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Tears of the Sun, Milk of the Moon

Winter 1635 to Early 1637

Surinamese Short Wet Season (December 1635–January 1636),

On the banks of the Coppename, Western Suriname

Maria Vorst, artist, botanist, and author, mulled over the tribulations of life in the Suriname rainforests. Frequent downpours. Oppressive heat when it wasn’t raining. Hungry crocodilians looking for a human-sized snack. Venomous snakes that didn’t take kindly to passers-by. Hordes of biting, stinging and otherwise annoying insects. Tropical diseases that could kill you or make you wish you were dead.

She loved it anyway.

But all good things must come to an end.

Maria peered into the bush. “Just a little farther, Henrique, and we’ll be through.”

The down-time Europeans thought the jungle was impenetrable, hundreds upon hundreds of miles of dense vegetation. In fact, Maria suspected that all too many up-timers thought the same, their knowledge of the jungle being based primarily on vague recollections of Tarzan movies.

As she had explained to the readers of her popular travelogue, Into the Rainforest with Musket and Paintbrush, “the rainforest floor is dark, shaded by the rainforest canopy. Since it’s dark, there’s not a lot of vegetation.” To Maria with her artist’s eye, the true jungle was like a cathedral, with an emerald roof, and great open chapels for the worship of nature.

The “jungle” only looked like an up-time Hollywood movie jungle if you were on the river, where there was plenty of sunlight to make plants happy. But if you wiggled or cut your way through the “jungle wall” bordering the river, you entered the true jungle, the Green Cathedral.

Henrique da Costa raised his machete and took another swing.

* * *

Henrique and Maria first met in Fort Kykoveral, back in 1634. Henrique was a Marrano, a Jew who had practiced his religion in secret in Catholic Brazil, and Maria was a steadfast Protestant, of the Arminian persuasion. In a world divided by religion, it didn’t bode well for romance. An early flirtation had fizzled out.

Still, they were close friends, with a love of the outdoors, and so they talked as they settled into their respective hammocks that night. Henrique, who had lived in the Amazon for many years, had taught her the trick of rocking oneself to sleep. You fastened a rope to the side of the hammock, and led it off at right angles. Wrap it halfway around a convenient tree trunk and lead the free end back. Give it a couple of pulls, and the hammock would rock back-and-forth for many minutes.

But Maria wasn’t ready for sleep just yet. “Henrique, I received a very interesting proposal from the Danes. The Danish East India Company wants to set up rubber plantations in Asia. Preferably near their trading post at Tranquebar, in southeastern India, but if need be, elsewhere. We know that rubber can be grown in plantations in Malabar, Ceylon, Burma, Siam, Cochinchina, Malaya, Sumatra, Java and Borneo—it’s in the up-time books.”

“So they want us to teach them how to tap the milk of the rubber tree, huh?”

“They don’t just want tapping lessons, they want rubber tree seeds.”

“Why should we help them kill off our rubber industry? Isn’t that what the British did to Brazil in the old time line?”

“They have pointed out to David’s shareholders that it is only possible to harvest wild rubber in South America, because the South American Leaf Blight spreads too easily when the trees are close together.” An up-time book on South America had mentioned the failure of the Ford rubber plantation at “Fordlandia” and a modern edition of Encyclopedia Britannica had made more general reference to the blight. “Gustavus will get shares in the rubber plantations as compensation. And in addition, the Danes will bring us seeds and cuttings for other tropical plants: cacao, sugarcane, and perhaps even coffee. So we’ll have plantations of our own.”

“Ah. Something for everyone.”

“But the rubber tree seeds they want aren’t those of the local species, Hevea guianensis. They want Hevea brasiliensis.”

Henrique stopped rocking. “So that’s why you’re talking to me.”

“That’s right. You ran the rubber tapping operation in the Tapajós before the Portuguese discovered you were Jewish. So you know exactly where to look for good producers.”

“And I also know the ‘back door’ into the Amazon.” Henrique and his servant Maurício, with the help of the Manao Indians Coqui and Kasiri, had discovered a connection, the sometime-lake Rupununi, between the Amazon and Essequibo river basins.

“We can retrace your escape route.”

Henrique pondered this for a while. “I don’t know whether to hope for a final encounter with Bento Maciel Parente, or not.” Henrique had sought to protect “his” Indians from Parente, and it was Parente who had been Henrique’s most dogged pursuer during his flight.

“He’s not worth your taking unnecessary risks, Henrique.”

Henrique grunted. Maria couldn’t tell whether it was a grunt of agreement.

“Wait,” said Henrique. “Rubber tree seeds have to be planted within a few days or they just die. At least, the ones here do. And it will take months to pack them out of the Amazon by my ‘back door.’ And a couple more months, at least, to get them back to Europe.”

“A few days, if they aren’t protected from dessication or fungal attack. But the encyclopedia says to pack them in dry soil or charcoal, and I have done experiments with our native Guianan seeds that suggest that with the right packing material and containers, we can keep them viable for a month or two. Maybe longer with a fungicide.”

“But surely we can’t get them back to Europe that soon.”

“The Danes have promised me a very fast ship, although I am not permitted to reveal details, and I think that I might even be able to plant the seeds in soil while still on board, as long as I do it once I am sure we are outside of the range of the leaf blight. Then I can keep the seedlings alive in Wardean boxes.”

“Well, I’m glad for you, Maria. I know you have wanted to see the Amazon, and it’s nice that you will be able to do so at someone else’s expense.”

Maria sat up in her hammock. “Henrique, look at me. After we go to the Amazon, I am returning to Europe. The king of Denmark has decided that he should have a botanical garden and he wants me to be the curator. He is going to build me a greenhouse, since the winters are so cold in Copenhagen, and I will be able to go on expedition to Asia. To Asia, Henrique!”

“I see.”

“Don’t look glum. You could come with me. I would welcome a partner of your experience.”

“I don’t know, Maria. In the Amazon, I am an expert. But in Asia, I would be a, a . . . what is that American term?”

“Greenhorn?”

“That’s the one.”

“I think you underestimate how quickly you would adjust. I know that I have read up-time books about naturalists who traveled all over the world. Gerald Durrell, for one.”

“I’ll think about it.”

African Market Village, Near Paramaribo

Carsten Claus ducked his head as he entered the audience room of the “Jungle King” and then stood for a moment in appreciation of its rude grandeur.

The jungle king was seated on an ornately carved stool, and an attendant was briskly waving a large palm branch. The great monarch wore a loincloth, a cavalier’s hat with a rakishly positioned harpy eagle tail feather, and a necklace whose pièce de resistance was a pierced fragment of an old CD.

“Well, Maurício, you’ve certainly come up in the world.”

Maurício made a deprecating gesture. “Tempore felici, multi numerantur amici. Cum fortuna perit, nullus amicus erit.” It was a reminder that despite his present appearance, he was one of the better educated men in the colony.

“So how’s the king-ing business going for you?”

“Well enough. With great regret I had to dismiss the proposal that as chief-of-chiefs I should take a wife from each of the African tribes making up our little confederation.”

“You didn’t fancy yourself the Sultan of Suriname, complete with seraglio?”

“It sounded good in theory. And among Kasiri’s people, the chiefs are polygamists, so she didn’t reject the proposal out of hand.” Kasiri was an Indian from Manao in the Amazon. “But there weren’t a lot of women among the slaves we freed; perhaps one in three. And most of the ones who were of marriageable age got hooked up pretty quickly after the landing. So I’d have to either to take another man’s wife away, which is asking for trouble, or pick from the few unattached women of each tribe. Who of course are the ones who didn’t get picked already, if you get my drift.”

“Well, I have a little project to take your mind off political marriages, or the lack thereof. I got an interesting letter from the Danish East India Company—”

“The East Indies are half a world away from here.”

Carsten shrugged. “There’s no Danish West India Company to tell them to bugger off. It has come to their attention that plants grow rather vigorously here. Perhaps you can interest some of your tribesmen in going into the vegetable oil business? Palms, perhaps?”

“For cooking?”

“I think the Danes are more interested in biofuel.” His eyes strayed to the bowl of fruit on the table beside Maurício.

“Help yourself,” said Maurício. “As you said, plants grow rather vigorously here, so there’re plenty more where that came from.”

Carsten reached for a passion fruit, and took a quick bite. “What a luscious juice it has.” He spat out a seed. “The fuel’s to support a pet project of Maria’s, that they’ve been corresponding with her about.”

“Well, if it’s for Maria, and it’s paying work, by all means.”

Surinamese Short Dry Season (February to March) 1636,

Gustavus (Paramaribo)

Lorenz Baum, the colony’s master carpenter, rolled up the plans. “And what did you say this structure was for?”

“A watchtower,” Carsten Claus, acting governor of the colony of Gustavus, said.

“Well, you certainly want a watchtower that isn’t going to fall down anytime soon. It is quite . . .” The carpenter hunted for the word he wanted. “Substantial.”

“It’s forty-plus feet tall; I don’t want it blown down.”

“It will have tripod supports fixed in concrete. It would take a hurricane to blow it down. And Maria said that according to those up-time encyclopedias, hurricanes never hit this coast.”

“Well, if you really want to know . . .” Carsten lowered his voice, and the carpenter involuntarily leaned closer. “It’s Maria’s idea. Make it fancy enough, and we can put it about to the Indians and the Africans that it’s a magic thing, that it will do all sorts of bad things to anyone who attacks the town, and even worse things to anyone who tries to burn it or knock it down. And that way, if we have a falling out, they will think twice before attacking.”

“Oh. That makes a strange kind of sense. Well, I best be getting back to the shop and make sure that apprentice of mine is working and not trying to spot the Indian girls skinny-dipping.”

Fort Lincoln, Near the Mouth of the Suriname River, Suriname

It was nearly sunset when the strange canoe slipped up the Suriname river. The sentinel in the watchtower at Fort Lincoln blew on a conch shell, summoning his sergeant.

“Well, I hope this was worth interrupting my dinner,” that worthy grumbled.

“It’s a canoe,” the sentry said, handing over the scope. “It has a sail, but it doesn’t look like a Carib sail. Don’t they use a square sail, with a mast up front?”

The sergeant squinted. “That’s a spritsail; European influence, for sure. I see two . . . no, three people. . . . You don’t suppose there’s a Spanish army hiding in that palm-thatched hut at the stern?”

The sentry started to apologize for disturbing the sergeant.

“No, no, you did the right thing. By the markings on that sail . . . I think our intrepid explorers have returned. Coqui, Tetube and Kojo, that is.”

“Where from?”

“Maria told me that she had sent them to explore the Marowijne.” That was the river that, in the world the Americans came from, had marked the border between Dutch and French Guiana. “She said that Tetube had kinfolk among the tribes there.”

“Wonder if they found anything interesting?”

The sergeant raised his eyebrows. “Like El Dorado?”

The sentry grinned sheepishly. “There’s always hope . . .”

