[Transcriber's note:This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact--Science FictionNovember 1962, December 1962, January 1963, February 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyrighton this publication was renewed. ]

[Illustration: SPACE VIKINGA great new novel by H. Beam Piper]

[Illustration][Illustration]

Space Viking

 Vengeance is a strange human motivation-- it can drive a man to do things which he neither would nor could achieve without it . .. And because of that it lies behind some of the greatest sagas of human literature!

by H. Beam Piper

Illustrated by Schoenherr

They stood together at the parapet, their arms about each other'swaists, her head against his cheek. Behind, the broad leavedshrubbery gossiped softly with the wind, and from the lower mainterrace came music and laughing voices. The city of Wardshavenspread in front of them, white buildings rising from the wide spacesof green treetops, under a shimmer of sun-reflecting aircars above. Far away, the mountains were violet in the afternoon haze, and thehuge red sun hung in a sky as yellow as a ripe peach. 

His eye caught a twinkle ten miles to the southwest, and for aninstant he was puzzled. Then he frowned. The sunlight on the twothousand-foot globe of Duke Angus' new ship, the _Enterprise_, backat the Gorram shipyards after her final trial cruise. He didn't wantto think about that, now. 

Instead, he pressed the girl closer and whispered her name, "Elaine, "and then, caressing every syllable, "Lady Elaine Trask of Traskon. "

"Oh, no, Lucas!" Her protest was half joking and half apprehensive. "It's bad luck to be called by your married name before the wedding. "

"I've been calling you that in my mind since the night of the Duke'sball, when you were just home from school on Excalibur. "

She looked up from the corner of her eye. 

"That was when I started calling me that, too, " she confessed. 

"There's a terrace to the west at Traskon New House, " he told her. "Tomorrow, we'll have our dinner there, and watch the sunset together. "

"I know. I thought that was to be our sunset-watching place. "

"You have been peeking, " he accused. "Traskon New House was to beyour surprise. "

"I always was a present-peeker, New Year's and my birthdays. But I onlysaw it from the air. I'll be very surprised at everything inside, "she promised. "And very delighted. "

And when she'd seen everything and Traskon New House wasn't a surpriseany more, they'd take a long space trip. He hadn't mentioned that toher, yet. To some of the other Sword-Worlds--Excalibur, of course, andMorglay and Flamberge and Durendal. No, not Durendal; the war hadstarted there again. But they'd have so much fun. And she would seeclear blue skies again, and stars at night. The cloud-veil hid the starsfrom Gram, and Elaine had missed them, since coming home from Excalibur. 

The shadow of an aircar fell briefly upon them and they looked upand turned their heads, in time to see it sink with graceful dignitytoward the landing-stage of Karval House, and he glimpsed itsblazonry--sword and atom-symbol, the badge of the ducal house ofWard. He wondered if it were Duke Angus himself, or just some ofhis people come ahead of him. They should get back to their guests, he supposed. Then he took her in his arms and kissed her, and sheresponded ardently. It must have been all of five minutes sincethey'd done that before. 

 * * * * *

A slight cough behind them brought them apart and their headsaround. It was Sesar Karvall, gray-haired and portly, the breast ofhis blue coat gleaming with orders and decorations and the sapphirein the pommel of his dress-dagger twinkling. 

"I thought I'd find you two here, " Elaine's father smiled. "You'llhave tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow together, but need I remindyou that today we have guests, and more coming every minute. "

"Who came in the Ward car?" Elaine asked. 

"Rovard Grauffis. And Otto Harkaman; you never met him, did you, Lucas?"

"No; not by introduction. I'd like to, before he spaces out. " He hadnothing against Harkaman personally; only against what he represented. "Is the Duke coming?"

"Oh, surely. Lionel of Newhaven and the Lord of Northport are comingwith him. They're at the Palace now. " Karvall hesitated. "His nephew'sback in town. "

Elaine was distressed; she started to say: "Oh, dear! I hope he doesn't--"

"Has Dunnan been bothering Elaine again?"

"Nothing to take notice of. He was here, yesterday, demanding tospeak with her. We got him to leave without too much unpleasantness. "

"It'll be something for me to take notice of, if he keeps it upafter tomorrow. "

For his seconds and Andray Dunnan's, that was; he hoped it wouldn'tcome to that. He didn't want to have to shoot a kinsman to the houseof Ward, and a crazy man to boot. 

"I'm terribly sorry for him, " Elaine was saying. "Father, you shouldhave let me talk to him. I might have made him understand. "

Sesar Karvall was shocked. "Child, you couldn't have subjectedyourself to that! The man is insane!" Then he saw her bareshoulders, and was even more shocked. "Elaine, your shawl!"

Her hands went up and couldn't find it; she looked about in confusedembarrassment. Amused, Lucas picked it from the shrub onto which shehad tossed it and draped it over her shoulders, his hands lingeringbriefly. Then he gestured to the older man to precede them, andthey entered the arbored walk. At the other end, in an open circle, a fountain played; white marble girls and boys bathing in thejade-green basin. Another piece of loot from one of the Old Federationplanets; that was something he'd tried to avoid in furnishingTraskon New House. There'd be a lot of that coming to Gram, afterOtto Harkaman took the _Enterprise_ to space. 

"I'll have to come back, some time, and visit them, " Elainewhispered to him. "They'll miss me. "

"You'll find a lot of new friends at your new home, " he whisperedback. "You wait till tomorrow. "

"I'm going to put a word in the Duke's ear about that fellow, " SesarKarvall, still thinking of Dunnan, was saying. "If he speaks to him, maybe it'll do some good. "

"I doubt it. I don't think Duke Angus has any influence over him at all. "

Dunnan's mother had been the Duke's younger sister; from his fatherhe had inherited what had originally been a prosperous barony. Nowit was mortgaged to the top of the manor-house aerial-mast. The Dukehad once assumed Dunnan's debts, and refused to do so again. Dunnanhad gone to space a few times, as a junior officer on trade-and-raidvoyages into the Old Federation. He was supposed to be a fairastrogator. He had expected his uncle to give him command of the_Enterprise_, which had been ridiculous. Disappointed in that, he had recruited a mercenary company and was seeking militaryemployment: It was suspected that he was in correspondence withhis uncle's worst enemy, Duke Omfray of Glaspyth. 

And he was obsessively in love with Elaine Karvall, a passion whichseemed to nourish itself on its own hopelessness. Maybe it wouldbe a good idea to take that space trip right away. There ought tobe a ship leaving Bigglersport for one of the other Sword-Worlds, before long. 

 * * * * *

They paused at the head of the escalators; the garden below wasthronged with guests, the bright shawls of the ladies and the coatsof the men making shifting color-patterns among the flower-beds andon the lawns and under the trees. Serving-robots, flame-yellow andblack in the Karvall colors, floated about playing soft music andoffering refreshments. There was a continuous spiral of changingcostume-color around the circular robo-table. Voices babbled happilylike a mountain river. 

As they stood looking down, another aircar circled low; green andgold, lettered PANPLANET NEWS SERVICE. Sesar Karvall swore inirritation. 

"Didn't there use to be something they called privacy?" he asked. 

"It's a big story, Sesar. "

It was; more than the marriage of two people who happened to be in lovewith each other. It was the marriage of the farming and ranching baronyof Traskon and the Karvall steel mills. More, it was public announcementthat the wealth and fighting-men of both baronies were now alignedbehind Duke Angus of Wardshaven. So it was a general holiday. Everyindustry had closed down at noon today, and would be closed untilmorning-after-next, and there would be dancing in every park andfeasting in every tavern. To Sword-Worlders, any excuse for a holidaywas better than none. 

"They're our people, Sesar; they have a right to have a good timewith us. I know everybody at Traskon is watching this by screen. "

He raised his hand and waved to the news car, and when it swungits pickup around, he waved again. Then they went down the longescalator. 

Lady Lavina Karvall was the center of a cluster of matrons anddowagers, around which tomorrow's bridesmaids fluttered likemany-colored butterflies. She took possession of her daughterand dragged her into the feminine circle. He saw Rovard Grauffis, small and saturnine, Duke Angus' henchman, and Burt Sandrasan, Lady Lavina's brother. They spoke, and then an upper-servant, his tabard blazoned with the yellow flame and black hammer ofKarvall mills, approached his master with some tale of domesticcrisis, and the two went away together. 

"You haven't met Captain Harkaman, Lucas, " Rovard Grauffis said. "I wish you'd come over and say hello and have a drink with him. I know your attitude, but he's a good sort. Personally, I wishwe had a few like him around here. "

That was his main objection. There were fewer and fewer men ofthat sort on any of the Sword-Worlds. 

II

A dozen men clustered around the bartending robot--his cousinand family lawyer, Nikkolay Trask; Lothar Ffayle, the banker;Alex Gorram, the shipbuilder, and his son Basil; Baron Rathmore;more of the Wardshaven nobles whom he knew only distantly. And Otto Harkaman. 

Harkaman was a Space Viking. That would have set him apart, evenif he hadn't topped the tallest of them by a head. He wore a shortblack jacket, heavily gold-braided, and black trousers insideankle-boots; the dagger on his belt was no mere dress-ornament. Histousled red-brown hair was long enough to furnish extra padding ina combat-helmet, and his beard was cut square at the bottom. 

He had been fighting on Durendal, for one of the branches of theroyal house contesting fratricidally for the throne. The wrong one;he had lost his ship, and most of his men and, almost, his own life. He had been a penniless refugee on Flamberge, owning only theclothes he stood in and his personal weapons and the loyalty ofhalf a dozen adventurers as penniless as himself, when Duke Angushad invited him to Gram to command the _Enterprise_. 

"A pleasure, Lord Trask. I've met your lovely bride-to-be, andnow that I meet you, let me congratulate both. " Then, as theywere having a drink together, he put his foot in it by asking:"You're not an investor in the Tanith Adventure, are you?"

He said he wasn't, and would have let it go at that. Young BasilGorram had to get his foot in, too. 

"Lord Trask does not approve of the Tanith Adventure, " he saidscornfully. "He thinks we should stay home and produce wealth, instead of exporting robbery and murder to the Old Federationfor it. "

The smile remained on Otto Harkaman's face; only the friendlinesswas gone. He unobtrusively shifted his drink to his left hand. 

"Well, our operations are definable as robbery and murder, " heagreed. "Space Vikings are professional robbers and murderers. And you object? Perhaps you find me personally objectionable?"

"I wouldn't have shaken your hand or had a drink with you if I did. I don't care how many planets you raid or cities you sack, or howmany innocents, if that's what they are, you massacre in the OldFederation. You couldn't possibly do anything worse than thosepeople have been doing to one another for the past ten centuries. What I object to is the way you're raiding the Sword-Worlds. "

"You're crazy!" Basil Gorram exploded. 

"Young man, " Harkaman reproved, "the conversation was between LordTrask and myself. And when somebody makes a statement you don'tunderstand, don't tell him he's crazy. Ask him what he means. What _do_ you mean, Lord Trask?"

"You should know; you've just raided Gram for eight hundred of ourbest men. You raided me for close to forty vaqueros, farm-workers, lumbermen, machine-operators, and I doubt I'll be able to replacethem with as good. " He turned to the elder Gorram. "Alex, how manyhave you lost to Captain Harkaman?"

Gorram tried to make it a dozen; pressed, he admitted to a score anda half. Roboticians, machine-supervisors, programmers, a couple ofengineers, a foreman. There was grudging agreement from the others. Burt Sandrasan's engine-works had lost almost as many, of the samekind. Even Lothar Ffayle admitted to losing a computerman anda guard-sergeant. 

And after they were gone, the farms and ranches and factories wouldgo on, almost but not quite as before. Nothing on Gram, nothing onany of the Sword-Worlds, was done as efficiently as three centuriesago. The whole level of Sword-World life was sinking, like the eastcoastline of this continent, so slowly as to be evident only fromthe records and monuments of the past. He said as much, and added:

"And the genetic loss. The best Sword-World genes are literallyescaping to space, like the atmosphere of a low-gravity planet, each generation begotten by fathers slightly inferior to the last. It wasn't so bad when the Space Vikings raided directly from theSword-Worlds; they got home once in a while. Now they're conqueringplanets in the Old Federation for bases, and staying there. "

 * * * * *

Everybody had begun to relax; this wouldn't be a quarrel. Harkaman, who had shifted his drink back to his right hand, chuckled. 

"That's right. I've fathered my share of brats in the OldFederation, and I know Space Vikings whose fathers were born onOld Federation planets. " He turned to Basil Gorram. "You see, thegentleman isn't crazy, at all. That's what happened to the TerranFederation, by the way. The good men all left to colonize, and thestuffed shirts and yes-men and herd-followers and safety-firstersstayed on Terra and tried to govern the galaxy. "

"Well, maybe this is all new to you, captain, " Rovard Grauffissaid sourly, "but Lucas Trask's dirge for the Decline and Fallof the Sword-Worlds is an old song to the rest of us. I havetoo much to do to stay here and argue. "

Lothar Ffayle evidently did intend to stay and argue. 

"All you're saying, Lucas, is that we're expanding. You want usto sit here and build up population pressure like Terra in theFirst Century?"

"With three and a half billion people spread out on twelve planets?They had that many on Terra alone. And it took us eight centuriesto reach that. "

That had been since the Ninth Century, Atomic Era, at the end ofthe Big War. Ten thousand men and women on Abigor, refusing tosurrender, had taken the remnant of the System States Alliance navyto space, seeking a world the Federation had never heard of andwouldn't find for a long time. That had been the world they hadcalled Excalibur. From it, their grandchildren had colonized Joyeuseand Durendal and Flamberge; Haulteclere had been colonized in thenext generation from Joyeuse, and Gram from Haulteclere. 

"We're not expanding, Lothar; we're contracting. We stoppedexpanding three hundred and fifty years ago, when that ship cameback to Morglay from the Old Federation and reported what hadbeen happening out there since the Big War. Before that, we werediscovering new planets and colonizing them. Since then, we'vebeen picking the bones of the dead Terran Federation. "

 * * * * *

Something was going on by the escalators to the landing stage. People were moving excitedly in that direction, and the news carswere circling like vultures over a sick cow. Harkaman wondered, hopefully, if it mightn't be a fight. 

"Some drunk being bounced. " Nikkolay, Lucas' cousin, commented. "Sesar's let all Wardshaven in here, today. But, Lucas, this Tanithadventure; we're not making any hit-and-run raid. We're taking overa whole planet; it'll be another Sword-World in forty or fiftyyears. "

[Illustration]

"Inside another century, we'll conquer the whole Federation, " BaronRathmore declared. He was a politician and never let exaggerationworry him. 

"What I don't understand, " Harkaman said, "is why you support DukeAngus, Lord Trask, if you think the Tanith adventure is doing Gramso much harm. "

[Illustration]

"If Angus didn't do it, somebody else would. But Angus is going tomake himself King of Gram, and I don't think anybody else could dothat. This planet needs a single sovereignty. I don't know how muchyou've seen of it outside this duchy, but don't take Wardshaven astypical. Some of these duchies, like Glaspyth or Didreksburg, areliteral snake pits. All the major barons are at each other'sthroats, and they can't even keep their own knights and petty-baronsin order. Why, there's a miserable little war down in SouthmainContinent that's been going on for over two centuries. "

"That's probably where Dunnan's going to take that army of his, "a robot-manufacturing baron said. "I hope it gets wiped out, andDunnan with it. "

"You don't have to go to Southmain; just go to Glaspyth, " somebodyelse said. 

"Well, if we don't get a planetary monarchy to keep order, thisplanet will decivilize like anything in the Old Federation. "

"Oh, _come_, Lucas!" Alex Gorram protested. "That's pulling it outtoo far. "

"Yes, for one thing, we don't have the Neobarbarians, " somebodysaid. "And if they ever came out here, we'd blow them toEm-See-Square in nothing flat. Might be a good thing if theydid, too; it would stop us squabbling among ourselves. "

Harkaman looked at him in surprise. "Just who do you think theNeobarbarians are, anyhow?" he asked. "Some race of invading nomads;Attila's Huns in spaceships?"

"Well, isn't that who they are?" Gorram asked. 

"Nifflheim, no! There aren't a dozen and a half planets in the OldFederation that still have hyperdrive, and they're all civilized. That's if 'civilized' is what Gilgamesh is, " he added. "These arehomemade barbarians. Workers and peasants who revolted to seize anddivide the wealth and then found they'd smashed the means ofproduction and killed off all the technical brains. Survivors onplanets hit during the Interstellar Wars, from the Eleventh tothe Thirteenth Centuries, who lost the machinery of civilization. Followers of political leaders on local-dictatorship planets. Companies of mercenaries thrown out of employment and living bypillage. Religious fanatics following self-anointed prophets. "

"You think we don't have plenty of Neobarbarian material here onGram?" Trask demanded. "If you do, take a look around. "

Glaspyth, somebody said. 

"That collection of over-ripe gallows-fruit Andray Dunnan'srecruited, " Rathmore mentioned. 

Alex Gorram was grumbling that his shipyard was full of them;agitators stirring up trouble, trying to organize a strike toget rid of the robots. 

"Yes, " Harkaman pounced on that last. "I know of at least fortyinstances, on a dozen and a half planets, in the last eightcenturies, of anti-technological movements. They had them on Terra, back as far as the Second Century Pre-Atomic. And after Venusseceded from the First Federation, before the Second Federationwas organized. "

"You're interested in history?" Rathmore asked. 

"A hobby. All spacemen have hobbies. There's very little workaboard ship in hyperspace; boredom is the worst enemy. Myguns-and-missiles officer, Vann Larch, is a painter. Most of hiswork was lost with the _Corisande_ on Durendal, but he kept us fromstarving a few times on Flamberge by painting pictures and sellingthem. My hyperspatial astrogator, Guatt Kirbey, composes music; hetries to express the mathematics of hyperspatial theory in musicalterms. I don't care much for it, myself, " he admitted. "I studyhistory. You know, it's odd; practically everything that's happenedon any of the inhabited planets happened on Terra before the firstspaceship. "

The garden immediately around them was quiet, now; everybody wasover by the landing-stage escalators. Harkaman would have said more, but at that moment he saw half a dozen of Sesar Karvall's uniformedguardsmen run past. They were helmeted and in bullet-proofs; one ofthem had an auto-rifle, and the rest carried knobbed plastictruncheons. The Space Viking set down his drink. 

"Let's go, " he said. "Our host is calling up his troops; I thinkthe guests ought to find battle-stations, too. "

III

The gaily-dressed crowd formed a semicircle facing the landing-stageescalators; everybody was staring in embarrassed curiosity, thosebehind craning over the shoulders of those in front. The ladies haddrawn up their shawls in frigid formality; many had even coveredtheir heads. There were four news-service cars hovering above;whatever was going on was getting a planetwide screen showing. TheKarvall guardsmen were trying to get through; their sergeant wassaying, over and over, "Please, ladies and gentlemen; your pardon, noble sir, " and getting nowhere. 

Otto Harkaman swore disgustedly and shoved the sergeant aside. "Make way, here!" he bellowed. "Let these guards pass. " With that, he almost hurled a gaily-dressed gentleman aside on either hand;they both turned to glare angrily, then got hastily out of his way. Meditating briefly on the uses of bad manners in an emergency, Traskfollowed, with the others; the big Space Viking plowed to the front, where Sesar Karvall and Rovard Grauffis and several others were standing. 

Facing them, four men in black cloaks stood with their backs tothe escalators. Two were commonfolk retainers; hired gunmen, to beprecise. They were at pains to keep their hands plainly in sight, and seemed to be wishing themselves elsewhere. The man in front worea diamond sunburst jewel on his beret, and his cloak was lined withpale blue silk. His thin, pointed face was deeply lined about themouth and penciled with a thin black mustache. His eyes showedwhite all around the irises, and now and then his mouth would twitchin an involuntary grimace. Andray Dunnan; Trask wondered briefly howsoon he would have to look at him from twenty-five meters over thesights of a pistol. The face of the slightly taller man who stood athis shoulder was paper-white, expressionless, with a black beard. His name was Nevil Ormm, nobody was quite sure whence he had come, and he was Dunnan's henchman and constant companion. 

"You lie!" Dunnan was shouting. "You lie damnably, in your stinkingteeth, all of you! You've intercepted every message she's tried tosend me. "

"My daughter has sent you no messages, Lord Dunnan, " Sesar Karvallsaid, with forced patience. "None but the one I just gave you, thatshe wants nothing whatever to do with you. "

"You think I believe that? You're holding her a prisoner; Satanonly knows how you've been torturing her to force her into thisabominable marriage--"

There was a stir among the bystanders; that was more thanwell-mannered restraint could stand. Out of the murmur ofincredulous voices, one woman's was quite audible:

"Well, really! He actually _is_ crazy!"

Dunnan, like everybody else, heard it. "Crazy, am I?" he blazed. "Because I can see through this hypocritical sham? Here's LucasTrask, he wants an interest in Karvall mills, and here's SesarKarvall, he wants access to iron deposits on Traskon land. Andmy loving uncle, he wants the help of both of them in stealingOmfray of Glaspyth's duchy. And here's this loan-shark of a Ffayle, trying to claw my lands away from me, and Rovard Grauffis, the fetchdogof my uncle who won't lift a finger to save his kinsman from ruin, and this foreigner Harkaman who's swindled me out of command ofthe _Enterprise_. You're all plotting against me--"

"Sir Nevil, " Grauffis said, "you can see that Lord Dunnan's nothimself. If you're a good friend to him, you'll get him out of herebefore Duke Angus arrives. "

Ormm leaned forward and spoke urgently in Dunnan's ear. Dunnanpushed him angrily away. 

"Great Satan, are you against me, too?" he demanded. 

Ormm caught his arm. "You fool, do you want to ruin everything, now--" He lowered his voice; the rest was inaudible. 

"No, curse you, I won't go till I've spoken to her, face to face--"

 * * * * *

There was another stir among the spectators; the crowd was parting, and Elaine was coming through, followed by her mother and LadySandrasan and five or six other matrons. They all had their shawlsover their heads, right ends over left shoulders; they all stoppedexcept Elaine, who took a few steps forward and confronted AndrayDunnan. He had never seen her look more beautiful, but it was theicy beauty of a honed dagger. 

"Lord Dunnan, what do you wish to say to me?" she asked. "Say itquickly and then go; you are not welcome here. "

"Elaine!" Dunnan cried, taking a step forward. "Why do you coveryour head; why do you speak to me as a stranger? I am Andray, who loves you. Why are you letting them force you into thiswicked marriage?"

"No one is forcing me; I am marrying Lord Trask willingly andhappily, because I love him. Now, please, go and make no moretrouble at my wedding. "

"That's a lie! They're making you say that! You don't have to marryhim; they can't make you. Come with me now. They won't dare stopyou. I'll take you away from all these cruel, greedy people. Youlove me, you've always loved me. You've told me you loved me, again and again--"

Yes, in his own private dream-world, a world of fantasy that had nowbecome Andray Dunnan's reality, in which an Elaine Karvall whom hisimagination had created existed only to love him. Confronted by thereal Elaine, he simply rejected the reality. 

"I never loved you, Lord Dunnan, and I never told you so. I neverhated you, either, but you are making it very hard for me not to. Now go, and never let me see you again. "

With that, she turned and started back through the crowd, whichparted in front of her. Her mother and her aunt and the other ladiesfollowed. 

"You lied to me!" Dunnan shrieked after her. "You lied all the time. You're as bad as the rest of them, all scheming and plotting againstme, betraying me. I know what it's about; you all want to cheat meof my rights, and keep my usurping uncle on the ducal throne. Andyou, you false-hearted harlot, you're the worst of them all!"

Sir Nevil Ormm caught his shoulder and spun him around, propellinghim toward the escalators. Dunnan struggled, screaming inarticulatelylike a wounded wolf. Ormm was cursing furiously. 

"You two!" he shouted. "Help me, here. Get hold of him. "

Dunnan was still howling as they forced him onto the escalator, thebacks of the two retainers' cloaks, badged with the Dunnan crescent, light blue on black, hiding him. After a little, an aircar with theblue crescent blazonry lifted and sped away. 

"Lucas, he's crazy, " Sesar Karvall was insisting. "Elaine hasn'tspoken fifty words to him since he came back from his last voyage--"

He laughed and put a hand on Karvall's shoulder. "I know that, Sesar. You don't think, do you, that I need assurance of it?"

"Crazy, I'll say he's crazy, " Rovard Grauffis put in. "Did youhear what he said about his rights? Wait till his Grace hearsabout that. "

"Does he lay claim to the ducal throne, Sir Rovard?" Otto Harkamanasked, sharply and seriously. 

"Oh, he claims that his mother was born a year and a half beforeDuke Angus and the true date of her birth falsified to give Angusthe succession. Why, his present Grace was three years old when shewas born. I was old Duke Fergus' esquire; I carried Angus on myshoulder when Andray Dunnan's mother was presented to the lordsand barons the day after she was born. "

"Of course he's crazy, " Alex Gorram agreed. "I don't know whythe Duke doesn't have him put under psychiatric treatment. "

"I'd put him under treatment, " Harkaman said, drawing a fingeracross under his beard. "Crazy men who pretend to thrones are bombsthat ought to be deactivated, before they blow things up. "

"We couldn't do that, " Grauffis said. "After all, he's Duke Angus'nephew--"

"I could do it, " Harkaman said. "He only has three hundred men inthis company of his. Why you people ever let him recruit them Satanonly knows, " he parenthesized. "I have eight hundred; five hundredground-fighters. I'd like to see how they shape up in combat, beforewe space out. I can have them ready for action in two hours, andit'd be all over before midnight. "

"No, Captain Harkaman; his Grace would never permit it, " Grauffisvetoed. "You have no idea of the political harm that would do amongthe independent lords on whom we're counting for support. Youweren't here on Gram when Duke Ridgerd of Didreksburg had his sisterSancia's second husband poisoned--"

IV

They halted under the colonnade; beyond, the lower main terrace wascrowded, and a medley of old love songs was wafting from the soundoutlets, for the sixth or eighth time around. He looked at hiswatch; it was ninety seconds later than the last time he had doneso. Give it fifteen more minutes to get started, and another fifteento get away after the marriage toasts and the felicitations. Andno marriage, however pompous, lasted more than half an hour. Anhour, then, till he and Elaine would be in the aircar, bulletingtoward Traskon. 

The love songs stopped abruptly; after a momentary silence, atrumpet, considerably amplified, blared; the "Ducal Salute. " Thecrowd stopped shifting, the buzz of voices ceased. At the head ofthe landing-stage escalators there was a glow of color and the ducalparty began moving down. A platoon of guards in red and yellow, withgilded helmets and tasseled halberds. An esquire bearing the Swordof State. Duke Angus, with his council, Otto Harkaman among them;the Duchess Flavia and her companion-ladies. The household gentlemen, and their ladies. More guardsmen. There was a great burst of cheering;the news-service aircars got into position above the procession. Cousin Nikkolay and a few others stepped out from between the pillarsinto the sunlight; there was a similar movement at the other side ofthe terrace. The ducal party reached the end of the central walkway, halted and deployed. 

"All right; let's shove off, " Cousin Nikkolay said, stepping forward. 

Ten minutes since they had come outside; another five to get intoposition. Fifty minutes, now, till he and Elaine--Lady Elaine Traskof Traskon, for real and for always--would be going home. 

"Sure the car's ready?" he asked, for the hundredth time. 

His cousin assured him that it was. Figures in Karvall black andflame-yellow appeared across the terrace. The music began again, this time the stately "Nobles' Wedding March, " arrogant and atthe same time tender. Sesar Karvall's gentleman-secretary, andthe Karvall lawyer; executives of the steel mills, the Karvallguard-captain. Sesar himself, with Elaine on his arm; she waswearing a shawl of black and yellow. He looked around in suddenfright; "For the love of Satan, where's our shawl?" he demanded, andthen relaxed when one of his gentlemen exhibited it, green and tawnyin Traskon colors. The bridesmaids, led by Lady Lavina Karvall. Finally they halted, ten yards apart, in front of the Duke. 

 * * * * *

"Who approaches us?" Duke Angus asked of his guard-captain. 

He had a thin, pointed face, almost femininely sensitive, and asmall pointed beard. He was bareheaded except for the narrow goldencirclet which he spent most of his waking time scheming to convertinto a royal crown. The guard-captain repeated the question. 

"I am Sir Nikkolay Trask; I bring my cousin and liege-lord, Lucas, Lord Trask, Baron of Traskon. He comes to receive theLady-Demoiselle Elaine, daughter of Lord Sesar Karvall, Baronof Karvall mills, and the sanction of your Grace to the marriagebetween them. "

Sir Maxamon Zhorgay, Sesar Karvall's henchman, named himself andhis lord; they brought the Lady-Demoiselle Elaine to be wed toLord Trask of Traskon. The Duke, satisfied that these were personswhom he could address directly, asked if the terms of themarriage-agreement had been reached; both parties affirmed this. Sir Maxamon passed a scroll to the Duke; Duke Angus began to readthe stiff and precise legal phraseology. 

Marriages between noble houses were not matters to be left opento dispute; a great deal of spilled blood and burned powder hadresulted from ambiguity on some point of succession or inheritanceor dower rights. Lucas bore it patiently; he didn't want hisgreat-grandchildren and Elaine's shooting it out over a matterof a misplaced comma. 

"And these persons here before us do enter into this marriagefreely?" the Duke asked, when the reading had ended. He steppedforward as he spoke, and his esquire gave him the two-hand Sword ofState, heavy enough to behead a bisonoid. Trask stepped forward;Sesar Karvall brought Elaine up. The lawyers and henchmen obliquedoff to the sides. "How say you, Lord Trask?" he asked, almostconversationally. 

"With all my heart, your Grace. "

"And you, Lady-Demoiselle Elaine?"

"It is my dearest wish, your Grace. "

The Duke took the sword by the blade and extended it; they laidtheir hands on the jeweled pommel. 

"And do you, and your houses, avow us, Angus, Duke of Wardshaven, to be your sovereign prince, and pledge fealty to us and to ourlegitimate and lawful successors?"

"We do. " Not only he and Elaine, but all around them, and all thethrong in the gardens, answered, the spectators in shouts. Veryclearly, above it all, somebody, with more enthusiasm thandiscretion, was bawling: "_Long live Angus the First of Gram!_"

"And we, Angus, do confer upon you two, and your houses, the rightto wear our badge as you see fit, and pledge ourself to maintainyour rights against any and all who may presume to invade them. Andwe declare that this marriage between you two, and this agreementbetween your respective houses, does please us, and we avow you two, Lucas and Elaine, to be lawfully wed, and who so questions thismarriage challenges us, in our teeth and to our despite. "

That wasn't exactly the wording used by a ducal lord on Gram. It wasthe formula employed by a planetary king, like Napolyon of Flambergeor Rodolf of Excalibur. And, now that he thought of it, Angus hadconsistently used the royal first-person plural. Maybe that fellowwho had shouted about Angus the First of Gram had only been doingwhat he'd been paid to do. This was being telecast, and Omfray ofGlaspyth and Ridgerd of Didreksburg would both be listening; as ofnow, they'd start hiring mercenaries. Maybe that would get rid ofDunnan for him. 

The Duke gave the two-hand sword back to his esquire. The youngknight who was carrying the green and tawny shawl handed it to him, and Elaine dropped the black and yellow one from her shoulders, the only time a respectable woman ever did that in public, and hermother caught and folded it. He stepped forward and draped the Traskcolors over her shoulders, and then took her in his arms. Thecheering broke out again, and some of Sesar Karvall's guardsmenbegan firing a pom-pom somewhere. 

