proctor could start shooting, the train was attacked by about a hundred mounted Sioux. The two duelists were the first to fire against the Indians; they agreed without a word spoken to each other to put off the duel until this peril was over. If they survived this attack, they could resume their quarrel.

As many may remember from Verne’s account, some Sioux boarded the engine and stunned the engineer and fireman. The chief of the Indians, trying to stop the train, opened instead of closed the steam valve. The train was soon roaring along at one hundred miles per hour. This made it vital that the passengers somehow stop the train at Fort Kearney. If the train went on past it for any distance, the Sioux would have time to overwhelm the passengers. Many of the Indians were aboard it now, shooting and battling hand to hand with their enemies, who were indeed palefaces at this time.

Passepartout had been frightened at the illogic of the others when they rode the train across the ruined bridge. But when logic demanded action, he cast aside his fears. Logic now required that the train be stopped in time. Bravely and expertly, since he was an acrobat, he crawled under the cars on their chains and axles. He loosened the safety chains between the baggage car and the tender, and a violent jolt drew the yoking bar out. The locomotive and coal tender soon passed out of sight while the cars rolled to a stop. The troops from Fort Kearney attacked, and the Indians fled. Unfortunately, Passepartout was carried away on the tender.

Aouda, who had coolly shot a number of Sioux, was untouched. Fogg was also unwounded. Fix had a slight wound in 
his arm. Colonel Proctor had not been so lucky. He had received a ball in his groin which had not only incapacitated him but might result in his death. Through his pain, he glared at Fogg, who coolly stared and then turned away.

Verne assumed that it was a Sioux bullet which had struck Proctor. Fogg records that it was he who put the colonel out of action. As soon as he saw that they would be safe, he had shot the colonel. He would have put the bullet in the man’s head if he had been absolutely certain that he was a Capellean. In any event, he wanted to make sure that he would not be delayed.

As it turned out, he was held up anyway. On being informed that Passepartout and several other passengers had been carried off, he determined to go after them. This meant that the train would leave without him and that he would probably not catch his steamer at New York. He did not hesitate. He could not desert the brave Frenchman, knowing that he would be horribly tortured by the savages. He shamed the captain of the troopers into getting thirty volunteers to accompany him on a rescue expedition. That Fogg offered five thousand dollars to be split among the troopers may have had something to do with their willingness to face the Sioux. And that Passepartout was carrying the distorter may have had something to do with Fogg’s insistence on going after him. However, in view of his character, it would be well to dismiss this unworthy thought.

Fix, be it noted, stayed behind. He did not believe that any of the party would return. He would have liked to volunteer, because this would have removed the last of Fogg’s suspicions about him. But at the thought of what the Indians d id to their captives, he quailed.

Afterward, he cursed himself for a coward. But what a brave fellow that Fogg was! Eridanean or not, he... But no! Such thoughts were treasonable. He paced back and forth before the station house. Should he enter and make himself known to Proctor? Or was the colonel even aware that he, Fix, was a Capellean? If so, he had made no recognition signal. And if Proctor did not know, then Fix would have a perfect excuse for his inaction. Nemo, who had stayed behind in San Francisco, had only instructed him to stick close to Fogg. He was to report on Fogg’s activities when an agent made contact with him.

The train pulled out, leaving Fix and Aouda behind. Watching it dwindle on the vast prairie, Fix suddenly lost his sense of security at having at least followed Nemo’s orders. He was not supposed to leave Fogg for any reason. And he had refused to go with him! What would Nemo say? He knew well what he would say. Unless Fogg did come back, Fix was lost. Nemo would say that Passepartout and Fogg might have used the distorter to get away from both Sioux and Capelleans. Fix would argue that this was not likely. To use the distorter, Fogg would have to rescue Passepartout first, and how could he do that? Besides, it was thought that the Eridaneans had only one distorter left. Where was the other one needed for their transmission?

Nemo would reply that it was uncertain that the enemy had only one device. Moreover, what was to prevent the wily Fogg from repeating the 
Mary Celeste
 incident with the distorter now carried by the Chinese agent? Indeed, the Chinese agent may have been killed by the Eridaneans, who would then be in possession of a second distorter.