“Perhaps. Given the course they’re on, I don’t think they plan on stopping here, so I guess we aren’t going to find out anything tonight.”

Gustavus Colony, Paramaribo, Suriname

Coqui, Tetube and Kojo arrived at the Paramaribo dock, tired but pleased with themselves, some minutes later. They asked the dock guard whether their friends were in town. He told them that Maria Vorst and Henrique da Costa were out exploring the Coppename River in western Suriname, and intended to visit the Dutch at Fort Kykoveral, farther west. Maurício, Henrique’s former servant and the present “chief-of-chiefs” of the rescued Africans, was visiting with the Eboe, whose village was on the Commewijne some miles to the east. And his wife Kasiri, Coqui’s sister, was with him.

Kojo was disappointed at the news, but he invited Coqui and Tetube to come back with him to the Ashanti village, farther upriver. The village was a circle of huts. The smell coming from the cooking pots in the center started Coqui’s stomach rumbling, much to Tetube’s amusement.

The travelers might have preferred to sleep, but there was food, drink and dancing. And more drink. Soon, Coqui and Tetube fell asleep.

“More piwari for the rest of us,” Kojo commented.

Antoa, the leader of the local Ashanti, grinned. “Well, how was the trip?”

“I told you—”

“Yes, yes, I know about the color of the Marowijne, and the strange birds, and the Indians you met. But you know what I am really asking about. And you owe me a debt, you know. From before we were taken by the Bad People.” By which he meant slavers.

“Tell no one else,” said Kojo. “At least not until Maria gives permission.”

“She is a powerful seeress, I will do nothing to offend her.”

Kojo sat in front of Antoa, his body hiding his actions from the rest of the villagers. He pulled out a pouch, and carefully shook out the contents. Several nuggets of gold came to rest on his outstretched palm; the largest was the size of his thumbnail. “See? I found enough of these to pay for the release of my children from the Spanish. More than enough, actually.”

Antoa licked his lips. The Ashanti were gold miners and warriors, not farmers. “And was there more?”

“I am sure there’s more. Much more. I could smell it.”

* * *

Antoa was thinking, once again, about Kojo’s gold. Antoa had promised not to tell anyone else about it. No, he remembered, he had promised to do nothing to offend Maria, the seeress. Well, then what was wrong with telling the other Ashanti, and looking for gold themselves? If she were a seeress, then she would know that they were going to do that, wouldn’t she? And she couldn’t take offense at something that was fated to happen.

With this exercise in sophistry completed, at least to his own satisfaction, he went off in search of his hunting partner, Owisu.

Beginning of Long Rainy Season (April to July) of Suriname, 1636,

Near modern Paranam, Suriname

Heinrich Bender set down his shovel with a grunt of relief, and turned to his fellow bauxite miner, Erasmus Stein. “It’s getting late. Where are the Ashanti?”

Erasmus shrugged. “Perhaps it’s some religious thing.”

“Wouldn’t they have told us in advance?”

Erasmus swung his pick, not bothering to answer.

Perhaps an hour later, Kojo arrived.

Heinrich waved. “Where are your buddies, Kojo? We could use some help!”

“I am sorry, my friend,” said Kojo. “They are gone.”

“Gone, why?”

“When a drum has a drumhead, one does not beat the wooden sides,” he said mysteriously.

Heinrich took a moment to think this through. “They found a better occupation than mining?”

“Better than bauxite mining,” Kojo admitted.

“Better than—they found gold? Where? When?”

“They didn’t find it, I did. Where Maria told me to look.”

Erasmus raised his head so abruptly that Heinrich thought it was a wonder it didn’t fly off.

Kojo ignored him. “She is going to be very angry with me when she finds out I told them. But they are my kinfolk, I had no choice. And I had to tell you why they are gone, lest you think that something bad happened.”

“So why are you here, and not looking for more? Or spending what you’ve got?”

“I must wait for Henrique. He is to take me to Havana, so I can find and buy back my children.”

“So, uh . . . just what was it that Maria told you?”

Kojo hesitated.

Heinrich put his arm around Kojo. “When Maria said not to tell anyone, I am sure she meant strangers. You have known me since you came to this place. And I helped free you. It was I who unlocked your shackles on the slave ship.”

Those were the magic words; they unbound Kojo’s lips.

“She said . . . she said that it was near the dream-place Cottica, on the Marowijne. And she was right.”

“Dream-place, are you—oh.” Heinrich suddenly realized it was the best the Ashanti could do with the difficult concept of a town that would have come into existence in the up-timers’ old timeline, but didn’t exist now, and probably would never exist. The town was undoubtedly on the maps that were displayed in what passed in Gustavus for a city hall.

“Can you . . . can you show us what you found? And tell us where to find more?”

On the Marowijne, between modern Suriname and French Guiana

As the Ashanti ascended the Marowijne, they encountered several Indians, presumably Arawaks of some kind. The Indians were naturally alarmed to see such a large party, and black men were totally outside their experience. However, the Ashanti were able to trade for fresh food by dumb barter.

Perhaps ninety miles from where they had entered the Marowijne, the train of Ashanti canoes neared a place where two smaller streams came together to form the Marowijne they had been ascending. The right one was the Tapanahony, and the left, the Lawa.

Recalling Kojo’s instructions, Antoa gestured with his paddle toward the left branch. “That one.”

Just then, a pink-bellied river dolphin leaped into the air, crossing their path, and landing with a great splash.

All the canoes came to an abrupt halt so that the Ashanti could decide whether this was a good omen or a bad one. While dolphins could be seen off the Gold Coast, the Ashanti country began a good fifty miles inland, and their band knew no old tales about them.

After some minutes of fruitless discussion, they decided to make an offering to Tano, the God of Rivers, and keep going.

Soon thereafter, a small Ashanti hunting party came across a lone Indian. He proved brave enough, or foolhardy enough, to come close enough to talk. The Ashanti knew something of the language of the Arawak Indians who lived near the Suriname and Commewijne rivers, and that was good enough. The Indian confirmed that one could find what he called “tears of the Sun” in the creeks that fed into the Lawa, especially after a hard rain, and he agreed to guide them in return for a glass bauble that Antoa offered him.

The Indian also told them that the river dolphins were shapeshifters, who delighted in seducing humans of the opposite sex. Worse, if the object of their attention was married, they could imitate the appearance of the spouse. Leading, he told the Ashanti, to conversations along the lines of, “Again? Didn’t you get enough this afternoon? What do you mean this afternoon, I was out fishing all day!”

The Ashanti agreed that for the next few nights, until they were well away from the river junction, no one, man or woman, should be left alone.

Gustavus

Heinrich Bender heaved another bag of provisions into the canoe. Last one, he thought with relief. Now where’s Erasmus? The sun’s only a couple of handwidths above the horizon.

But the person who next greeted him was someone other than Erasmus. Someone quite unwelcome, in fact.

“Where’s the party?” asked the dock guard, Nikolaus.

Heinrich made a vague wave in the general direction of Fort Lincoln. “Just a private party in New Carthage.” That was the local name for the Africans’ market town, at the confluence of the Suriname and Commewijne rivers, and it was of course Maurício’s fault. At least he had failed to convince the colonists to call it Carthago Nova.

Erasmus ran up. “I bought us another shovel, and—” Erasmus suddenly noticed Nikolaus.

“Going to do the shovel dance at the party, huh, Erasmus?” said Nikolaus.

“None of your goddamn business, Nikolaus!”

“Oh really, Erasmus. You’ve been here less than a year, didn’t even fight the Imbangala, and you think you can tell me what questions I can ask. Well, I’m the Dock Guard”—his voice capitalized the words—“and I think you’re behaving suspiciously. I can ask all the questions I please.”

“Take it easy, Nikolaus,” said Heinrich. “I came here on the first ship, so I have seniority over you.”

“So you do, but I need to know that you aren’t off to bury a body somewhere. In fact—”

He blew a whistle. “I have called for reinforcements.”

Two more guards arrived, seeming pleased by the break in routine.

“Okay, let’s see what’s in the canoe,” Nikolaus ordered. Heinrich and Erasmus slowly laid the contents out.

“Two pans? You can’t share a pan?”

“It’s, it’s a hygiene thing,” Heinrich explained. Nikolaus’ sniff suggested that he was unimpressed by this explanation.

The solar disk was touching the ocean by the time they were told, “You’re free to go.”

Heinrich and Erasmus tossed their goods into the canoe, without worrying about being neat about it, and pushed off.

“I told you sneaking away was a dumb idea,” Heinrich whispered to Erasmus.

* * *

Nikolaus had been on duty the day that Kojo, Coqui and Tetube had returned, too. As he tried to fall asleep that night, he wondered again why Coqui and Tetube would have brought an African miner from the Gold Coast with them.

The next day, Nikolaus went looking for Kojo. And told him that the regulations of the colony required that all gold discoveries, including their amount and location, be reported to a duly appointed officer of the law, such as—he preened slightly—himself.

Kojo sighed, and made the report. “I expected this,” he admitted.

“Oh?”

“Under Ashanti law, all gold mining must be reported to the king. How much must I pay the governor?”

“Uh . . . I’m not sure,” Nikolaus back-pedaled. “What’s the royal cut back home?”

“One-third.”

“That sounds reasonable, but I will have to ask the governor. Be patient, and I’ll let you know.”

“Take your time,” urged Kojo. “There’s no rush.”

* * *

“This paddling is more work than mining was,” Erasmus complained. “I wish we could use a sail.” The wind was then blowing from the east, and would have made eastward progress impossible even with a sail far more sophisticated than that of their canoe.

Heinrich snorted. “So do I, Erasmus, so do I. But be thankful that we are paddling against the puny current of the Cottica, not the great ocean current off the coast of Suriname.” The Cottica was a tributary of the Commewijne. In one of the monthly lectures that she gave for the entertainment and edification of the colonists, Maria had mentioned that according to up-time encyclopedias, in the flood season, you could cross over from the Cottica to a tributary of the Marowijne, and follow that down to the latter. Which was a good thing, because the entrance of the Marowijne was pretty dangerous. Not just because of the Caribs, but also because of rocks and odd currents.

* * *

Some days later, Heinrich and Erasmus were in the swamp, really a seasonally drowned forest, which bridged the two river systems. Heinrich and Erasmus felt pretty much drowned themselves, having just gone through a downpour that felt like sitting under a waterfall. But the sun had come out, and they were drying out gradually, with a renewed appreciation of why the natives didn’t bother much with clothing.

Now, birds were chirping . . . and Erasmus was cursing. “I always thought Hell was all fiery and red, but now I know it’s watery and green.” He had just pulled on his oar and struck some obstruction, a submerged log or tree root, and the impact had jarred him badly.

“It grows on you,” said Heinrich, giving Erasmus only a fraction of his attention. He was trying to read the primitive compass he had brought along. “And don’t jostle me, damn it; if I drop this compass in the muck, we’ll never find our way out.” He waited for the needle to steady.