 * * * * *

It took a little longer than he had expected to finish with thetoasts and shake hands with those who crowded around. Finally, theexit march started, down the long walkway to the landing stage, and the Duke and his party moved away to the rear to prepare forthe wedding feast at which everybody but the bride and groom wouldcelebrate. One of the bridesmaids gave Elaine a huge sheaf offlowers, which she was to toss back from the escalator; she held itin the crook of one arm and clung to his with the other. 

"Darling; we really made it!" she was whispering, as though it weretoo wonderful to believe. 

Well, wasn't it?

One of the news cars--orange and blue, that was Westlands Telecast& Teleprint--had floated just ahead of them and was letting downtoward the landing stage. For a moment, he was angry; that wentbeyond the outer-orbit limits of journalistic propriety, even forWestlands T & T. Then he laughed; today he was too happy for angerabout anything. At the foot of the escalator, Elaine kicked off hergilded slippers--there was another pair in the car; he'd seen tothat personally--and they stepped onto the escalator and turnedabout. The bridesmaids rushed forward, and began struggling for theslippers, to the damage and disarray of their gowns, and when theywere half way up, Elaine heaved the bouquet and it burst apart amongthem like a bomb of colored fragrance, and the girls below snatchedat the flowers, shrieking deliriously. Elaine stood, blowing kissesto everybody, and he was shaking his clasped hands over his head, until they were at the top. 

When they turned and stepped off, the orange and blue aircar hadlet down directly in front of them, blocking their way. Now he wasreally furious, and started forward with a curse. Then he saw whowas in the car. 

Andray Dunnan, his thin face contorted and the narrow mustachewrithing on his upper lip; he had a slit beside the window openand was tilting the barrel of a submachine gun up and out of it. 

He shouted, and at the same time tripped Elaine and flung her down. He was throwing himself forward to cover her when there was ablasting multiple report. Something sledged him in the chest;his right leg crumpled under him. He fell--

He fell and fell and fell, endlessly, through darkness, out ofconsciousness. 

V

He was crucified, and crowned with a crown of thorns. Who had theydone that to? Somebody long ago, on Terra. His arms were drawn outstiffly, and hurt; his feet and legs hurt, too, and he couldn't movethem, and there was this prickling at his brow. And he was blind. 

[Illustration]

No; his eyes were just closed. He opened them, and there was a whitewall in front of him, patterned with a blue snow-crystal design, andhe realized that it was a ceiling and that he was lying on his back. He couldn't move his head, but by shifting his eyes he saw that hewas completely naked and surrounded by a tangle of tubes and wires, which puzzled him briefly. Then he knew that he was not on a bed, but on a robomedic, and the tubes would be for medication andwound drainage and intravenous feeding, and the wires would beto electrodes imbedded in his body for diagnosis, and thecrown-of-thorns thing would be more electrodes for an encephalograph. He'd been on one of those robomedics before, when he had been goredby a bisonoid on the cattle range. 

[Illustration]

That was what it was; he was still under treatment. But that seemedso long ago; so many things--he must have dreamed them--seemed tohave happened. 

Then he remembered, and struggled futilely to rise. 

"Elaine!" he called. "Elaine, where are you?"

There was a stir and somebody came into his limited view; hiscousin, Nikkolay Trask. 

"Nikkolay; Andray Dunnan, " he said. "What happened to Elaine?"

Nikkolay winced, as though something he had expected to hurt hadhurt worse than he had expected. 

"Lucas. " He swallowed. "Elaine . .. Elaine is dead. "

Elaine is dead. That didn't make sense. 

"She was killed instantly, Lucas. Hit six times; I don't thinkshe even felt the first one. She didn't suffer at all. "

Somebody moaned, and then he realized that it had been himself. 

"You were hit twice, " Nikkolay was telling him. "One in the leg;smashed the femur. And one in the chest. That one missed your heartby an inch. "

"Pity it did. " He was beginning to remember clearly, now. "I threwher down, and tried to cover her. I must have thrown her straightinto the burst and only caught the last of it myself. " There wassomething else; oh, yes. "Dunnan. Did they get him?"

Nikkolay shook his head. "He got away. Stole the _Enterprise_ andtook her off-planet. "

"I want to get him myself. "

He started to rise again; Nikkolay nodded to someone out of sight. A cool hand touched his chin, and he smelled a woman's perfume, nothing at all like Elaine's. Something like a small insect bithim on the neck. The room grew dark. 

Elaine was dead. There was no more Elaine, nowhere at all. Why, that must mean there was no more world. So that was why it hadgotten so dark. 

He woke again, fitfully, and it would be daylight and he could seethe yellow sky through an open window or it would be night and thewall-lights would be on. There would always be somebody with him. Nikkolay's wife, Dame Cecelia; Rovard Grauffis; Lady LavinaKarvall--he must have slept a long time, for she was so much olderthan he remembered--and her brother, Burt Sandrasan. And a womanwith dark hair, in a white smock with a gold caduceus on her breast. 

Once, Duchess Flavia, and once Duke Angus himself. He asked wherehe was, not much caring. They told him, at the Ducal Palace. 

He wished they'd all go away, and let him go wherever Elaine was. 

Then it would be dark, and he would be trying to find her, becausethere was something he wanted desperately to show her. Stars in thesky at night, that was it. But there were no stars, there was noElaine, there was no anything, and he wished that there was noLucas Trask, either. 

But there was an Andray Dunnan. He could see him standingblack-cloaked on the terrace, the diamonds in his beret-jewelglittering evilly; he could see the mad face peering at him overthe rising barrel of the submachine gun. And then he would huntfor him without finding him, through the cold darkness of space. 

The waking periods grew longer, and during them his mind was clear. They relieved him of his crown of electronic thorns. The feedingtubes came out, and they gave him cups of broth and fruit juice. He wanted to know why he had been brought to the Palace. 

"About the only thing we could do, " Rovard Grauffis told him. "They had too much trouble at Karvall House as it was. You know, Sesar got shot, too. "

"No. " So that was why Sesar hadn't come to see him. "Was he killed?"

"Wounded; he's in worse shape than you are. When the shootingstarted, he went charging up the escalator. Didn't have anythingbut his dress-dagger. Dunnan gave him a quick burst; I think thatwas why he didn't have time to finish you off. By that time, theguards who'd been shooting blanks from that rapid-fire gun got ina clip of live rounds and fired at him. He got out of there as fastas he could. They have Sesar on a robomedic like yours. He isn'tin any danger. "

The drainage tubes and medication tubes came out; the tangle ofwires around him was removed, and the electrodes with them. Theybandaged his wounds and dressed him in a loose robe and lifted himfrom the robomedic to a couch, where he could sit up when he wished;they began giving him solid food, and wine to drink, and allowed himto smoke. The woman doctor told him he'd had a bad time, as thoughhe didn't know that. He wondered if she expected him to thank herfor keeping him alive. 

"You'll be up and around in a few weeks, " his cousin added. "I'veseen to it that everything at Traskon New House will be ready foryou by then. "

"I'll never enter that house as long as I live, and I wish thatwouldn't be more than the next minute. That was to be Elaine'shouse. I won't go to it alone. "

 * * * * *

The dreams troubled his sleep less and less as he grew stronger. Visitors came often, bringing amusing little gifts, and he foundthat he enjoyed their company. He wanted to know what had reallyhappened, and how Dunnan had gotten away. 

"He pirated the _Enterprise_, " Rovard Grauffis told him. "He hadthat company of mercenaries of his, and he'd bribed some of thepeople at the Gorram shipyards. I thought Alex would kill his chiefof security when he found out what had happened. We can't proveanything--we're trying hard enough to--but we're sure Omfray ofGlaspyth furnished the money. He's been denying it just a shadetoo emphatically. "

"Then the whole thing was planned in advance. "

"Taking the ship was; he must have been planning that for months;before he started recruiting that company. I think he meant to doit the night before the wedding. Then he tried to persuade theLady-Demoiselle Elaine to elope with him--he seems to have actuallythought that was possible--and when she humiliated him, he decidedto kill both of you first. " He turned to Otto Harkaman, who hadaccompanied him. "As long as I live, I'll regret not taking youat your word and accepting your offer, then. "

"How did he get hold of that Westlands Telecast and Teleprint car?"

"Oh. The morning of the wedding, he screened Westlands editorialoffice and told them he had the inside story on the marriage andwhy the Duke was sponsoring it. Made it sound as though there wassome scandal; insisted that a reporter come to Dunnan House for aface-to-face interview. They sent a man, and that was the last theysaw him alive; our people found his body at Dunnan House when wewere searching the place afterward. We found the car at theshipyard; it had taken a couple of hits from the guns at KarvallHouse, but you know what these press cars are built to stand. Hewent directly to the shipyard, where his men already had the_Enterprise_; as soon as he arrived, she lifted out. "

He stared at the cigarette between his fingers. It was almostshort enough to burn him. With an effort, he leaned forward tocrush it out. 

"Rovard, how soon will that second ship be finished?"

Grauffis laughed bitterly. "Building the _Enterprise_ tookeverything we had. The duchy's on the edge of bankruptcy now. Westopped work on the second ship six months ago because we didn'thave enough money to keep on with her and still get the _Enterprise_finished. We were expecting the _Enterprise_ to make enough in theOld Federation to finish the second one. Then, with two ships anda base on Tanith, the money would begin coming in instead of goingout. But now--"

"It leaves me where I was on Flamberge, " Harkaman added. "Worse. King Napolyon was going to help the Elmersans, and I'd have gottena command in that. It's too late for that now. "

He picked up his cane and used it to push himself to his feet. The broken leg had mended, but he was still weak. He took a fewtottering steps, paused to lean on the cane, and then forcedhimself on to the open window and stood for a moment staring out. Then he turned. 

"Captain Harkaman, it might be that you could still get a command, here on Gram. That's if you don't mind commanding under me asowner-aboard. I am going hunting for Andray Dunnan. "

They both looked at him. After a moment, Harkaman said:

"I'd count it an honor, Lord Trask. But where will you get a ship?"

"She's half finished now. You already have a crew for her. DukeAngus can finish her for me, and pay for it by pledging his newbarony of Traskon. "

He had known Rovard Grauffis all his life; until this moment, he had never seen Duke Angus' henchman show surprise. 

"You mean, you'll trade Traskon for that ship?" he demanded. 

"Finished, equipped and ready for space, yes. "

"The Duke will agree to that, " Grauffis said promptly. "But, Lucas;Traskon is all you own. "

"If I have a ship, I won't need them. I am turning Space Viking. "

That brought Harkaman to his feet with a roar of approval. Grauffislooked at him, his mouth slightly open. 

"Lucas Trask--Space Viking, " he said. "Now I've heard everything. "

Well, why not? He had deplored the effects of Viking raiding onthe Sword-Worlds, because Gram was a Sword-World, and Traskon wason Gram, and Traskon was to have been the home where he and Elainewould live and where their children and children's children wouldbe born and live. Now the little point on which all of it hadrested was gone. 

"That was another Lucas Trask, Rovard. He's dead, now. "

VI

Grauffis excused himself to make a screen call and then returned toexcuse himself again. Evidently Duke Angus had dropped whatever hewas doing as soon as he heard what his henchman had to tell him. Harkaman was silent until after he was out of the room, then said:

"Lord Trask, this is a wonderful thing for me. It's not beenpleasant to be a shipless captain living on strangers' bounty. I'd hate, though, to have you think, some time, that I'd advancedmy own fortunes at the expense of yours. "

"Don't worry about that. If anybody's being taken advantage of, you are. I need a space-captain, and your misfortune is my owngood luck. "

Harkaman started to pack tobacco into his pipe. "Have you ever beenoff Gram, at all?" he asked. 

"A few years at the University of Camelot, on Excalibur. Otherwise, no. "

"Well, have you any conception of the sort of thing you're settingyourself to?" The Space Viking snapped his lighter and puffed. "You know, of course, how big the Old Federation is. You know thefigures, that is, but do they mean anything to you? I know theydon't to a good many spacemen, even. We talk glibly about ten to thehundredth power, but emotionally we still count, 'One, Two, Three, Many. ' A ship in hyperspace logs about a light-year an hour. Youcan go from here to Excalibur in thirty hours. But you could senda radio message announcing the birth of a son, and he'd be a fatherbefore it was received. The Old Federation, where you're going tohunt Dunnan, occupies a space-volume of two hundred billion cubiclight-years. And you're hunting for one ship and one man in that. How are you going to do it, Lord Trask?"

"I haven't started thinking about how; all I know is that I have todo it. There are planets in the Old Federation where Space Vikingscome and go; raid-and-trade bases, like the one Duke Angus plannedto establish on Tanith. At one or another of them, I'll pick up wordof Dunnan, sooner or later. "

"We'll hear where he was a year ago, and by the time we get there, he'll be gone for a year and a half to two years. We've been raidingthe Old Federation for over three hundred years, Lord Trask. At present, I'd say there are at least two hundred Space Viking ships in operation. Why haven't we raided it bare long ago? Well, that's the answer:distance and voyage-time. You know, Dunnan could die of old age--whichis not a usual cause of death among Space Vikings--before you caught upwith him. And your youngest ship's-boy could die of old age before hefound out about it. "

"Well, I can go on hunting for him till I die, then. There's nothingelse that means anything to me. "

"I thought it was something like that. I won't be with you, all yourlife. I want a ship of my own, like the _Corisande_, that I lost onDurendal. Some day, I'll have one. But till you can command your ownship, I'll command her for you. That's a promise. "

Some note of ceremony seemed indicated. Summoning a robot, he had itpour wine for them, and they pledged each other. 

Rovard Grauffis had recovered his aplomb by the time he returnedaccompanied by the Duke. If Angus had ever lost his, he gave noindication of it. The effect on everybody else was literally seismic. The generally accepted view was that Lord Trask's reason had beenunhinged by his tragic loss; there might, he conceded, be more thana crumb of truth in that. At first, his cousin Nikkolay raged at himfor alienating the barony from the family, and then he learned thatDuke Angus was appointing him vicar-baron and giving him TraskonNew House for his residence. Immediately he began acting like oneat the death-bed of a rich grandmother. The Wardshaven financialand industrial barons, whom he had known only distantly, on theother hand, came flocking around him, offering assistance andhailing him as the savior of the duchy. Duke Angus' credit, almostobliterated by the loss of the _Enterprise_, was firmlyre-established, and theirs with it. 

There were conferences at which lawyers and bankers arguedinterminably; he attended a few at first, found himself completelyuninterested, and told everybody so. All he wanted was a ship; thebest ship possible, as soon as possible. Alex Gorram had been thefirst to be notified; he had commenced work on the unfinishedsister-ship of the _Enterprise_ immediately. Until he was strongenough to go to the shipyard himself, he watched the work on thetwo-thousand-foot globular skeleton by screen, and conferred eitherin person or by screen with engineers and shipyard executives. Hisrooms at the ducal palace were converted, almost overnight, fromsickrooms to offices. The doctors, who had recently been urginghim to find new interests and activities, were now warning of thedangers of overexertion. Harkaman finally added his voice to theirs. 

"You take it easy, Lucas. " They had dropped formality and wereon a first-name basis now. "You got hulled pretty badly; you letdamage-control work on you, and don't strain the machinery tillit's fixed. We have plenty of time. We're not going to get anywherechasing Dunnan. The only way we can catch him is by interception. The longer he moves around in the Old Federation before he hearswe're after him, the more of a trail he'll leave. Once we canestablish a predictable pattern, we'll have a chance. Then, sometime, he'll come out of hyperspace somewhere and find us waitingfor him. "

"Do you think he went to Tanith?"

Harkaman heaved himself out of his chair and prowled about the roomfor a few minutes, then came back and sat down again. 

"No. That was Duke Angus' idea, not his. He couldn't put in a baseon Tanith, anyhow. You know the kind of a crew he has. "

There had been an extensive inquiry into Dunnan's associates andaccomplices; Duke Angus was still hoping for positive proof toimplicate Omfray of Glaspyth in the piracy. Dunnan had with hima dozen and a half employees of the Gorram shipyards whom he hadcorrupted. There was some technical ability among them, but for themost part they were agitators and trouble-makers and incompetentworkmen. Even under the circumstances, Alex Gorram was glad to seethe last of them. As for Dunnan's own mercenary company, there wereabout a score of former spacemen among them; the rest graded downfrom bandits through thugs and sneak-thieves to barroom bums. Dunnan himself was an astrogator, not an engineer. 

"That gang aren't even good enough for routine raiding, " Harkamansaid. "They'd never under any circumstances be able to put in a baseon Tanith. Unless Dunnan's completely crazy, which I doubt, he's goneto some regular Viking base planet, like Hoth or Nergal or Dagon orXochitl, to recruit officers and engineers and able spacemen. "

"All that machinery and robotic equipment and so on that was goingto Tanith--was that aboard when he took the ship?"

"Yes, and that's another reason why he'd go to some planet like Hothor Nergal or Xochitl. On a Viking-occupied planet in the OldFederation, that stuff's almost worth its weight in gold. "

"What's Tanith like?"

"Almost completely Terra-type, third of a Class-G sun. Very muchlike Haulteclere or Flamberge. It was one of the last planets theFederation colonized before the Big War. Nobody knows what happened, exactly. There wasn't any interstellar war; at least, you don't findany big slag-puddles where cities used to be. They probably dida lot of fighting among themselves, after they got out of theFederation. There's still some traces of combat-damage around. Thenthey started to decivilize, down to the pre-mechanical level--windand water power and animal power. They have draft-animals that looklike introduced Terran carabaos, and a few small sailboats and bigcanoes and bateaux on the rivers. They have gunpowder, which seemsto be the last thing any people lose. 

"I was there, five years ago. I liked Tanith for a base. There's onemoon, almost solid nickel iron, and fissionable-ore deposits. Then, like a fool, I hired out to the Elmersans on Durendal and lost myship. When I came here, your Duke was thinking about Xipototec. Iconvinced him that Tanith was a better planet for his purpose. "

"Dunnan might go there, at that. He might think he was scoring oneon Duke Angus. After all, he has all that equipment. "

"And nobody to use it. If I were Dunnan, I'd go to Nergal, orXochitl. There are always a couple of thousand Space Vikings oneither, spending their loot and taking it easy between raids. Hecould sign on a full crew on either. I suggest we go to Xochitl, first. We might pick up news of him, if nothing else. "

 * * * * *

All right, they'd try Xochitl first. Harkaman knew the planet, and was friendly with the Haulteclere noble who ruled it. 

The work went on at the Gorram shipyard; it had taken a yearto build the _Enterprise_, but the steel-mills and engine-workswere over the preparatory work of tooling up, and material andequipment was flowing in a steady stream. Lucas let them persuadehim to take more rest, and day by day grew stronger. Soon he wasspending most of his time at the shipyard, watching the enginesgo in--Abbot lift-and-drive for normal space, Dillingham hyperdrive, power-converters, pseudograv, all at the center of the globular ship. 

Living quarters and workshops went in next, all armored incollapsium-plated steel. Then the ship lifted out to an orbit athousand miles off-planet, followed by swarms of armored work-craftand cargo-lighters; the rest of the work was more easily done inspace. At the same time, the four two-hundred-foot pinnaces thatwould be carried aboard were being finished. Each of them had itsown hyperdrive engines, and could travel as far and as fast asthe ship herself. 

Otto Harkaman was beginning to be distressed because the ship stilllacked a name. He didn't like having to speak of her as "her, " or"the ship, " and there were many things soon to go on that should bename-marked. _Elaine_, Trask thought, at once, and almost at oncerejected it. He didn't want her name associated with the thingsthat ship would do in the Old Federation. _Revenge_, _Avenger_, _Retribution_, _Vendetta_; none appealed to him. A news-commentator, turgidly eloquent about the nemesis which the criminal Dunnan hadinvoked against himself, supplied it, _Nemesis_ it was. 

Now he was studying his new profession of interstellar robbery andmurder against which he had once inveighed. Otto Harkaman's handfulof followers became his teachers. Vann Larch, guns-and-missiles, who was also a painter; Guatt Kirbey, sour and pessimistic, thehyperspatial astrogator who tried to express his science in music;Sharll Renner, the normal-space astrogator. Alvyn Karffard, theexec, who had been with Harkaman longest of all. And Sir PaytrikMorland, a local recruit, formerly guard-captain to Count Lionelof Newhaven, who commanded the ground-fighters and the combatcontragravity. They were using the farms and villages of Traskonfor drill and practice, and he noticed that while the _Nemesis_would carry only five hundred ground and air fighters, over athousand were being trained. 

He commented to Rovard Grauffis. 

"Yes. Don't mention it outside, " the Duke's henchman said. "You andSir Paytrik and Captain Harkaman will pick the five hundred best. The Duke will take the rest into his service. Some of these days, Omfray of Glaspyth will find out what a Space Viking raid is reallylike. "

And Duke Angus would tax his new subjects of Glaspyth to redeemthe pledges on his new barony of Traskon. Some old Pre-Atomic writerHarkaman was fond of quoting had said, "Gold will not always getyou good soldiers, but good soldiers can get you gold. "

 * * * * *

The _Nemesis_ came back to the Gorram yards and settled onto hercurved landing legs like a monstrous spider. The _Enterprise_ hadborne the Ward sword and atom-symbol; the _Nemesis_ should bear hisown badge, but the bisonoid head, tawny on green, of Traskon, was nolonger his. He chose a skull impaled on an upright sword, and it wasblazoned on the ship when he and Harkaman took her out for hershakedown cruise. 

When they landed again at the Gorram yards, two hundred hours later, they learned that a tramp freighter from Morglay had come intoBigglersport in their absence with news of Andray Dunnan. Hercaptain had come to Wardshaven at Duke Angus' urgent invitationand was waiting for them at the Ducal Palace. 

They sat, a dozen of them, around a table in the Duke's privateapartments. The freighter captain, a small, precise man with agraying beard, alternately puffed at a cigarette and sipped froma beaker of brandy. 

"I spaced out from Morglay two hundred hours ago, " he was saying. "I'dbeen there twelve local days, three hundred Galactic Standard hours, and the run from Curtana was three hundred and twenty. This ship, the _Enterprise_, spaced out from there several days before I did. I'd say she's twelve hundred hours out of Windsor, on Curtana, now. "

The room was still. The breeze fluttered curtains at the openwindows; from the garden below, winged night-things twittered. 

[Illustration]

"I never expected it, " Harkaman said. "I thought he'd take the shipout to the Old Federation at once. " He poured wine for himself. "Ofcourse, Dunnan's crazy. A crazy man has an advantage, sometimes, like a left-handed knife-fighter. He does unexpected things. "

"That wasn't such a crazy move, " Rovard Grauffis said. "We have verylittle direct trade with Curtana. It's only an accident we heardabout this when we did. "

The freighter captain's beaker was half empty. He filled it to thebrim from the decanter. 

"She was the first Gram ship there for years, " he agreed. "Thatattracted notice, of course. And his having the blazonry changed, from the sword and atom-symbol to the blue crescent. And theill-feeling on the part of other captains and planet-side employersabout the men he'd lured away from them. "

"How many men and what kind?"

The man with the gray beard shrugged. "I was too busy getting acargo together for Morglay, to pay much attention. Almost a fullspaceship complement, officers and spacemen of every kind. And alot of industrial engineers and technicians. "

"Then he is going to use that equipment that was aboard, and put ina base somewhere, " somebody said. 

[Illustration]

"If he left Curtana twelve hundred hours ago, he's still inhyperspace, " Guatt Kirbey said. "It's over two thousand from Curtanato the nearest Old Federation planet. "

"How far to Tanith?" Duke Angus asked. "I'm sure that's where he'sgone. He'd expect me to finish the other ship and equip her like the_Enterprise_ and send her out; he'd want to get there first. "

"I'd thought that Tanith would be the last place he'd go, " Harkamansaid, "but this changes the whole outlook. He could have gone to Tanith. "

"He's crazy, and you're trying to apply sane logic to him, " GuattKirbey said. "You're figuring what you'd do, and you aren't crazy. Of course, I've had my doubts, at times, but--"

"Yes, he's crazy, and Captain Harkaman's allowing for that, " RovardGrauffis said. "Dunnan hates all of us. He hates his Grace, here. He hates Lord Lucas, and Sesar Karvall; of course, he may thinkhe killed both of them. He hates Captain Harkaman. So how couldhe score all of us off at once? By taking Tanith. "

"You say he was buying supplies and ammunition?"

"That's right. Gun ammunition, ship's missiles, and a lot ofground-defense missiles. "

"What was he buying them with? Trading machinery?"

"No. Gold. "

"Yes. Lothar Ffayle found out that a lot of gold was transferred toDunnan from banks in Glaspyth and Didreksburg, " Grauffis said. "Hegot that aboard when he took the ship, evidently. "

"All right, " Trask said. "We can't be sure of anything, but we havesome reasons for thinking he went to Tanith, and that's more thanwe have for any other planet in the Old Federation. I won't try toestimate the odds against our finding him there, but they're a gooddeal bigger anywhere else. We'll go there, first. "

VII

The outside viewscreen, which had been vacantly gray for overthree thousand hours, was now a vertiginous swirl of color, theindescribable color of a collapsing hyperspatial field. No twoobservers ever saw it alike, and no imagination could vision theactuality. Trask found that he was holding his breath. So, henoticed, was Otto Harkaman, beside him. It was something, evidently, that nobody got used to. Even Guatt Kirbey, the astrogator, wassitting with his pipe clenched in his mouth, staring at the screen. 

Then, in an instant, the stars, which had literally not been therebefore, filled the screen with a blaze of splendor against the blackvelvet backdrop of normal space. Dead in the center, brighter thanall the rest, Ertado's Star, the sun of Tanith, burned yellowly. The light from it was ten hours old. 

"Pretty good, Guatt, " Harkaman said, picking up his cup. 

"Good, Gehenna; it was perfect, " somebody else said. 

Kirbey was relighting his pipe. "Oh, I suppose it'll have to do, " hegrudged, around the stem. He had gray hair and an untidy mustache, and nothing was ever quite good enough to satisfy him. "I could havemade it a little closer. Need three microjumps, now, and I'll haveto cut the last one pretty fine. Now don't bother me. " He beganpunching buttons for data and fiddling with setscrews and verniers. 

For a moment, in the screen, Trask could see the face of AndrayDunnan. He blinked it away and reached for his cigarettes, and putone in his mouth wrong-end-to. When he reversed it and snapped hislighter, he saw that his hand was trembling. Otto Harkaman must haveseen that, too. 

"Take it easy, Lucas, " he whispered. "Keep your optimism undercontrol. We only think he might be here. "

"I'm sure he is. He has to be. "

No; that was the way Dunnan, himself, thought. Let's be sane about this. 

"We have to assume he is. If we do, and he isn't it's adisappointment. If we don't, and he is, it's a disaster. "

Others, it seemed, thought the same way. The battle-stations boardwas a solid blaze of red light for full combat readiness. 

"All right, " Kirbey said. "Jumping. "

Then he twisted the red handle to the right and shoved it inviciously. Again the screen boiled with colored turbulence; againdark and mighty forces stalked through the ship like demons in asorcerer's tower. The screen turned featureless gray as the pickupsstared blindly into some dimensionless noplace. Then it convulsedwith color again, and this time Ertado's Star, still in the center, was a coin-sized disk, with the little sparks of its seven planetsscattered around it. Tanith was the third--the inhabitable planet ofa G-class system usually was. It had a single moon, barely visiblein the telescopic screen, five hundred miles in diameter and fiftythousand off-planet. 

"You know, " Kirbey said, as though he was afraid to admit it, "thatwasn't too bad. I think we can make it in one more microjump. "

Some time, Trask supposed, he'd be able to use the expression"micro-" about a distance of fifty-five million miles, too. 

"What do you think about it?" Harkaman asked him, as deferentiallyas though seeking expert guidance instead of examining hisapprentice. "Where should Guatt put us?"

"As close as possible, of course. " That would be a light-second atthe least; if the _Nemesis_ came out of hyperspace any closer toanything the size of Tanith, the collapsing field itself wouldkick her back. "We have to assume Dunnan's been there at leastnine hundred hours. By that time, he could have put in adetection-station, and maybe missile-launchers, on the moon. The_Enterprise_ carries four pinnaces, the same as the _Nemesis_; inhis place, I'd have at least two of them on off-planet patrol. Solet's accept it that we'll be detected as soon as we come out ofthe last jump, and come out with the moon directly between us andthe planet. If it's occupied, we can knock it off on the way in. "

"A lot of captains would try to come out with the moon masked offby the planet, " Harkaman said. 

"Would you?"

The big man shook his tousled head. "No. If they have launchers onthe moon, they could launch at us in a curve around the planet, bydata relayed from the other side, and we'd be at a disadvantagereplying. Just go straight in. You hearing this, Guatt?"

"Yeah. It makes sense. Sort of. Now, stop pestering me. Sharll, look here a minute. "

The normal-space astrogator conferred with him; Alvyn Karffard, theexecutive officer, joined them. Finally Kirbey pulled out the bigred handle, twisted it, and said, "All right, jumping. " He shovedit in. "I suppose I cut it too fine; now we'll get kicked back halfa million miles. "

The screen convulsed again; when it cleared the third planet wasdirectly in the center; its small moon, looking almost as large, wasa little above and to the right, sunlit on one side and planetlit onthe other. Kirbey locked the red handle, gathered up his tobacco andlighter and things from the ledge, and pulled down the cover of theinstrument-console, locking it. 

"All yours, Sharll, " he told Renner. 

"Eight hours to atmosphere, " Renner said. "That's if we don't haveto waste a lot of time shooting up Junior, there. "

Vann Larch was looking at the moon in the six hundred power screen. 

"I don't see anything to shoot. Five hundred miles; oneplanetbuster, or four or five thermonuclears, " he said. 

 * * * * *

It wasn't right, Trask thought indignantly. Minutes ago, Tanith hadbeen six and a half billion miles away. Seconds ago, fifty-odd million. And now, a quarter of a million, and looking close enough to touchin the screen, it would take them eight hours to reach it. Why, onhyperdrive you could go forty-eight trillion miles in that time. 

Well, it took a man just as long to walk across a room today as ithad taken Pharaoh the First, or Homo Sap. 

In the telescopic screen Tanith looked like any picture of anyTerra-type planet from space, with cloud-blurred contours of seasand continents and a vague mottling of gray and brown and green, topped at the pole by an icecap. None of the surface features, noteven the major mountain ranges or rivers, were yet distinguishable, but Harkaman and Sharll Renner and Alvyn Karffard and the other oldhands seemed to recognize it. Karffard was talking by phone to PaulKoreff, the signals-and-detection officer, who could detect nothingfrom the moon and nothing that was getting through the Van Allenbelt from the planet. 

Maybe they'd guessed wrong, at that. Maybe Dunnan hadn't gone toTanith at all. 

Harkaman, who had the knack of putting himself to sleep at will, with some sixth or _n_-th sense posted as a sentry, leaned back inhis chair and closed his eyes. Trask wished he could, too. It wouldbe hours before anything happened, and until then he needed all therest he could get. He drank more coffee, chain-smoked cigarettes;he rose and prowled about the command room, looking at screens. Signals-and-detection was getting a lot of routine stuff--Van Allencount, micrometeor count, surface temperature, gravitation-fieldstrength, radar and scanner echoes. He went back to his chair andsat down, staring at the screen-image. The planet didn't seem to begetting any closer at all, and it ought to; they were approachingit at better than escape velocity. He sat and stared at it. 