And this had happened because Fix had not been able to 
help Nemo on the 
General Grant.
 And had Fix been as sick as he said he was? Perhaps he had been malingering. And so on. A fatal so on.

Fix went into the station house. If he had no internal fire to warm him, he could at least get an external fire from the stove. But he went out again almost at once. He felt a need to be punished. He would sit out here and freeze until Fogg came back. At least, until the sun arose. The sun. It was said to be ninety-three million miles away. He had heard Earthlings exclaim with wonder at this inconceivable distance. He had always snickered inwardly when this happened. What did they know of the mindreeling stretch of interstellar space? His own homeland was forty-five light-years away. A man walking twenty miles a day would take four million and six hundred and fifty thousand days to travel to the sun. Almost thirteen thousand years. Yet that was a mere stroll to the corner green-grocer’s for one who walked to Capella.

His homeland? Why did he call it that? In reality, he had never seen it nor had any of his ancestors. He and they were homebodies, Earthlings, in fact. They had always been restricted to this tiny far-off planet. Only the Old Ones could call Capella home, and even those who had come from it were probably all dead.

The original settlers had stopped here because they had thought that it might make a site for another fort. Also, because they had to make scientific survey of this unknown planet. They had to ascertain, among other things, if it held sentients. And, if it did, if the sentients were dangerous to Capella. That had happened over two hundred years ago. The sentients then, and now, were a long way from interstellar, or even interplanetary, flight.

By the time they attained the latter, they would probably 
kill themselves, the whole planet, too, with nuclear wars or, even more probably, global pollution. It was doubtful that their technology, and its intelligent use, would ever match their ability to create social stupidities. If it did, it would be too late. Or so said the original Old Ones. The mystics among them claimed that man was descended from some type of now-extinct ape. The simian strain would never die out, no matter how far the physical appearance of the human species got from the simian. They were inherently committed to dirt and dissension.

But if they had proper guidance?

If the Old Ones had been able to land in force, instead of in a single scoutship, they could have conquered the sentients. These, guided by the Old One’s superior wisdom and knowledge, could have been set on the right path. But the Old Ones had to hide while they observed. Otherwise, they would have been killed, no matter how many thousands they might have slaughtered.

The Old Ones were just completing their report on Earth when the Eridaneans landed. There had been war, and both spaceships had been damaged beyond repair. And so both forces had gone underground. With surgery, they had remodified their bodies to pass for humans. After a while, because of their small numbers, they had enlisted a few Earthlings as allies. Through infant adoption, secret education, the bloodsharing ceremony, and, strongest of all, the millennium medicine, they had secured the loyalty of their allies. There was also the Great Plan which would make mankind long-lived and happy.

But first, the Eridaneans must be exterminated.

Fix shook with the cold. He was freezing to the core of his 
brain. The fires were going out. Still, there were enough to cast some shadows. Now he could see, suddenly, without the obstacle of the shadows. He must be frozen through and through. Emotions were dead; only logic could live in this extreme cold. If the Capelleans and Eridaneans were so highly advanced, why had they ever thought it necessary to make war on each other? War was all right for the Earthlings, since they were so retarded. They did not know any better. They were still like baboons. But why the two peoples from the stars?

The Old Ones had said—or so he had been told—that the Eridaneans had started it all. They were not quite as advanced as the Capelleans, not at least in social wisdom. They had attacked the Capelleans somewhere on some outpost planet many millennia ago. And the Capelleans had been forced to fight or become extinct.

The sun rose. Fix became a little warmer though no less confused.

Shortly after seven, he heard a shot. He rushed out toward the sound with the soldiers and found Fogg, Passepartout, and two other passengers marching with the volunteer troopers. Aouda, too choked up to talk, could only hold Fogg’s hand. Fix was happy yet ashamed. Passepartout was lamenting how much he had cost Fogg in money and time so far. Then he looked around for the train and became even more desolate on finding that it had gone on.

Phileas Fogg was twenty-four hours behind schedule.

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