“Okay, we’re still bearing east . . .” Heinrich picked up his own paddle. Soon it was his turn to complain. The waters were even shallower now, and it seemed as though they were hitting an underwater obstruction every few strokes.

Some monkeys howled overhead.

“Shut up!” Erasmus yelled at them. In response, they bombarded him with clots of shit. Erasmus grabbed his musket and tried to sight on them, but it was hopeless. They were well hidden in the green canopy above the colonists.

“I wish I could climb after the little buggers and throttle them. In fact, I wish we could just swing through the trees like them and not have to paddle at all . . .”

“Not have to paddle . . .” Heinrich repeated. “Put down your paddle, Erasmus, and try this.” He reached up and pulled on a stout liana hanging in front of him, pulling the boat forward. After a moment, Erasmus imitated him. There was no lack of vines to choose from. It was slow, but it was easier on the anatomy.

Ashanti Village

“Hey, Kojo, we’d like a word with you.” The three colonists formed a triangle around him.

“What do you want?” His eyes measured the gap between them, and the distance to where he had set down his machete.

“We’d like to see this gold you found.”

He shook his head vigorously. “Didn’t find gold.”

In the privacy of his thoughts, he groaned. Heinrich and Erasmus must have gossiped about it! After they promised to keep it secret, too!

“Don’t worry, we’re not going to take it from you. . . . But we want to see it.”

Kojo had an unpleasant vision of what they might do if he continued to stonewall. “I gave it to the governor. For safekeeping.” That was true.

“Shit!” said the shortest of the three. “He’s probably got it in the Company treasury-house.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said the tallest. “Now we’re sure that the story’s true; there’s gold to be found. So where’d you find it, Kojo?”

Kojo didn’t answer quickly enough, and “Shortie” punched him in the stomach. Kojo whooshed.

“He can’t talk if he can’t breathe,” admonished “The Tall One.”

The third man spoke up. “Listen, Kojo, we colonists freed you and your kinfolk from those slavers. You find gold, you have to tell us where you found it.”

Kojo started to explain.

“Fuck, this is too complicated,” said Shortie. “Why don’t we just take him with us? He can guide us every step of the way.”

The Tall One shrugged. “Sounds good to me, if you’re willing to guard him. Gag and hogtie him for tonight. Tomorrow we’ll hide him under a tarp, and paddle down to the Marowijne.”

Soon Kojo was tied to a tree, with only his thoughts to keep him company. The spirits have punished me for disobeying Maria. I shouldn’t have told Antoa. I shouldn’t have spoken to Heinrich. I shouldn’t have believed that guard who said that the law required that I report any gold finds.

* * *

Tetube pointed at the canoe tied up a mile downriver of the Ashanti village. “Why would the Ashanti leave a canoe there? There are better places right by the village.” Tetube and Coqui had decided to visit Kojo.

“I don’t know,” whispered Coqui. “Perhaps someone wanted to surprise them.” He stopped paddling and grabbed his bow. He let the current carry them back downstream until the mystery canoe was out of sight around a bend. Then he put the bow down again, and brought their own canoe to the water’s edge.

“Stay in the canoe, keep a paddle in hand. I will check out what’s going on.” He grabbed his bow and machete.

* * *

Coqui crawled through the brush. In due course, he came close enough to hear Kojo struggling with his bonds. He motioned for Kojo to stay still, and cut him free. Kojo then whispered to him what had happened.

“You’re sure they left the paddles in the canoe?”

Kojo nodded.

“Then our best bet is to make our escape in their canoe. On my signal . . .”

Coqui studied his surroundings with his eyes, ears, even his nose. Then he made a sharp arm gesture, and he and Kojo ran, half-crouched, for the canoe. Coqui cleaved the tie line with his machete, and Kojo jumped in and grabbed a paddle. As Coqui pushed the little craft into the water, they could hear the colonists rouse themselves. “Huh, did you make a noise? Wasn’t me! So what was that snap I heard? You stupid shithead, you just stepped on me! Hey, where’s the prisoner! Shit, they’re stealing our canoe!”

Coqui pulled himself into the canoe as the first kidnapper stumbled down to the bank and fired in the wrong direction.

Once he was sure he was out of range, Coqui yelled, “have a nice walk back home!”

* * *

After they were safely away, and had beached and hidden the canoes, they talked about what to do next. Kojo told them that these weren’t the first colonists to harass him, only the nastiest. And predicted that it was only a matter of time before like-minded whites went after his fellow explorers Coqui and Tetube, even though they weren’t gold miners like Kojo.

They decided to leave the Suriname River—there were too many potentially gold-hungry Gustavans traveling on it—and enter the swamp-and-ridge country to the east. There were African and Indian camps there, and they could take refuge with them. They would have a message taken to Maurício, Coqui’s brother-in-law, at New Carthage, and he would let them know when Maria and Henrique returned. Maria and Henrique would protect them. At least, if Maria forgave Kojo for breaching her trust.

Gustavus

The acting governor, Carsten Claus, looked up from his paperwork. “Heyndrick. How may I help you?”

“Carsten, something very odd is going on. First the Ashanti stopped mining, and then the whites.”

“What are they doing instead?”

“Doing? I have no idea. They have disappeared into the forest.”

“Without explanation?”

“None that any of their friends are willing to share with me, at least. I am afraid that as the boss’ cousin, I’m not likely to get a straight answer.”

Carsten stood up, and started pacing. “Shit, I don’t need this now, I have to go upriver to check on the English at Marshall’s Creek. Dirck’ll be in charge in my absence, so tell him what you’ve told me. . . .”

He stopped in mid-stride, and laughed. “I hate it when I do that.” He sat back down, and leaned back. “I suppose it’s not the end of the world. They’ll tire eventually of whatever it is that has caught their fancy, and we can go a few months without bauxite mining. It’s just being stockpiled until Essen Chemical gets the kinks out of their aluminum refining process.”

With this rather tepid assurance, Heyndrick left.

Not for the first time, Carsten Claus wished that the official governor, Heyndrick’s cousin David Pieterszoon de Vries, had as much enthusiasm for governing as he did for exploring, trading, and starting colonies. He had not skippered the last supply ship to service Gustavus, and the captain of that ship had not been willing to venture a guess as to when David might deign to reappear.

The next day, Carsten took the Siren upriver, leaving the colony in the hands of Captain Dirck Adrienszoon, the commander of Fort Lincoln. On the journey south, he thought about Heyndrick’s warning. Adrienszoon was competent, if a bit on the unimaginative side. But Carsten didn’t think it likely that anything would happen that Dirck couldn’t handle. It wasn’t as though the Gustavus Colony was producing anything that the Spanish or French would deem so valuable as to justify the expense of a major invasion force.

* * *

Elias, the carpenter’s apprentice, was thinking, for once, of gold, not skinny-dipping Indian girls. Rumors were circulating, whispered by one lad to another—always under an injunction of secrecy—that Kojo had found a gold nugget. As big as an up-timer’s baseball. Unfortunately, the rumors disagreed as to where this golden baseball had pitched itself into his lap. Some said the gold was farther up the Suriname, others remembered Kojo’s little expedition and favored the Marowijne. And still others agreed that Kojo had found gold on that trip, but urged that he only pretended to go to the Marowijne, and in fact had sailed westward, to the Saramacca.

They couldn’t ask Kojo, because he had apparently gone into hiding. Or perhaps returned to his El Dorado for more gold.

On a tributary of the Lawa River, in Eastern Guiana

Afia ever so carefully transferred the remaining river sand, and a bit of water, to her smallest calabash. This one she had dyed black, to make specks of gold easier to spot.

Ama, Antoa’s wife, came up beside her. “Mena wo akye.” Good morning.

Afia bowed her head respectfully. “Yaa Ena.” Thank you, Respected Elder Woman.

She swirled the water around a bit, rinsing the sand.

“Ah.” In her hair she had several feathers from various Suriname birds. They weren’t there purely as ornamentation. The tips had been cut off and the hollows inside plugged with wild cotton. She pulled out one of these quills and unplugged it. Then, with wood tweezers, she carefully teased out the shiny grain of gold she had just spotted, and stored it inside the quill.

“Keep up the good work,” said Ama. She then showed the other Ashanti a sample of the sand that Afia had been panning.

* * *

“What’s this? What’s this?” asked Antoa. “Yes, it is gold.” He raised his voice, “Afia has found a fine nugget. Let us dam this creek, so we can dig into the mother-of-gold.” He meant the richest layer of gravel.

Ama put her lips beside Afia’s ear and whispered. “The hen knows when it’s daybreak, but allows the rooster to make the announcement.”

* * *

Elias finished writing his note, and left it where the master would find it. Hopefully not right away, however.

He swung the sack containing the last of his gear over his shoulder, and slowly opened the door a crack. He stuck his head out and looked both ways to make sure the coast was clear.

Then . . . he gurgled as the door was closed and held, trapping his head.

“Where do you think you’re going, young Elias?” And then his master’s hand closed on the nape of his shirt, and pulled him inexorably back into the room.

* * *

Elias sat on the floor in the corner of the room, eyes downcast, as Master Carpenter Lorenz Baum examined the contents of the sack. “It appears you are ready to embark on some great adventure. Care to tell me about it?”

The silence grew.

“If there’s anything a carpenter can find quickly enough, if needed, it’s a nice, long, hefty stick. . . .”

“Note.” Elias muttered.

“Note what?”

“I put a note in your Bible. Thought you wouldn’t find it until Sunday.”

“You’re in no position to be critical, Elias. Let me see . . . uh-huh . . . uh-huh . . . Very generous of you, offering to pay me double the usual apprenticeship release fee once you returned victoriously from the gold fields of the Marowijne.” He crumpled the note, and tossed it into Elias’ lap.

“Tell me, Elias, did you listen to Maria’s lecture on gold mining?”

A vigorous nod.

“I suppose I am not surprised; I remember it was well attended. It was doubtless more romantic sounding than the ones on rubber or bauxite. I can assure you that I paid close attention to what she said. I bet you’ve forgotten that she said that even in a gold rush, most miners made less money than they would have digging ditches.”

“But if you struck it rich—”

“Well, Elias, I’d bet my last thaler that it’s easier to get rich selling equipment to the gold miners, than trying to find it yourself.

“So this is what I propose. You tell me who is planning to go treasure hunting, and help me make and sell them wooden pans and rockers and whatnot. And once one of the colonists—not an Ashanti—finds gold, I will release you from your contract, if that’s still what you want.

“But for now, put this stuff back where it belongs, get some sleep . . . and don’t forget that we old master craftsmen are very light sleepers . . .”

* * *

Sometime later, the Patientia, a small Dutch fluyt, made its way up the Suriname River. The captain’s intent had been to make his New World landfall in the Windward Islands of the Caribbean. However, a hurricane had forced him to divert southward, out of harm’s way. He then decided to make just a short stop at Gustavus, for drinking water and fresh fruit.