He woke with a start. The screen-image was much larger, now. Rivercourses and the shadow lines of mountains were clearly visible. Itmust be early autumn in the northern hemisphere; there was snow downto the sixtieth parallel and a belt of brown was pushing southagainst the green. Harkaman was sitting up, eating lunch. By theclock, it was four hours later. 

"Have a good nap?" he asked. "We're picking up some stuff, now. Radio and screen signals. Not much, but some. The locals wouldn'thave learned enough for that in the five years since I was here. We didn't stay long enough, for one thing. "

On decivilized planets that were visited by Space Vikings, thelocals picked up bits and scraps of technology very quickly. In thefour months of idleness and long conversations while they were inhyperspace he had heard many stories confirming that. But from thelevel to which Tanith had sunk, radio and screen communication infive years was a little too much of a jump. 

"You didn't lose any men, did you?"

That happened frequently--men who took up with local women, men whohad made themselves unpopular with their shipmates, men who justliked the planet and wanted to stay. They were always welcomed bythe locals for what they could do and teach. 

"No, we weren't there long enough for that. Only three hundred andfifty hours. This we're getting is outside stuff; somebody's therebeside the locals. "

Dunnan. He looked again at the battle-stations board; it was stilluniformly red-lighted. Everything was on full combat ready. Hesummoned a mess-robot, selected a couple of dishes, and beganto eat. After the first mouthful, he called to Alvyn Karffard:

"Is Paul getting anything new?" he asked. 

Karffard checked. A little contragravity-field distortion effect. It was still too far to be sure. He went back to his lunch. He hadfinished it and was lighting a cigarette over his coffee when a redlight flashed and a voice from one of the speakers shouted. 

"Detection! Detection from planet! Radar, and microray!"

Karffard began talking rapidly into a hand-phone; Harkaman unhookedone beside him and listened. 

"Coming from a definite point, about twenty-fifth north parallel, "he said, aside. "Could be from a ship hiding against the planet. There's nothing at all on the moon. "

 * * * * *

They seemed to be approaching the planet more and more rapidly. Actually, they weren't, the ship was decelerating to get intoan orbit, but the decreasing distance created the illusion ofincreasing speed. The red lights flashed once more. 

"_Ship detected!_ Just outside atmosphere, coming around the planetfrom the west. "

"Is she the _Enterprise_?"

"Can't tell, yet, " Karffard said, and then cried: "There she is, in the screen! That spark, about thirty degrees north, just offthe west side. "

Aboard her, too, voices from speakers would be shouting, "Shipdetected!" and the battle station board would be blazing red. And Andray Dunnan, at the command-desk--

"She's calling us. " That was Paul Koreff's voice, out of thesquawk-box on the desk. "Standard Sword-World impulse-code. Interrogative: What ship are you? Informative: her screencombination. Request: Please communicate. "

"All right, " Harkaman said. "Let's be polite and communicate. What's her screen-combination?"

Koreff's voice gave it, and Harkaman punched it out. Thecommunication screen in front of them lit at once; Trask shoved overhis chair beside Harkaman's, his hands tightening on the arms. Wouldit be Dunnan himself, and what would his face show when he saw whoconfronted him out of his own screen?

It took him an instant to realize that the other ship was not the_Enterprise_ at all. The _Enterprise_ was the _Nemesis'_ twin; hercommand room was identical with his own. This one was different inarrangements and fittings. The _Enterprise_ was a new ship; this onewas old, and had suffered for years at the hands of a slack captainand a slovenly crew. 

And the man who sat facing him in the screen was not Andray Dunnan, or any man he had ever seen before. A dark-faced man, with an oldscar that ran down one cheek from a little below the eye; he hadcurly black hair, on his head and on a V of chest exposed by an openshirt. There was an ashtray in front of him, and a thin curl ofsmoke rose from a cigar in it, and coffee steamed in an ornate butbattered silver cup beside it. He was grinning gleefully. 

"Well! Captain Harkaman, of the _Enterprise_, I believe! Welcometo Tanith. Who's the gentleman with you? He isn't the Duke ofWardshaven, is he?"

VIII

He glanced quickly at the showback over the screen, to assurehimself that his face was not betraying him. Beside him, OttoHarkaman was laughing. 

"Why, Captain Valkanhayn; this is an unexpected pleasure. That'sthe _Space Scourge_ you're in, I take it? What are you doing hereon Tanith?"

A voice from one of the speakers shouted that a second ship hadbeen detected coming over the north pole. The dark-faced man inthe screen smirked quite complacently. 

"That's Garvan Spasso, in the _Lamia_, " he said. "And what we'redoing here, we've taken this planet over. We intend keeping it, too. "

"Well! So you and Garvan have teamed up. You two were just made forone another. And you have a little planet, all your very own. I'm sohappy for both of you. What are you getting out of it--beside poultry?"

The other's self-assurance started to slip. He slapped it back into place. 

"Don't kid me; we know why you're here. Well, we got here first. Tanith is our planet. You think you can take it away from us?"

"I know we could, and so do you, " Harkaman told him. "We outgun youand Spasso together; why, a couple of our pinnaces could knock the_Lamia_ apart. The only question is, do we want to bother?"

By now, he had recovered from his surprise, but not from hisdisappointment. If this fellow thought the _Nemesis_ was the_Enterprise_--Before he could check himself, he had finishedthe thought aloud. 

"Then the _Enterprise_ didn't come here at all!"

The man in the screen started. "Isn't that the _Enterprise_ you're in?"

"Oh, no. Pardon my remissness, Captain Valkanhayn, " Harkamanapologized. "This is the _Nemesis_. The gentleman with me, LordLucas Trask, is owner-aboard, for whom I am commanding. Lord Trask, Captain Boake Valkanhayn, of the _Space Scourge_. Captain Valkanhaynis a Space Viking. " He said that as though expecting it to bedisputed. "So, I am told, is his associate, Captain Spasso, whoseship is approaching. You mean to tell me that the _Enterprise_hasn't been here?"

Valkanhayn was puzzled, slightly apprehensive. 

"You mean the Duke of Wardshaven has two ships?"

"As far as I know, the Duke of Wardshaven hasn't any ships, "Harkaman replied. "This ship is the property and private adventureof Lord Trask. The _Enterprise_, for which we are looking, is ownedand commanded by one Andray Dunnan. "

The man with the scarred face and hairy chest had picked up his cigarand was puffing on it mechanically. Now he took it out of his mouthas though he wondered how it had gotten there in the first place. 

"But isn't the Duke of Wardshaven sending a ship here to establisha base? That was what we'd heard. We heard you'd gone from Flambergeto Gram to command for him. "

"Where did you hear this? And when?"

"On Hoth. That'd be about two thousand hours ago; a Gilgamesherbrought the news from Xochitl. "

"Well, considering it was fifth or sixth hand, your information wasgood enough, when it was fresh. It was a year and a half old whenyou got it, though. How long have you been here on Tanith?"

"About a thousand hours. " Harkaman clucked sadly at that. 

"Pity you wasted all that time. Well, it was nice talking to you, Boake. Say hello to Garvan for me when he comes up. "

"You mean you're not staying?" Valkanhayn was horrified, an oddreaction for a man who had just been expecting a bitter battleto drive them away. "You're just spacing right out again?"

Harkaman shrugged. "Do we want to waste time here, Lord Trask? The_Enterprise_ has obviously gone somewhere else. She was still inhyperspace when Captain Valkanhayn and his accomplice arrived here. "

"Is there anything worth staying for?" That seemed to be the replyHarkaman was expecting. "Beside poultry, that is?"

Harkaman shook his head. "This is Captain Valkanhayn's planet; hisand Captain Spasso's. Let them be stuck with it. "

"But, look; this is a good planet. There's a big local city, maybeten or twenty thousand people; temples and palaces and everything. Then, there are a couple of old Federation cities. The one we're atis in good shape, and there's a big spaceport. We've been doinga lot of work on it. And the locals won't give you any trouble. All they have is spears and a few crossbows and matchlocks--"

"I know. I've been here. "

"Well, couldn't we make some kind of a deal?" Valkanhayn asked. A mendicant whine was beginning to creep into his voice. "I canget Garvan on screen and switch him over to your ship--"

"Well, we have a lot of Sword-World merchandise aboard, " Harkamansaid. "We could make you good prices on some of it. How are youfixed for robotic equipment?"

"But aren't you going to stay here?" Valkanhayn was almost in apanic. "Listen, suppose I talk to Garvan, and we all get togetheron this. Just excuse me for a minute--"

As soon as he had blanked out, Harkaman threw back his head andguffawed as though he had just heard the funniest and bawdiest jokein the galaxy. Trask, himself, didn't feel like laughing. 

"The humor escapes me, " he admitted. "We came here on a fools' errand. "

"I'm sorry, Lucas. " Harkaman was still shaking with mirth. "I knowit's a letdown, but that pair of chiseling chicken thieves! I couldalmost pity them, if it weren't so funny. " He laughed again. "Youknow what their idea was?"

Trask shook his head. "Who are they?"

"What I called them, a couple of chicken thieves. They raid planetslike Set and Hertha and Melkarth, where the locals haven't anythingto fight with--or anything worth fighting for. I didn't know they'dteamed up, but that figures. Nobody else would team up with eitherof them. What must have happened, this story of Duke Angus' Tanithadventure must have filtered out to them, and they thought that ifthey got here first, I'd think it was cheaper to take them in thanrun them out. I probably would have, too. They do have ships, of asort, and they do raid, after a fashion. But now, there isn't goingto be any Tanith base, and they have a no-good planet and they'restuck with it. "

"Can't they make anything out of it themselves?"

"Like what?" Harkaman hooted. "They have no equipment, and they haveno men. Not for a job like that. The only thing they can do is spaceout and forget it. "

"We could sell them equipment. "

"We could if they had anything to use for money. They haven't. Onething, we do want to let down and give the men a chance to walk onground and look at a sky for a while. The girls here aren't too bad, either, " Harkaman said. "As I remember, some of them even take abath, now and then. "

"That's the kind of news of Dunnan we're going to get. By the timewe'd get to where he's been reported, he'd be a couple of thousandlight-years away, " he said disgustedly. "I agree; we ought to givethe men a chance to get off the ship, here. We can stall this pairalong for a while and we won't have any trouble with them. "

 * * * * *

The three ships were slowly converging toward a point fifteenthousand miles off-planet and over the sunset line. The _SpaceScourge_ bore the device of a mailed fist clutching a comet by thehead; it looked more like a whisk broom than a scourge. The _Lamia_bore a coiled snake with the head, arms and bust of a woman. Valkanhayn and Spasso were taking their time about screening back, and he began to wonder if they weren't maneuvering the _Nemesis_into a cross-fire position. He mentioned this to Harkaman and AlvynKarffard; they both laughed. 

[Illustration]

"Just holding ship's meetings, " Karffard said. "They'll be yakkingback and forth for a couple of hours, yet. "

"Yes; Valkanhayn and Spasso don't own their ships, " Harkamanexplained. "They've gone in debt to their crews for supplies andmaintenance till everybody owns everything in common. The shipslook like it, too. They don't even command, really; they justpreside over elected command-councils. "

Finally, they had both of the more or less commanders on screen. Valkanhayn had zipped up his shirt and put on a jacket. GarvanSpasso was a small man, partly bald. His eyes were a shade too closetogether, and his thin mouth had a bitterly crafty twist. He beganspeaking at once:

"Captain, Boake tells me you say you're not here in the service ofthe Duke of Wardshaven at all. " He said it aggrievedly. 

"That's correct, " Harkaman said. "We came here because Lord Traskthought another Gram ship, the _Enterprise_, would be here. Sinceshe isn't, there's no point in our being here. We do hope, though, that you won't make any difficulty about our letting down and givingour men a couple of hundred hours' liberty. They've been inhyperspace for three thousand hours. "

"See!" Spasso clamored. "He wants to trick us into letting him land--"

[Illustration]

"Captain Spasso, " Trask cut in. "Will you please stop insultingeverybody's intelligence, your own included. " Spasso glared at him, belligerently but hopefully. "I understand what you thought you weregoing to do here. You expected Captain Harkaman here to establish abase for the Duke of Wardshaven, and you thought, if you were hereahead of him and in a posture of defense, that he'd take you intothe Duke's service rather than waste ammunition and risk damage andcasualties wiping you out. Well, I'm very sorry, gentlemen. CaptainHarkaman is in my service, and I'm not in the least interested inestablishing a base on Tanith. "

Valkanhayn and Spasso looked at each other. At least, in the twoside-by-side screens, their eyes shifted, each to the other's screenon his own ship. 

"I get it!" Spasso cried suddenly. "There's two ships, the_Enterprise_ and this one. The Duke of Wardshaven fitted out the_Enterprise_, and somebody else fitted out this one. They both wantto put in a base here!"

That opened a glorious vista. Instead of merely capitalizing ontheir nuisance-value, they might find themselves holding the balanceof power in a struggle for the planet. All sorts of profitableperfidies were possible. 

"Why, sure you can land, Otto, " Valkanhayn said. "I know what it'slike to be three thousand hours in hyper, myself. "

"You're at this old city with the two tall tower-buildings, aren'tyou?" Harkaman asked. He looked up at the viewscreen. "Ought to beabout midnight there now. How's the spaceport? When I was here, itwas pretty bad. "

"Oh, we've been fixing it up. We got a big gang of locals working for us--"

 * * * * *

The city was familiar, from Otto Harkaman's descriptions and fromthe pictures Vann Larch had painted during the long jump from Gram. As they came in, it looked impressive, spreading for miles aroundthe twin buildings that spired almost three thousand feet above it, with a great spaceport like an eight-pointed star at one side. Whoever had built it, in the sunset splendor of the old TerranFederation, must have done so confident that it would become themetropolis of a populous and prospering world. Then the sun of theFederation had gone down. Nobody knew what had happened on Tanithafter that, but evidently none of it had been good. 

At first, the two towers seemed as sound as when they had beenbuilt; gradually it became apparent that one was broken at the top. For the most part, the smaller buildings scattered widely aroundthem were standing, though here and there mounds of brush-grownrubble showed where some had fallen in. The spaceport looked good--acentral octagon mass of buildings, the landing-berths, and, beyond, the triangular areas of airship docks and warehouses. The centralbuilding was outwardly intact, and the ship-berths seemed clear ofwreckage and rubble. 

By the time the _Nemesis_ was following the _Space Scourge_ and the_Lamia_ down, towed by her own pinnaces, the illusion that they wereapproaching a living city had vanished. The interspaces between thebuildings were choked with forest-growth, broken by a few smallfields and garden-plots. At one time, there had been three of thehigh buildings, literally vertical cities in themselves. Where thethird had stood was a glazed crater, with a ridge of fallen rubblelying away from it. Somebody must have landed a medium missile, about twenty kilotons, against its base. Something of the same sorthad scored on the far edge of the spaceport, and one of the eightarrowheads of docks and warehouses was an indistinguishable slag-pile. 

The rest of the city seemed to have died of neglect rather thanviolence. It certainly hadn't been bombed out. Harkaman thought mostof the fighting had been done with subneutron bombs or Omega-raybombs, that killed the people without damaging the real estate. Orbio-weapons; a man-made plague that had gotten out of control andall but depopulated the planet. 

"It takes an awful lot of people, working together at an awful lotof jobs, to keep a civilization running. Smash the installations andkill the top technicians and scientists, and the masses don't knowhow to rebuild and go back to stone hatchets. Kill off enough of themasses and even if the planet and the know-how is left, there'snobody to do the work. I've seen planets that decivilized both ways. Tanith, I think, is one of the latter. "

That had been during one of the long after-dinner bull sessions on theway out from Gram. Somebody, one of the noble gentlemen-adventurers whohad joined the company after the piracy of the _Enterprise_ and themurder, had asked:

"But some of them survived. Don't they know what happened?"

"_'In the old times, there were sorcerers. They built the oldbuildings by wizard arts. Then the sorcerers fought among themselvesand went away, '_" Harkaman said. "That's all they know about it. "

You could make any kind of an explanation out of that. 

As the pinnaces pulled and nudged the _Nemesis_ down to her berth, he could see people, far down on the spaceport floor, at work. Either Valkanhayn and Spasso had more men than the size of theirships indicated, or they had gotten a lot of locals to work forthem. More than the population of the moribund city, at least asHarkaman remembered it. 

There had been about five hundred in all; they lived by mining theold buildings for metal, and trading metalwork for food and textilesand powder and other things made elsewhere. It was accessible onlyby oxcarts traveling a hundred miles across the plains; it had beenbuilt by a contragravity-using people with utter disregard fornatural travel and transportation routes. 

"I don't envy the poor buggers, " Harkaman said, looking down at theantlike figures on the spaceport floor. "Boake Valkanhayn and GarvanSpasso have probably made slaves of the lot of them. If I was reallygoing to put in a base here, I wouldn't thank that pair for thekind of public-relations work they've been doing among the locals. "

IX

That was just about the situation. Spasso and Valkanhayn and some oftheir officers met them on the landing stage of the big building inthe middle of the spaceport, where they had established quarters. Entering and going down a long hallway, they passed a dozen men andwomen gathering up rubbish from the floor with shovels and withtheir hands and putting it into a lifter-skid. Both sexes woreshapeless garments of coarse cloth, like ponchos, and flat-soledsandals. Watching them was another local in a kilt, buskins and aleather jerkin; he wore a short sword on his belt and carried awickedly thonged whip. He also wore a Space Viking combat helmet, painted with the device of Spasso's _Lamia_. He bowed as theyapproached, putting a hand to his forehead. After they had passed, they could hear him shouting at the others, and the sound of whip-blows. 

You make slaves out of people, and some will always be slave-drivers;they will bow to you, and then take it out on the others. Harkaman'snose was twitching as though he had a bit of rotten fish caught inhis mustache. 

"We have about eight hundred of them. There were only three hundredthat were any good for work here; we gathered the rest up at villagesalong the big river, " Spasso was saying. 

"How do you get food for them?" Harkaman asked. "Or don't you bother?"

"Oh, we gather that up all over, " Valkanhayn told him. "We sendparties out with landing craft. They'll let down on a village, runthe locals out, gather up what's around and bring it here. Once ina while they put up a fight, but the best they have is a few crossbowsand some muzzle-loading muskets. When they do, we burn the villageand machine-gun everybody we see. "

"That's the stuff, " Harkaman approved. "If the cow doesn't want tobe milked, just shoot her. Of course, you don't get much milk out ofher again, but--"

The room to which their hosts guided them was at the far end of thehall. It had probably been a conference room or something of thesort, and originally it had been paneled, but the paneling had longago vanished. Holes had been dug here and there in the walls, and heremembered having noticed that the door was gone and the metalgroove in which it had slid had been pried out. 

There was a big table in the middle, and chairs and couches coveredwith colored spreads. All the furniture was handmade, cunninglypegged together and highly polished. On the walls hung trophies ofweapons--thrusting-spears and throwing-spears, crossbows and quarrels, and a number of heavy guns, crude things, but carefully made. 

"Pick all this stuff up off the locals?" Harkaman asked. 

"Yes, we got most of it at a big town down at the forks of theriver, " Valkanhayn said. "We shook it down a couple of times. That'swhere we recruited the fellows we're using to boss the workers. "

Then he picked up a stick with a leather-covered knob and beat on agong, bawling for wine. A voice, somewhere, replied, "Yes, master; Icome!" and in a few moments a woman entered carrying a jug in eitherhand. She was wearing a blue bathrobe several sizes too large forher, instead of the poncho things the slaves in the hallway wore. She had dark brown hair and gray eyes; if she had not been soobviously frightened she would have been beautiful. She set the jugson the table and brought silver cups from a chest against the wall:when Spasso dismissed her, she went out hastily. 

"I suppose it's silly to ask if you're paying these people anythingfor the work they do or for the things you take from them, " Harkamansaid. From the way the _Space Scourge_ and _Lamia_ people laughed, it evidently was. Harkaman shrugged. "Well, it's your planet. Makeany kind of a mess out of it you want to. "

"You think we _ought_ to pay them?" Spasso was incredulous. "Damnbunch of savages!"

"They aren't as savage as the Xochitl locals were when Haultecleretook it over. You've been there; you've seen what Prince Viktor doeswith them now. "

"We haven't got the men or equipment they have on Xochitl, "Valkanhayn said. "We can't afford to coddle the locals. "

"You can't afford not to, " Harkaman told him. "You have two ships, here. You can only use one for raiding; the other will have to stayhere to hold the planet. If you take them both away, the locals, whom you have been studiously antagonizing, will swamp whoever youleave behind. And if you don't leave anybody behind, what's the useof having a planetary base?"

"Well, why don't you join us, " Spasso finally came out with it. "With our three ships we could have a real thing, here. "

Harkaman looked at him inquiringly. "The gentlemen, " Trask said, "are putting this wrongly. They mean, why don't we let them joinus?"

"Well, if you want to put it like that, " Valkanhayn conceded. "We'lladmit, your _Nemesis_ would be the big end of it. But why not? Threeships, we could have a real base here. Nikky Gratham's father onlyhad two when he started on Jagannath, and look what the Grathams gotthere now. "

"Are we interested?" Harkaman asked. 

"Not very, I'm afraid. Of course, we've just landed; Tanith mayhave great possibilities. Suppose we reserve decision for a whileand look around a little. "

 * * * * *

There were stars in the sky, and, for good measure, a sliver of moonon the western horizon. It was only a small moon, but it was close. He walked to the edge of the landing stage, and Elaine was walkingwith him. The noise from inside, where the _Nemesis_ crew werefeasting with those of the _Lamia_ and _Space Scourge_ grew fainter. To the south, a star moved; one of the pinnaces they had left onoff-planet watch. There was firelight far below, and he could hearsinging. Suddenly he realized that it was the poor devils of localswhom Valkanhayn and Spasso had enslaved. Elaine went away quickly. 

"Have your fill of Space Viking glamour, Lucas?"

He turned. It was Baron Rathmore, who had come along to serve for ayear or so and then hitch a ride home from some base planet and cashin politically on having been with Lucas Trask. 

"For the moment. I'm told that this lot aren't typical. "

"I hope not. They're a pack of sadistic brutes, and piggish alongwith it. "

"Well, brutality and bad manners I can condone, but Spasso andValkanhayn are a pair of ignominious little crooks, and stupid alongwith it. If Andray Dunnan had gotten here ahead of us, he might havedone one good thing in his wretched life. I can't understand why hedidn't come here. "

"I think he still will, " Rathmore said. "I knew him and I knewNevil Ormm. Ormm's ambitious, and Dunnan is insanely vindictive--"He broke off with a sour laugh. "I'm telling _you_ that!"

"Why didn't he come here directly, then?"

"Maybe he doesn't want a base on Tanith. That would be somethingconstructive; Dunnan's a destroyer. I think he took that cargo ofequipment somewhere and sold it. I think he'll wait till he's fairlysure the other ship is finished. Then he'll come in and shoot theplace up, the way--" He bit that off abruptly. 

"The way he did my wedding; I think of it all the time. "

 * * * * *

The next morning, he and Harkaman took an aircar and went to lookat the city at the forks of the river. It was completely new, inthe sense that it had been built since the collapse of Federationcivilization and the loss of civilized technologies. It was huddledon a long, irregularly triangular mound, evidently to raise it aboveflood-level. Generations of labor must have gone into it. To theeyes of a civilization using contragravity and powered equipment itwasn't at all impressive. Fifty to a hundred men with adequateequipment could have gotten the thing up in a summer. It was onlyby forcing himself to think in terms of spadeful after spadeful ofearth, cartload after cartload creaking behind straining beasts, timber after timber cut with axes and dressed with adzes, stoneafter stone and brick after brick, that he could appreciate it. Theyeven had it walled, with a palisade of tree-trunks behind whichearth and rocks had been banked, and along the river were docks, at which boats were moored. The locals simply called it Tradetown. 

As they approached, a big gong began booming, and a white puff ofsmoke was followed by the thud of a signal-gun. The boats, longcanoe-like craft and round-bowed, many-oared barges, put out hastilyinto the river; through binoculars they could see people scatteringfrom the surrounding fields, driving cattle ahead of them. By thetime they were over the city, nobody was in sight. They seemedto have developed a pretty fair air-raid warning system in thenine-hundred-odd hours in which they had been exposed to thefigurative mercies of Boake Valkanhayn and Garvan Spasso. It hadn'tsaved them entirely; a section of the city had been burned, andthere were evidences of shelling. Light chemical-explosive stuff;this city was too good a cow for even those two to kill before themilking was over. 

They circled slowly over it at a thousand feet. When they turnedaway, black smoke began rising from what might have been potteryworks or brick-kilns on the outskirts; something resinous hadevidently been fed to the fires. Other columns of black smoke beganrising across the countryside on both sides of the river. 

"You know, these people are civilized, if you don't limit the termto contragravity and nuclear energy, " Harkaman said. "They havegunpowder, for one thing, and I can think of some rather impressiveOld Terran civilizations that didn't have that much. They have anorganized society, and anybody who has that is starting towardcivilization. "

"I hate to think of what'll happen to this planet if Spasso andValkanhayn stay here long. "

"Might be a good thing, in the long run. Good things in the long runare often tough while they're happening. I know what'll happen toSpasso and Valkanhayn, though. They'll start decivilizing, themselves. They'll stay here for a while, and when they need something theycan't take from the locals they'll go chicken-stealing after it, but most of the time they'll stay here lording it over their slaves, and finally their ships will wear out and they won't be able to fixthem. Then, some time, the locals'll jump them when they aren'twatching and wipe them out. But in the meantime, the locals'lllearn a lot from them. "

They turned the aircar west again along the river. They looked at afew villages. One or two dated from the Federation period; they hadbeen plantations before whatever it was had happened. More had beenbuilt within the past five centuries. A couple had recently beendestroyed, in punishment for the crime of self-defense. 

"You know, " he said, at length, "I'm going to do everybody a favor. I'm going to let Spasso and Valkanhayn persuade me to take thisplanet away from them. "

Harkaman, who was piloting, turned sharply. "You crazy or something?"

"'When somebody makes a statement you don't understand, don't tellhim he's crazy. Ask him what he means. ' Who said that?"

"On target, " Harkaman grinned. "'What _do_ you mean, Lord Trask?'"

"I can't catch Dunnan by pursuit; I'll have to get him byinterception. You know the source of that quotation, too. This looksto me like a good place to intercept him. When he learns I have abase here, he'll hit it, sooner or later. And even if he doesn't, we can pick up more information on him, when ships start coming inhere, than we would batting around all over the Old Federation. "

Harkaman considered for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, if we could setup a base like Nergal or Xochitl, " he agreed. "There'll be four orfive ships, Space Vikings, traders, Gilgameshers and so on, oneither of those planets all the time. If we had the cargo Dunnantook to space in the _Enterprise_, we could start a base like that. But we haven't anything near what we need, and you know what Spassoand Valkanhayn have. "

"We can get it from Gram. As it stands, the investors in the TanithAdventure, from Duke Angus down, lost everything they put into it. If they're willing to throw some good money after bad, they can getit back, and a handsome profit to boot. And there ought to beplanets above the rowboat and ox-cart level not too far away thatcould be raided for a lot of things we'd need. "

"That's right; I know of half a dozen within five hundred light-years. They won't be the kind Spasso and Valkanhayn are in the habit ofraiding, though. And besides machinery, we can get gold, and valuablemerchandise that could be sold on Gram. And if we could make a go ofit, you'd go farther hunting Dunnan by sitting here on Tanith than bygoing looking for him. That was the way we used to hunt marsh pigs onColada, when I was a kid; just find a good place and sit down and wait. "

[Illustration]

 * * * * *

They had Valkanhayn and Spasso aboard the _Nemesis_ for dinner; itdidn't take much guiding to keep the conversation on the subject ofTanith and its resources, advantages and possibilities. Finally, when they had reached brandy and coffee, Trask said idly:

"I believe, together, we could really make something out of this planet. "

"That's what we've been telling you, all along, " Spasso broke ineagerly. "This is a wonderful planet--"

"It could be. All it has now is possibilities. We'd need aspaceport, for one thing. "

"Well, what's this, here?" Valkanhayn wanted to know. 

"It was a spaceport, " Harkaman told him. "It could be one again. Andwe'd need a shipyard, capable of any kind of heavy repair work. Capable of building a complete ship, in fact. I never saw a shipcome into a Viking base planet with any kind of a cargo worthdickering over that hadn't taken some damage getting it. PrinceViktor of Xochitl makes a good half of his money on ship repairs, and so do Nikky Gratham on Jagannath and the Everrards on Hoth. "

"And engine works, hyperdrive, normal space and pseudograv, " Traskadded. "And a steel mill, and a collapsed-matter plant. Androbotic-equipment works, and--"

"Oh, that's out of all reason!" Valkanhayn cried. "It would taketwenty trips with a ship the size of this one to get all that stuffhere, and how'd we ever be able to pay for it?"

"That's the sort of base Duke Angus of Wardshaven planned. The_Enterprise_, practically a duplicate of the _Nemesis_, carriedeverything that would be needed to get it started, when she waspirated. "

"When she was--?"

"Now you're going to have to tell the gentlemen the truth, "Harkaman chuckled. 

"I intend to. " He laid his cigar down, sipped some of his brandy, and explained about Duke Angus' Tanith adventure. "It was part of alarger plan; Angus wanted to gain economic supremacy for Wardshavento forward his political ambitions. It was, however, an entirelypractical business proposition. I was opposed to it, because Ithought it would be too good a proposition for Tanith and work tothe disadvantage of the home planet in the end. " He told them aboutthe _Enterprise_, and the cargo of industrial and constructionequipment she carried, and then told them how Andray Dunnan hadpirated her. 

"That wouldn't have annoyed me at all; I had no money invested inthe project. What did annoy me, to put it mildly, was that justbefore he took the ship out, Dunnan shot up my wedding, wounded meand my father-in-law, and killed the lady to whom I had been marriedfor less than half an hour. I fitted out this ship at my ownexpense, took on Captain Harkaman, who had been left without acommand when the _Enterprise_ was pirated, and came out here tohunt Dunnan down and kill him. I believe that I can do that best byestablishing a base on Tanith myself. The base will have to beoperated at a profit, or it can't be operated at all. " He picked upthe cigar again and puffed slowly. "I am inviting you gentlemen tojoin me as partners. "

"Well, you still haven't told us how we're going to get the money tofinance it, " Spasso insisted. 

"The Duke of Wardshaven, and the others who invested in the originalTanith adventure will put it up. It's the only way they can recoverwhat they lost on the _Enterprise_. "

"But then, this Duke of Wardshaven will be running it, not us, "Valkanhayn objected. 

"The Duke of Wardshaven, " Harkaman reminded him, "is on Gram. We arehere on Tanith. There are three thousand light-years between. "

That seemed a satisfactory answer. Spasso, however, wanted to knowwho would run things here on Tanith. 

"We'll have to hold a meeting of all three crews, " he began. 

"We will do nothing of the kind, " Trask told him. "I will be runningthings here on Tanith. You people may allow your orders to bedebated and voted on, but I don't. You will inform your respectivecrews to that effect. Any orders you give them in my name will beobeyed without argument. "

"I don't know how the men'll take that, " Valkanhayn said. 