But Lorenz and Elias had set up a stall in the market square, where they were selling dugout canoes, mining equipment, instructions, and maps.

Within twenty-four hours, the entire crew of the Patientia had bought prospecting gear, deserted, and crossed the Suriname like a swarm of locusts looking for crops to devour.

A day later, the first and second mates decided that the crew would not be reappearing any time soon, and joined the gold rush.

The Patientia’s captain held out until the end of the week.

African Market Village

Maria Vorst spoke. “I understand you’re running a witness protection program, Maurício.”

“Maria, you’re back!” They embraced. “What in the name of all the saints is a ‘witness protection program’?” Maurício inquired.

“Something I heard about when I was living in Grantville. I understand that since a certain gold rush started, you’ve had the three principals in hiding.”

“I do.”

“I’d like to speak to them.”

* * *

“I wish we had never found the gold, Maria,” said Coqui. “It drives your people crazy.” Kojo vigorously agreed.

“Sorry about that.” Maria noticed that Tetube was standing protectively close to Coqui. “I see you have a girlfriend.”

Coqui grinned and put an arm around Tetube. “I have a wife, once it’s safe for me to leave Maurício’s village and bring her home for a proper ceremony.”

“I am glad you mentioned that,” said Maria. “Henrique and I would like to help you do just that. Take you by ship to Fort Kyk-Over-Al, and then you can paddle back from there. You remember the way?”

Coqui nodded curtly, and Maria blushed. She realized that it was the equivalent of asking a burgher from Amsterdam if he remembered how to get to church. Or to the neighborhood tavern.

“Excellent. I think you told me that the trees with the sticky milk, the ones that we saw near Marshall’s Creek, also grow near your own village.”

“Cousin trees. Not quite the same. But they have the sticky milk inside.”

“I understand. We would like you and your people to collect the seeds for us, and cover them with banana leaves, or something similar.” The banana had been brought to Brazil from West Africa in the sixteenth century. “And keep them dry, very dry, but without putting them in fire.

“We will come get them, and give you and your people something nice in exchange. What do you think they might like?”

Coqui considered this. “Steel knives and axes. Iron fishhooks. Glass beads.”

“What about me?” asked Kojo. “Should I go with you, or stay here?”

“Stay here. Captain de Vries will return, soon enough, and I have letters for him about your situation. You have your gold, so you can buy back your children. But we need to find a trustworthy Spanish agent to handle the matter, and that’s best done in Europe. You’ll go to Hamburg with him.”

“I am sorry I told the others, Maria,” said Kojo sorrowfully. “I was afraid you would punish me.”

“Some secrets are too big to be kept.”

Near the River Lawa, Eastern Guiana

The Ashanti continued to work the creeks along the Lawa. They had decided that they would wait at least for the middle of the wet season before heading back to their village on the banks of the Suriname. In Ghana, their homeland, it was customary for whole households, even whole villages, to relocate to the goldfields when the rains began. They would loosen the deposits in the streams, making them easier to work, whether by panning or the usually more productive shallow pit mining. But later in the rainy season, the pits would be flooded and unworkable, and at that point they would take advantage of the higher water level to paddle back the way that had come.

Some of the Ashanti thought that there was no point in heading back, that they should found a new village here on the Lawa, or at least somewhere nearby. But the chief decided that they couldn’t do this without at least giving some kind of notice to Gustavus. After all, they had agreed to help the colonists mine bauxite.

“Dammabo” Creek

They heard it over the rustlings of the leaves and the gurglings of the water: “Kro kro kro kro ko kyini kyini kyini kro kyini ka ka ka kyini kyini kyini kyini ka.” The Ashanti froze for an instant, then the men set down their tools and reached for their weapons, as the women took cover in the vegetation lining the Dammabo. What they had heard was the call of the kokokyinaka, the “blue plantain-eater,” the “clockbird” that greeted the morning, the “drummer’s child.” It was a bird of their forest homeland, and in the two years they had lived in Suriname, they had never seen one.

To hear it now, late in the day and far from Ghana, could mean only one thing: the lookout they had posted where the creek waters mingled with those of the Lawa had spotted hostile, or potentially hostile, intruders.

Most of the Ashanti men crouched behind the boles of the great trees, with muskets or bows readied. Owisu and another man crawled through the jungle wall and headed down toward the Marowijne, seeking more information.

Exchanging bird calls, they caught up with their sentry, who explained why he had raised the alarm. “Two men we know, Heinrich and Erasmus, were panning where the Abonsuo meets the Lawa.” An abonsuo was what they called a calabash when it was used for gold panning; the Abonsuo was the creek immediately downstream of the Dammabo. “I saw them when I did my walk-around. I came back here.

“At mid-day, I heard arguing from the direction of the Abonsuo. I went back there and saw that there were three new white men there. All of the whites had hands near their weapons, and their faces were snarly. They complained that Heinrich and Erasmus had had plenty of time to pan the Abonsuo and it was time they gave someone else a chance. They said that they should ‘help’ Heinrich and Erasmus, and split what was found. Heinrich and Erasmus kept telling them to go away. Finally, they did. I followed them, and heard them talking to each other. They plan to wait until it is dark and then kill Heinrich and Erasmus, and take their gold dust and their panning place.”

The two Ashanti reinforcements exchanged looks, then Awisu ordered. “Tell Antoa. We will watch now.” The sentry picked his way back up the creek.

Some minutes later, the sentry returned with Antoa and many of the Ashanti warriors.

“These are very bad men,” said Antoa. “They will try to kill Heinrich and Erasmus, who are our friends. I think we should kill them instead. But let us talk to Heinrich and Erasmus first, so they can tell the other whites that we are not starting a war with them.”

Near Fort Lincoln, Mouth of Suriname River

David de Vries hadn’t a care in the world. He was at sea, with a clear sky, the trades blowing firmly on his starboard quarter, and a flying fish had just jumped on deck in front of him.

By day’s end he should arrive at Gustavus, the colony he had founded, and he expected to be fawned over. He was the governor and founder, after all.

The lookout called down from the masthead. “Captain, you better take a look at Fort Lincoln. It just don’t look right.”

David sighed. So much for a life without care. He raised his spyglass. The fort seemed deserted. What did it mean? Had the Spanish, or the Caribs, attacked and killed everyone? Had there been an outbreak of plague?

Not an attack. The fort looked too, too neat. And even if plague killed everyone in the fort, it wouldn’t wipe out the entire colony, and the fort would be reoccupied. Well, unless it were, what did Maria call it? Septicemic or pneumonic plague.

Wait. There was someone at the fort. And that person was hopping about, therefore not sick, and yet had not raised the yellow quarantine flag to warn off visitors.

David ordered his dinghy lowered, and made his way down the rope ladder.

* * *

“Thank God you’re here, David,” said Captain Dirck Adrienszoon.

“So what happened?”

“I think we should talk in private,” Dirck replied, minutely jerking his head in the general direction of David’s coxswain.

David ordered the coxswain to go up to the fort’s watchtower, and stay there until David called for him or he saw something that ought be reported.

In Dirck’s office, David got the bad news.

“We’ve had an attack of the fever, David.”

“Malaria? Yellowjack?”

“No, gold fever. One of the Ashanti, Kojo, went exploring with Coqui and Tetube, up the Marowijne, and apparently they came back with some nuggets. Then the rest of the Ashanti decided to try their luck, followed by many of the whites. There’s no bauxite being mined, and no one wants to play soldier any more. We still have most of our craftsmen, and farmers at least. Not because they aren’t gold-hungry, but because they’re not willing to abandon the comforts of home on the say-so of an African or Indian. And the women have stayed here, too. But once a white man comes back with gold, this place’ll be a ghost town, I’m sure.”

“But how the hell did they find out about the gold?”

Dirck shrugged. “I don’t know. . . . Hey, wait a minute. You said, ‘find out,’ not ‘find.’ Did you know it was there?”

David nodded. “It was in the American encyclopedias. But I was under orders to get food, rubber and bauxite production ramped up before letting the colonists get involved in anything as chancy as gold panning.”

“Well, the cat’s out of the bag now, that is for sure, David. In fact, it may be more of a tiger than a cat. There’s a deserted fluyt in port right now. Sooner or later, its crew will return to Europe, and start spending their gold. That will attract attention.”

“You’re right about that. We need to get a fort built at the mouth of the Marowijne, tout de suite. So no other power claims the gold fields.”

“Good thinking, but there’s one catch. Who’s going to labor at building a fort, when there’s gold to be had?”

David pondered this for a time. “Someone whose labor earns them gold,” he answered. “Because the fort gives them the privilege of charging a toll to fortune hunters. And selling them supplies . . . at wilderness prices.

“In the meantime, while hardly any ships come by here, other than our own, we best stop doing an imitation of a sitting duck. I’ll lend you some men who are too sick for traveling, let alone gold hunting, to wear uniforms and swagger around your parapets. You might put some of our female colonists in uniform, too.”

“Women soldiers?” Dirck’s tone made it clear that he was horrified to the very depths of his by-the-book soul.

“Think of them as Amazons. Anyway, they probably won’t need to fire a shot, just look properly martial at a distance.”

Next, David had his own crew to worry about.

“All hands on deck!” bawled the high boatswain. The watch below roused itself, and blearily made their way up the hatches. Their expressions were puzzled; there was no storm, and no foes, to be seen. But Captain de Vries was dressed in his best uniform, and standing on the poop deck with his hands clasped behind him. Clearly the captain wanted to address them about something important.

David cleared his throat. “Lads, we’ve got a fine opportunity for fame and fortune before us, but only if we use our heads. There’s gold to be found up a nearby river but it will take time and effort, and the gold won’t do us much good if we don’t have a ship to return to. That gold’ll spend much better in Europe than in this blasted jungle.

“There are plenty of fools who have left their ships to rot while they chased gold, but we won’t be among them. The problem, of course, is that no one wants to be left behind while others make their fortune. And the solution to that problem is that we will sign a compact that it’s share-and-share alike, whether you’re panning for gold or manning the cannon to make sure the damned Spanish don’t come along to rob us of what we’ve earned.

“So what say you? Shall we have a compact?”

The roar left no doubt of the answer.

* * *

While at New Carthage negotiating with Maurício, David learned of Kojo’s predicament. David persuaded Maurício to set up a meeting, and then sweet-talked Kojo into coming aboard the Walvis as a guide. He had three cogent arguments. First, as “patron” of Gustavus, he had more authority over the colonists than anyone else, and hence could protect Kojo from the greedier Europeans. Second, by coming along, Kojo would be more quickly reunited with his fellow Ashanti. Third, that on the way to the goldfields, Kojo could learn how to use the fancy gold mining equipment that David had bought from Master Baum, and then be the “expert” for the benefit of his fellow tribesmen.

It was David’s intention to resell much of that gold mining equipment at a stiff markup to the colonists already upriver, and have Kojo provide, what did his up-timer friends call it? A “celebrity endorsement.”

* * *

Jan Smoot cleared his throat. “It has pleased the eternal and immutable Wisdom of Almighty God to call Dirck van Rijn to His bosom. He has passed from this sinful world to the blessed joy of God’s Eternal Kingdom, where the great street of the Eternal City is of pure gold. Revelation 22:21.”

Like Master Baum, Jan had decided that it was more profitable to sell goods to the miners than to pick up a pan or shovel himself. Unlike Master Baum, he had decided that the road to riches was to bring his goods to the goldfields, where competition was scarcest.

Near the old-time-line town of Grand Santi, Jan had found an island where, thanks to the poorness of the soil, there were few great trees, just ground cover and some small shrubs. There, he had built a small building to serve as both dwelling and shop. He had an Indian to serve as a go-between with the nearby tribes, and two Ndongo boatmen to ferry supplies up the Marowijne.

Jan looked around at the assembled miners, mostly colonists. “Anyone have anything they want to say about Dirck?” He paused. “Anything nice, I mean.”

“He was a hard worker,” said Pieter, Dirk’s former partner. They had split up in a dispute as to whether the stretch they were working was producing enough; Pieter had stayed and Dirk had moved on. Unfortunately, Dirck had picked a new location that had been recently worked by a pair of crewmen from the Patientia. When they returned, he insisted that they had abandoned the location, and they thought otherwise. The words became heated, he made a move they thought threatening, and one of them clubbed him in the noggin with a reversed pistol. He picked himself up, and walked off, seemingly wounded only in his pride. A few hours later, he lost consciousness.

The sailors had found Dirck when they were on their way to Jan’s shop to resupply, and brought him to Jan for treatment. Unfortunately, while Jan had learned some first aid from Maria, he couldn’t do much more than keep Dirck comfortable. Dirck died the day after his arrival.

This might have started a feud between the colonists and the crew of the Patientia. Fortunately, the sailors had tried to help Dirk once they realized he was seriously injured, and Pieter admitted that Dirk had a temper and might well have acted imprudently. Still, Jan was troubled by the larger implications of the incident.

By now, there were perhaps a hundred Europeans on the Marowijne and its tributaries, looking for gold. More arrived, usually in twos or threes, every week.

Some of the newcomers respected the knowledge of the first arrivals, and worked for them for a few weeks, in a rough and ready apprenticeship, before finding their own panning spots. Others, like the three the Ashanti had disposed of, tried to intimidate their predecessors into giving up part, or all, of their territory. Even those that didn’t intend to take what wasn’t theirs could get into honest disputes, fueled by fatigue, frustration, and fermented Indian drinks.

Jan raised his voice. “Folks, it’s obvious that we need some rules, or miners’ll spend more time arguing and fighting than they do mining. And some are going to end up dying, like Dirk. So think about what would be fair, and let’s talk about it on the next full moon.”

* * *

The Walvis anchored about fifty miles up the Marowijne, just below the whitewater that David christened Maria Falls. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, a waterfall, but rather a series of rapids by which the river dropped about fifteen feet over half a mile. Still, there was no way that the Walvis, or any other blue water vessel, was getting past it.

David was more than a little concerned about the risk that a European warship would come upriver and attempt a hostile takeover. But he had to worry about the local Indians, too. Hence, the Walvis was anchored with springs on her cable, so that by heaving one spring and paying out the other, she could be turned readily to fire her broadside at an opponent downstream or on either bank.

To protect the Walvis—and to make sure that any would-be gold seekers from other colonies paid for the privilege of going farther upriver—David left a guard force on board. He sent an advance party upriver, to the head of the rapids, and they established a camp there. The crew spent several days ferrying supplies and portaging canoes up to this camp. Finally, they were ready to follow Kojo and David to the supposed El Dorado of the Lawa.

* * *

Kojo suddenly stood up in the canoe. “Heinrich!” he called out. He had seen Heinrich as the German’s canoe came around the bend a few hundred yards upstream.

Heinrich waved back. Soon, he brought his canoe alongside Kojo’s, and grasped Kojo’s arm, hand to elbow. “Good to see you!”

“Well, did you find gold?” asked David.

“We found what we were looking for,” Heinrich admitted. “Enough to make the trip worthwhile, I’d say. And I think a fair number of the creeks off the Lawa have gold. You just have to know where to look, and how to pan, and be willing to work hard and long. You glean a speck here, a speck there. It’s not like capturing a treasure galleon.”

Some of David’s men bristled. They perhaps had a different view of what it took to capture such a ship.

“We brought tools to make it easier,” said David. “What they call—” he gave Elias a quick glance.

Elias recognized his cue. “A rocker. Like the ones the Forty-Niners used. Perfect for use by a pair of miners.”

“That’s good news,” said Heinrich. “Although I am done for this season. But Captain, there’s been trouble here. Three men tried to take our creek and our gold dust, and it might have turned out badly if the Ashanti hadn’t shown up and stopped them.”

“The Ashanti?” asked Kojo. In his excitement, he nearly fell out of the canoe. “Where, where did you see them?”

“I will tell you in a moment. But that’s not all, we’ve had a killing.”

“A killing?”

“Of one of the colonists, by a couple of crewmen off a visiting Dutch ship.”

Seeing David’s scowl, Heinrich hastily added, “it was something of an accident. Still, there’s going to be more trouble if we don’t have some kind of mining law here. Remember Jan Smoot? He came up with a proposal. It might have been accepted if it had been made up front, before anyone started panning. But now folks can see immediately how the law will affect them, and if they don’t like it, they don’t want to give their consent. So they make a counterproposal, and of course that displeases other miners. Instead of fighting over the claims, now we’re wrangling over the rules for making the claims.”

* * *

“I’m going to be honest with you all,” said David. “Those of you who are from Gustavus, you were brought to the New World by my ships, under contract. Those of you are from the Patientia, you are now in the USE Territory of the Wild Coast, of which I am the appointed governor, and your mining rights are what I say they are.”

The captain of the Patientia glowered at him. “This is the first I’ve heard of a ‘USE Territory of the Wild Coast.’ It’s not marked on my charts, I saw no USE flag or other marker anywhere along this river. The land was unclaimed.”

David shook his head. “Permit me to remind you, Captain, that the gold was discovered by an expedition from Gustavus, composed of the Ashanti Kojo, and the Indians Coqui and Tetube. They were sent by Maria Vorst, who is the ‘Science Officer’ of our colony, and they thus constituted an official USE expedition.” Whether they knew it or not, mused David.

“They claimed the Marowijne River, and all its tributaries, for the USE, by right of discovery.

“The Ashanti are allies of Gustavus, and residents of the Territory, by treaty, and were brought here by Kojo to pan for gold. Thus, through them, the USE claims these lands by right of occupation. And indeed they, or some of them, are settling here permanently.” Have to remember to tell them that, David told himself.

“And lastly, Captain, I have a warship here. So the Marowijne is ours, by right of conquest.”

David laughed abruptly. “Even if it weren’t, you abandoned the Patientia in Gustavus. It has been lawfully seized for failure to pay dockage. So unless you think you can swim back to Europe with your gold dust, you had best recognize my authority and comply with our mining laws.”

That silenced the man. Or perhaps it was the dark looks that he was receiving from David’s well-armed crew and the Gustavans.

“Anyone else wish to question my authority?” David paused. “I thought not.

“There is going to be a mining law. If the colonists, sailors and Ashanti can agree on its terms, well, that’ll be fine, as long as the government get the fees it sets for recording a claim. If not, then I’ll decide. I want each group to pick a representative today. And the representatives have three days to reach agreement.

“Dismissed.”

* * *

The treasure seekers’ representatives eventually agreed that every miner would have to put up some kind of monument, several feet tall, that gave his name and the date of the claim, and place boundary markers to show where the claim began and ended. And that the claim would have to be worked for at least one month each year, or it would be lost. Jan agreed to keep record of all the claims, in return for a recordation fee. And he would collect the government tax that David had insisted on, too.

The biggest issue was how large a claim could be awarded to a single miner. Initially, the thought was that the claim should be as wide as the creek itself, and one hundred fathoms long. An up-timer would assume a fathom was exactly six feet, but in seventeenth-century Europe it was the distance between the fingertips of a sailor’s outstretched arms and was five or five-and-a-half feet. A wag suggested that since they were so far from the sea, it would be more appropriate to measure the “run” in “smoots.” Jan obligingly lay down on the ground and those miners who had rope knotted them at intervals of a “smoot.”

David approved the mining law, with only a few changes. One of them was that the miners could pool their claims. While all the claims would still need to be worked, they could be recorded at one time, for a discounted fee, as jointly owned. This obviously was to the advantage of David’s sailors.

* * *

That settled, David had quizzed the Ashanti as to where and how to pan for gold. His men were raring to go.

“Big Chief David, we are so sorry for you,” said Antoa.

“Why? Is all the gold gone already?”

“No, no. When we came here, it was the beginning of the Time of Daily Rains. When it rains, the Crabs of the River God scurry about, and bring the gold out of the River God’s palace and leave it where the river shallows or turns.

“But now, the waters are so high, that it is difficult to reach the sands where the gold is. This is the time to paddle home.”

“Perhaps we can divert some of the water . . .” David suggested, somewhat doubtfully. “We have the apprentice carpenter from the colony, as well as the ship’s carpenter.”

“I cannot say if that will work,” Antoa told him. “It is not our way.”

David’s cousin Heyndrick spoke up. “So you don’t mine gold in the dry season at all?”

“Oh, I didn’t say that. Between harvest time and planting time, we dig shafts in the hills. But we don’t yet know where to dig in this land.”

“Until then, look for falling water when the water is low,” Kojo said suddenly. Questioned further, Kojo and Antoa explained that when a gold-bearing river reached a waterfall, the gold was deposited at its base, underwater, but the base might be more or less exposed at the height of the dry season. It wasn’t likely to be as productive as the lode gold mined by shafts, but it was better than nothing.

* * *

“I think I can depend on my fellow colonists to honor the agreement with the Ashanti.” said Heinrich. “The most experienced miners among us are those, like me, who worked alongside the Ashanti at the bauxite pits, and we became friends. Most of us, at any rate. But what about the sailors from the Patientia? Or your sailors? Or the treasure-seekers who’ll come from Europe, next year or the year after? Who’s going to keep the law after you sail off?”

“I’ve thought about that,” said David. He raised his voice. “By the powers vested in me as governor of the USE Territory of the Wild Coast, I hereby appoint you president of the Marowijne Mining District, including the bed and banks of the Marowijne River, and of all waters tributary thereon.

“There. You’ll keep them honest.”

“But I have no experience—”

“You’re one of the original colonists. You’re a miner. You’re a friend of the Ashanti. You can make it work. We’re going to build a fort right above Maria Falls, and I will leave my cousin Heyndrick there as militia commander of a mixed militia, composed of white colonists and Ashanti. I persuaded the Ashanti to settle here, so they don’t have to travel as much to reach the gold field each year. We’ll find other people to dig for bauxite back in Paranam.”