"I know how they'll take it if they're smart, " Harkaman told him. "And I know what'll happen if they aren't. I know how you've beenrunning your ships, or how your ships' crews have been running you. Well, we don't do it that way. Lucas Trask is owner, and I'mcaptain. I obey his orders on what's to be done, and everybody elseobeys mine on how to do it. "

Spasso looked at Valkanhayn, then shrugged. "That's how the manwants it, Boake. You want to give him an argument? I don't. "

"The first order, " Trask said, "is that these people you haveworking here are to be paid. They are not to be beaten by theseplug-uglies you have guarding them. If any of them want to leave, they may do so; they will be given presents and furnishedtransportation home. Those who wish to stay will be issued rations, furnished with clothing and bedding and so on as they need it, andpaid wages. We'll work out some kind of a pay-token system and setup a commissary where they can buy things. "

Disks of plastic or titanium or something, stamped anduncounterfeitable. Get Alvyn Karffard to see about that. Organizework-gangs, and promote the best and most intelligent to foremen. And those guards could be taken in hand by some ground-fightersergeant and given Sword-World weapons and tactical training; usethem to train others; they'd need a sepoy army of some sort. Eventhe best of good will is no substitute for armed force, conspicuously displayed and unhesitatingly used when necessary. 

"And there'll be no more of this raiding villages for food oranything else. We will pay for anything we get from any of thelocals. "

"We'll have trouble about that, " Valkanhayn predicted. "Our menthink anything a local has belongs to anybody who can take it. "

"So do I, " Harkaman said. "On a planet I'm raiding. This is ourplanet, and our locals. We don't raid our own planet or our ownpeople. You'll just have to teach them that. "

X

It took Valkanhayn and Spasso more time and argument to convincetheir crews than Trask thought necessary. Harkaman seemed satisfied, and so was Baron Rathmore, the Wardshaven politician. 

"It's like talking a lot of uncommitted small landholders intotaking somebody's livery-and-maintenance, " the latter said. "Youcan't use too much pressure; make them think it's their own idea. "

There were meetings of both crews, with heated arguments; BaronRathmore made frequent speeches, while Lord Trask of Tanith andAdmiral Harkaman--the titles were Rathmore's suggestion--remainedloftily aloof. On both ships, everybody owned everything in common, which meant that nobody owned anything. They had taken over Tanithon the same basis of diffused ownership, and nobody in either crewwas quite stupid enough to think that they could do anything withthe planet by themselves. By joining the _Nemesis_, it appeared thatthey were getting something for nothing. In the end, they voted toplace themselves under the authority of Lord Trask and AdmiralHarkaman. After all, Tanith would be a feudal lordship, and thethree ships together a fleet. 

Admiral Harkaman's first act of authority was to order a generalinspection of fleet units. He wasn't shocked by the condition of thetwo ships, but that was only because he had expected much worse. Theywere spaceworthy; after all, they had gotten here from Hoth undertheir own power. They were only combat-worthy if the combat weren'ttoo severe. His original estimate that the _Nemesis_ could haveknocked both of them to pieces was, if anything, over-conservative. The engines were only in fair shape, and the armament was bad. 

"We aren't going to spend our time sitting here on Tanith, " he toldthe two captains. "This planet is a raiding base, and 'raiding' isthe operative word. And we are not going to raid easy planets. Aplanet that can be raided with impunity isn't worth the time it takesgetting to it. We are going to have to fight on every planet we hit, and I am not going to jeopardize the lives of the men under me, which includes your crews as well as mine, because of under-poweredand under-armed ships. "

Spasso tried to argue. "We've been getting along. "

Harkaman cursed. "Yes. I know how you've been getting along;chicken-stealing on planets like Set and Xipototec and Melkarth. Notmaking enough to cover maintenance expenses; that's why your ship'sin the shape she is. Well, those days are over. Both ships ought tohave a full overhaul, but we'll have to skip that till we have ashipyard of our own. But I will insist, at least, that your guns andlaunchers are in order. And your detection equipment; you didn't geta fix on the _Nemesis_ till we were less than twenty thousand milesoff-planet. "

"We had better get the _Lamia_ in condition first, " Trask said. "Wecan put her on off-planet watch, instead of that pair of pinnaces. "

 * * * * *

Work on the _Lamia_ started the next day, and considerable friction-heatwas generated between her officers and the engineers sent over fromthe _Nemesis_. Baron Rathmore went aboard, and came back laughing. 

"You know how that ship's run?" he asked. "There's a sort of sovietof officers; chief engineer, exec, guns-and-missiles, astrogator andso on. Spasso's just an animated ventriloquist's dummy. I talked toall of them. None of them can pin me down to anything, but theythink we're going to heave Spasso out of command and appoint one ofthem, and each one thinks he'll be it. I don't know how long that'lllast, it's a string-and-tape job like the one we're having to do onthe ship. It'll hold till we get something better. "

"We'll have to get rid of Spasso, " Harkaman agreed. "I think we'llput one of our own people in his place. Valkanhayn can stay incommand of the _Space Scourge_; he's a spaceman. But Spasso's nogood for anything. "

The local problem was complicated, too. The locals spoke LinguaTerra of a sort, like every descendant of the race that had gone outfrom the Sol system in the Third Century, but it was a barelycomprehensible sort. On civilized planets, the language had beenfrozen unalterably in microbooks and voice tapes. But microbooks canonly be read and sound tapes heard with the aid of electricity, andTanith had lost that long ago. 

Most of the people Spasso and Valkanhayn had kidnaped and enslavedcame from villages within a radius of five hundred miles. About halfof them wanted to be repatriated; they were given gifts of knives, tools, blankets, and bits of metal which seemed to be the chiefstandard of value and medium of exchange, and shipped home. Findingtheir proper villages was not easy. At each such village, the newswas spread that the Space Vikings would hereafter pay for what theyreceived. 

The _Lamia_ was overhauled as rapidly as possible. She was stillfar from being a good ship, but she was much closer being one thanbefore. She was fitted with the best detection equipment that couldbe assembled, and put on orbit; Alvyn Karffard took command of her, with some of Spasso's officers, some of Valkanhayn's, and a few fromthe _Nemesis_. Harkaman was intending to use her for retraining ofall the _Lamia_ and _Space Scourge_ officers, and rotated them backand forth. 

[Illustration]

The labor guards, a score in number, were relieved of their duties, issued Sword-World firearms, and given intensive training. The tradetokens, stamps of colored plastic, were introduced, and a store wasset up where they could be exchanged for Sword-World items. After awhile, it dawned on the locals that the tokens could also be usedfor trading among themselves; money seemed to have been one of theadjuncts of civilization that had been lost along Tanith's downwardpath. A few of them were able to use contragravity hand-lifters andhand-towed lifter-skids; several were even learning to operatethings like bulldozers, at least to the extent of knowing whichlever or button did what. Give them a little time, Trask thought, watching a gang at work down on the spaceport floor. It won't bemany years before half of them will be piloting aircars. 

 * * * * *

As soon as the _Lamia_ was on orbital watch, the _Space Scourge_ wasset down at the spaceport and work started on her. It was decidedthat Valkanhayn would take her to Gram; enough _Nemesis_ peoplewould go along to insure good faith on his part, and to talk to DukeAngus and the Tanith investors. Baron Rathmore, and Paytrik Morland, and several other Wardshaven gentlemen-adventurers for the latterfunction; Alvyn Karffard to act as Valkanhayn's exec, with privateorders to supersede him in command if necessary, and Guatt Kirbeyto do the astrogating. 

"We'll have to take the _Nemesis_ and the _Space Scourge_ out, first, and make a big raid, " Harkaman said. "We can't send the_Space Scourge_ back to Gram empty. When Baron Rathmore and LordValpry and the rest of them talk to Duke Angus and the Tanithinvestors, they'll have to have a lot more than some travel filmsof Tanith. They'll have to be able to show that Tanith is producing. We ought to have a little money of our own to invest, too. "

"But, Otto; both ships?" That worried Trask. "Suppose Dunnan comesand finds nobody here but Spasso and the _Lamia_?"

"Chance we'll have to take. Personally, I think we have a year to ayear and a half before Dunnan shows up here. I know, we were fooledtrying to guess what he'd do before. But the sort of raid I have inmind, we'll need two ships, and in any case, I don't want to leaveboth those ships here while we're gone, even if you do. "

"When it comes to that, I don't think I do, either. But we can'ttrust Spasso here alone, can we?"

"We'll leave enough of our people to make sure. We'll leaveAlvyn--that'll mean a lot of work for me that he'd otherwise do, on the ship. And Baron Rathmore, and young Valpry, and the menwho've been training our sepoys. We can shuffle things around andleave some of Valkanhayn's men in place of some of Spasso's. We mighteven talk Spasso into going along. That'll mean having to endure himat our table, but it would be wise. "

"Have you picked a place to raid?"

"Three of them. First, Khepera. That's only thirty light-years fromhere. That won't amount to much; just chicken-stealing. It'll giveour green hands some relatively safe combat-training, and it'll giveus some idea of how Spasso's and Valkanhayn's people behave, andgive them confidence for the next job. "

"And then?"

"Amaterasu. My information about Amaterasu is about twenty yearsold. A lot of things can happen in twenty years. All I know of it--Iwas never there myself--is it's fairly civilized--about like Terrajust before the beginning of the Atomic Era. No nuclear energy, theylost that, and of course nothing beyond it, but they have hydroelectricand solarelectric power, and nonnuclear jet aircraft, and some very goodchemical-explosive weapons, which they use very freely on each other. It was last known to have been raided by a ship from Excaliburtwenty years ago. "

"That sounds promising. And the third planet?"

"Beowulf. We won't take enough damage on Amaterasu to make anydifference there, but if we saved Amaterasu for last, we mightbe needing too many repairs. "

"It's like that?"

"Yes. They have nuclear energy. I don't think it would be wise tomention Beowulf to Captains Spasso and Valkanhayn. Wait till we'vehit Khepera and Amaterasu. They may be feeling like heroes, then. "

XI

Khepera left a bad taste in Trask's mouth. He was still tasting itwhen the colored turbulence died out of the screen and left the graynothingness of hyperspace. Garvan Spasso--they had had no trouble ininducing him to come along--was staring avidly at the screen asthough he could still see the ravished planet they had left. 

"That was a good one; that was a good one!" he was crowing. He'dsaid that a dozen times since they had lifted out. "Three cities infive days, and all the stuff we gathered up around them. We tookover two million stellars. "

And did ten times as much damage getting it, and there was no scaleof values by which to compute the death and suffering. 

"Knock it off, Spasso. You said that before. "

There was a time when he wouldn't have spoken to the fellow, oranybody else, like that. Gresham's law, extended: Bad manners driveout good manners. Spasso turned on him indignantly. 

"Who do you think you are--?"

"He thinks he's Lord Trask of Tanith, " Harkaman said. "He's right, too; he is. " He looked searchingly at Trask for a moment, thenturned back to Spasso. "I'm just as tired as he is of hearing youpop your mouth about a lousy two million stellars. Nearer a millionand a half, but two million's nothing to pop about. Maybe it wouldbe for the _Lamia_, but we have a three-ship fleet and a planetarybase to meet expenses on. Out of this raid, a ground-fighter or anable spaceman will get a hundred and fifty stellars. We'll get abouta thousand, ourselves. How long do you think we can stay in businessdoing this kind of chicken-stealing. "

"You call this chicken-stealing?"

"I call it chicken-stealing, and so'll you before we get back toTanith. If you live that long. "

For a moment, Spasso was still affronted. Then, temporarily, hisvulpine face showed avaricious hope, and then apprehension. Evidently he knew Otto Harkaman's reputation, and some of the thingsHarkaman had done weren't his idea of an easy way to make money. 

Khepera had been easy; the locals hadn't had anything to fight with. Small arms, and light cannon which hadn't been able to fire morethan a few rounds. Wherever they had attempted resistance, thecombat cars had swooped in, dropping bombs and firing machine gunsand auto-cannon. Yet they had fought, bitterly and hopelessly--justas he would have, defending Traskon. 

Trask busied himself getting coffee and a cigarette from one of therobots. When he looked up, Spasso had gone away, and Harkaman wassitting on the edge of the desk, loading his short pipe. 

"Well, you saw the elephant, Lucas, " Harkaman said. "You don't seemto have liked it. "

"Elephant?"

"Old Terran expression I read somewhere. All I know is that anelephant was an animal about the size of one of your Gram megatheres. The expression means, experiencing something for the first timewhich makes a great impression. Elephants must have been somethingto see. This was your first Viking raid. You've seen it, now. "

He'd been in combat before; he'd led the fighting-men of Traskonduring the boundary dispute with Baron Manniwel, and there werealways bandits and cattle rustlers. He'd thought it would be likethat. He remembered, five days, or was it five ages, ago, hisexcited anticipation as the city grew and spread in the screen andthe _Nemesis_ came dropping down toward it. The pinnaces, his fourand the two from the _Space Scourge_, had gone spiraling out ahundred miles beyond the city; the _Space Scourge_ had gone intoa tighter circle twenty miles from its center; the _Nemesis_ hadcontinued her relentless descent until she was ten miles from theground, before she began spewing out landing craft, and combat cars, and the little egg-shaped one-man air-cavalry mounts. It had beenthrilling. Everything had gone perfectly; not even Valkanhayn's ganghad goofed. 

Then the screenviews had begun coming in. The brief and hopelessfight in the city. He could still see that silly little field gun, it must have been around seventy or eighty millimeter, on ahigh-wheeled carriage, drawn by six shaggy, bandy-legged beasts. They had gotten it unlimbered and were trying to get it on a targetwhen a rocket from an aircar landed directly under the muzzle. Gun, caisson, crew, even the draft team fifty yards behind, had simplyvanished. 

Or the little company, some of them women, trying to defend the topof a tall and half-ruinous building with rifles and pistols. Oneair-cavalryman wiped them all out with his machine guns. 

"They don't have a chance, " he'd said, half-sick. "But they keep onfighting. "

"Yes; stupid of them, isn't it?" Harkaman, beside him, had said. 

"What would you do in their place?"

"Fight. Try to kill as many Space Vikings as I could before they gotme. Terro-humans are all stupid like that. That's why we're human. "

 * * * * *

If the taking of the city had been a massacre, the sack that hadfollowed had been a man-made Hell. He had gone down, along withHarkaman, while the fighting, if it could be so called, was stillgoing on. Harkaman had suggested that the men ought to see himmoving about among them; for his own part, he had felt a compulsionto share their guilt. 

He and Sir Paytrik Morland had been on foot together in one of thebig hollow buildings that had stood since Khepera had been a MemberRepublic of the Terran Federation. The air was acrid with smoke, powder smoke and the smoke of burning. It was surprising, how muchwould burn, in this city of concrete and vitrified stone. It wassurprising, too, how well-kept everything was, at least on theground level. These people had taken pride in their city. 

They found themselves alone, in a great empty hallway; the noise andhorror of the sack had moved away from them, or they from it, andthen, when they entered a side hall, they saw a man, one of thelocals, squatting on the floor with the body of a woman cradled onhis lap. She was dead, half her head had been blown off, but he wasclasping her tightly, her blood staining his shirt, and sobbingheartbrokenly. A carbine lay forgotten on the floor beside him. 

"Poor devil, " Morland said, and started forward. 

"No. "

Trask stopped him with his left hand. With his right, he drew hispistol and shot the man dead. Morland was horrified. 

"Great Satan, Lucas! Why did you do that?"

"I wish Andray Dunnan had done that for me. " He thumbed the safetyon and holstered the pistol. "None of this would be happening ifhe had. How many more happinesses do you think we've smashed heretoday? And we don't even have Dunnan's excuse of madness. "

The next morning, with everything of value collected and sentaboard, they had started cross-country for five hundred miles toanother city, the first hundred over a countryside asmoke fromburning villages Valkanhayn's men had pillaged the night before. There was no warning; Khepera had lost electricity and radio andtelegraph, and the spread of news was at the speed of one of thebeasts the locals insisted on calling horses. By midafternoon, theyhad finished with that city. It had been as bad as the first one. 

One thing, it was the center of a considerable cattle country. Thecattle were native to the planet, heavy-bodied unicorns the size ofa Gram bisonoid or one of the slightly mutated Terran carabaos onTanith, with long hair like a Terran yak. He had detailed a dozen ofthe _Nemesis_ ground-fighters who had been vaqueros on his Traskonranches to collect a score of cows and four likely bulls, withenough fodder to last them on the voyage. The odds were stronglyagainst any of them living to acclimate themselves to Tanith, butif they did, they might prove to be one of the most valuable piecesof loot from Khepera. 

The third city was at the forks of a river, like Tradetown onTanith. Unlike it, this was a real metropolis. They should havegone there first of all. They spent two days systematically pillagingit. The Kheperans carried on considerable river-traffic, withstern-wheel steamboats, and the waterfront was lined with warehousescrammed with every sort of merchandise. Even better, the Kheperanshad money, and for the most part it was gold specie, and the bankvaults were full of it. 

Unfortunately, the city had been built since the fall of theFederation and the climb up from the barbarism that had followed, and a great deal of it was of wood. Fires started almost at once, and it was almost completely on fire by the end of the second day. It had been visible in the telescopic screen even after they wereout of atmosphere, a black smear until the turning planet carriedit into darkness and then a lurid glow. 

 * * * * *

"It was a filthy business. "

Harkaman nodded. "Robbery and murder always are. You don't have toask me who said that Space Vikings are professional robbers andmurderers, but who was it said that he didn't care how many planetswere raided and how many innocents massacred in the Old Federation?"

"A dead man. Lucas Trask of Traskon. "

"You wish, now, that you'd kept Traskon and stayed on Gram?"

"No. If I had, I'd have spent every hour wishing I was doing whatI'm doing now. I can get used to this, I suppose. "

"I think you will. At least, you kept your rations down. I didn't onmy first raid, and had bad dreams about it for a year. " He gave hiscoffee cup back to the robot and got to his feet. "Get a littlerest, for a couple of hours. Then draw some alcodote-vitamin pillsfrom the medic. As soon as things are secured, there'll be partiesall over the ship, and we'll be expected to look in on every one ofthem, have a drink, and say 'Well done, boys. '"

 * * * * *

Elaine came to him, while he was resting. She looked at him inhorror, and he tried to hide his face from her, and then realizedthat he was trying to hide it from himself. 

XII

They came straight down on Eglonsby, on Amaterasu, the _Nemesis_and the _Space Scourge_ side by side. The radar had picked them upat point-five light-seconds; by this time the whole planet knewthey were coming, and nobody was wondering why. Paul Koreff wasmonitoring at least twenty radio stations, assigning somebody toeach one as it was identified. What was coming in was uniformlyexcited, some panicky, and all in fairly standard Lingua Terra. 

Garvan Spasso was perturbed. So, in the communication screen fromthe _Space Scourge_, was Boake Valkanhayn. 

"They got radio, and they got radar, " he clamored. 

"Well, so what?" Harkaman asked. "They had radio and radar twentyyears ago, when Rock Morgan was here in the _Coalsack_. But theydon't have nuclear energy, do they?"

"Well, no. I'm picking up a lot of industrial electrical discharge, but nothing nuclear. "

"All right. A man with a club can lick a man with his fists. A manwith a gun can lick half a dozen with clubs. And two ships withnuclear weapons can lick a whole planet without them. Think it'stime, Lucas?"

He nodded. "Paul, can you cut in on that Eglonsby station yet?"

"What are you going to do?" Valkanhayn wanted to know, against itin advance. 

"Summon them to surrender. If they don't, we will drop a hellburner, and then we will pick out another city and summon it to surrender. I don't think the second one will refuse. If we are going to bemurderers, we'll do it right, this time. "

Valkanhayn was aghast, probably at the idea of burning an unlootedcity. Spasso was sputtering something about, ". .. Teach the dirtyNeobarbs a lesson--" Koreff told him he was switched on. He pickedup a hand-phone. 

"Space Vikings _Nemesis_ and _Space Scourge_, calling the city ofEglonsby. Space Vikings. .. . "

He repeated it for over a minute; there was no reply. 

"Vann, " he called Guns-and-Missiles. "A subcrit display job, aboutfour miles over the city. "

He laid the phone down and looked to the underside viewscreen. Alittle later, a silvery shape dropped away from the ship's southpole. The telescopic screen went off, and the unmagnified screendarkened as the filters went on. Valkanhayn, aboard the other ship, was shouting a warning about his own screens. The only unfilteredscreen aboard the _Nemesis_ was the one tuned to the fallingmissile. The city of Eglonsby rushed upward in it, and then it wentsuddenly dark. There was an orange-yellow blaze in the otherscreens. After a while, the filters went off and the telescopicscreen went on again. He picked up the phone. 

"Space Vikings calling Eglonsby; this is your last warning. Communicate at once. "

Less than a minute later, a voice came out of one of the speakers:

"Eglonsby calling Space Vikings. Your bomb has done great damage. Will you hold your fire until somebody in authority can communicatewith you? This is the chief operator at the central State telecaststation; I have no authority to say anything to you, or discussanything. "

"Oh, good, that sounds like a dictatorship, " Harkaman was saying. "Grab the dictator and shove a pistol in his face and you haveeverything. "

"There is nothing to discuss. Get somebody who has authority tosurrender the city to us. If this is not done within the hour, the city and everybody in it will be obliterated. "

Only minutes later, a new voice said:

"This is Gunsalis Jan, secretary to Pedrosan Pedro, President ofthe Council of Syndics. We will switch President Pedrosan over assoon as he can speak directly to the personage in supreme commandof your ships. "

"That is myself; switch him to me at once. "

After a delay of less than fifteen seconds they had PresidentPedrosan Pedro. 

"We are prepared to resist, but we realize what this would cost inlives and destruction of property, " he began. 

"You don't begin to. Do you know anything about nuclear weapons?"

"From history; we have no nuclear power of any sort. We can find nofissionables on this planet. "

"The cost, as you put it, would be everything and everybody inEglonsby and for a radius of almost a hundred miles. Are you stillprepared to resist?"

The President of the Council of Syndics wasn't and said so. Traskasked him how much authority his position gave him. 

"I have all powers in any emergency. I think, " the voice addedtonelessly, "that this is an emergency. The council willautomatically ratify any decision I make. "

Harkaman depressed a button in front of him. "What I said;dictatorship, with parliamentary false front. "

"If he isn't a false-front dictator for some oligarchy. " He motionedto Harkaman to take his thumb off the button. "How large is this Council?"

"Sixteen, elected by the Syndicates they represent. There is theSyndicate of Labor, the Syndicate of Manufacturers, the Syndicateof Small Businesses, the. .. . "

"Corporate State, First Century Pre-Atomic on Terra. Benny the Moose, "Harkaman said. "Let's all go down and talk to them. "

[Illustration]

When they were sure that the public had been warned to make noresistance, the _Nemesis_ went down to two miles, bulking overthe center of the city. The buildings were low by the standards ofa contragravity-using people, the highest barely a thousand feetand few over five hundred, and they were more closely set thanSword-Worlders were accustomed to, with broad roadways between. Inseveral places there were queer arrangements of crossed roadways, apparently leading nowhere. Harkaman laughed when he saw them. 

"Airstrips. I've seen them on other planets where they've lostcontragravity. For winged aircraft powered by chemical fuel. I hopewe have time for me to look around, here. I'll bet they even haverailroads here. "

The "great damage" caused by the bomb was about equal to the effectof a medium hurricane; he had seen worse from high winds at Traskon. Mostly it had been moral, which had been the kind intended. 

They met President Pedrosan and the council of Syndics in a spaciousand well-furnished chamber near the top of one of the medium-highbuildings. Valkanhayn was surprised; in a loud aside he consideredthat these people must be almost civilized. They were introduced. Amaterasuan surnames preceded personal names, which hinted at aculture and a political organization making much use of registrationby alphabetical list. They all wore garments which had the indefinablebut unmistakable appearance of uniforms. When they had all seatedthemselves at a large oval table, Harkaman drew his pistol and usedthe butt for a gavel. 

[Illustration]

"Lord Trask, will you deal with these people directly?" he asked, stiffly formal. 

"Certainly, Admiral. " He spoke to the President, ignoring theothers. "We want it understood that we control this city, and weexpect complete submission. As long as you remain submissive to us, we will do no damage beyond removal of the things we wish to takefrom it, and there will be no violence to any of your people, or anyindiscriminate vandalism. This visit we are paying you will cost youheavily, make no mistake about that, but whatever the cost, it willbe a cheap price for avoiding what we might otherwise do. "

The President and the Syndics exchanged relieved glances. Letthe taxpayers worry about the cost; they'd come out of it withwhole skins. 

"You understand, we want maximum value and minimum bulk, " hecontinued. "Jewels, objects of art, furs, the better grades ofluxury goods of all kinds. Rare-element metals. And monetary metals, gold and platinum. You have a metallic-based currency, I suppose?"

"Oh, no!" President Pedrosan was slightly scandalized. "Our currencyis based on services to society. Our monetary unit is simply calleda credit. "

Harkaman snorted impolitely. Evidently he'd seen economic systems likethat before. Trask wanted to know if they used gold or platinum at all. 

"Gold, to some extent, for jewelry. " Evidently they weren't completeeconomic puritans. "And platinum in industry, of course. "

"If they want gold, they should have raided Stolgoland, " one of theSyndics said. "They have a gold-standard currency. " From the way hesaid it, he might have been accusing them of eating with theirfingers, and possibly of eating their own young. 

"I know, the maps we're using for this planet are a few centuries old;Stolgoland doesn't seem to appear on them. "

"I wish it didn't appear on ours, either. " That was General DagróEctor, Syndic for State Protection. 

"It would have been a good thing for this whole planet if you'ddecided to raid them instead of us, " somebody else said. 

"It isn't too late for these gentlemen to make that decision, "Pedrosan said. "I gather that gold is a monetary metal among yourpeople?" When Trask nodded, he continued: "It is also the basis ofthe Stolgonian currency. The actual currency is paper, theoreticallyredeemable in gold. In actuality, the circulation of gold has beenprohibited, and the entire gold wealth of the nation is concentratedin vaults at three depositories. We know exactly where they are. "

"You begin to interest me, President Pedrosan. "

"I do? Well, you have two large spaceships and six smaller craft. You have nuclear weapons, something nobody on this planet has. Youhave contragravity, something that is hardly more than a legendhere. On the other hand, we have a million and a half ground-troops, jet aircraft, armored ground-vehicles, and chemical weapons. If youwill undertake to attack Stolgoland, we will place this entire forceat your disposal; General Dagró will command them as you direct. Allthat we ask is that, when you have loaded the gold hoards ofStolgoland aboard your ships, you will leave our troops inpossession of the country. "

 * * * * *

That was all there was to that meeting. There was a second one; onlyTrask, Harkaman and Sir Paytrik Morland represented the Space Vikings, and the Eglonsby government was represented by President Pedrosanand General Dagró. They met more intimately, in a smaller and moreluxurious room in the same building. 

"If you're going to declare war on Stolgoland, you'd better getalong with it, " Morland advised. 

"What?" Pedrosan seemed to have only the vaguest idea of what he wastalking about. "You mean, warn them? Certainly not. We will attackthem by surprise. It will be nothing but plain self-defense, " headded righteously. "The oligarchic capitalists of Stolgoland havebeen plotting to attack us for years. "

"Yes. If you had carried out your original intention of lootingEglonsby, they would have invaded us the moment your ships liftedout. It's exactly what I'd do in their place. "

"But you maintain nominally friendly relations with them?"

"Of course. We are civilized. The peace-loving government and peopleof Eglonsby. .. . "

"Yes, Mr. President; I understand. And they have an embassy here?"

"They call it that!" cried Dagró. "It is a nest of vipers, a plague-spot of espionage and subversion. .. !"

"We'll grab that ourselves, right away, " Harkaman said. "You won't beable to round up all their agents outside it, and if we tried to, itwould cause suspicion. We'll have to put up a front to deceive them. "

"Yes. You will go on the air at once, calling on the people tocollaborate with us, and you will specifically order your troopsmobilized to assist us in collecting the tribute we are levying onEglonsby, " Trask said. "In that way, if any Stolgonian spies seeyour troops concentrated around our landing craft, they'll thinkit's to help us load our loot. "

"And we'll announce that a large part of the tribute will consist ofmilitary equipment, " Dagró added. "That will explain why our gunsand tanks are being loaded on your contragravity vehicles. "

 * * * * *

When the Stolgonian embassy was seized by the Space Vikings, theambassador asked to be taken at once to their leader. He had aproposition: If the Space Vikings would completely disable the armyof Eglonsby and admit Stolgonian troops when they were ready toleave, the invaders would bring with them ten thousand kilos ofgold. Trask affected to be very hospitable to the offer. 

Stolgoland lay across a narrow and shallow sea from the State ofEglonsby; it was dotted with islands, and every one of them was, inturn, dotted with oil wells. Petroleum was what kept the aircraftand ground-vehicles of Amaterasu in operation; oil, rather thanideology, was at the root of the enmity between the two nations. Apparently the Stolgonian espionage in Eglonsby was completelydeceived, and the reports Trask allowed the captive ambassador tomake confirmed the deception. Hourly the Eglonsby radio stationspoured out exhortations to the people to co-operate with the SpaceVikings, with an occasional lamentation about the masses of warmaterials being taken. Eglonsby espionage in Stolgoland wassimilarly active. The Stolgonian armies were being massed at fourseaports on the coast facing Eglonsby, and there was a franticgathering of every sort of ship available. By this time, anysympathy that Trask might have felt for either party had evaporated. 

The invasion of Stolgoland started the fifth morning after theirarrival over Eglonsby. Before dawn, the six pinnaces went in, makinga wide sweep around the curvature of the planet and coming in fromthe north, two to each of the three gold-troves. They were detectedby radar, eventually but too late for any effective resistance tobe organized. Two were even taken without a shot; by mid-morning allthree had been blown open and the ingots and specie were being removed. 

The four seaports from whence the Stolgonian invasion of Eglonsbywas to have been launched were neutralized by nuclear bombing. Neutralized was a nice word, Trask thought; there was no echo in itof the screams of the still-living, maimed and burned and blinded, around the fringes of ground-zero. The _Nemesis_ and the _SpaceScourge_, from landing craft and from the ships themselves, landedEglonsby troops on Stolgonopolis. While they were sacking the city, with all the usual atrocities, the Space Vikings were loading thegold, and anything else that was of more than ordinary value, aboard the ships. 

 * * * * *

They were still at it the next morning when President Pedrosanarrived at the newly conquered capital, announcing his intention ofputting the Stolgonian chief of state and his cabinet on trial aswar criminals. Before sunset, they were back over Eglonsby. The lootmight run as high as a half-billion Excalibur stellars. BoakeValkanhayn and Garvan Spasso were simply beyond astonishmentand beyond words. 

The looting of Eglonsby then began. 

They gathered up machinery, and stocks of steel and light-metalalloys. The city was full of warehouses, and the warehouses werecrammed with valuables. In spite of the socialistic and egalitarianverbiage behind which the government operated, there seemed to be anumerous elite class and if gold were not a monetary metal it wasnot despised for purposes of ostentation. There were several largeart museums. Vann Larch, their nearest approach to an artspecialist, took charge of culling the best from them. 

And there was a vast public library. Into this Otto Harkamanvanished, with half a dozen men and a contragravity scow. Itshistorical section would be much poorer in the future. 

President Pedrosan Pedro was on the radio from Stolgonopolis that night. 