Low Water Time, Central Amazon (August–September 1636)

Coqui smacked his lips. “Any moment now.”

He and Tetube stood on a beach, their back to one of the creeks feeding into the Rio Negro, holding spears and improvised nets. Moonlight glinted off the sand and water.

“Here they come!”

The young river turtles, hatching in synchrony, made a mad dash for the water. Birds dive-bombed them, and caimans, dolphins and fish waited for them to take the plunge.

Coqui and Tetube became separated as they chased first one, then another hatchling.

Suddenly, Tetube found herself face to face with a jaguar. It snarled. She back-pedaled, and found her feet squishing into wet sand.

Agony! Her right leg cramped and collapsed under her.

She looked about fearfully for the jaguar but it was already trotting off with a turtle in its mouth.

“Coqui! Help!” she screamed.

He came running, and lifted her up. Once they were on higher ground, he inspected her foot.

The moonlight was bright enough to reveal the characteristic wound left by an angry stingray. Coqui winced in sympathy. Many fishermen bore stingray scars, on foot, ankle or calf.

The sting was serrated as well as venomous, and the pain was intense.

He hugged her. “I am here. It will be all right.”

In the morning, when there was light enough to gather the right plants, he made a poultice for her.

Even so, it was two weeks before the pain went away.

Lawa River region, Inland Eastern Guiana, September 1636

David had noted, with some curiosity, that the rains came and left at different times here, on the upper Maroni, than they had back in Gustavus. By the time the dry season began on the Lawa, in September, the colonists, and the crew of Patientia, had left the gold fields. David wondered whether they would make it back safely. And whether the Patientia would cause any problems for the Gustavans. Its cannon had been confiscated before David left Gustavus, but the crew could still be dangerous. David had to hope that Dirck and Carsten had taken the necessary precautions—they could call on Maurício for assistance—and of course as the colonists returned home the colony’s defenses would be stiffened. In any event, it was out of his hands.

David’s larger worry was the temper of his men. Initially, they had sought gold in high spirits, constructing wooden dams and chutes to control the high waters. However, the rainy season of the Guianas was at quite a different scale than anything the Forty-Niners of the American history books had to put up with. The waterworks had to be given up as a lost cause. Perhaps some other year, with better tools and more men, and begun sooner, it would work.

Then his men had dug shallow pits in the riverbanks and higher lands, wherever some peculiarity of vegetation or earth color led them to fancy that gold might be present.

No luck.

His third mate caught two men plotting to sneak back to the new Ashanti village, near Maria Falls, and force one of the Ashanti to divulge the secrets of gold mining that they had obviously held back from the whites. Those men were summarily executed.

David wished, fervently, that they would find a waterfall, as Kojo had suggested. But there were no waterfalls marked on David’s map of French Guiana—the American atlases hadn’t shown much interest in that region—and the highlands, where one might reasonably expect to find a waterfall, were well to the south.

* * *

“Captain, come quick!” One of David’s sailors was shouting.

David wasn’t the only man to rush over, but he was the first to speak the word that was in everyone’s thoughts.

“Gold?”

“Yes, sir. Look.” The sailor held out a small nugget. He pointed at the base of a boulder, in the middle of the stream they had been following. “That’s where I found it.”

David realized that the stream had changed grade here, from steep to shallow, depositing gravels and even a few small boulders. “Spread out, men! Along the rock line!”

It proved to be a very respectable pay streak.

Buoyed by this find, David and his crew continued to explore southward for the rest of the dry season, then returned to the established gold field.

Surinamese Short Wet Season (December 1636–January 1637),

Gustavus

A distant boom drew the attention of everyone in the Gustavus town square. A sentry called out, “Signal cannon from Fort Lincoln.”

The townspeople who were members of the militia dashed into their homes to grab their weapons, just in case hostile warships had been sighted.

“I see smoke on the horizon,” said Johann Mueller. “Is the forest on fire?”

“Is the fire on this side of the river?” asked another.

“I can’t tell,” said Johann. “You know how the river twists and turns.”

They heard a chugging sound, one totally outside their experience, and then a great whistle. His Danish Majesty’s Armed Steamship Valdemar came into view.

* * *

“So that’s the little secret you’ve been hiding,” declared Henrique. “A steamship. I should have guessed; you did tell me that Henry Wickham got rubber tree seeds from Brazil to London that way.”

Maria smiled sweetly.

“How long will it take to steam back to Europe?”

“About a month, according to the letter that told me to expect it.”

“Amazing. A sailing ship captain would count himself lucky to make the passage in two months. That will certainly improve your chances of making it there with viable seeds.

“But how are you planning to get up and down the Amazon without the Portuguese stopping you? You must enter by the Canal do Norte or the Canal do Sul. On the northern approach, you pass Fort Cumau.” This was the modern town of Macapa. “We took it from the English, and left it in ruins, but when I fled Belém, there was talk of rebuilding it.

“If you come from the south, then on the south bank of the main channel you will find the fort of Gurupa. The channel there is narrow enough so that you are within cannon range. And they’ll hear your engines from far off. The garrison is fifty Portuguese and perhaps twice that number of Indians.

“The Valdemar has sails as well as a steam engine, so I suppose that if the winds are favorable it can sail up quietly. But there are many Indians living by the banks, and boating in the water. The Valdemar cannot escape detection, especially since you must enter in daylight in order to see where you are going. Perhaps it will have the advantage of surprise when it arrives, and can pass the forts before the cannon are loaded, but when it returns downstream, the Portuguese will be ready for it.”

“Not to worry,” said Maria.

“It doesn’t look like one of the ironclads that the last supply ship told us about. But it has some American superweapon on it, yes?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“You’re just going to be infuriatingly reticent, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

* * *

The varnished cotton skin quivered like a living thing. Hydrogen bubbled out of the generator, traveled through a hose into a scrubber, and then by a second hose into the envelope of the slowly inflating airship.

Henrique snorted. “So that’s your superweapon.”

Maria nodded. “Notice the hoses? Made with our rubber.”

“What are the Manao Indians going to do when this damned thing flies overhead? Run away in terror, I would think.”

“I told Coqui that I would come to him in the belly of a giant bird. He will tell them that the bird is friendly.”

“When did you—I suppose you told him when we were in Fort Kyk-Over-Al, and I was off buying supplies.”

“That’s right.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“And ruin the surprise? It’s just too bad I couldn’t arrange things so that the first you saw of the airship was it in the air, and me waving from it.”

Henrique watched the airship envelope as it slowly inflated. The nose cap had been hoisted up and attached to Carsten’s alleged watchtower, now revealed to in fact be a short mooring mast. The hind part of the airship was covered with a large net, weighted around the edge, so it wouldn’t rise up too high and place unnecessary strain on the mooring connection. “So how much longer will the fill-up take?”

“Captain Neilsen said, ‘About four hundred hours.’”

Henrique’s face creased as he did a rapid mental calculation. “Sixteen days?”

“Something like that.”

Henrique picked up his walking stick. “Tell me when it’s over.”

* * *

Maria pointed. “There! His Danish Majesty’s Airship Sandterne.” It was an apt name for an exploratory vehicle, as the gull-billed tern wintered in the Caribbean, northern South America, Africa, southern Asia and even New Zealand. The tethered airship, attached to the mooring mast, faced into the steady northeast trades.

“The gondola looks about the size of a Grantville school bus,” Maria commented. “Not much privacy, but fortunately the flight time to Manaus is only about thirty-five hours.”

Henrique executed an exaggerated formal bow. “We will all gallantly look the other way when you use the head, milady.”

“Talking about ladies, you know, most of the female colonists here at Gustavus are already married. And none of them are Jewish.”

“Ahem.” Henrique wasn’t sure he liked where this was going.

“Has it occurred to you that the pickings might be better in Amsterdam? Or Grantville? Or Prague? Or even,” she added slyly, “Copenhagen.”

“Ahem.”

“You’re just going to be infuriatingly reticent about your plans, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

* * *

With the envelope inflated, and the air in the ballonets adjusted to level it off, it was time to attach the gondola. This had been disassembled for shipping, and had been reassembled in the meantime.

“Fuck! We need it about a foot to my left,” yelled Lars. He and his ground crew had come over on the Valdemar. “Lift on my command. Three . . . two . . . one . . . LIFT!” The gondola lurched into place, and the ground crew climbed up and attached it to the suspension cables that secured it to the envelope of the airship.

Nearby, in a makeshift roofed shed, the engineer was testing the engines that had been brought over on the Valdemar.

* * *

There was a knock on the door, which Henrique answered.

“Maurício!” The two half-brothers embraced.

“Follow me,” commanded Henrique. Maria and I were just going over the route. Looking for landmarks that should be visible from the air.

Maurício peered over Henrique’s shoulder. “Do you have time to talk, Maria?”

Maria looked at him. “I’ll make the time, Maurício. What’s up?”

Maurício shuddered. “Another Americanism . . . Language as we know it is doomed. . . .”

Maria sighed. “Get to the point, Maurício.”

“That’s King Maurício, chief of chiefs, don’t forget. And now that I am involved in politics, I have discovered the cardinal rule of being a successful politician.”

“Finding someone else to blame if something goes wrong?” asked Henrique.

“That’s rule number two. Rule number one is, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

Maurício pointed toward the mooring mast. “And what I think would really enhance my status is to ride that airship of yours.”

Henrique snorted. “‘He Who Flies’ makes a better epithet than ‘He Who Talks,’ you think?”

Maria fingered her chin. “I’d have to ask the captain, but I suppose that he might let you do a quick tethered ascent, if it can be managed without wasting any gas.”

“Tethered ascent? I had in mind that Kasiri and I could join you for your little flight. We do a little air show over my villages, to remind them of how awesome I am, and then we fly to Manao so she can visit her family.”

“I am surprised that someone who deplores Americanisms would seek to bring the political junket to the New World.”

“Seriously—”

“Seriously, it’s not going to happen, Maurício. Let me explain the facts. It takes a thousand cubic feet of ninety percent pure hydrogen to provide about sixty-four pounds of lift. Our total lift is less than three hundred times that. That lift, at a minimum, has to support the envelope, the ballonets inside, the gondola, the fins and rudder, the engines, the fuel, and the crew. What’s left—less than half of the gross lift—is what carries the passengers and cargo into the air. Henrique and I have to go; we know how to tap rubber, we know if a rubber tree is healthy or sickly. We can tell whether a seed is from a rubber tree or not. The airship doesn’t have room for tourists. Not even a royal one.”

Lawa River, Beginning of Wet Season

At last, the crew of the Walvis decided that it was time to return to their ship, head back to Europe and transform their Lawa River gold into the good things in life. They would have to stop at Gustavus first, to resupply, however.