"Is this how you Space Vikings keep faith?" he demanded indignantly. "You've abandoned me and my army here in Stolgoland, and you'resacking Eglonsby. You promised to leave Eglonsby alone if I helpedyou get the gold of Stolgoland. "

"I promised nothing of the kind. I promised to help you takeStolgoland. You've taken it, " Trask told him. "I promised to avoidunnecessary damage or violence. I've already hanged a dozen of myown men for rape, murder and wanton vandalism. Now, we expect to beout of here in twenty-four hours. You'd better be back here beforethen. Your own people are starting to loot. We did not promise tocontrol them for you. "

That was true. What few troops had been left behind, and the police, were unable to cope with the mobs that were pillaging in the wake ofthe Space Vikings. Everybody seemed to be trying to grab what hecould and let the Vikings be blamed for it. He had been able to keephis own people in order. There had been at least a dozen cases ofrape and wanton murder, and the offenders had been promptly hanged. None of their shipmates, not even the _Space Scourge_ company, seemedresentful. They felt the culprits had deserved what they'd gotten;not for what they'd done to the locals, but for disobeying orders. 

A few troops had been flown in from Stolgoland by the time they hadgotten their vehicles stowed and were lifting out. They didn't seemto be making much headway. Harkaman, who had gotten his load ofmicrobooks stowed and was at the command desk, laughed heartily. 

"I don't know what Pedrosan'll do. Gehenna, I don't even know whatI'd do, if I'd gotten myself into a mess like that. He'll probablybring half his army back, leave the other half in Stolgoland, andlose both. Suppose we drop in, in about three or four years, justout of curiosity. If we make twenty per cent of what we did thistime, the trip would pay for itself. "

After they went into hyperspace and had the ship secured, theparties lasted three Galactic standard days, and nobody was at allsober. Harkaman was drooling over the mass of historical material hehad found. Spasso was jubilant. Nobody could call this chicken-stealing. He kept repeating that as long as he was able to say anything. Khepera, he conceded, had been. Lousy two or three million stellars; poo!

XIII

Beowulf was bad. 

Valkanhayn and Spasso had both been opposed to the raid. Nobodyraided Beowulf; Beowulf was too tough. Beowulf had nuclear energyand nuclear weapons and contragravity and normal-space craft, theyeven had colonies on a couple of other planets of their system. Theyhad everything but hyperdrive. Beowulf was a civilized planet, andyou didn't raid civilized planets, not and get away with it. 

And beside, hadn't they gotten enough loot on Amaterasu?

"No, we did not, " Trask told them. "If we're going to make anythingout of Tanith, we're going to need power, and I don't mean windmillsand waterwheels. As you've remarked, Beowulf has nuclear energy. That's where we get our plutonium and our power units. "

So they went to Beowulf. They came out of hyperspace eight light-hoursfrom the F-7 star of which Beowulf was the fourth planet, and twentylight-minutes apart. Guatt Kirbey made a microjump that brought theships within practical communicating distance, and they began makingplans in an intership screen conference. 

"There are, or were, three chief sources of fissionable ores, "Harkaman said. "The last ship to raid here and get away was StefanKintour's _Princess of Lyonesse_, sixty years ago. He hit one on theAntarctic continent; according to his account, everything there wasfairly new. He didn't mess things up too badly, and it ought to bestill operating. We'll go in from the south pole, and we'll have togo in fast. "

They shifted personnel and equipment. They would go in bunched, thepinnaces ahead; they and the _Space Scourge_ would go down to theground, while the better-armed _Nemesis_ would hover above to fightoff local contragravity, shoot down missiles, and generally provideoverhead cover. Trask transferred to the _Space Scourge_, takingwith him Morland and two hundred of the _Nemesis_ ground-fighters. Most of the single-mounts, landing craft and manipulators andheavy-duty lifters went with him, jamming the decks around thevehicle ports of Valkanhayn's ship. 

They jumped in to six light-minutes, and while Valkanhayn'sastrogator was still fiddling with his controls they began sensingradar and microray detection. When they came out again, they weretwo light-seconds off the south pole, and half a dozen ships wereeither in orbit or coming up from the planet. All normal-spacecraft, of course, but some were almost as big as the _Nemesis_. 

From there on, it was a nightmare. 

Ships pounded at them with guns, and they pounded back. Missileswent out, and counter-missiles stopped them in rapidly expanding andquickly vanishing globes of light. Red lights flashed on the damageboard, and sirens howled and klaxons squawked. In the outside-viewscreens, they saw the _Nemesis_ vanish in a blaze of radiance, andthen, while their hearts were still in their throats, come out of itagain. Red lights went off on the board as damage-control crews andtheir robots sealed the breaches in the hull and pumped air backinto evacuated areas, and then more red lights came on. 

Occasionally, he would glance toward Boake Valkanhayn, who satmotionless in his chair, chewing a cigar that had gone out long ago. He wasn't enjoying it, but he wasn't showing fear. Once a Beowulfervanished in a supernova flash, and when the ball of incandescencewidened to nothing the ship was gone. All Valkanhayn said was: "Hopeone of our boys did that. "

They fought their way in and down, toward the atmosphere. AnotherBeowulf ship blew up, a craft about the size of Spasso's _Lamia_. A moment later, another; Valkanhayn was pounding the desk in frontof him with his fist and yelling: "That was one of ours! Find outwho launched it; get his name!"

Missiles were coming up from the planet, now. Valkanhayn's detectionofficer was trying to locate the source. While he was trying, a bigmelon-shaped thing fell away from the _Nemesis_, and in the jiggling, radiation-distorted intership screen Harkaman's image was laughing. 

"Hellburner just went off; target about 50° south, 25° east of thesunrise line. That's where those missiles are coming from. "

Counter-missiles sped toward the big metal melon; defense missiles, robot-launched, met them. The hellburner's track was marked firstby expanding red and orange globes in airless space and then byfire-puffs after it entered atmosphere. It vanished into the darknessbeyond the sunset, and then made sunlight of its own. It _was_ sunlight;a Bethe solar-phoenix reaction, and it would sustain itself for hours. He hoped it hadn't landed within a thousand miles of their objective. 

 * * * * *

The ground operation was a nightmare of a different sort. He went downin a command car, with Paytrik Morland and a couple of others. Therewere missiles and gun batteries. There were darting patterns of flightsof combat vehicles, blazing gunfire, and single vehicles that shot pastor blew up in front of them. Robots on contragravity--military robots, with missiles to launch, and working robots with only their own mass tohurl, flung themselves mindlessly at them. Screens that went crazy fromradiation; speakers that jabbered contradictory orders. Finally, thebattle, which had raged in the air over two thousand square miles ofmines and refineries and reaction plants, became two distinct andconcentrated battles, one at the packing plant and storage vaults andone at the power-unit cartridge factory. 

Three pinnaces came down to form a triangle over each; the _SpaceScourge_ hung midway between, poured out a swarm of vehicles and bigclaw-armed manipulators; armored lighters and landing craft shuttledback and forth. The command car looped and dodged from one target to theother; at one, keg-like canisters of plutonium, collapsium-plated andweighing tons apiece, were coming out of the vaults, and at the otherlifters were bringing out loads of nuclear-electric power-unitcartridges, some as big as a ten liter jar, to power a spaceship engine, and some small as a round of pistol ammunition, for things likeflashlights. 

Every hour or so, he looked at his watch, and it would be three orfour minutes later. 

At last, when he was completely convinced that he had really beenkilled, and was damned and would spend all eternity in thisfire-riven chaos, the _Nemesis_ began firing red flares and thespeakers in all the vehicles were signaling recall. He got aboardthe _Space Scourge_ somehow, after assuring himself that nobody whowas alive was left behind. 

There were twenty-odd who weren't, and the sick bay was full ofwounded who had gone up with cargo, and more were being helped offthe vehicles as they were berthed. The car in which he had beenriding had been hit several times, and one of the gunners wasbleeding under his helmet and didn't seem aware of it. When he gotto the command room, he found Boake Valkanhayn, his face drawn andweary, getting coffee from a robot and lacing it with brandy. 

"That's it, " he said, blowing on the steaming cup. It was thebattered silver one that had been in front of him when he had firstappeared in the _Nemesis'_ screen. He nodded toward the damagescreen; everything had been patched up, or the outer decks aroundbreached portions of the hull sealed. "Ship secure. " He set downthe silver mug and lit a cigar. "To quote Garvan Spasso, 'Nobodycan call that chicken-stealing. '"

"No. Not even if you count Tizona giraffe-birds as chickens. ThatGram gum-pear brandy you're putting in that coffee? I'll have thesame. Just leave out the coffee. "

XIV

The _Lamia_'s detection picked them up as soon as they were out ofthe last microjump; Trask's gnawing fear that Dunnan might attack intheir absence had been groundless. Incredibly, he realized, they hadbeen gone only thirty-odd Galactic Standard days, and in that timeAlvyn Karffard had done an incredible amount of work. 

He had gotten the spaceport completely cleared of rubble and debris, and he had the woods cleared away from around it and the two tallbuildings. The locals called the city Rivvin; a few inscriptionsfound here and there in it indicated that the original name had beenRivington. He had done considerable mapping, in some detail of thecontinent on which it was located and, in general, of the rest ofthe planet. And he had established friendly relations with thepeople of Tradetown and made friends with their king. 

Nobody, not even those who had collected it, quite believed theireyes when the loot was unloaded. The little herd of long hairedunicorns--the Khepera locals had called them kreggs, probably acorruption of the name of some naturalist who had first studiedthem--had come through the voyage and even the Battle of Beowulfin good shape. Trask and a few of his former cattlemen from Traskonwatched them anxiously, and the ship's doctor, acting veterinarian, made elaborate tests of vegetation they would be likely to eat. Three of the cows proved to be with calf; these were isolated andwatched over with especial solicitude. 

[Illustration]

The locals were inclined to take a poor view of the kreggs, atfirst. Cattle ought to have two horns, one on either side, curvedback. It wasn't right for cattle to have only one horn, in themiddle, slanting forward. 

Both ships had taken heavy damage. The _Nemesis_ had one pinnaceberth knocked open, and everybody was glad the Beowulfers hadn'tnoticed that and gotten a missile inside. The _Space Scourge_ hadtaken a hit directly on her south pole while lifting out from theplanet, and a good deal of the southern part of the ship was sealedoff when she came in. The _Nemesis_ was repaired as far as possibleand put on off-planet patrol, then they went to work on the _SpaceScourge_, transferring much of her armament to ground defense, clearing out all the available cargo space, and repairing her hullas far as possible. To repair her completely was a job for a regularshipyard, like Alex Gorram's on Gram. And that was where the workwould be done. 

Boake Valkanhayn would command her on the voyage to and from Gram. Since Beowulf, Trask had not only ceased to dislike the man, but wasbeginning to admire him. He had been a good man once, before illfortune which had been only partly of his own making had overtakenhim. He'd just let himself go and stopped caring. Now he had takenhold of himself again. It had started showing after they had landedon Amaterasu. He had begun to dress more neatly and speak moregrammatically; to look and act more like a spaceman and less like abarfly. His men had begun to jump to obey when he gave an order. Hehad opposed the raid on Beowulf, but that had been the dyingstruggle of the chicken-thief he had been. He had been scared, goingin; well, who hadn't been, except a few greenhorns brave with thevalor of ignorance. But he had gone in, and fought his ship well, and had held his station over the fissionables plant in a hell ofbombs and missile, and he had made sure everybody who had gone downand who was still alive was aboard before he lifted out. 

He was a Space Viking again. 

Garvan Spasso wasn't, and never would be. He was outraged when heheard that Valkanhayn would take his ship, loaded with much of theloot of the three planets, to Gram. He came to Trask, fairlyspluttering about it. 

"You know what'll happen?" he demanded. "He'll space out with thatcargo, and that'll be the last any of us'll hear of him again. He'llprobably take it to Joyeuse or Excalibur and buy himself a lordshipwith it. "

"Oh, I doubt that, Garvan. A number of our people are goingalong--Guatt Kirbey will be the astrogator; you'd trust him, wouldn't you? And Sir Paytrik Morland, and Baron Rathmore, andLord Valpry, and Rolve Hemmerding. .. . " He was silent for a moment, struck by an idea. "Would you be willing to make the trip in the_Space Scourge_, too?"

Spasso would, very decidedly. Trask nodded. 

"Good. Then we'll be sure nothing crooked is pulled, " he saidseriously. 

After Spasso was gone, he got in touch with Baron Rathmore. 

"See to it that he gets as much money that's due him as possible, when you get to Gram. And ask Duke Angus, as a favor to give himsome meaningless position with a suitably impressive title, LordChamberlain of the Ducal Washroom, or something. Then he can primehim with misinformation and give him an opportunity to sell it toOmfray of Glaspyth. Then, of course, he could be contacted to sellOmfray out to Angus. A couple of times around and somebody'll sticka knife in him, and then we'll be rid of him for good. "

 * * * * *

They loaded the _Space Scourge_ with gold from Stolgoland, andpaintings and statues from the art museums and fabrics and furs andjewels and porcelains and plate from the markets of Eglonsby. Theyloaded sacks and kegs of specie from Khepera. Most of the Kheperaloot wasn't worth hauling to Gram, but it was far enough in advanceof their own technologies to be priceless to the Tanith locals. 

Some of these were learning simple machine operations, and a fewwere able to handle contragravity vehicles that had been fitted withadequate safety devices. The former slave guards had all becomesergeants and lieutenants in an infantry regiment that had beenformed, and the King of Tradetown borrowed some to train his ownarmy. Some genius in the machine shop altered a matchlock musketto flintlock and showed the local gunsmiths how to do it. 

The kreggs continued to thrive, after the _Space Scourge_ departed. Several calves were born, and seemed to be doing well; the biochemistryof Tanith and Khepera were safely alike. Trask had hopes for them. Every Viking ship had its own carniculture vats, but men tired ofcarniculture meat, and fresh meat was always in demand. Some day, he hoped, kregg-beef would be an item of sale to ships putting inon Tanith, and the long-haired hides might even find a market inthe Sword-Worlds. They had contragravity scows plying betweenRivington and Tradetown regularly, now, and air-lorries were linkingthe villages. The boatmen of Tradetown rioted occasionally againstthis unfair competition. And in Rivington itself, bulldozers andpower shovels and manipulators labored, and there was always arising cloud of dust over the city. 

There was so much to do, and only a trifle under twenty-fiveGalactic Standard hours in a day to do it. There were whole daysin which he never thought once of Andray Dunnan. 

A hundred and twenty-five days to Gram, and a hundred andtwenty-five days back. They had long ago passed. Of course, therewould be the work of repairing the _Space Scourge_, the conferenceswith the investors in the original Tanith Adventure, the businessof gathering the needed equipment for the new base. Even so, he wasbeginning to worry a little. Worry about something as far out of hiscontrol as the _Space Scourge_ was useless, he knew. He couldn'thelp it, though. Even Harkaman, usually imperturbable, began to befretful, after two hundred and seventy days had passed. 

They were relaxing in the living quarters they had fitted out at thetop of the spaceport building before retiring, both sprawled wearilyin chairs that had come from one of the better hotels of Eglonsby, their drinks between them on a low table, the top of which wasinlaid with something that looked like ivory but wasn't. On thefloor beside it lay the plans for a reaction-plant and mass-energyconverter they would build as soon as the _Space Scourge_ returnedwith equipment for producing collapsium-plated shielding. 

"Of course, we could go ahead with it, now, " Harkaman said. "We could tear enough armor off the _Lamia_ to shield any kindof a reaction plant. "

That was the first time either of them had gotten close to thepossibility that the ship mightn't return. Trask laid his cigar inthe ashtray--it had come from President Pedrosan Pedro's privateoffice--and splashed a little more brandy into his glass. 

"She'll be coming before long. We have enough of our people aboardto make sure nobody else tries to take the ship. And I reallybelieve, now, that Valkanhayn can be trusted. "

"I do, too. I'm not worried about what might happen on the ship. But we don't know what's been happening on Gram. Glaspyth andDidreksburg could have teamed up and jumped Wardshaven beforeDuke Angus was ready to invade Glaspyth. Boake might be landingthe ship in a trap at Wardshaven. "

"Be a sorry looking trap after it closed on him. That would be thefirst time in history that a Sword-World was raided by Space Vikings. "Harkaman looked at his half-empty glass, then filled it to the top. It was the same drink he had started with, just as a regiment thathas been decimated and recruited up to strength a few times is stillthe same regiment. 

The buzz of the communication screen--one of the few things in theroom that hadn't been looted somewhere--interrupted him. They bothrose; Harkaman, still carrying his drink, went to put it on. It wasa man on duty in the control room, overhead, reporting that twoemergences had just been detected at twenty light-minutes due northof the planet. Harkaman gulped his drink and set down the empty glass. 

"All right. You put out a general alert? Switch anything that comesin over to this screen. " He got out his pipe and was packing tobaccointo it mechanically. "They'll be out of the last microjump andabout two light-seconds away in a few minutes. "

Trask sat down again, saw that his cigarette had burned almost tothe tip, and lit a fresh one from it, wishing he could be as calmabout it as Harkaman. Three minutes later, the control tower pickedup two emergences at a light-second and a half, a thousand or somiles apart. Then the screen flickered, and Boake Valkanhayn waslooking out of it, from the desk in the newly refurbished commandroom of the _Space Scourge_. 

He was a newly refurbished Boake Valkanhayn, too. His heavilybraided captain's jacket looked like the work of one of the bettertailors on Gram, and on the breast was a large and ornate knight'sstar, of unfamiliar design, bearing, among other things, the swordand atom-symbol of the house of Ward. 

"Prince Trask; Count Harkaman, " he greeted. "_Space Scourge_, Tanith;thirty-two hundred hours out of Wardshaven on Gram, Baron Valkanhayncommanding, accompanied by chartered freighter _Rozinante_, Durendal, Captain Morbes. Requesting permission and instructions to orbit in. "

"Baron Valkanhayn?" Harkaman asked. 

"That's right, " Valkanhayn grinned. "And I have a vellum scroll thesize of a blanket to prove it. I have a whole cargo of scrolls. Onesays you're Otto, Count Harkaman, and another says you're Admiral ofthe Royal Navy of Gram. "

"He did it!" Trask cried. "He made himself King of Gram!"

"That's right. And you're his trusty and well-loved Lucas, PrinceTrask, and Viceroy of his Majesty's Realm of Tanith. "

Harkaman bristled at that. "The Gehenna you say. This is _our_ Realmof Tanith. "

"Is his Majesty making it worth while to accept his sovereignty?"Trask asked. "That is, beside vellum scrolls?"

Valkanhayn was still grinning. "Wait till we start sending cargodown. And wait till you see what's crammed into the other ship. "

"Did Spasso come back with you?" Harkaman asked. 

"Oh, no. Sir Garvan Spasso entered the service of his Majesty, KingAngus. He is Chief of Police at Glaspyth, now, and nobody can callwhat he's doing there chicken-stealing, either. Any chickens hesteals, he steals the whole farm to get them. "

That didn't sound good. Spasso could make King Angus' name stink allover Glaspyth. Or maybe he'd allow Spasso to crush the adherents ofOmfray, and then hang him for his oppression of the people. He'dread about somebody who'd done something like that, in one ofHarkaman's Old Terran history books. 

 * * * * *

Baron Rathmore had stayed on Gram; so had Rolve Hemmerding. Therest of the gentlemen-adventurers, all with shiny new titles ofnobility, had returned. From them, as the two ships were gettinginto orbit, he learned what had happened on Gram since the _Nemesis_had spaced out. 

Duke Angus had announced his intention of carrying on with theTanith Adventure, and had started construction of a new ship atthe Gorram yards. This had served plausibly to explain all theactivities of preparation for the invasion of Glaspyth, and haddeceived Duke Omfray completely. Omfray had already started a shipof his own; the entire resources of his duchy were thrown into aneffort to get her finished and to space ahead of the one Angus wasbuilding. Work was going on frantically on her when the Wardshaveninvaders hit Glaspyth; she was now nearing completion as a unit ofthe Royal Navy. Duke Omfray had managed to escape to Didreksburg;when Angus' troops moved in on the latter duchy, he had escapedagain, this time off-planet. He was now eating the bitter bread ofexile at the court of his wife's uncle, the King of Haulteclere. 

The Count of Newhaven, the Duke of Bigglersport, and the Lord ofNorthport, all of whom had favored the establishment of a planetarymonarchy, had immediately acknowledged Angus as their sovereign. So, with a knife at his throat, had the Duke of Didreksburg. Many otherfeudal magnates had refused to surrender their sovereignty. Thatmight mean fighting, but Paytrik, now Baron, Morland, doubted it. 

"The _Space Scourge_ stopped that, " he said. "When they heard aboutthe base here, and saw what we'd shipped to Gram, they startedchanging their minds. Only subjects of King Angus will be allowedto invest in the Tanith Adventure. "

As for accepting King Angus' annexation of Tanith and accepting hissovereignty, that would also be advisable. They would need a SwordWorld outlet for the loot they took or obtained by barter from otherSpace Vikings, and until they had adequate industries of their own, they would be dependent on Gram for many things which could not begotten by raiding. 

"I suppose the King knows I'm not out here for my health, orhis profit?" he asked Lord Valpry, during one of the screenconversations as the _Space Scourge_ was getting into orbit. "My business out here is Andray Dunnan. "

"Oh, yes, " the Wardshaven noble replied. "In fact, he told me, in somany words, that he would be most happy if you sent him his nephew'shead in a block of lucite. What Dunnan did touched his honor, too. Sovereign princes never see any humor in things like that. "

"I suppose he knows that sooner or later Dunnan will try to attackTanith?"

"If he doesn't, it isn't because I didn't tell him often enough. Whenyou see the defense armament we're bringing, you'll think he does. "

It was impressive, but nothing to the engineering and industrialequipment. Mining robots for use on the iron Moon of Tanith, andnormal-space transports for the fifty thousand mile run betweenplanet and satellite. A collapsed-matter producer; now they couldcollapsium-plate their own shielding. A small, fully robotic, steelmill that could be set up and operated on the satellite. Industrialrobots, and machinery to make machinery. And, best of all, twohundred engineers and highly skilled technicians. 

Quite a few industrial baronies on Gram would realize, before long, what they had lost in those men. He wondered what Lord Trask ofTraskon would have thought about that. 

The Prince of Tanith was no longer interested in what happened toGram. Maybe, if things prospered for the next century or so, hissuccessors would be ruling Gram by viceroy from Tanith. 

XV

As soon as the _Space Scourge_ was unloaded, she was put onoff-planet watch; Harkaman immediately spaced out in the _Nemesis_, while Trask remained behind. They began unloading the _Rozinante_, after setting her down at Rivington Spaceport. After that was done, her officers and crew took a holiday which lasted a month, until the_Nemesis_ returned. Harkaman must have made quick raids on half adozen planets. None of the cargo he brought back was spectacularlyvaluable, and he dismissed the whole thing as chicken-stealing, buthe had lost some men and the ship showed a few fresh scars. A gooddeal of what was transshipped to the _Rozinante_ was manufacturedgoods which would compete with merchandise produced on Gram. 

"That load will be a come-down, after what the _Space Scourge_ tookback, but we didn't want to send the _Rozinante_ back empty, " hesaid. "One thing, I had time to do a little reading, between stops. "

"The books from the Eglonsby library?"

"Yes. I learned a curious thing about Amaterasu. Do you know why thatplanet was so extensively colonized by the Federation, when theredon't seem to be any fissionable ores? The planet produced gadolinium. "

Gadolinium was essential to hyperdrive engines; the engines of aship the size of the _Nemesis_ required fifty pounds of it. On theSword-Worlds, it was worth several times its weight in gold. If theystill mined it, Amaterasu would repay a second visit. 

When he mentioned it, Harkaman shrugged. "Why should they mine it?There's only one thing it's good for, and you can't run a spaceshipon Diesel oil. I suppose the mines could be reopened, and newrefineries built, but. .. . "

"We could trade plutonium for gadolinium. They have none of theirown. We could charge our own prices for it, and we wouldn't need totell them what gadolinium sells for on the Sword-Worlds. "

"We could, if we could do business with anybody there, after whatwe did to Eglonsby and Stolgoland. Where would we get plutonium?"

"Why do you think the Beowulfers don't have hyperships, when theyhave everything else?"

Harkaman snapped his fingers. "By Satan, that's it!" Then he lookedat Trask in alarm. "Hey, you're not thinking of selling Amaterasuplutonium and Beowulf gadolinium, are you?"

"Why not? We could make a big profit on both ends of the deal. "

"You know what would happen next, don't you? There'd be ships fromboth planets all over the place in a few years. We want that likewe want a hole in the head. "

He couldn't see the objection. Tanith and Amaterasu and Beowulfcould work up a very good triangular trade; all three would profit. It wouldn't cost men and ship-damage and ammunition, either. Maybea mutual defense alliance, too. Think about it later; there was toomuch to do here on Tanith at present. 

There had been mines on the Moon of Tanith before the collapse ofthe Federation; they had been stripped of their equipment afterward, while Tanith was still fighting a rearguard battle against barbarism, but the underground chambers and man-made caverns could still be used, and in time the mines were reopened and the steel mill put in, andeventually ingots of finished steel were coming down by shuttle-craft. In the meantime, the shipyard had been laid out and was taking shape. 

The Gram ship _Queen Flavia_--she had been the one found unfinishedat Glaspyth--came in three months after the _Rozinante_ startedback; she must have been finished while Valkanhayn was still inhyperspace. She carried considerable cargo, some of it superfluousbut all of it useful; everybody was investing in the Tanith Adventurenow, and the money had to be spent for something. Better, she broughtclose to a thousand men and women; the leakage of brains and abilityfrom the Sword-Worlds was turning into a flood. Among them was BasilGorram. Trask remembered him as an insufferable young twerp, but heseemed to be a good shipyard man. He very frankly predicted thatin a few years his father's yards at Wardshaven would be idle andall the Tanith ships would be Tanith-built. A junior partner ofLothar Ffayle's also came out, to establish a branch of the Bank ofWardshaven at Rivington. 

As soon as the _Queen Flavia_ had discharged her cargo andpassengers, she took on five hundred ground-fighters from the_Lamia_, _Nemesis_ and _Space Scourge_ companies and spaced out ona raiding voyage. While she was gone, the second ship, the one DukeAngus had started at Wardshaven and King Angus had finished, the_Black Star_, came in. 

Trask was slightly incredulous at realizing that she had spaced outfrom Gram almost exactly two years after the _Nemesis_ had departed. He still hadn't any idea where Andray Dunnan was, or what he wasdoing, or how to find him. 

The news of the Gram base on Tanith spread slowly, first by thescheduled liners and tramp freighters that linked the Sword-Worlds, and then by trading ships and outbound Space Vikings to the OldFederation. Two years and six months after the _Nemesis_ had comeout of hyperspace to find Boake Valkanhayn and Garvan Spasso onTanith, the first independent Space Viking came in, to sell a cargoand get repairs. They bought his loot--he had been raiding someplanet rather above the level of Khepera and below that ofAmaterasu--and healed the wounds his ship had taken getting it. Hehad been dealing with the Everrard family on Hoth, and professedhimself much more satisfied with the bargains he had gotten onTanith and swore to return. 

He had never even heard of Andray Dunnan or the _Enterprise_. 

It was a Gilgamesher that brought the first news. 

He had first heard of Gilgameshers--the word was usedindiscriminately for a native of or a ship from Gilgamesh--on Gram, from Harkaman and Karffard and Vann Larch and the others. Sincecoming to Tanith, he had heard about them from every Space Viking, never in complimentary and rarely in printable terms. 

Gilgamesh was rated, with reservations, as a civilized planet thoughnot on a level with Odin or Isis or Baldur or Marduk or Aton or anyof the other worlds which had maintained the culture of the TerranFederation uninterruptedly. Perhaps Gilgamesh deserved more credit;its people had undergone two centuries of darkness and pulledthemselves out of it by their bootstraps. They had recovered allthe old techniques, up to and including the hyperdrive. 

They didn't raid; they traded. They had religious objections toviolence, though they kept these within sensible limits, and wereable and willing to fight with fanatical ferocity in defense oftheir home planet. About a century before, there had been afive-ship Viking raid on Gilgamesh; one ship had returned and hadbeen sold for scrap after reaching a friendly base. Their ships wenteverywhere to trade, and wherever they traded a few of them usuallysettled, and where they settled they made money, sending most of ithome. Their society seemed to be a loose theo-socialism, and theirreligion an absurd potpourri of most of the major monotheisms of theFederation period, plus doctrinal and ritualistic innovations oftheir own. Aside from their propensity for sharp trading, theirbigoted refusal to regard anybody not of their creed as more thanhalf human, and the maze of dietary and other taboos in which theyhid from social contact with others, made them generally disliked. 

After their ship had gotten into orbit, three of them came down todo business. The captain and his exec wore long coats, almostknee-length, buttoned to the throat, and small white caps likeforage caps; the third, one of their priests, wore a robe with acowl, and the symbol of their religion, a blue triangle in a whitecircle, on his breast. They all wore beards that hung down fromtheir cheeks, with their chins and upper lips shaved. They all hadthe same righteous, disapproving faces, they all refusedrefreshments of any sort, and they sat uneasily as though fearingcontamination from the heathens who had sat in their chairs beforethem. They had a mixed cargo of general merchandise picked up hereand there on subcivilized planets, in which nobody on Tanith wasinterested. They also had some good stuff--vegetable-amber andflame-bird plumes from Irminsul; ivory or something very like itfrom somewhere else; diamonds and Uller organic opals andZarathustra sunstones. They also had some platinum. They wantedmachinery, especially contragravity engines and robots. 

[Illustration]

The trouble was, they wanted to haggle. Haggling, it seemed, wasthe Gilgamesh planetary sport. 

"Have you ever heard of a Space Viking ship named the _Enterprise_?"he asked them, at the seventh or eighth impasse in the bargaining. "She bears a crescent, light blue on black. Her captain's name isAndray Dunnan. "

"A ship so named, with such a device, raided Chermosh more than ayear ago, " the priest-supercargo said. "Some of our people tarry onChermosh to trade. This ship sacked the city in which they were;some of them lost heavily in world's goods. "

"That's a pity. "

The Gilgamesh priest shrugged. "It is as Yah the Almighty wills, "he said, then brightened slightly. "The Chermoshers are heathensand worshipers of false gods. The Space Vikings looted their templeand destroyed it utterly; they carried away the graven images andabominations. Our people bore witness that there was much wailingand lamentation among the idolators. "

 * * * * *

So that was the first entry on the Big Board. It covered, optimistically, the whole of one wall in his office, and for sometime that one chalked note about the raid on Chermosh, and the date, as nearly as it could be approximated, looked very lonely on it. Thecaptain of the _Black Star_ brought back material for a couple more. He had put in on several planets known to be temporarily occupied bySpace Vikings, to barter loot, give his men some time off-ship, andmake inquiries, and he had names for a couple of planets raided bythe blue crescent ship. One was only six months old. 

The way news filtered about in the Old Federation, that waspractically hot off the stove. 

The owner-captain of the _Alborak_ had something to add, when hebrought his ship in six months later. He sipped his drink slowly, as though he had limited himself to one and wanted to make it lastas long as possible. 