They rowed back to Maria Falls, the current helping them along, and boarded the Walvis.

David inspected the ship and somewhat grudgingly pronounced himself satisfied with how it had been cared for in his absence.

“Up Anchor!” David ordered.

Surinamese Short Dry Season (February to April 1637)

The gas envelope was an elongated teardrop, with a side panel bearing the Danish coat of arms: three lions passant in pale Azure, crowned and armed. The gondola slung beneath it was painted red and yellow, the colors of the House of Oldenburg that ruled Denmark.

And a spy basket hung below the gondola. In it, from a height of a hundred feet, King Maurício waved to his people.

The idea for the spy basket had come from a 1930 Howard Hughes film, Hell’s Angels. A German zeppelin is shown flying over London, and it lowered an observer in a little streamlined observation car. This wasn’t a wild fancy on Hughes’ part, there were German spy baskets that could be lowered as much as several thousand feet below the zeppelin, on steel wire paid out with a winch. The support wire doubled as a telegraph line. The Sandterne’s spy basket was a more primitive affair.

Maurício heard a horn from above, and waved acknowledgment. It was time to descend. The “spy basket” he stood in was slowly winched down, and when the bottom swung a couple of feet above the ground, the ground crew grabbed and steadied it so Maurício could clamber out.

Once he was free, they signaled the airship, and the basket was raised back into the bowels of the Sandterne. The name painted on the Sandterne’s drop basket was, rather irreverently, The Yo-Yo.

As his wife, Kasiri, hugged him, Maurício told Carsten, “Now all of my people will tremble when they see me. King Maurício dared climb into the Heavens!”

“More daring than you realized, my dear King Maurício.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lars just told me that the Sandterne has not previously used the spy basket to carry a person. You are a true pioneer!”

It was fortunate that Kasiri had her arm around Maurício, as it wouldn’t have looked very kingly if he had fainted.

En route to the Central Amazon by Airship

“I can barely hear the engines, Captain.”

“I am not surprised, Mevrouw Vorst. We are just letting them idle, the northeast trade winds are carrying us in the direction we wish to go.”

“Then why run the engines at all? Doesn’t that use up fuel?”

“Oh, yes, but if there’s a sudden wind change, or other hazard, we don’t want to cold start the engines. If you want to ride out at a moment’s notice, it’s best that the horse already be saddled and bridled, yes?”

* * *

The airship was progressing southwest, at a height of about six hundred feet. They had already passed over the Coppename and skirted the northern tail of the Bakhuys Mountains. They passed south of Blanche Marie Falls, on the Nickerie, and then directly over Tiger Falls, on the Courantyne. This gave them a precise navigational fix, because its latitude and longitude were known from an up-time atlas. At their present height, they could easily see Frederik Willem IV Falls, perhaps thirty miles upriver.

“Right rudder!”

The rudderman pressed the right rudder pedal, beginning the turn to the right. Since the airship lacked wings, it didn’t roll into a turn.

“Engines one-half forward,” Captain Neilsen spoke into the speaking tube.

“One-half forward,” the engineer, in the engine compartment acknowledged.

The captain kept his eye on the compass. “Neutralize rudder.” The ship’s angular momentum kept it turning, but ever more slowly.

“Heading two seventy,” the captain said with satisfaction. The course change avoided the Kanuku mountains, farther south. While the Sandterne could easily climb high enough to cross them, Henrique and his party had come from the Rupununi, to the west.

They ran west along the fourth parallel north for six hours, then turned south. In still air, their cruising speed was twenty miles per hour, but they would have a bit of a westward boost from the diminished trade winds. It wasn’t too long before they spotted a key landmark, the Rio Branco.

They followed this guide to the mighty Rio Negro, the largest blackwater river in the world. Continuing downstream, they came at last to the confluence of the Rio Negro with the Solimoes, forming the Amazon. Here, on the north bank, in another universe, the 1669 Fort of São José da Barra do Rio Negro had become the nucleus about which the nineteenth-century town of Manaus had aggregated. And that town was the home of the rubber barons, who built an Opera House to prove that they were equals of the plutocrats of America and Europe.

Now, in the year 1637, there was no fort, and no European town, but there was a village, a small settlement of the Manao Indians. “Manaus” was their word for the confluence; it meant, “mother of the gods.”

Above Manau, Central Amazon

The Sandterne lurched upward, caught by an updraft, and the elevatorman adjusted the elevator to compensate. He checked the variometer, a barometer modified to measure the rate of change of altitude. “Holding steady again, Captain.”

Captain Neilsen eyed the rainforest below. “Looks good.”

Maria spoke. “Can you bring us down any farther?”

“Not a chance,” said Captain Neilsen. “I have to keep at least thirty feet above the treetops. There’s no telling when a downdraft might send us down.”

“But if that happened, couldn’t you adjust the elevator wheel, or drop some more ballast?”

“Sure. But there are limits to how much, how fast.”

Maria studied the ground. “But Henrique and I need to get down there, and pick the rubber trees whose seeds we want to harvest. And of course we’d like to get back up again, too, it’s a long walk back to Gustavus. And the canopy is a good hundred feet high. I am not going to manage a hundred-thirty-foot descent, even in that ‘spy basket.’”

“Then we will need to find a clearing,” said Captain Neilsen. “That would be best in any event, since I wouldn’t want the wire to snag on these giant trees.”

“Does the river count as a clearing?” Henrique asked abruptly.

“This gondola is waterproof, so we can ‘land’ on water. And you could then lower a canoe. But we have only practiced landing on a lake, I am not comfortable about landing on a river, except for an emergency.”

Nature might or might not abhor a vacuum, but Nature qua rainforest most definitely abhorred open spaces. A tree struck by lightning might fall over and, connected by lianas to neighboring trees, cause a chain reaction that cleared a considerable area, but the sudden exposure to sunlight would cause seedlings and saplings to burst into frenetic activity, and soon the clearing would be erased by a green explosion. They found a clearing, close to the Rio Negro, a major tributary of the Amazon, but it was at least a day’s hike away from Manaus.

It would have to do.

* * *

Maria gazed out over the coffee-colored waters of the Rio Negro. She knew, from her studies in Grantville, that the color was the result of tannins leached out of decaying vegetation.

“Henrique, I think I have spoken of movie night at the Higgins Hotel in Grantville.”

“Moving pictures, yes. What about them?”

“This place reminds me of a movie called Creature from the Black Lagoon. The creature was a Gill-man—”

“Excuse me?”

“A Gill-man. Half-man, half-fish. My friend Lolly said that it was based on a merman legend from the Amazon, so naturally I thought of it here.”

Henrique pondered this for a moment, then gestured with his gun. “If it comes here, I’ll shoot it.”

* * *

The next day, as they approached the outskirts of the Indian village of Manaus, Coqui and several of his fellow Manao Indians jumped in front of them.

Henrique lowered the rifle he had just pointed at Coqui. “You idiot, I could have killed you.”

Coqui was still grinning. “We saw the great bird, and I see it laid two little eggs.”

* * *

Coqui held out a reed basket. “Here are many seeds, all from a tree that gave much tree-milk when I cut it the way you taught me.”

“‘Milk of the Moon,’” she dubbed it.

“Milk of the Moon,” Coqui repeated. “But the Man in the Moon is male, a warrior. How can the moon give milk?”

“How does the moon enter into it?” asked Henrique. “I know that the moon makes the tide, and that affects fish, but I don’t remember seeing any change in the flow of latex according to the lunar phase.”

“There isn’t,” said Maria, “I just like the alliteration. It works in Dutch as well as English. ‘Melk’ and ‘Maan,’ you know.”

Henrique pondered this. “It even works in Portuguese,” he said in a surprised tone. “‘Leite’ and ‘Lua.’”

“Besides,” added Maria, “the Indians up north call gold the ‘Tears of the Sun,’ and the encyclopedias say that latex was once called, ‘white gold,’ and the moon is ‘white’ . . . I just like the imagery.”

“Well, you’re an artist . . . I’m not surprised. . . .”

Coqui rapped the trunk to get their attention. “There is evil news from downriver. Where the Cuyari meets the Mother of Rivers, there are many bad white men.” The Cuyari was the Indian name for what the Portuguese, and the up-time atlas, called the Madeira. “The whites make war on the Tupinamba.

“And the Tupinamba told us that before this happened, the white men had returned to the Tapajós.” That was where, a few years ago, Henrique had taught the Tapajós Indians how to tap rubber.

“Describe these white men, if you can. Especially what your scouts said about their leader,” said Henrique grimly.

* * *

The next day, gifts for the Manao Indians were lowered in the spy basket, and Henrique and Maria rode it back up to report to Captain Neilsen.

“My best guess,” said Henrique, “is that they are led by Bento Maciel Parente the Younger, who is a scoundrel of the first order, but also a good woodsman. And very well connected, his father having been the captain-major of Grand Pará. I presume that he was sent out to restart the rubber tapping in Tapajós.”

“But how did he know how to do it?”

Heinrique shrugged. “Perhaps he was sent encyclopedia descriptions. Perhaps he tortured the Tapajós until they showed him the technique. I know the rubber trees there are rich in latex, so we should collect their seeds. We just need to use this airship to destroy Bento and his men.”

“Impossible,” said Captain Neilsen. “First, this is not some kind of aerial dreadnought. We have no bombs, no cannon, no rockets, no volley guns, just a few small arms. Second, my orders are to facilitate your mission, but only to the extent commensurate with the safety of this extremely expensive airship.”

“It seems very strange to me that so expensive an airship would sail without any armament,” said Henrique.

“My dear sir, you have walked the entire deck of this gondola. Have you seen, heard, or even smelled the slightest hint of a substantial weapon of any kind? We don’t need armament because when we are six hundred feet in the air, no enemy can touch us. At least, none that I know of.”

Henrique looked down at his feet for a moment, then glared at Captain Neilsen. “I accept your word. But we could still sail to the Tapajós, trade weapons for seeds with the natives there. Bento Maciel Parente can shake his fist at us as we pass overhead, but it’s almost four hundred miles to old time line Santarem, at the mouth of the Tapajós, and we can fly that distance faster than he can paddle it, even with the Amazon current helping him.”

Captain Neilsen scratched his chin. “But why go to the trouble? Aren’t the right kind of rubber trees available here?”

“Yes, but all we know is their yield of the moment, since we arrived,” said Henrique. “And we are at the end of the tapping season, so the figures are unpredictable. On the Tapajós, I know how each tree performed, day in and day out, for a whole season. We can go straight to the best producers and collect their seeds.”

“You are certainly correct that we can outrun a bunch of canoes,” Captain Neilsen admitted. “But it will take time to make contact with the Tapajós Indians, especially since the appearance of this airship would probably scare them out of their shoes, if they wore them! Moreover, the trees you’re most interested in may have already dropped their seeds, or not be ready to oblige you for another week or two. That’s time enough for the Portuguese to paddle down to us. And isn’t it likely, if the Portuguese have resumed your old tapping operation, that they left soldiers there to keep the Indians working?”