"Almost two years ago, on Jagannath, " he said. "The _Enterprise_ wason orbit there, getting some light repairs. I met the man a fewtimes. Looks just like those pictures, but he's wearing a smallpointed beard, now. He'd sold a lot of loot. General merchandise, precious and semiprecious stones, a lot of carved and inlaidfurniture that looked as though it had come from some Neobarb king'spalace, and some temple stuff. Buddhist; there were a couple of biggold Dai-Butsus. His crew were standing drinks for all comers. Someof them were pretty dark above the collar, as though they'd been ona hot-star planet not too long before. And he had a lot of Imhotepfurs to sell, simply fabulous stuff. "

"What kind of repairs? Combat damage?"

"That was my impression. He spaced out a little over a hundred hoursafter I came in, in company with another ship. The _Starhopper_, Captain Teodor Vaghn. The talk was that they were making a two-shipraid somewhere. " The captain of the _Alborak_ thought for a moment. "One other thing. He was buying ammunition, everything from pistolcartridges to hellburners. And he was buying all the air-and-waterrecycling equipment, and all the carniculture and hydroponicequipment, he could get. "

That was something to know. He thanked the Space Viking, and then asked:

"Did he know, at the time, that I'm out here hunting for him?"

"If he did, nobody else on Jagannath did. I didn't hear about it, myself, till six months afterward. "

That evening, he played off the recording he had made of theconversation for Harkaman and Valkanhayn and Karffard and someof the others. Somebody instantly said:

"That temple stuff came from Chermosh. They're Buddhists, there. That checks with the Gilgamesher's story. "

"He got the furs on Imhotep; he traded for them, " Harkaman said. "Nobody gets anything off Imhotep by raiding. The planet's in themiddle of a glaciation, the land surface down to the fiftiethparallel is iced over solid. There is one city, ten or fifteenthousand, and the rest of the population is scattered around insettlements of a couple of hundred all along the face of theglaciers. They're all hunters and trappers. They have somecontragravity, and when a ship comes in, they spread the news byradio and everybody brings his furs to town. They use telescopesights, and everybody over ten years old can hit a man in the headat five hundred yards. And big weapons are no good; they're too welldispersed. So the only way to get anything out of them is to tradefor it. "

"I think I know where he was, " Alvyn Karffard said. "On Imhotep, silver is a monetary metal. On Agni, they use silver for sewer-pipe. Agni is a hot-star planet, class B-3 sun. And on Agni they aretough, and they have good weapons. That could be where the_Enterprise_ took that combat damage. "

That started an argument as to whether he'd gone to Chermosh first. It was sure that he had gone to Agni and then Imhotep. Guatt Kirbeytried to figure both courses. 

"It doesn't tell us anything, either way, " he said at length. "Chermoshis away off to the side from Agni and Imhotep in either case. "

"Well, he does have a base, somewhere, and it's not on anyTerra-type planet, " Valkanhayn said. "Otherwise, what would he wantwith all that air-and-water and hydroponic and carniculture stuff?"

The Old Federation area was full of non-Terra-type planets, and whyshould anybody bother going to any of them? Any planet that wasn'toxygen-atmosphere, six to eight thousand miles in diameter, andwithin a narrow surface-temperature range, wasn't worth wasting timeon. But a planet like that, if one had the survival equipment, wouldmake a wonderful hideout. 

"What sort of a captain is this Teodor Vaghn?" he asked. "A goodone, " Harkaman said promptly. "He has a nasty streak--sadistic--buthe knows his business and he has a good ship and a well-trainedcrew. You think he and Dunnan have teamed up?"

"Don't you? I think, now that he has a base, Dunnan is gettinga fleet together. "

"He'll know we're after him by now, " Vann Larch said. "And he knowswhere we are, and that puts him one up on us. "

XVI

So Andray Dunnan was haunting him again. Tiny bits of informationcame in--Dunnan's ship had been on Hoth, on Nergal, selling loot. Now he sold for gold or platinum, and bought little, usually armsand ammunition. Apparently his base, wherever it was, was fullyself-sufficient. It was certain, too, that Dunnan knew he was beinghunted. One Space Viking who had talked with him quoted him assaying: "I don't want any trouble with Trask, and if he's smart hewon't look for any with me. " This made him all the more positivethat somewhere Dunnan was building strength for an attack on Tanith. He made it a rule that there should always be at least two ships inorbit off Tanith in addition to the _Lamia_, which was on permanentpatrol, and he installed more missile-launching stations both on themoon and on the planet. 

There were three ships bearing the Ward swords and atom-symbol, anda fourth building on Gram. Count Lionel of Newhaven was buildingone of his own, and three big freighters shuttled across the threethousand light-years between Tanith and Gram. Sesar Karvall, who hadnever recovered from his wounds, had died; Lady Lavina had turnedthe barony and the business over to her brother, Burt Sandrasan, and gone to live on Excalibur. The shipyard at Rivington wasfinished, and now they had built the landing-legs of Harkaman's_Corisande II_, and were putting up the skeleton. 

And they were trading with Amaterasu, now. Pedrosan Pedro had beenoverthrown and put to death by General Dagró Ector during thedisorders following the looting of Eglonsby; the troops left behindin Stolgoland had mutinied and made common cause with their lateenemies. The two nations were in an uneasy alliance, with severalother nations combining against them, when the _Nemesis_ and the_Space Scourge_ returned and declared peace against the wholeplanet. There was no fighting; everybody knew what had happened toStolgoland and Eglonsby. In the end, all the governments of Amaterasujoined in a loose agreement to get the mines reopened and resumeproduction of gadolinium, and to share in the fissionablesbeing imported in exchange. 

It had been harder, and had taken a year longer, to do business withBeowulf. The Beowulfers had a single planetary government, and theywere inclined to shoot first and negotiate afterward, a naturalenough attitude in view of experiences of the past. However, theyhad enough old Federation-period textbooks still in microprint toknow what could be done with gadolinium. They decided to write offthe past as fair fight and no bad blood, and start over again. 

It would be some years before either planet had hyperships of theirown. In the meantime, both were good customers, and rapidly becominggood friends. A number of young Amaterasuans and Beowulfers had cometo Tanith to study various technologies. 

The Tanith locals were studying, too. In the first year, Traskhad gathered the more intelligent boys of ten to twelve from eachcommunity and begun teaching them. In the past year, he had sentthe most intelligent of them off to Gram to school. In anotherfive years, they'd be coming home to teach; in the meantime, hewas bringing teachers to Tanith from Gram. There was a schoolat Tradetown, and others in some of the larger villages, andat Rivington there was something that could almost be called acollege. In another ten years or so, Tanith would be able topretend to the status of civilization. 

 * * * * *

If only Andray Dunnan and his ships didn't come too soon. They wouldbe beaten off, he was confident of that; but the damage Tanith wouldtake, in the defense, would set back his work for years. He knew alltoo well what Space Viking ships could do to a planet. He'd have tofind Dunnan's base, smash it, destroy his ships, kill the manhimself, first. Not to avenge that murder six years ago on Gram;that was long ago and far away, and Elaine was vanished, and so wasthe Lucas Trask who had loved and lost her. What mattered now wasplanting and nurturing civilization on Tanith. 

But where would he find Dunnan, in two hundred billion cubiclight-years? Dunnan had no such problem. He knew where his enemy was. 

And Dunnan was gathering strength. The _Yo-Yo_, Captain VannHumfort; she had been reported twice, once in company with the_Starhopper_, and once with the _Enterprise_. She bore a blazon ofa feminine hand dangling a planet by a string from one finger; agood ship, and an able, ruthless captain. The _Bolide_; she and the_Enterprise_ had made a raid on Ithunn. The Gilgameshers had settledthere and one of their ships had brought that story in. 

And he recruited two ships at once on Melkarth, and there was a gooddeal of mirth about that among the Tanith Space Vikings. 

Melkarth was strictly a poultry planet. Its people had sunk to thevillage-peasant level; they had no wealth worth taking or carryingaway. It was, however, a place where a ship could be set down, andthere were women, and the locals had not lost the art of distillation, and made potent liquors. A crew could have fun there, much lessexpensively than on a regular Viking base planet, and for the lasteight years a Captain Nial Burrik, of the _Fortuna_, had been occupyingit, taking his ship out for occasional quick raids and spending mostof the time living from day to day almost on the local level. Oncein a while, a Gilgamesher would come in to see if he had anything totrade. It was a Gilgamesher who brought the story to Tanith, and itwas almost two years old when he told it. 

"We heard it from the people of the planet, the ones who live whereBurrik had his base. First, there was a trading ship came in. Youmay have heard of her; she is the one called the _Honest Horris_. "

Trask laughed at that. Her captain, Horris Sasstroff, called himself"Honest Horris, " a misnomer which he had also bestowed on his ship. He was a trader of sorts. Even the Gilgameshers despised him, andnot even a Gilgamesher would have taken a wretched craft like the_Honest Horris_ to space. 

"He had been to Melkarth before, " the Gilgamesher said. "He andBurrik are friends. " He pronounced that like a final and damningjudgment of both of them. "The story the locals told our brethrenof the _Fairdealer_ was that the _Honest Horris_ was landed besideBurrik's ship for ten days, when two other ships came in. They saidone had the blue crescent badge, and the other bore a green monsterleaping from one star to another. "

The _Enterprise_ and the _Starhopper_. He wondered why they'd goneto a planet like Melkarth. Maybe they knew in advance whom they'dfind there. 

"The locals thought there would be fighting, but there was not. There was a great feast, of all four crews. Then everything ofvalue was loaded aboard the _Fortuna_, and all four ships liftedand spaced out together. They said Burrik left nothing of any worthwhatever behind; they were much disappointed at that. "

"Have any of them been back since?"

All three Gilgameshers, captain, exec, and priest, shook their heads. 

"Captain Gurrash of the _Fairdealer_ said it had been over a yearbefore his ship put in there. He could still see where the landinglegs of the ships had pressed into the ground, but the locals saidthey had not been back. "

That made two more ships about which inquiries must be made. Hewondered, for a moment, why in Gehenna Dunnan would want ships likethat; they must make the _Space Scourge_ and the _Lamia_ as he hadfirst seen them look like units of the Royal Navy of Excalibur. Thenhe became frightened, with an irrational retrospective fright atwhat might have happened. It could have, too, at any time in thelast year and a half; either or both of those ships could have comein on Tanith completely unsuspected. It was only by the sheerestaccident that he had found out, even now, about them. 

Everybody else thought it was a huge joke. They thought it would bea bigger joke if Dunnan sent those ships to Tanith now, when theywere warned and ready for them. 

There were other things to worry about. One was the altering attitude ofhis Majesty Angus I. When the _Space Scourge_ returned, the newly-titledBaron Valkanhayn brought with him, along with the princely title and thecommission as Viceroy of Tanith, a most cordial personal audiovisualgreeting, warm and friendly. Angus had made it seated at his desk, bareheaded and smoking a cigarette. The one which had come on the next shipout was just as cordial, but the King was not smoking and wore a smallgold-circled cap-of-maintenance. By the time they had three ships inservice on scheduled three-month arrivals, a year and a half later, hewas speaking from his throne, wearing his crown and employing the firstperson plural for himself and finally the third person singular forTrask. By the end of the fourth year, there was no audiovisual messagefrom him in person, and a stiff complaint from Rovard Grauffis to theeffect that His Majesty felt it unseemly for a subject to address hissovereign while seated, even by audiovisual. This was accompanied by arather apologetic personal message from Grauffis--now Prime Minister--tothe effect that His Majesty felt compelled to stand on his royal dignityat all times, and that, after all, there was a difference between theposition and dignity of the Duke of Wardshaven and that of the PlanetaryKing of Gram. 

Prince Trask of Tanith couldn't quite see it. The King was simplythe first nobleman of the planet. Even kings like Rodolf of Excaliburor Napolyon of Flamberge didn't try to be anything more. Thereafter, he addressed his greetings and reports to the Prime Minister, alwayswith a personal message, to which Grauffis replied in kind. 

Not only the form but also the content of the messages from Gramunderwent change. His Majesty was most dissatisfied. His Majesty wasdeeply disappointed. His Majesty felt that His Majesty's colonialrealm of Tanith was not contributing sufficiently to the RoyalExchequer. And his Majesty felt that Prince Trask was placingentirely too much emphasis upon trade and not enough upon raiding;after all, why barter with barbarians when it was possible to takewhat you wanted from them by force?

And there was the matter of the _Blue Comet_, Count Lionel ofNewhaven's ship. His Majesty was most displeased that the Count ofNewhaven was trading with Tanith from his own spaceport. All goodsfrom Tanith should pass through the Wardshaven spaceport. 

"Look, Rovard, " he told the audiovisual camera which was recordinghis reply to Grauffis. "You saw the _Space Scourge_ when she camein, didn't you? That's what happens to a ship that raids a planetwhere there's anything worth taking. Beowulf is lousy withfissionables; they'll give us all the plutonium we can load, inexchange for gadolinium, which we sell them at about twiceSword-World prices. We trade plutonium on Amaterasu for gadolinium, and get it for about half Sword-World prices. " He pressed thestop-button, until he could remember the ancient formula. "You mayquote me as saying that whoever has advised His Majesty that thatisn't good business is no friend to His Majesty or to the Realm. 

"As for the complaint about the _Blue Comet_; as long as she isowned and operated by the Count of Newhaven, who is a stockholderin the Tanith Adventure, she has every right to trade here. "

He wondered why His Majesty didn't stop Lionel of Newhaven fromsending the _Blue Comet_ out from Gram. He found out from herskipper, the next time she came in. 

 * * * * *

"He doesn't dare, that's why. He's King as long as the great lordslike Count Lionel and Joris of Bigglersport and Alan of Northportwant him to be. Count Lionel has more men and more guns andcontragravity than he has, now, and that's without the help he'd getfrom everybody else. Everything's quiet on Gram now, even the war onSouthmain Continent's stopped. Everybody wants to keep it that way. Even King Angus isn't crazy enough to do anything to start a war. Not yet, anyhow. "

"Not _yet_?"

The captain of the _Blue Comet_, who was one of Count Lionel'svassal barons, was silent for a moment. 

"You ought to know, Prince Trask, " he said. "Andray Dunnan'sgrandmother was the King's mother. Her father was old Baron Zarvasof Blackcliffe. He was what was called an invalid, the last twentyyears of his life. He was always attended by two male nurses aboutthe size of Otto Harkaman. He was also said to be slightlyeccentric. "

The unfortunate grandfather of Duke Angus had always been a subjectnice people avoided. The unfortunate grandfather of King Angus wasprobably a subject everybody who valued their necks avoided. 

Lothar Ffayle had also come out on the _Blue Comet_. He was just asoutspoken. 

"I'm not going back. I'm transferring most of the funds of the Bankof Wardshaven out here; from now on, it'll be a branch of the Bankof Tanith. This is where the business is being done. It's gettingimpossible to do business at all in Wardshaven. What little businessthere is to do. "

"Just what's been happening?"

"Well, taxation, first. It seems the more money came in from here, the higher taxes got on Gram. Discriminatory taxes, too; pinched thesmall landholding and industrial barons and favored a few big ones. Baron Spasso and his crowd. "

"Baron Spasso, now?"

Ffayle nodded. "Of about half of Glaspyth. A lot of the Glaspythbarons lost their baronies--some of them their heads--after DukeOmfray was run out. It seems there was a plot against the life ofHis Majesty. It was exposed by the zeal and vigilance of Sir GarvanSpasso, who was elevated to the peerage and rewarded with the landsof the conspirators. "

"You said business was bad, as business?"

Ffayle nodded again. "The big Tanith boom has busted. It gotoversold; everybody wanted in on it. And they should never havebuilt those two last ships, the _Speedwell_ and the _Goodhope_;the return on them didn't justify it. Then, you're creating yourown industries and building your own equipment and armament here;that's caused a slump in industry on Gram. I'm glad Lavina Karvallhas enough money invested to live on. And finally, the consumers'goods market is getting flooded with stuff that's coming in fromhere and competing with Gram industry. "

Well, that was understandable. One of the ships that made theshuttle-trip to Gram would carry enough in her strong rooms, in goldand jewels and the like, to pay a handsome profit on the voyage. Thebulk-goods that went into the cargo holds was practically taking afree ride, so anything on hand, stuff that nobody would ordinarilythink of shipping in interstellar trade, went aboard. A two thousandfoot freighter had a great deal of cargo space. 

Baron Trask of Traskon hadn't even begun to realise what Tanith basewas going to cost Gram. 

[Illustration][Illustration]

XVII

As might be expected, the Beowulfers finished their hypership first. They had started with everything but a little know-how which hadbeen quickly learned. Amaterasu had had to begin by creating theindustry they needed to create the industry they needed to build aship. The Beowulf ship--she was named _Viking's Gift_--came in onTanith five and a half years after the _Nemesis_ and the _SpaceScourge_ had raided Beowulf; her skipper had fought a normal-driveship in that battle. Beside plutonium and radioactive isotopes, shecarried a general cargo of the sort of luxury-goods unique toBeowulf which could always find a market in interstellar trade. 

After selling the cargo and depositing the money in the Bank ofTanith, the skipper of the _Viking's Gift_ wanted to know wherehe could find a good planet to raid. They gave him a list, nonetoo tough but all slightly above the chicken-stealing level, andanother list of planets he was _not_ to raid; planets with whichTanith was trading. 

Six months later they learned that he had showed up on Khepera, withwhich they were now trading, and had flooded the market there withplundered textiles, hardware, ceramics and plastics. He had boughtkregg-meat and hides. 

"You see what you did, now?" Harkaman clamored. "You thought youwere making a customer; what you made was a competitor. "

"What I made was an ally. If we ever do find Dunnan's planet, we'llneed a fleet to take it. A couple of Beowulf ships would help. Youknow them; you fought them, too. "

Harkaman had other worries. While cruising in _Corisande II_, he hadcome in on Vitharr, one of the planets where Tanith ships traded, tofind it being raided by a Space Viking ship based on Xochitl. He hadfought a short but furious ship-action, battering the invader untilhe was glad to hyper out. Then he had gone directly to Xochitl, arriving on the heels of the ship he had beaten, and had had it outboth with the captain and Prince Viktor, serving them with anultimatum to leave Tanith trade-planets alone in the future. 

"How did they take it?" Trask asked, when he returned to report. 

"Just about the way you would have. Viktor said his people wereSpace Vikings, not Gilgameshers. I told him we weren't Gilgameshers, either, as he'd find out on Xochitl the next time one of his shipsraided one of our planets. Are you going to back me up? Of course, you can always send Prince Viktor my head, and an apology--"

"If I have to send him anything, I'll send him a sky full of shipsand a planet full of hellburners. You did perfectly right, Otto;exactly what I'd have done in your place. "

There the matter rested. There were no more raids by Xochitl shipson any of their trade-planets. No mention of the incident was madein any of the reports sent back to Gram. The Gram situation wasdeteriorating rapidly enough. Finally, there was an audiovisualmessage from Angus himself; he was seated on his throne, wearinghis crown, and he began speaking from the screen abruptly:

"We, Angus, King of Gram and Tanith, are highly displeased with oursubject, Lucas, Prince and Viceroy of Tanith; we consider ourselvesvery badly served by Prince Trask. We therefore command him to returnto Gram, and render to us account of his administration of our colonyand realm of Tanith. "

After some hasty preparations, Trask recorded a reply. He was sittingon a throne, himself, and he wore a crown just as ornate as King Angus', and robes of white and black Imhotep furs. 

"We, Lucas, Prince of Tanith, " he began, "are quite willing toacknowledge the suzerainty of the King of Gram, formerly Duke ofWardshaven. It is our earnest desire, if possible, to remain atpeace and friendship with the King of Gram, and to carry on traderelations with him and with his subjects. 

"We must, however, reject absolutely any efforts on his part todictate the internal policies of our realm of Tanith. It is ourearnest hope, "--dammit, he'd said "earnest, " he should have thoughtof some other word--"that no act on the part of his Majesty the Kingof Gram will create any breach in the friendship existing betweenhis realm and ours. "

 * * * * *

Three months later, the next ship, which had left Gram while KingAngus' summons was still in hyperspace, brought Baron Rathmore. Shaking hands with him as he left the landing craft, Trask wanted toknow if he'd been sent out as the new Viceroy. Rathmore started tolaugh and ended by cursing vilely. 

"No. I've come out to offer my sword to the King of Tanith, " he said. 

"Prince of Tanith, for the time being, " Trask corrected. "The sword, however, is most acceptable. I take it you've had all of our blessedsovereign you can stomach?"

"Lucas, you have enough ships and men here to take Gram, " Rathmoresaid. "Proclaim yourself King of Tanith and then lay claim to thethrone of Gram and the whole planet would rise for you. "

Rathmore had lowered his voice, but even so the open landing stagewas no place for this sort of talk. He said so, ordered a coupleof the locals to collect Rathmore's luggage, and got him into ahall-car, taking him down to his living quarters. After they werein private, Rathmore began again:

"It's more than anybody can stand! There isn't one of the old greatnobility he hasn't alienated, or one of the minor barons, thelandholders and industrialists, the people who were always thebackbone of Gram. And it goes from them down to the commonfolk. Assessments on the lords, taxes on the people, inflation to meetthe taxes, high prices, debased coinage. Everybody's being beggaredexcept this rabble of new lords he has around him, and that slut ofa wife and her greedy kinfolk. .. . "

Trask stiffened. "You're not speaking of Queen Flavia, are you?"he asked softly. 

Rathmore's mouth opened slightly. "Great Satan, don't you know? No, of course not; the news would have come on the same ship I did. Why, Angus divorced Flavia. He claimed that she was incapable of givinghim an heir to the throne. He remarried immediately. "

The girl's name meant nothing to Trask; he did know of her father, aBaron Valdiva. He was lord of a small estate south of the Ward landsand west of Newhaven. Most of his people were out-and-out banditsand cattle-rustlers, and he was as close to being one himself ashe could get. 

"Nice family he's married into. A credit to the dignity of thethrone. "

"Yes. You wouldn't know this Lady-Demoiselle Evita; she was onlyseventeen when you left Gram, and hadn't begun to acquire areputation outside her father's lands. She's made up for lost timesince, though. And she has enough uncles and aunts and cousins andex-lovers and what-not to fill out an infantry regiment, and everyone of them's at court with both hands out to grab everything theycan. "

"How does Duke Joris like this?" The Duke of Bigglersport was QueenFlavia's brother. "I daresay he's less than delighted. "

"He's hiring mercenaries, is what he's doing, and buying combatcontragravity. Lucas, why don't you come back? You have no idea whata reputation you have on Gram, now. Everybody would rally to you. "

He shook his head, "I have a throne, here on Tanith. On Gram I wantnothing. I'm sorry for the way Angus turned out, I thought he'd makea good King. But since he's made an intolerable King, the lords andpeople of Gram will have to get rid of him for themselves. I have myown tasks, here. "

Rathmore shrugged. "I was afraid that would be it, " he said. "Well, I offered my sword; I won't take it back. I can help you in whatyou're doing on Tanith. "

 * * * * *

The captain of the free Space Viking _Damnthing_ was namedRoger-fan-Morvill Esthersan, which meant that he was someSword-Worlder's acknowledged bastard by a woman of one of the OldFederation planets. His mother's people could have been Nergalers;he had coarse black hair, a mahogany-brown skin, and red-brown, almost maroon, eyes. He tasted the wine the robot poured for himand expressed appreciation, then began unwrapping the parcel hehad brought in. 

"Something I found while raiding on Tetragrammaton, " he said. "I thought you might like to have it. It was made on Gram. "

It was an automatic pistol, with a belt and holster. The leather wasbisonoid-hide; the buckle of the belt was an oval enameled with acrescent, pale blue on black. The pistol was a plain 10-mm militarymodel with grooved plastic grips; on the receiver it bore the stampof the House of Hoylbar, the firearms manufacturers of Glaspyth. Evidently it was one of the arms Duke Omfray had provided for AndrayDunnan's original mercenary company. 

"Tetragrammaton?" He glanced over to the Big Board; there was noprevious report from that planet. "How long ago?"

"I'd say about three hundred hours. I came from there directly, lessthan two hundred and fifty hours. Dunnan's ships had left the planetthree days before I got there. "

That was practically sizzling hot. Well, something like that had tohappen, sooner or later. The Space Viking was asking him if he knewwhat sort of a place Tetragrammaton was. 

Neobarbarian, trying to recivilize in a crude way. Small population, concentrated on one continent; farming and fisheries. A little heavyindustry, in a small way, at a couple of towns. They had some nuclearpower, introduced a century or so ago by traders from Marduk, one ofthe really civilized planets. They still depended on Marduk forfissionables; their export product was an abominably-smellingvegetable oil which furnished the base for delicate perfumes, andwhich nobody was ever able to synthesize properly. 

"I heard they had steel mills in operation, now, " the half-breedSpace Viking said. "It seems that somebody on Rimmon has justre-invented the railroad, and they need more steel than they canproduce for themselves. I thought I'd raid Tetragrammaton for steeland trade it on Rimmon for a load of heaven-tea. When I got there, though, the whole planet was in a mess; not raiding, but plainwanton destruction. The locals were just digging themselves out ofit when I landed. Some of them, who didn't think they had anythingat all left to lose, gave me a fight. I captured a few of them, tofind out what had happened. One of them had that pistol; he saidhe'd taken it off a Space Viking he'd killed. The ships that raidedthem were the _Enterprise_ and the _Yo-Yo_. I knew you'd want tohear about it. I got some of the locals' stories on tape. "

"Well, thank you. I'll want to hear those tapes. Now, you say youwant steel?"

"Well, I haven't any money. That's why I was going to raidTetragrammaton. "

"Nifflheim with the money; your cargo's paid for already. This, "he said, touching the pistol, "and whatever's on the tapes. "

 * * * * *

They played off the tapes that evening. They weren't particularlyinformative. The locals who had been interrogated hadn't been inactual contact with Dunnan's people except in combat. The man whohad been carrying the 10-mm Hoylbar was the best witness of the lot, and he knew little. He had caught one of them alone, shot him frombehind with a shotgun, taken his pistol, and then gotten away asquickly as he could. They had sent down landing craft, it seemed, and said they wanted to trade; then something must have happened, nobody knew what, and they had begun a massacre and sacked the town. After returning to their ships, they had opened fire with nuclearmissiles. 

"Sounds like Dunnan, " Hugh Rathmore said in disgust. "He just wentkill-crazy. The bad blood of Blackcliffe. "

"There are funny things about this, " Boake Valkanhayn said. "I'd sayit was a terror-raid, but who in Gehenna was he trying to terrorize?"

"I wondered about that, too. " Harkaman frowned. "This town where helanded seems, such as it was, to have been the planetary capital. They just landed, pretending friendship, which I can't see why theyneeded to pretend, and then began looting and massacring. Therewasn't anything of real value there; all they took was what the mencould carry themselves or stuff into their landing craft, and theydid that because they have what amounts to a religious tabooagainst landing anywhere and leaving without stealing something. The real loot was at these two other towns; a steel mill and bigstocks of steel at one, and all that skunk-apple oil at the other. So what did they do? They dropped a five-megaton bomb on each one, and blew both of them to Em-See-Square. That was a terror-raid pureand simple, but as Boake inquires, just who were they terrorizing?If there were big cities somewhere else on the planet, it wouldfigure. But there aren't. They blew out the two biggest cities, and all the loot in them. "

[Illustration]

"Then they wanted to terrorize somebody off the planet. "

"But nobody'd hear about it off-planet, " somebody protested. 

"The Mardukans would; they trade with Tetragrammaton, " theacknowledged bastard of somebody named Morvill said. "They havea couple of ships a year there. "

"That's right, " Trask agreed. "Marduk. "

"You mean, you think Dunnan's trying to terrorize _Marduk_?" Valkanhayndemanded. "Great Satan, even he isn't crazy enough for that!"

Baron Rathmore started to say something about what Andray Dunnanwas crazy enough to do, and what his uncle was crazy enough to do. It was just one of the cracks he had been making since he'd cometo Tanith and didn't have to look over his shoulder while he wasmaking them. 

"I think he is, too, " Trask said. "I think that is exactly what heis doing. Don't ask me why; as Otto is fond of remarking, he's crazyand we aren't, and that gives him an advantage. But what have wegotten, since those Gilgameshers told us about his picking upBurrik's ship and the _Honest Horris_? Until today, we've heardnothing from any other Space Viking. What we have gotten was storiesfrom Gilgameshers about raids on planets where they trade, and everyone of them is also a planet where Marduk ships trade. And in everycase, there has been little or nothing reported about valuable loottaken. The stories are all about wanton and murderous bombings. Ithink Andray Dunnan is making war on Marduk. "

"Then he's crazier than his grandfather and his uncle both!"Rathmore cried. 

"You mean, he's making a string of terror-raids on their tradeplanets, hoping to pull the Mardukan space-navy away from the homeplanet?" Harkaman had stopped being incredulous. "And when he getsthem all lured away, he'll make a fast raid?"

"That's what I think. Remember our fundamental postulate: Dunnan iscrazy. Remember how he convinced himself that he was the rightfulheir to the ducal crown of Wardshaven?" And remember his insanepassion for Elaine; he pushed that thought hastily from him. "Now, he's convinced that he's the greatest Space Viking in history. Hehas to do something worthy of that distinction. When was the lasttime anybody attacked a civilized planet? I don't mean Gilgamesh, I mean a planet like Marduk. "

"A hundred and twenty years ago; Prince Havilgar of Haulteclere, sixships, against Aton. Two ships got back. He didn't. Nobody's triedit since, " Harkaman said. 

"So Dunnan the Great will do it. I hope he tries, " he surprisedhimself by adding. "That's provided I find out what happened. ThenI could stop thinking about him. "

There was a time when he had dreaded the possibility that somebodyelse might kill Dunnan before he could. 

XVIII

Seshat, Obidicut, Lugaluru, Audhumla. 

The young man elevated by his father's death in the Dunnan raid tothe post of hereditary President of the democratic Republic ofTetragrammaton had been sure that the Marduk ships which came tohis planet traded also on those. There had been some difficultyabout making contact, and the first face-to-face meeting had begunin an atmosphere of bitter distrust on his part. They had met outof doors; around them, spread wrecked and burned buildings, andhastily constructed huts and shelters, and wide spaces of charredand slagged rubble. 

"They blew up the steel mill here, and the oil-refinery at Jannsboro. They bombed and strafed the little farm-towns and villages. Theyscattered radioactives that killed as many as the bombing. And afterthey had gone away, this other ship came. "

"The _Damnthing_? She bore the head of a beast with three very big horns?"

"That's the one. They did a little damage, at first. When thecaptain found out what had happened to us, he left some food andmedicines for us. " Roger-fan-Morvill Esthersan hadn't mentioned that. 

"Well, we'd like to help you, if we can. Do you have nuclear power?We can give you a little equipment. Just remember it of us, whenyou're back on your feet; we'll be back to trade later. But don'tthink you owe us anything. The man who did this to you is my enemy. Now, I want to talk to every one of your people who can tell meanything at all. .. . "

Seshat was the closest; they went there first. They were too late. Seshat had had it already, and on the evidence of the radioactivitycounters, not too long ago. Four hundred hours at most. There hadbeen two hellburners; the cities on which they had fallen werestill-smoking pits literally burned into the ground and the bedrockbelow, at the center of five hundred mile radii of slag and lava andscorched earth and burned forests. There had been a planetbuster; ithad started a major earthquake. And half a dozen thermonuclears. There were probably quite a few survivors--a human planetarypopulation is extremely hard to exterminate completely--but withina century they'd be back to the loincloth and the stone hatchet. 