Henrique sighed heavily. “Very likely.”

“Then it seems to me that the value of a trip to the Tapajós is outweighed by the danger to the ship. Not to mention the risk that if Parente arrived while you were on the ground, I might have to abandon you!”

“Of course I could not let Maria take the risk. But I could go down alone.”

“I will need your help getting plantations started,” said Maria. “Please, Henrique, don’t consider this further. At least, wait until we see how much seed we can collect here before doing anything rash.”

* * *

Bang!

Henrique and Maria exchanged looks, and moved cautiously uphill toward the sound. This wasn’t foolhardiness; their ears, tuned by experience to the sounds of the rainforest, recognized that what they heard was not a gunshot, it was the noise made when seeds burst from a ripened rubber tree seed pod.

The tree’s genetic blueprint called for the seeds to be flung as much as a hundred feet away from their parent, carried off by the rising waters, and at last to germinate miles, perhaps many miles, away.

But the sound had been heard by other creatures, and they had their own genetic blueprints, which told them to consider the “bang” to be a dinner bell. Some of the seeds fell into the water, where they were eagerly snapped up by the tambaqui and other fish. The tambaqui mostly fed on falling fruit, but its favorite meal was the rubber tree seed. Indeed, the Indians could trick it to the surface by imitating seeds falling into the water, and then harpoon it.

Others seeds came to rest on land, and insects and rodents hurried to the feast. As did Maria. She walked, then ran, basket in hand, toward the base of the tree, where there were many seeds. There, an agouti was already greedily stuffing seeds down its gullet, as fast as it could. Maria’s seeds, damn it!

“Wait!” ordered Henrique, grasping Maria’s shoulder.

An instant later, the predator that Henrique had spotted, a jararaca do norte, struck. The agouti shuddered in the six-foot-long pit viper’s fangs. It didn’t suffer long; the snake, what an up-time biologist would call Bothrops atrox, a kind of fer-de-lance, could deliver a large dose of a quite potent venom. Enough to kill an agouti quickly . . . or an overeager Dutch naturalist more slowly.

“I didn’t see it. . . .” Maria murmured.

“Neither did the agouti.”

* * *

“Remember, I agreed only to a flyover, as far as the Madeira,” said Captain Neilsen. “This mission is just so we can warn our Manao friends of what they are up against, we are not here to make war on the Portuguese or try to sneak over to Tapajós. You have a ton of seeds on board. That’s plenty.”

“Understood,” said Henrique.

* * *

“That’s him,” said Henrique grimly, spyglass in hand. “In the rear of the first canoe. Bento Maciel Parente, the scum of the earth.

“Captain, did you really mean it when you said that this airship was unarmed, or were you holding out on me?”

“Sorry, we just have a bay for lowering the spy basket. I suppose it could be used to drop bombs, if we had them. The designers may even have had that possibility in mind. But it’s a moot point, since there are no bombs aboard.”

“Maria, you’re the science whiz, can you improvise something?”

“The target’s a little canoe, traveling in a mighty river. At our present altitude, the chance of setting it afire with a fused fuel flask is remote, I think, even if we managed to hit it in the first place.”

“But you can take us lower?”

The captain shook his head. “I am not going to bring our gas envelope within Portuguese musket range. We’re a much bigger target than they are, and if we’re holed, hydrogen can leak out and air can leak in.”

“But a bullet, fired upward, can hardly have much force,” Henrique pleaded. “And surely the hole made by a bullet is very small compared to this giant gas bag. How much leakage could there be?”

“If we lose just one-sixth of our hydrogen, and it’s replaced with air, the hydrogen-air mixture in the gas bag will become flammable. If lightning strikes—” The captain shuddered.

“Dammit,” said Henrique. “Is there nothing that can be done?”

“You could—never mind,” said Maria.

“What were you going to say?” Henrique demanded.

“You got that fancy rifle as a present from Captain de Vries. You could go down in the spy basket and shoot from there—while our envelope stayed safely out of harm’s way. But I think it’s too risky.”

“I’ll do it.”

“But the basket might be swinging like crazy. The airship would have to keep up with the speed of the canoes—which is the rowing speed on top of the current. It’s not like hovering in one spot and lowering Maurício.”

Captain Neilsen had listened to the interchange with unconcealed interest. “We can use our speed to get downstream of the canoes, then hover. You can shoot them as they come toward you. It will be an interesting experiment. I can imagine circumstances in which knowing that we can use a rifleman to clear enemies from a proposed landing site might come in handy.”

* * *

Maria looked anxiously at the winch. They had paid out several times as much steel wire as they had for Maurício’s test run. Would the wire hold, or would Henrique drop into the turbulent waters below?

* * *

Captain Neilsen has done well by me, thought Henrique. There had been a bit of oscillation, but the captain had managed to damp it down somewhat. It helped that there wasn’t much wind, here in the doldrums, and over land to boot. The basket still swung, a bit, but Henrique remembered a bit of reminiscence from Captain de Vries. We fire cannon at the peak of the upswing, when the ship seems to stand still, for an instant.

Henrique squeezed the trigger.

The bandeirante standing next to Parente slumped. “What the hell,” the leader said, scanning the trees on the nearest bank for signs of an enemy. He hadn’t thought to look up, and even if he had, the spy basket at least was lost in the glare of the sun.

Henrique fired again.

Bento clutched his breast. Slowly, like a giant tree blown over by a gust of wind, he toppled into the depths of the Amazon River.

“Good-bye, Bento,” said Henrique. “And good riddance.”

Below, one of Bento’s men, eyes shaded, was pointing upward at the airship.

A telegraph wire connected Henrique with the airship, and he clicked out a quick signal. As the spy basket lurched upward, and Parente’s men fired wildly into the air, Henrique remembered one of Maria’s odd American phrases. “Beam me up, Scotty,” he murmured.

Gustavus (Paramaribo)

Captain David de Vries stared up into the sky in amazement. A small airship floated there, like a cloud. The airship delivered by steamship to Maria Vorst, for an aerial raid on the botanical treasures of the Amazon.

Carsten Claus beamed at him. “Quite a sight, isn’t it?”

“Carsten, I am tired, fucking tired, of being a governor. You’re the one interested in politics. On behalf of the Company, I appoint you as my successor.”

Carsten nodded sympathetically. “I always knew you were more interested in adventure than colonial management. Going to go privateering in the Spanish Main?”

“No need. We did well in the gold field. It’s time to head back to Amsterdam. But after that, I am going to learn to sail one of those things.” He pointed upward. “I want to be an airship captain.”

* * *

The Sandterne faced into the wind, and slowed down its propellers just enough to hover, the gondola a few feet off the ground. Lars and his ground crew grabbed hold of the mooring ropes attached to the Sandterne’s nose cap.

The airship fought to remain airborne, like some wild animal resisting capture. For a moment, the ground crew found themselves with their feet dangling in the air. Fortunately, there was still mooring rope on the ground, and colonists, watching the landing, ran over and grabbed hold. The ground crew regained their footing and with the colonists’ help eased the Sandterne into its mooring position, nose almost nuzzling the metal ring of the airship’s mooring mast. Then a couple of crewmen raced up the stairs of the tower and fastened the bowlines to the mooring ring.

* * *

Maria had intended to watch the entire deflation of the Sandterne, but left after a few minutes. She couldn’t help thinking of the Sandterne as a living thing, a “she,” not an “it.”

It was like watching a beloved mount be put down.

Henrique had refused to talk about her proposal that he join her in Copenhagen, and later in Asia. She wasn’t sure why he hadn’t jumped on the idea. After all, if he secretly wanted her, despite their difference in religion, he should want to come along, as otherwise they might never see each other again. And if the religious difference was insurmountable, then he should come along at least as far as Copenhagen, and then travel to one of the Jewish enclaves of Europe.

Was he afraid of joining society—real society, not the crude community life he had experienced in Belém and then Gustavus? Well, then he could go with her to Asia, soon enough.

Or was it that he couldn’t bear to be parted from Maurício? Maria had thought that with Maurício’s new role, that he needed Henrique to step away and let him become the man he could be, not just Henrique’s shadow. But perhaps Henrique didn’t see it that way. And perhaps Maurício wasn’t ready to let go, either.

* * *

“Thank you for the letter of introduction, Captain Neilsen.”

“My pleasure, Captain de Vries. The airship service would profit from having a skipper of your maritime experience. But please remember that there will be much to relearn. You will need to first serve as a crewman on an airship, under another captain.”

“I understand. Flying is not sailing. But the freedom . . . To travel as easily over the land as over the sea.”

They exchanged knowing looks. “It’s too bad they won’t let you sail this airship across the Atlantic,” de Vries added.

Captain Neilsen shrugged. “The Royal Anne could do it, I think. It made it to Tranquebar, with a refueling stop in Venice. I was a crewman on that flight. Perhaps you will fly to Asia, or back to the New World, one day.”

“I hope so, Captain.” He touched his hat in salute, and Neilsen returned the honor.

* * *

Maria stood on the dock as the Valdemar made its final preparations for departure. Many colonists had come to personally thank her for her services. But where was Henrique?

“Do you need any help, Maria?” It was Kojo. The Ashanti was traveling with her to Copenhagen. There, she would make arrangements with friends in Amsterdam for him to go to Havana, in the guise of a free servant of a Spanish gentleman. The gentleman in question was a trusted colleague of Captain de Vries, and he would carry a letter of credit with which he could buy Kojo’s children . . . assuming they could find them. She had been taught Kojo Spanish . . . enough to get by, at least.

“No, I am fine.” She motioned him closer. “Don’t forget what I told you,” she whispered. “Don’t show your gold to anyone on board, or even speak about it.”

“I will remember.” She watched him board the Valdemar.

Hearing a commotion behind her, she turned. Ah, there Henrique was, with Maurício and Kasiri. The lesser African chiefs followed, at a respectful distance.

Maria sighed. She could only offer Henrique a professional partnership, not a marriage; she couldn’t compete with his relationship with his half-brother. But at least he was here in time to say farewell.

“Here you are at last, Henrique. I was afraid you weren’t coming.”

“It would be very difficult for me to get to Copenhagen, if I didn’t come. I am not that good a swimmer, you know.”

“You’re coming!”

“Someone has to keep you out of trouble. You’ll go to Asia, see a butterfly perched on top of a tiger’s tail, and next thing you know, you’ll be holding that tail . . .”

“It will be a splendid adventure.”

Henrique turned to his half-brother. “Goodbye, Maurício.” He offered his hand.

Maurício took it. “I am glad to know that you’ll keep Maria out of trouble. But who, exactly, will keep you out of trouble?”

“Come, Maurício,” said Henrique, “is that the best you can do? There must be a Latin maxim that is apropos to this occasion.”

“Ubi bene, ibi patria,” Maurício declared. Where you feel good, there is your home.

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Framed