"We don't even know Dunnan did it, personally, " Paytrik Morland said. "For all we know, he's down in an air-tight cave city on some planetnobody ever heard of, sitting on a golden throne, surrounded by a harem. "

He had begun to suspect that Dunnan was doing something of just thesort. The Greatest Space Viking of History would naturally found aSpace Viking empire. 

"An emperor goes out to look his empire over, now and then; I don'tspend all my time on Tanith. Say we try Audhumla next. It's thefarthest away. We might get there while he's still shooting upObidicut and Lugaluru. Guatt, figure us a jump for it. "

When the colored turbulence washed away and the screen cleared, Audhumla looked like Tanith or Khepera or Amaterasu or any otherTerra-type planet, a big disk brilliant with reflected sunlight andglowing with starlit and moonlit atmosphere on the other. There wasa single rather large moon, and, in the telescopic screen, the usualmarkings of seas and continents and rivers and mountain-ranges. Butthere was nothing to show. .. . 

Oh, yes; lights on the darkened side, and from the size they must bevast cities. All the available data for Audhumla was long out ofdate; a considerable civilization must have developed in the lasthalf dozen centuries. 

Another light appeared, a hard blue-white spark that spread into alarger, less brilliant yellow light. At the same time, all thealarm-devices in the command-room went into a pandemonium of janglingand flashing and squawking and howling and shouting. Radiation. Energy-release. Contragravity distortion effects. Infra-red output. Awelter of indecipherable radio and communication-screen signals. Radarand scanner-ray beams from the planet. 

Trask's fist began hurting; he found that he had been poundingthe desk in front of him with it. He stopped it. 

"We caught him, we caught him!" he was yelling hoarsely. "Full speedin, continuous acceleration, as much as we can stand. We'll worryabout decelerating when we're in shooting distance. "

The planet grew steadily larger; Karffard was taking him at his wordabout continuous acceleration. There'd be a Gehenna of a bill to paywhen they started decelerating. On the planet, more bombs were goingoff just outside atmosphere beyond the sunset line. 

"Ship observed. Altitude about a hundred to five hundredmiles--hundreds, not thousands--35° North Latitude, 15° west ofthe sunset line. Ship is under fire, bomb explosions near her, "a voice whooped. 

Somebody else was yelling that the city lights were really burningcities, or burning forests. The first voice, having stopped, brokein again:

"Ship is visible in telescopic screen, just at the sunset line. Andthere's another ship detected but not visible, somewhere around theequator, and a third one somewhere out of sight, we can just get thefringe of her contragravity field around the planet. "

That meant there were two sides, and a fight. Unless Dunnan hadpicked up a third ship, somewhere. The telescopic view shifted;for a moment the planet was completely off-screen, and then itscurvature came into the screen against a star-scattered background. They were almost in to two thousand miles now; Karffard was yellingto stop acceleration and trying to put the ship into a spiral orbit. Suddenly they caught a glimpse of one of the ships. 

"She's in trouble. " That was Paul Koreff's voice. "She's leaking airand water vapor like crazy. "

"Well, is she a good guy or a bad guy?" Morland was yelling back, asthough Koreff's spectroscopes could distinguish. Koreff ignored that. 

"Another ship making signal, " he said. "She's the one coming up overthe equator. Sword-World impulse code; her communication-screencombination, and an identify-yourself. "

Karffard punched out the combination as Koreff furnished it. WhileTrask was desperately willing his face into immobility, the screenlighted. It wasn't Andray Dunnan; that was a disappointment. It wasalmost as good, though. His henchman, Sir Nevil Ormm. 

"Well, Sir Nevil! A pleasant surprise, " he heard himself saying. "We last met on the terrace at Karvall House, did we not?"

For once, the paper-white face of Andray Dunnan's _âme damnée_showed expression, but whether it was fear, surprise, shock, hatred, anger, or what combination of them, Trask could no more than guess. 

"Trask! Satan curse you. .. !"

Then the screen went blank. In the telescopic screen, the other shipcame on unfalteringly. Paul Koreff, who had gotten more data onmass, engine energy-output and dimensions, was identifying her asthe _Enterprise_. 

"Well, go for her! Give her everything!"

 * * * * *

They didn't need the order; Vann Larch was speaking rapidly into hishand-phone, and Alvyn Karffard was hurling his voice all over the_Nemesis_, warning of sudden deceleration and direction change, andwhile he was speaking, things in the command room began sliding. Inthe telescopic screen, the other ship was plainly visible; he couldsee the oval patch of black with the blue crescent, and in hisscreen Dunnan would be seeing the sword-impaled skull of the_Nemesis_. 

If only he could be sure Dunnan was there to see it. If it had onlybeen Dunnan's face, instead of Ormm's, that he had seen in thescreen. As it was, he couldn't be sure, and if one of the missilesthat were already going out made a lucky hit, he might never besure. He didn't care who killed Dunnan, or how. All he wanted wasto know that Dunnan's death had set him free from a self-assumedobligation that was now meaningless to him. 

The _Enterprise_ launched counter-missiles; so did the _Nemesis_. There were momentarily unbearable flashes of pure energy and fromthem globes of incandescence spread and vanished. Something musthave gotten through; red lights flashed on the damage board. It hadbeen something heavy enough even to jolt the huge mass of the_Nemesis_. At the same time, the other ship took a hit fromsomething that would have vaporized her had she not been armored incollapsium. Then, as they passed close together, guns hammered backand forth along with missiles, and then the _Enterprise_ was out ofsight around the horizon. 

Another ship, the size of Otto Harkaman's _Corisande II_, wasapproaching; she bore a tapering, red-nailed feminine hand danglinga planet by a string. They rushed toward each other, planting agarden of evanescent fire-flowers between them; they pounded oneanother with guns, and then they sped apart. At the same time, PaulKoreff was picking up an impulse-code signal from the third, crippled, ship; a screen combination. Trask punched it out ashe received it. 

A man in space armor was looking out of the screen. That was bad, if they had to suit up in the command room. They still had air;his helmet was off, but it was attached and hinged back. On hisbreastplate was a device of a dragonlike beast perched with its tailaround a planet, and a crown above. He had a thin, high-cheekedface, with a vertical wrinkle between his eyes, and a clipped blondmustache. 

"Who are you, stranger. You're fighting my enemies; does that makeyou a friend. "

"I'm a friend of anybody who owns Andray Dunnan his enemy. Sword-World ship _Nemesis_; I'm Prince Lucas Trask of Tanith, commanding. "

"Royal Mardukan ship _Victrix_. " The thin-faced man gave a wrylaugh. "Not been living up to her name so well. I'm Prince SimonBentrik, commanding. "

"Are you still battle-worthy?"

"We can fire about half our guns; we still have a few missiles left. Seventy per cent of the ship's sealed off, and we've been holed in adozen places. We have power enough for lift and some steering-way. We can't make lateral way except at the expense of lift. "

Which made the _Victrix_ practically a stationary target. He yelledover his shoulder at Karffard to cut speed all he could withouttearing things apart. 

"When that cripple comes into view, start circling around her. Getinto a tight circle above her. " He turned back to the man in thescreen. "If we can get ourselves slowed down enough, we'll do all wecan to cover you. "

"All you can is all you can; thank you, Prince Trask. "

"Here comes the _Enterprise_!" Karffard shouted, with obscenelyblasphemous embellishments. "She hairpinned on us. "

"Well, do something about her!"

 * * * * *

Vann Larch was already doing it. The _Enterprise_ had taken damagein the last exchange; Koreff's spectroscopes showed her halo-ed withair and water vapor. Her instruments would be getting the samestory from the _Nemesis_; wedge-shaped segments extending six toeight decks in were sealed off in several places. Then the onlything that could be seen with certainty was the blaze of mutuallydestroying missiles between. The short-range gun duel began andended as they passed. 

In the screen, he had seen a fat round-nosed thing come up from the_Victrix_, curving far out ahead of the passing _Enterprise_. Shewas almost out of sight around the planet when she ran head-on intoit, and vanished in an awesome blaze. For a moment, he thought shehad been destroyed, then she lurched into sight and went around thecurvature of Audhumla. 

Trask and the Mardukan were shaking hands with themselves at eachother in their screens; everybody in the _Nemesis_ command room wasscreaming: "Well shot, _Victrix_! Well shot!"

Then the _Yo-Yo_ was coming around again, and Vann Larch was saying, "Gehenna with this fooling around! I'll fix the expurgatedunprintability!"

He yelled orders--a jumble of code letters and numbers--and thingsbegan going out. Most of them blew up in space. Then the _Yo-Yo_blew up, very quietly, as things do where there is no air to carryshock- and sound-waves, but very brilliantly. There was briefdaylight all over the night side of the planet. 

"That was our planetbuster, " Larch said. "I don't know what we'lluse on Dunnan. "

"I didn't know we had one, " Trask admitted. 

"Otto had a couple built on Beowulf. The Beowulfers are good nuclearweaponeers. "

The _Enterprise_ came back, hastily, to see what had blown up. Larchput off another entertainment of small stuff, with a fifty megatonthermonuclear, viewscreen-piloted, among them. It had its ownarsenal of small missiles, and it got through. In the telescopicscreen, a jagged hole was visible just below the equator of the_Enterprise_, the edges curling outward. Something, possibly a heavymissile in an open tube, ready for launching, had gone off insideher. What the inside of the ship was like, or how many of hercompany were still alive, was hard to guess. 

There were some, and her launchers were still spewing out missiles. They were intercepted and blew up. The hull of the _Enterprise_bulked huge in the guidance-screen of the missile and filled it; thejagged crater that had obliterated the bottom of Dunnan's bluecrescent blazon spread to fill the whole screen. The screen wentmilky white as the pickup went off. 

All the other screens blazed briefly, until their filters went on. Even afterward, they glared like the cloud-veiled sun of Gram athigh noon. Finally, when the light-intensity had dropped and thefilters went off, there was nothing left of the _Enterprise_ but anorange haze. 

Somebody--Paytrik, Baron Morland, he saw--was pounding him on theback and screaming inarticulately in his ear. A dozen space-armoredofficers with planet-perched dragons on their breasts were crowdingbeside Prince Bentrik in the screen from the _Victrix_, whoopinglike drunken bisonoid-herders on payday night. 

"I wonder, " he said, almost inaudibly, "if I'll ever know if AndrayDunnan was on that ship. "

XIX

Prince Trask of Tanith and Prince Simon Bentrik were dining togetheron an upper terrace of what had originally been the mansion house ofa Federation period plantation. It had been a number of other thingssince; now it was the municipal building of a town that had grownaround it, which had, somehow, escaped undamaged from the Dunnanblitz. Normally about five or ten thousand, the place was now jammedwith almost fifty thousand homeless refugees from half a dozen othertowns that had been destroyed, overflowing the buildings andcrowding into a sprawling camp of hastily built huts and shelters, and already permanent buildings were going up to accommodate them. Everybody, locals, Mardukans and Space Vikings, had been busy withthe work of relief and reconstruction; this was the first meal thetwo commanders had been able to share in any leisure at all. PrinceBentrik's enjoyment of it was somewhat impaired by the fact thatfrom where he sat he could see, in the distance, the sphere of hisdisabled ship. 

"I doubt we can get her off-planet again, let alone into hyperspace. "

"Well, we'll get you and your crew to Marduk in the _Nemesis_, then. " They were both speaking loudly, above the clank, and clatterof machinery below. "I hope you didn't think I'd leave you strandedhere. "

"I don't know how either of us will be received. Space Vikingshaven't been exactly popular on Marduk, lately. They may thank youfor bringing me back to stand trial, " Bentrik said bitterly. "Why, I'd have anybody shot who let his ship get caught as I did mine. Those two were down in atmosphere before I knew they'd come out ofhyperspace. "

"I think they were down on the planet before your ship arrived. "

"Oh, that's ridiculous, Prince Trask!" the Mardukan cried. "Youcan't hide a ship on a planet. Not from the kind of instruments wehave in the Royal Navy. "

"We have pretty fair detection ourselves, " Trask reminded him. "There's one place where you can do it. At the bottom of an ocean, with a thousand or so feet of water over her. That's where I wasgoing to hide the _Nemesis_, if I got here ahead of Dunnan. "

Prince Bentrik's fork stopped half way to his mouth. He lowered itslowly to his plate. That was a theory he'd like to accept, if hecould. 

"But the locals. They didn't know about it. "

"They wouldn't. They have no off-planet detection of their own. Comein directly over the ocean, out of the sun, and nobody'd see the ship. "

"Is that a regular Space Viking trick?"

"No. I invented it myself, on the way from Seshat. But if Dunnanwanted to ambush your ship, he'd have thought of it, too. It's theonly practical way to do it. "

Dunnan, or Nevil Ormm; he wished he knew, and was afraid he would goon wishing all his life. 

Bentrik started to pick up his fork again, changed his mind, andsipped from his wineglass instead. 

"You may find you're quite welcome on Marduk, at that, " he said. "These raids have only been a serious problem in the last fouryears. I believe, as you do, that this enemy of yours is responsiblefor all of them. We have half the Royal Navy out now, patrolling ourtrade-planets. Even if he wasn't aboard the _Enterprise_ when youblew her up, you've put a name on him and can tell us a good dealabout him. " He set down the wineglass. "Why, if it weren't so utterlyridiculous, one might even think he was making war on Marduk. "

From Trask's viewpoint, it wasn't ridiculous at all. He merelymentioned that Andray Dunnan was psychotic and let it go at that. 

 * * * * *

The _Victrix_ was not completely unrepairable, although quite beyondthe resources at hand. A fully equipped engineer-ship from Mardukcould patch her hull and replace her Dillinghams and her Abbotlift-and-drive engines and make her temporarily spaceworthy, untilshe could be gotten to a shipyard. They concentrated on repairingthe _Nemesis_, and in another two weeks she was ready for the voyage. 

The six hundred hour trip to Marduk passed pleasantly enough. TheMardukan officers were good company, and found their Space Vikingopposite numbers equally so. The two crews had become used toworking together on Audhumla, and mingled amicably off watch, interesting themselves in each other's hobbies and listening avidlyto tales of each other's home planets. The Space Vikings weresurprised and disappointed at the somewhat lower intellectual levelof the Mardukans. They couldn't understand that; Marduk was supposedto be a civilized planet, wasn't it? The Mardukans were just assurprised, and inclined to be resentful, that the Space Vikings allacted and talked like officers. Hearing of it, Prince Bentrik wasalso puzzled. Fo'c'sle hands on a Mardukan ship belonged definitelyto the lower orders. 

"There's still too much free land and free opportunity on theSword-Worlds, " Trask explained. "Nobody does much bowing andscraping to the class above him; he's too busy trying to shovehimself up into it. And the men who ship out as Space Vikings arethe least class-conscious of the lot. Think my men may have troubleon Marduk about that? They'll all insist on doing their drinking inthe swankiest places in town. "

[Illustration]

"No. I don't think so. Everybody will be so amazed that Space Vikingsaren't twelve feet tall, with three horns like a Zarathustra damnthingand a spiked tail like a Fafnir mantichore that they won't even noticeanything less. Might do some good, in the long run. Crown Prince Edvardwill like your Space Vikings. He's much opposed to class distinctionsand caste prejudices. Says they have to be eliminated before we canmake democracy really work. "

The Mardukans talked a lot about democracy. They thought well of it;their government was a representative democracy. It was also ahereditary monarchy, if that made any kind of sense. Trask's effortsto explain the political and social structure of the Sword-Worldsmet the same incomprehension from Bentrik. 

"Why, it sounds like feudalism to me!"

"That's right; that's what it is. A king owes his position to thesupport of his great nobles; they owe theirs to their barons andlandholding knights; they owe theirs to their people. There arelimits beyond which none of them can go; after that, their vassalsturn on them. "

"Well, suppose the people of some barony rebel? Won't the king sendtroops to support the baron?"

"What troops? Outside a personal guard and enough men to police theroyal city and hold the crown lands, the king has no troops. If hewants troops, he has to get them from his great nobles; they have toget them from their vassal barons, who raise them by calling outtheir people. " That was another source of dissatisfaction with KingAngus of Gram; he had been augmenting his forces by hiringoff-planet mercenaries. "And the people won't help some other baronoppress his people; it might be their turn next. "

 * * * * *

"You mean, the people are armed?" Prince Bentrik was incredulous. 

"Great Satan, aren't yours?" Prince Trask was equally surprised. "Then your democracy's a farce, and the people are only free onsufferance. If their ballots aren't secured by arms, they'reworthless. Who has the arms on your planet?"

"Why, the Government. "

"You mean the King?"

Prince Bentrik was shocked. Certainly not; horrid idea. That wouldbe . .. Why, it would be _despotism_! Besides, the King wasn't theGovernment, at all; the Government ruled in the King's name. Therewas the Assembly; the Chamber of Representatives, and the Chamber ofDelegates. The people elected the Representatives, and theRepresentatives elected the Delegates, and the Delegates elected theChancellor. Then, there was the Prime Minister; he was appointed bythe King, but the King had to appoint him from the party holding themost seats in the Chamber of Representatives, and he appointed theMinisters, who handled the executive work of the Government, onlytheir subordinates in the different Ministries were career-officialswho were selected by competitive examination for the bottom jobs andpromoted up the bureaucratic ladder from there. 

This left Trask wondering if the Mardukan constitution hadn't beendevised by Goldberg, the legendary Old Terran inventor who alwaysdid everything the hard way. It also left him wondering just how inGehenna the Government of Marduk ever got anything done. 

Maybe it didn't. Maybe that was what saved Marduk from having a realdespotism. 

"Well, what prevents the Government from enslaving the people?The people can't; you just told me that they aren't armed, andthe Government is. "

He continued, pausing now and then for breath, to catalogue everytyranny he had ever heard of, from those practiced by the TerranFederation before the Big War to those practiced at Eglonsby onAmaterasu by Pedrosan Pedro. A few of the very mildest were pushingthe nobles and people of Gram to revolt against Angus I. 

"And in the end, " he finished, "the Government would be the onlyproperty owner and the only employer on the planet, and everybodyelse would be slaves, working at assigned tasks, wearingGovernment-issued clothing and eating Government food, theirchildren educated as the Government prescribes and trained for jobsselected for them by the Government, never reading a book or seeinga play or thinking a thought that the Government had notapproved. .. . "

Most of the Mardukans were laughing, now. Some of them were accusinghim of being just too utterly ridiculous. 

"Why, the people _are_ the Government. The people would notlegislate themselves into slavery. "

He wished Otto Harkaman were there. All he knew of history was thelittle he had gotten from reading some of Harkaman's books, and thelong, rambling conversations aboard ship in hyperspace or in theevenings at Rivington. But Harkaman, he was sure, could havefurnished hundreds of instances, on scores of planets and over tencenturies of time, in which people had done exactly that and hadn'tknown what they were doing, even after it was too late. 

 * * * * *

"They have something about like that on Aton, " one of the Mardukanofficers said. 

"Oh, Aton; that's a dictatorship, pure and simple. That PlanetaryNationalist gang got into control fifty years ago, during the crisisafter the war with Baldur. .. . "

"They were voted into power by the people, weren't they?"

"Yes; they were, " Prince Bentrik said gravely. "It was an emergencymeasure, and they were given emergency powers. Once they were in, they made the emergency permanent. "

"That couldn't happen on Marduk!" a young nobleman declared. 

"It could if Zaspar Makann's party wins control of the Assembly atthe next election, " somebody else said. 

"Oh, then Marduk's safe! The sun'll go nova first, " one of thejunior Royal Navy officers said. 

After that, they began talking about women, a subject any spacemanwill drop any other subject to discuss. 

Trask made a mental note of the name of Zaspar Makann, and tookoccasion to bring it up in conversation with his shipboard guests. Every time he talked about Makann to two or more Mardukans, he heardat least three or more opinions about the man. He was a politicaldemagogue; on that everybody agreed. After that, opinions diverged. 

Makann was a raving lunatic, and all the followers he had were ahandful of lunatics like him. He might be a lunatic, but he had adangerously large following. Well, not so large; maybe they'd pickup a seat or so in the Assembly, but that was doubtful--not enoughof them in any representative district to elect an Assemblyman. Hewas just a smart crook, milking a lot of half-witted plebeians forall he could get out of them. Not just plebes, either; a lot ofindustrialists were secretly financing him, in hope that he wouldhelp them break up the labor unions. You're nuts; everybody knew thelabor unions were backing him, hoping he'd scare the employers intogranting concessions. You're both nuts; he was backed by themercantile interests; they were hoping he'd run the Gilgameshersoff the planet. 

Well, that was one thing you had to give him credit for. He wantedto run out the Gilgameshers. Everybody was in favor of that. 

Now, Trask could remember something he'd gotten from Harkaman. There had been Hitler, back at the end of the First CenturyPre-Atomic; hadn't he gotten into power because everybody wasin favor of running out the Christians, or the Moslems, or theAlbigensians, or somebody?

XX

Marduk had three moons; a big one, fifteen hundred miles indiameter, and two insignificant twenty-mile chunks of rock. The bigone was fortified, and a couple of ships were in orbit around it. The _Nemesis_ was challenged as she emerged from her last hyperjump;both ships broke orbit and came out to meet her, and several morewere detected lifting away from the planet. 

Prince Bentrik took the communication screen, and immediatelyencountered difficulties. The commandant, even after the situationhad been explained twice to him, couldn't understand. A Royal Navyfleet unit knocked out in a battle with Space Vikings was badenough, but being rescued and brought to Marduk by another SpaceViking simply didn't make sense. He then screened the Royal Palaceat Malverton, on the planet; first he was icily polite to somebodyseveral echelons below him in the peerage, and then respectfullypolite to somebody he addressed as Prince Vandarvant. Finally, aftersome minutes' wait, a frail, white-haired man in a little blackcap-of-maintenance appeared in the screen. Prince Bentrik instantlysprang to his feet. So did all the other Mardukans in the commandroom. 

"Your Majesty! I am most deeply honored!"

"Are you all right, Simon?" the old gentleman asked solicitously. "They haven't done anything to you, have they?"

"Saved my life, and my men's, and treated me like a friend anda comrade, Your Majesty. Have I your permission to present, informally, their commander, Prince Trask of Tanith?"

"Indeed you may, Simon. I owe the gentleman my deepest thanks. "

"His Majesty, Mikhyl the Eighth, Planetary King of Marduk, " PrinceBentrik said. "His Highness, Lucas, Prince Trask, Planetary Viceroyof Tanith for his Majesty Angus the First of Gram. "

The elderly monarch bowed his head slightly; Trask bowed a littlemore deeply, from the waist. 

"I am very happy, Prince Trask, first, I confess, at the safe returnof my kinsman Prince Bentrik, and then at the honor of meeting onein the confidence of my fellow sovereign King Angus of Gram. I willnever be ungrateful for what you did for my cousin and for hisofficers and men. You must stay at the Palace while you are on thisplanet; I am giving orders for your reception, and I wish you to beformally presented to me this evening. " He hesitated briefly. "Gram;that is one of the Sword-Worlds, is it not?" Another briefhesitation. "Are you really a Space Viking, Prince Trask?"

Maybe he'd expected Space Vikings to have three horns and a spikedtail and stand twelve feet tall, himself. 

It took several hours for the _Nemesis_ to get into orbit. Bentrikspent most of them in a screen-booth, and emerged visibly relieved. 

"Nobody's going to be sticky about what happened on Audhumla, " hetold Trask. "There will be a Board of Inquiry. I'm afraid I had tomix you up in that. It's not only about the action on Audhumla;everybody from the Space Minister down wants to hear what you knowabout this fellow Dunnan. Like yourself, we all hope he went toEm-See-Square along with his flagship, but we can't take it forgranted. We have over a dozen trade-planets to protect, and he'shit more than half of them already. "

The process of getting into orbit took them around the planetseveral times, and it was a more impressive spectacle at eachcircuit. Of course, Marduk had a population of almost two billion, and had been civilized, with no hiatus of Neobarbarism, since ithad first been colonized in the Fourth Century. Even so, the SpaceVikings were amazed--and stubbornly refusing to show it--at whatthey saw in the telescopic screens. 

"Look at that city!" Paytrik Morland whispered. "We talk about thecivilized planets, but I never realized they were anything likethis. Why, this makes Excalibur look like Tanith!"

 * * * * *

The city was Malverton, the capital; like any city of acontragravity-using people, it lay in a rough circle of buildingstowering out of green interspaces, surrounded by the smaller circlesof spaceports and industrial suburbs. The difference was that any ofthese were as large as Camelot on Excalibur or four Wardshavens onGram, and Malverton itself was almost half the size of the wholebarony of Traskon. 

"They aren't any more civilized that we are, Paytrik. There are justmore of them. If there were two billion people on Gram--which I hopethere never will be--Gram would have cities like this, too. "

One thing; the government of a planet like Marduk would have tobe something more elaborate than the loose feudalism of theSword-Worlds. Maybe this Goldberg-ocracy of theirs had been forcedupon them by the sheer complexity of the population and itsproblems. 

Alvyn Karffard took a quick look around him to make sure noneof the Mardukans were in earshot. 

"I don't care how many people they have, " he said. "Marduk can behad. A wolf never cares how many sheep there are in a flock. Withtwenty ships, we could take this planet like we took Eglonsby. There'd be losses coming in, sure, but after we were in and down, we'd have it. "

"Where would we get twenty ships?"

Tanith, at a pinch, could muster five or six, counting the freeSpace Vikings who used the base facilities; they would have to leavea couple to hold the planet. Beowulf had one, and another almostcompleted, and now there was an Amaterasu ship. But to assemble aSpace Viking armada of twenty. .. . He shook his head. The real reasonwhy Space Vikings had never raided a civilized planet successfullyhad always been their inability to combine under one command insufficient strength. 

Besides, he didn't want to raid Marduk. A raid, if successful, wouldyield immense treasures, but cause a hundred, even a thousand, timesas much destruction, and he didn't want to destroy anythingcivilized. 

The landing stages of the palace were crowded when he and PrinceBentrik landed, and, at a discreet distance, swarms of air-vehiclescircled, creating a control problem for the police. Parting fromBentrik, he was escorted to the suite prepared for him; it wasluxurious in the extreme but scarcely above Sword-World standards. There were a surprising number of human servants, groveling andfawning and getting underfoot and doing work robots could have beendoing better. What robots there were were inefficient, and much workand ingenuity had been lavished on efforts to copy human form to thedetriment of function. 

After getting rid of most of the superfluous servants, he put on ascreen and began sampling the newscasts. There were telescopic viewsof the _Nemesis_ from some craft on orbit nearby, and he watched theofficers and men of the _Victrix_ being disembarked; there wereother views of their landing at some naval installation on theground, and he could see reporters being chevied away by Navyground-police. And there was a wide range of commentary opinion. 

The Government had already denied that, (1) Prince Bentrik hadcaptured the _Nemesis_ and brought her in as a prize, and, (2) theSpace Vikings had captured Prince Bentrik and were holding him forransom. Beyond that, the Government was trying to sit on the wholestory, and the Opposition was hinting darkly at corrupt deals andsinister plots. Prince Bentrik arrived in the midst of animpassioned tirade against pusillanimous traitors surrounding hisMajesty who were betraying Marduk to the Space Vikings. 

"Why doesn't your Government publish the facts and put a stop tothat nonsense?" Trask asked. 

"Oh, let them rave, " Bentrik replied. "The longer the Governmentwaits, the more they'll be ridiculed when the facts are published. "

Or, the more people will be convinced that the Government hadsomething to hush up, and had to take time to construct a plausiblestory. He kept the thought to himself. It was their government; howthey mismanaged it was their own business. He found that there wasno bartending robot; he had to have a human servant bring drinks. Hemade up his mind to have a few of the _Nemesis_ robots sent down to him. 

 * * * * *

The formal presentation would be in the evening; there would be adinner first, and because Trask had not yet been formally presented, he couldn't dine with the King, but because he was, or claimed tobe, Viceroy of Tanith, he ranked as a chief of state and would dinewith the Crown Prince, to whom there would be an informalintroduction first. 

This took place in a small ante-chamber off the banquet hall; theCrown Prince and Crown Princess and Princess Bentrik were there whenthey arrived. The Crown Prince was a man of middle age, graying atthe temples, with the glassy stare that betrayed contact lenses. Theresemblance between him and his father was apparent; both had thesame studious and impractical expression, and might have beenprofessors on the same university faculty. He shook hands withTrask, assuring him of the gratitude of the Court and Royal Family. 

"You know, Simon is next in succession, after myself and my littledaughter, " he said. "That's too close to take chances with him. " Heturned to Bentrik. "I'm afraid this is your last space adventure, Simon. You'll have to be a spaceport spaceman from now on. "

"I shan't be sorry, " Princess Bentrik said. "And if anybody owesPrince Trask gratitude, I do. " She pressed his hands warmly. "PrinceTrask, my son wants to meet you, very badly. He's ten years old, andhe thinks Space Vikings are romantic heroes. "

"He should be one, for a while. "

He should just see a planet Space Vikings had raided. 

Most of the people at the upper end of the table werediplomats--ambassadors from Odin and Baldur and Isis and Ishtar andAton and the other civilized worlds. No doubt they hadn't actuallyexpected horns and a spiked tail, or even tattooing and a nose ring, but after all, Space Vikings were just some sort of Neobarbarians, weren't they? On the other hand, they had all seen views and gottendescriptions of the _Nemesis_, and had heard about the ship-actionon Audhumla, and this Prince Trask--a Space Viking prince; thatsounded civilized enough--had saved a life with only three otherlives, one almost at an end, between it and the throne. And they hadheard about the screen conversation with King Mikhyl. So they werecourteous through the meal, and tried to get as close as possible tohim in the procession to the throne room. 

King Mikhyl wore a golden crown topped by the planetary emblem, which must have weighed twice as much as a combat helmet, andfur-edged robes that would weigh more than a suit of space armor. They weren't nearly as ornate, though, as the regalia of King AngusI of Gram. He rose to clasp Prince Bentrik's hand, calling him "dearcousin, " and congratulating him on his gallant fight and fortunateescape. That knocks any court-martial talk on the head, Traskthought. He remained standing to shake hands with Trask, calling him"valued friend to me and my house. " First person singular; that mustbe causing some lifted eyebrows. 

Then the King sat down, and the rest of the roomful filed up ontothe dais to be received, and finally it was over and the king roseand proceeded, followed by his immediate suite between the bowingand curtsying court and out the wide doors. After a decent interval, Crown Prince Edvard escorted him and Prince Bentrik down the sameroute, the others falling in behind, and across the hall to theballroom, where there was soft music and refreshments. It wasn't toounlike a court reception on Excalibur, except that the drinks andcanapes were being dispensed by human servants. 

He was wondering what sort of court functions Angus the First ofGram was holding by now. 

After half an hour, a posse of court functionaries approached andinformed him that it had pleased his Majesty to command Prince Traskto attend him in his private chambers. There was an audible gasp atthis; both Prince Bentrik and the Crown Prince were trying not togrin too broadly. Evidently this didn't happen too often. He followedthe functionaries from the ballroom, and the eyes of everybody elsefollowed him. 

 * * * * *

Old King Mikhyl received him alone, in a small, comfortably shabbyroom behind vast ones of incredible splendor. He wore fur-linedslippers and a loose robe with a fur collar, and his little blackcap-of-maintenance. He was standing when Trask entered; when theguards closed the door and left them alone, he beckoned Trask toa couple of chairs, with a low table, on which were decanters andglasses and cigars, between. 

"It's a presumption on royal authority to summon you from theballroom, " he began, after they had seated themselves and filledglasses. "You are quite the cynosure, you know. "

"I'm grateful to Your Majesty. It's both comfortable and quiet here, and I can sit down. Your Majesty was the center of attention in thethrone room, yet I seemed to detect a look of relief as you left it. "

"I try to hide it, as much as possible. " The old King took off thelittle gold-circled cap and hung it on the back of his chair. "Majesty can be rather wearying, you know. "

So he could come here and put it off. Trask felt that some gestureshould be made on his own part. He unfastened the dress-dagger fromhis belt and laid it on the table. The King nodded. 

"Now, we can be a couple of honest tradesmen, our shops closed forthe evening, relaxing over our wine and tobacco, " he said. "Eh, Goodman Lucas?"

It seemed like an initiation into a secret society whose ritual hemust guess at step by step. 

"Right, Goodman Mikhyl. "

They lifted their glasses to each other and drank; Goodman Mikhyloffered cigars, and Goodman Lucas held a light for him. 

"I hear a few hard things about your trade, Goodman Lucas. "

"All true, and mostly understated. We're professional murderers androbbers, as one of my fellow tradesmen says. The worst of it is thatrobbery and murder become just that: a trade, like servicing robotsor selling groceries. "

"Yet you fought two other Space Vikings to cover my cousin'scrippled _Victrix_. Why?"

So he must tell his tale, so worn and smooth, again. King Mikhyl'scigar went out while he listened. 

"And you have been hunting him ever since? And now, you can't besure whether you killed him or not?"

"I'm afraid I didn't. The man in the screen is the only man Dunnancan really trust. One or the other would stay wherever he has hisbase all the time. "

"And when you do kill him; what then?"

"I'll go on trying to make a civilized planet of Tanith. Sooner orlater, I'll have one quarrel too many with King Angus, and then wewill be our Majesty Lucas the First of Tanith, and we will sit on athrone and receive our subjects. And I'll be glad when I can get mycrown off and talk to a few men who call me 'shipmate, ' instead of'Your Majesty. '"

 * * * * *

[Illustration]

"Well, it would violate professional ethics for me to advise asubject to renounce his sovereign, of course, but that might be anexcellent thing. You met the ambassador from Ithavoll at dinner, didyou not? Three centuries ago, Ithavoll was a colony of Marduk--itseems we can't afford colonies, any more--and it seceded from us. Ithavoll was then a planet like your Tanith seems to be. Today, itis a civilized world, and one of Marduk's best friends. You know, sometimes I think a few lights are coming on again, here and therein the Old Federation. If so, you Space Vikings are helping to lightthem. "

"You mean the planets we use as bases, and the things we teach thelocals?"

"That, too, of course. Civilization needs civilized technologies. But they have to be used for civilized ends. Do you know anythingabout a Space Viking raid on Aton, over a century ago?"

"Six ships from Haulteclere; four destroyed, the other two returneddamaged and without booty. "

The King of Marduk nodded. 

"That raid saved civilization on Aton. There were four greatnations; the two greatest were at the brink of war, and the otherswere waiting to pounce on the exhausted victor and then fight eachother for the spoils. The Space Vikings forced them to unite. Out ofthat temporary alliance came the League for Common Defense, and fromthat the Planetary Republic. The Republic's a dictatorship, now, andjust between Goodman Mikhyl and Goodman Lucas it's a nasty one andour Majesty's Government doesn't like it at all. It will be smashedsooner or later, but they'll never go back to divided sovereigntyand nationalism again. The Space Vikings frightened them out of thatwhen the dangers inherent in it couldn't. Maybe this man Dunnan willdo the same for us on Marduk. "

"You have troubles?"

"You've seen decivilized planets. How does it happen?"

"I know how it's happened on a good many: War. Destruction of citiesand industries. Survivors among ruins, too busy keeping their ownbodies alive to try to keep civilization alive. Then they lose allknowledge of how to be civilized. "

"That's catastrophic decivilization. There is also decivilization byerosion, and while it's going on, nobody notices it. Everybody isproud of their civilization, their wealth and culture. But trade isfalling off; fewer ships come in each year. So there is boastfultalk about planetary self-sufficiency; who needs off-planet tradeanyhow? Everybody seems to have money, but the government is alwaysbroke. Deficit spending--and always the vital social services forwhich the government has to spend money. The most vital one, ofcourse, is buying votes to keep the government in power. And it getsharder for the government to get anything done. 

"The soldiers are sloppier at drill, and their uniforms and weaponsaren't taken care of. The noncoms are insolent. And more and moreparts of the city are dangerous at night, and then even in thedaytime. And it's been years since a new building went up, and theold ones aren't being repaired any more. "

Trask closed his eyes. Again, he could feel the mellow sun of Gramon his back, and hear the laughing voices on the lower terrace, andhe was talking to Lothar Ffayle and Rovard Grauffis and Alex Gorramand Cousin Nikkolay and Otto Harkaman. He said:

"And finally, nobody bothers fixing anything up. And thepower-reactors stop, and nobody seems to be able to get them startedagain. It hasn't quite gotten that far on the Sword-Worlds yet. "

"It hasn't here, either. Yet. " Goodman Mikhyl slipped away; KingMikhyl VIII looked across the low table at his guest. "Prince Trask, have you heard of a man named Zaspar Makann?"

"Occasionally. Nothing good about him. "

"He is the most dangerous man on this planet, " the King said. "And Ican make nobody believe it. Not even my son. "

XXI

Prince Bentrik's ten-year-old son, Count Steven of Ravary, wore theuniform of an ensign of the Royal Navy; he was accompanied by histutor, an elderly Navy captain. They both stopped in the doorwayof Trask's suite, and the boy saluted smartly. 

"Permission to come aboard, sir?" he asked. 

"Welcome aboard, count; captain. Belay the ceremony and find seats;you're just in time for second breakfast. "

As they sat down, he aimed his ultraviolet light-pencil at a servingrobot. Unlike Mardukan robots, which looked like surrealistconceptions of Pre-Atomic armored knights, it was a smooth ovoidfloating a few inches from the floor on its own contragravity; as itapproached, its top opened like a bursting beetle shell and hingedtrays of food swung out. The boy looked at it in fascination. 

"Is that a Sword-World robot, sir, or did you capture it somewhere?"

"It's one of our own. " He was pardonably proud; it had been built onTanith a year before. "Has an ultrasonic dishwasher underneath, andit does some cooking on top, at the back. "

The elderly captain was, if anything, even more impressed than hisyoung charge. He knew what went into it, and he had some conceptionof the society that would develop things like that. 

"I take it you don't use many human servants, with robots likethat, " he said. 

"Not many. We're all low-population planets, and nobody wants tobe a servant. "

"We have too many people on Marduk, and all of them want soft jobsas nobles' servants, " the captain said. "Those that want any kindof jobs. "

"You need all your people for fighting men, don't you?" the boycount asked. 

"Well, we need a good many. The smallest of our ships will carryfive hundred men; most of them around eight hundred. "

The captain lifted an eyebrow. The complement of the _Victrix_ hadbeen three hundred, and she'd been a big ship. Then he nodded. 

"Of course. Most of them are ground-fighters. "

That started Count Steven off. Questions, about battles and raidsand booty and the planets Trask had seen. 

"I wish I were a Space Viking!"

"Well, you can't be, Count Ravary. You're an officer of the RoyalNavy. You're supposed to fight Space Vikings. "

"I won't fight you. "

"You'd have to, if the King commanded, " the old captain told him. 

"No. Prince Trask is my friend. He saved my father's life. "

"And I won't fight you, either, count. We'll make a lot offireworks, and then we'll each go home and claim victory. How wouldthat be?"

"I've heard of things like that, " the captain said. "We had a warwith Odin, seventy years ago, that was mostly that sort of battles. "

"Besides, the King is Prince Trask's friend, too, " the boy insisted. "Father and Mummy heard him say so, right on the Throne. Kings don'tlie when they're on the Throne, do they?"

"Good Kings don't, " Trask told him. 

"Ours is a good King, " the young Count of Ravary declared proudly. "I would do anything my King commanded. Except fight Prince Trask. My house owes Prince Trask a debt. "

Trask nodded approvingly. "That's the way a Sword-World noble wouldtalk, Count Steven, " he said. 

 * * * * *

The Board of Inquiry, that afternoon, was more like a small and verysedate cocktail party. An Admiral Shefter, who seemed to be veryhigh high-brass, presided while carefully avoiding the appearanceof doing so. Alvyn Karffard and Vann Larch and Paytrik Morland werethere from the _Nemesis_, and Bentrik and several of the officersfrom the _Victrix_, and there were a couple of Naval Intelligenceofficers, and somebody from Operational Planning, and from ShipConstruction and Research & Development. They chatted pleasantlyand in a deceptively random manner for a while. Then Shefter said:

"Well, there's no blame or censure of any sort for the way CommodorePrince Bentrik was surprised. That couldn't have been avoided, atthe time. " He looked at the Research & Development officer. "Itshouldn't be allowed to happen many more times, though. "

"Not many more, sir. I'd say it'll take my people a month, and thenthe time it'll take to get all the ships equipped as they come in. "

Ship Construction didn't think that would take too long. 

"We'll see to it that you get full information on the new submarinedetection system, Prince Trask, " the admiral said. 

"You gentlemen understand you'll have to keep it under your helmets, though, " one of the Intelligence men added. "If it got out that wewere informing Space Vikings about our technical secrets. .. . " Hefelt the back of his neck in a way that made Trask suspect thatbeheadment was the customary form of execution on Marduk. 

"We'll have to find out where the fellow has his base, " OperationalPlanning said. "I take it, Prince Trask, that you're not going toassume that he was on his flagship when you blew it, and just putpaid to him and forget him?"

"Oh, no. I'm assuming that he wasn't. I don't believe he and Ormmwent anywhere on the same ship, after he came out here andestablished a base. I think one of them would stay home all thetime. "

"Well, we'll give you everything we have on them, " Shefter promised. "Most of that is classified and you'll have to keep quiet about it, too. I just skimmed over the summary of what you gave us; I daresaywe'll both get a lot of new information. Have you any idea at allwhere he might be based, Prince Trask?"

"Only that we think it's a non-Terra-type planet. " He told themabout Dunnan's heavy purchases of air-and-water recycling equipmentand carniculture and hydroponic material. "That, of course, helps agreat deal. "

"Yes; there are only about five million planets in the formerFederation space-volume that are inhabitable in artificialenvironment. Including a few completely covered by seas, where youcould put in underwater dome cities if you had the time andmaterial. "

One of the Intelligence officers had been nursing a glass with atiny remnant of cocktail in it. He downed it suddenly, filled theglass again, and glowered at it in silence for a while. Then hedrank it briskly and refilled it. 

"What I should like to know, " he said, "is how this double obscenityof a Dunnan knew we'd have a ship on Audhumla just when we did, " hesaid. "Your talking about underwater dome-cities reminded me of it. I don't think he just pulled that planet out of a hat and then wentthere prepared to sit on the bottom of the ocean for a year and ahalf waiting for something to turn up. I think he knew the_Victrix_ was coming to Audhumla, and just about when. "

"I don't like that, commodore, " Shefter said. 

"You think I do, sir?" the Intelligence officer countered. "There itis, though. We all have to face it. "

"We do, " Shefter agreed. "Get on it, commodore, and I don't need tocaution you to screen everybody you put onto it very carefully. " Helooked at his own glass; it had a bare thimbleful in the bottom. Hereplenished it slowly and carefully. "It's been a long time sincethe Navy's had anything like this to worry about. " He turned toTrask. "I suppose I can get in touch with you at the Palace wheneverI must?"

"Well, Prince Trask and I have been invited as house-guests atPrince Edvard's, I mean Baron Cragdale's, hunting lodge, " Bentriksaid. "We'll be going there directly from here. "

"Ah. " Admiral Shefter smiled slightly. Beside not having three hornsand a spiked tail, this Space Viking was definitely _persona grata_with the Royal Family. "Well, we'll keep in contact, Prince Trask. "

 * * * * *

The hunting lodge where Crown Prince Edvard was simple BaronCragdale lay at the head of a sharply-sloping mountain valley downwhich a river tumbled. Mountains rose on either side in high scarps, some topped with perpetual snow, glaciers curling down from them. The lower ranges were forested, as was the valley between, and therewas a red-mauve alpenglow on the great peak that rose from the headof the valley. For the first time in over a year, Elaine was withhim, silently clinging to him to see the beauty of it through hiseyes. He had thought that she had gone from him forever. 

The hunting lodge itself was not quite what a Sword-Worlder wouldexpect a hunting lodge to be. At first sight, from the air, itlooked like a sundial, a slender tower rising like a gnomen above acircle of low buildings and formal gardens. The boat landed at thefoot of it, and he and Prince and Princess Bentrik and the youngCount of Ravary and his tutor descended. Immediately, they werebeset by a flurry of servants; the second boat, with the Bentrikservants and their luggage was circling in to land. Elaine, hediscovered, wasn't with him any more, and then he was separated fromthe Bentriks and was being floated up an inside shaft in alifter-car. More servants installed him in his rooms, unpacked hiscases, drew his bath and even tried to help him take it, and fussedover him while he dressed. 

There were over a score for dinner. Bentrik had warned him that he'dfind some odd types; maybe he meant that they wouldn't all benobles. Among the commoners there were some professors, mostlysocial sciences, a labor leader, a couple of Representatives and amember of the Chamber of Delegates, and a couple of social workers, whatever that meant. 

His own table companion was a Lady Valerie Alvarath. She wasbeautiful--black hair, and almost startlingly blue eyes, acombination unusual in the Sword-Worlds--and she was intelligent, or at least cleverly articulate. She was introduced as thelady-companion of the Crown Prince's daughter. When he askedwhere the daughter was, she laughed. 

"She won't be helping entertain visiting Space Vikings for a longtime, Prince Trask. She is precisely eight years old; I saw hergetting ready for bed before I came down here. I'll look in on herafter dinner. "

Then the Crown Princess Melanie, on his other hand, asked him somequestion about Sword-World court etiquette. He stuck togeneralities, and what he could remember from a presentation at thecourt of Excalibur during his student days. These people had amonarchy since before Gram had been colonized; he wasn't going toadmit that Gram's had been established since he went off-planet. The table was small enough for everybody to hear what he was sayingand to feed questions to him. It lasted all through the meal, andcontinued when they adjourned for coffee in the library. 

"But what about your form of government, your social structure, that sort of thing?" somebody, impatient with the artificialitiesof the court, wanted to know. 

"Well, we don't use the word government very much, " he replied. "Wetalk a lot about authority and sovereignty, and I'm afraid we burnentirely too much powder over it, but government always seems to uslike sovereignty interfering in matters that don't concern it. Aslong as sovereignty maintains a reasonable semblance of good publicorder and makes the more serious forms of crime fairly hazardous forthe criminals, we're satisfied. "

"But that's just negative. Doesn't the government do anythingpositive for the people?"

He tried to explain the Sword-World feudal system to them. It washard, he found, to explain something you have taken for granted allyour life to somebody who is quite unfamiliar with it. 

 * * * * *

"But the government--the sovereignty, since you don't like the otherword--doesn't do anything for the people!" one of the professorsobjected. "It leaves all the social services to the whim of theindividual lord or baron. "

"And the people have no voice at all; why, that's tyranny, "a professor Assemblyman added. 

He tried to explain that the people had a very distinct andcommanding voice, and that barons and lords who wanted to stayalive listened attentively to it. The Assemblyman changed his mind;that wasn't tyranny, it was anarchy. And the professor was stillinsistent about who performed the social services. 

"If you mean schools and hospitals and keeping the city clean, thepeople do that for themselves. The government, if you want to thinkof it as that, just sees to it that nobody's shooting at them whilethey're doing it. "

"That isn't what Professor Pullwell means, Lucas. He means old-agepensions, " Prince Bentrik said. "Like this thing Zaspar Makann'swhooping for. "

He'd heard about that, on the voyage from Audhumla. Every person onMarduk would be retired on an adequate pension after thirty yearsregular employment or at the age of sixty. When he had wanted toknow where the money would come from, he had been told that therewould be a sales tax, and that the pensions must all be spent withinthirty days, which would stimulate business, and the increasedbusiness would provide tax money to pay the pensions. 

"We have a joke about three Gilgameshers space-wrecked on anuninhabited planet, " he said. "Ten years later, when they wererescued, all three were immensely wealthy, from trading hats witheach other. That's about the way this thing will work. "

One of the lady social workers bristled; it wasn't right to makederogatory jokes about racial groups. One of the professorsharrumphed; wasn't a parallel at all, the Self-Sustaining RotaryPension Plan was perfectly feasible. With a shock, Trask recalledthat he was a professor of economics. 

Alvyn Karffard wouldn't need any twenty ships to loot Marduk. Justinfiltrate it with about a hundred smart confidence men and insidea year they'd own everything on it. 

That started them all off on Zaspar Makann, though. Some of themthought he had a few good ideas, but was damaging his own case byextremism. One of the wealthier nobles said that he was a reproachto the ruling class; it was their fault that people like Makanncould gain a following. One old gentleman said that maybe theGilgameshers were to blame, themselves, for some of the animositytoward them. He was immediately set upon by all the others andverbally torn to pieces on the spot. 

Trask didn't feel it proper to quote Goodman Mikhyl to this crowd. He took the responsibility upon himself for saying:

"From what I've heard of him, I think he's the most serious threatto civilized society on Marduk. "

They didn't call him crazy, after all he was a guest, but theydidn't ask him what he meant, either. They merely told him thatMakann was a crackpot with a contemptible following of half-wits, and just wait till the election and see what happened. 

"I'm inclined to agree with Prince Trask, " Bentrik said soberly. "And I'm afraid the election results will be a shock to us, not toMakann. "

He hadn't talked that way on the ship. Maybe he'd been lookingaround and doing some thinking, since he got back. He might havebeen talking to Goodman Mikhyl, too. There was a screen in the room. He nodded toward it. 

"He's speaking at a rally of the People's Welfare Party at Drepplin, now, " he said. "May I put it on, to show you what I mean?"

When the Crown Prince assented, he snapped on the screen andtwiddled at the selector. 

 * * * * *

A face looked out of it. The features weren't Andray Dunnan's--themouth was wider, the cheekbones broader, the chin more rounded. Buthis eyes were Dunnan's, as Trask had seen them on the terrace ofKarvall House. Mad eyes. His high-pitched voice screamed:

"Our beloved sovereign is a prisoner! He is surrounded by traitors!The Ministries are full of them! They are all traitors! Thebloodthirsty reactionaries of the falsely so-called Crown LoyalistParty! The grasping conspiracy of the interstellar bankers! Thedirty Gilgameshers! They are all leagued together in an unholyconspiracy! And now this Space Viking, this bloody-handed monsterfrom the Sword-Worlds. .. . "

"Shut the horrible man off, " somebody was yelling, in competitionwith the hypnotic scream of the speaker. 

The trouble was, they couldn't. They could turn off the screen, butZaspar Makann would go on screaming, and millions all over theplanet would still hear him. Bentrik twiddled the selector. Thevoice stuttered briefly, and then came echoing out of the speaker, but this time the pickup was somewhere several hundred feet abovea great open park. It was densely packed with people, most of themwearing clothes a farm tramp on Gram wouldn't be found dead in, but here and there among them were blocks of men in what wasalmost but not quite military uniform, each with a short and thickswagger-stick with a knobbed head. Across the park, in the distance, the head and shoulders of Zaspar Makann loomed a hundred feet highin a huge screen. Whenever he stopped for breath, a shout would goup, beginning with the blocks of uniformed men:

"_Makann! Makann! Makann the Leader! Makann to Power!_"

"You even let him have a private army?" he asked the Crown Prince. 

"Oh, those silly buffoons and their musical-comedy uniforms, "the Crown Prince shrugged. "They aren't armed. "

"Not visibly, " he granted. "Not yet. "

"I don't know where they'd get arms. "

"No, Your Highness, " Prince Bentrik said. "Neither do I. That's what I'm worried about. "

XXII

He succeeded, the next morning, in convincing everybody that hewanted to be alone for a while, and was sitting in a garden, watching the rainbows in the midst of a big waterfall across thevalley. Elaine would have liked that, but she wasn't with him, now. 

Then he realized that somebody was speaking to him, in a small, bashful voice. He turned, and saw a little girl in shorts and asleeveless jacket, holding in her arms a long-haired blond puppywith big ears and appealing eyes. 

"Hello, both of you, " he said. 

The puppy wriggled and tried to lick the girl's face. 

"Don't, Mopsy. We want to talk to this gentleman, " she said. "Are you really and truly the Space Viking?"

"Really and truly. And who are you two?"

"I'm Myrna. And this is Mopsy. "

"Hello, Myrna. Hello, Mopsy. "

Hearing his name, the puppy wriggled again and dropped from thechild's arms; after a brief hesitation, he came over and jumped ontoTrask's lap, licking his face. While he petted the dog, the girlcame over and sat on the bench beside him. 

[Illustration]

"Mopsy likes you, " she said. After a moment, she added: "I like you, too. "

"And I like you, " he said. "Would you want to be my girl? You know, a Space Viking has to have a girl on every planet. How would youlike to be my girl on Marduk?"

Myrna thought that over carefully. "I'd like to, but I couldn't. You see, I'm going to have to be Queen, some day. "

"Oh?"

"Yes. Grandpa is King now, and when he's through being King, Pappawill have to be King, and then when he's through being King, I can'tbe King because I'm a girl, so I'll have to be Queen. And I can't beanybody's girl, because I'm going to have to marry somebody I don'tknow, for reasons of state. " She thought some more, and lowered hervoice. "I'll tell you a secret. I am a Queen now. "

"Oh, you are?"

She nodded. "We are Queen, in our own right, of our Royal Bedroom, our Royal Playroom, and our Royal Bathroom. And Mopsy is ourfaithful subject. "

"Is Your Majesty absolute ruler of these domains?"

"No, " she said disgustedly. "We must at all times defer to our RoyalMinisters, just like Grandpa has to. That means, I have to do justwhat they tell me to. That's Lady Valerie, and Margot, and Dame Eunice, and Sir Thomas. But Grandpa says they are good and wise ministers. Are you really a Prince? I didn't know Space Vikings were Princes. "

"Well, my King says I am. And I am ruler of my planet, and I'll tellyou a secret. I don't have to do what anybody tells me. "

"Gee! Are you a tyrant? You're awfully big and strong. I'll betyou've slain just hundreds of cruel and wicked enemies. "

"Thousands, Your Majesty. "

He wished that weren't literally true; he didn't know how many ofthem had been little girls like Myrna and little dogs like Mopsy. Hefound that he was holding both of them tightly. The girl was saying:"But you feel bad about it. " These children must be telepaths!

"A Space Viking who is also a Prince must do many things he doesn'twant to do. "

"I know. So does a Queen. I hope Grandpa and Pappa don't get throughbeing King for just years and years. " She looked over his shoulder. "Oh! And now I suppose I've got to do something else I don't want to. Lessons, I bet. "

He followed her eyes. The girl who had been his dinner companion wasapproaching; she wore a wide sunshade hat, and a gown that trailedfilmy gauze like sunset-colored mist. There was another woman, inthe garb of an upper servant, with her. 

"Lady Valerie and who else?" he whispered. 

"Margot. She's my nurse. She's awful strict, but she's nice. "

"Prince Trask, has Her Highness been bothering you?" Lady Valerie asked. 

"Oh, far from it. " He rose, still holding the funny little dog. "But you should say, Her Majesty. She has informed me that sheis sovereign of three princely domains. And of one dear lovingsubject. " He gave the subject back to the sovereign. 

"You should not have told Prince Trask that, " Lady Valerie chided. "When Your Majesty is outside her domains, Your Majesty must remainincognito. Now, Your Majesty must go with the Minister of theBedchamber; the Minister of Education awaits an audience. "

"Arithmetic, I bet. Well, good-by, Prince Trask. I hope I can seeyou again. Say good-by, Mopsy. "

She went away with her nurse, the little dog looking back over hershoulder. 

"I came out to enjoy the gardens alone, " he said, "and now I findI'd rather enjoy them in company. If your Ministerial duties do notforbid, could you be the company?"

"But gladly, Prince Trask. Her Majesty will be occupied with seriousaffairs of state. Square root. Have you seen the grottoes? They'redown this way. "

 * * * * *

That afternoon, one of the gentlemen-attendants caught up with him;Baron Cragdale would be gratified if Prince Trask could find time totalk with him privately. Before they had talked more than a fewminutes, however, Baron Cragdale abruptly became Crown Prince Edvard. 

"Prince Trask, Admiral Shefter tells me that you and he are havinginformal discussions about co-operation against this mutual enemyof ours, Dunnan. This is fine; it has my approval, and the approvalof Prince Vandarvant, the Prime Minister, and, I might add, that ofGoodman Mikhyl. I think it ought to go further, though. A formal treatybetween Tanith and Marduk would be greatly to the advantage of both. "

"I'd be inclined to think so, Prince Edvard. But aren't youproposing marriage on rather short acquaintance? It's only beenfifty hours since the _Nemesis_ orbited in here. "

"Well, we know a bit about you and your planet beforehand. There'sa large Gilgamesher colony here. You have a few on Tanith, haven'tyou? Well, anything one Gilgamesher knows, they all find out, andours are co-operative with Naval intelligence. "

That would be why Andray Dunnan was having no dealings withGilgameshers. It would also be what Zaspar Makann meant whenhe ranted about the Gilgamesh Interstellar Conspiracy. 

"I can see where an arrangement like that would be mutuallyadvantageous. I'd be quite in favor of it. Co-operation againstDunnan, of course, and reciprocal trade-rights on each other'strade-planets, and direct trade between Marduk and Tanith. AndBeowulf and Amaterasu would come into it, too. Does this also havethe approval of the Prime Minister and the King?"

"Goodman Mikhyl's in favor of it; there's a distinction between himand the King, as you'll have noticed. The King can't be in favor ofanything till the Assembly or the Chancellor express an opinion. Prince Vandarvant favors it personally; as Prime Minister, he isreserving his opinion. We'll have to get the support of the CrownLoyalist Party before he can take an equivocal position. "

"Well, Baron Cragdale; speaking as Baron Trask of Traskon, supposewe just work out a rough outline of what this treaty ought to be, and then consult, unofficially, with a few people whom you cantrust, and see what can be done about presenting it to the propergovernment officials. .. . "

 * * * * *

The Prime Minister came to Cragdale that evening, heavily incognitoand accompanied by several leaders of the Crown Loyalist Party. Inprinciple, they all favored a treaty with Tanith. Politically, theyhad doubts. Not before the election; too controversial a subject. "Controversial, " it appeared, was the dirtiest dirty-name anythingcould be called on Marduk. It would alienate the labor vote; they'dthink increased imports would threaten employment in Mardukanindustries. Some of the interstellar trading companies would likea chance at the Tanith planets; others would resent Tanith shipsbeing given access to theirs. And Zaspar Makann's party were alreadyshrieking protests about the _Nemesis_ being repaired by theRoyal Navy. 

And a couple of professors who inclined toward Makann had introduceda resolution calling for the court-martial of Prince Bentrik and aninvestigation of the loyalty of Admiral Shefter. And somebody else, probably a stooge of Makann's, was claiming that Bentrik had soldthe _Victrix_ to the Space Vikings and that the films of the battle ofAudhumla were fakes, photographed in miniature at the Navy Moon Base. 

Admiral Shefter, when Trask flew in to see him the next day, wascontemptuous about this last. 

"Ignore the whole bloody thing; we get something like that beforeevery general election. On this planet, you can always kick theGilgameshers and the Armed Forces with impunity, neither have votesand neither can kick back. The whole thing'll be forgotten the dayafter the election. It always is. "

"That's if Makann doesn't win the election, " Trask qualified. 

"That's no matter who wins the election. They can't any of themget along without the Navy, and they bloody well know it. "

Trask wanted to know if Intelligence had been getting anything. 

"Not on how Dunnan found out the _Victrix_ had been ordered toAudhumla, no, " Shefter said. "There wasn't any secrecy about it;at least a thousand people, from myself down to the shoeshine boys, could have known about it as soon as the order was taped. 

"As for the list of ships you gave me, yes. One of them puts into this planet regularly; she spaced out from here only yesterdaymorning. The _Honest Horris_. "

"Well, great Satan, haven't you done anything?"

"I don't know if there's anything we can do. Oh, we're investigating, but. .. . You see, this ship first showed up here four years ago, commanded by some kind of a Neobarb, not a Gilgamesher, named HorrisSasstroff. He claimed to be from Skathi; the locals there have a fewships, the Space Vikings had a base on Skathi about a hundred or soyears ago. Naturally, the ship had no papers. Tramp trading amongthe Neobarbs, it might be years before you'd put in on a planet wherethey'd ever heard of ship's papers. 

"The ship seems to have been in bad shape, probably abandoned onSkathi as junk a century ago and tinkered up by the locals. She wasin here twice, according to the commercial shipping records, and thesecond time she was in too bad shape to be moved out, and Sasstroffcouldn't pay to have her rebuilt, so she was libeled for spaceportcharges and sold. Some one-lung trading company bought her and fixedher up a little; they went bankrupt in a year or so, and she wasbought by another small company, Startraders, Ltd. , and they've beenusing her on a milk-run to and from Gimli. They seem to be alegitimate outfit, but we're looking into them. We're looking forSasstroff, too, but we haven't been able to find him. "

"If you have a ship out Gimli way, you might find out if anybodythere knows anything about her. You may discover that she hasn'tbeen going there at all. "

"We might, at that, " Shefter agreed. "We'll just find out. "

 * * * * *

Everybody at Cragdale knew about the projected treaty with Tanithby the morning after Trask's first conversation with Prince Edvardon the subject. The Queen of the Royal Bedroom, the Royal Playroomand the Royal Bathroom was insisting that her domains should havea treaty with Tanith, too. 

It was beginning to look to Trask as though that would be the onlytreaty he'd sign on Marduk, and he was having his doubts about that. 

"Do you think it would be wise?" he asked Lady Valerie Alvarath. The Queen of three rooms and one four-footed subject had alreadydecreed that Lady Valerie should be the Space Viking Prince's girlon the planet of Marduk. "If it got out, these People's Welfarelunatics would pick it up and twist it into evidence of some kindof a sinister plot. "

"Oh, I believe Her Majesty could sign a treaty with Prince Trask, "Her Majesty's Prime Minister decided. "But it would have to be keptvery secret. "

"Gee!" Myrna's eyes widened. "A real secret treaty; just like thewicked rulers of the old dictatorship!" She hugged her subjectecstatically. "I'll bet Grandpa doesn't even have any secret treaties!"

 * * * * *

In a few days, everybody on Marduk knew that a treaty with Tanithwas being discussed. If they didn't, it was no fault of ZasparMakann's party, who seemed to command a disconcertingly large numberof telecast stations, and who drenched the ether with horror storiesof Space Viking atrocities and denunciations of carefully unnamedtraitors surrounding the King and the Crown Prince who were about tobetray Marduk to rapine and plunder. The leak evidently did not comefrom Cragdale, for it was generally believed that Trask was still atthe Royal Palace in Malverton. At least, that was where theMakannists were demonstrating against him. 

He watched such a demonstration by screen; the pickup was evidentlyon one of the landing stages of the palace, overlooking the wideparks surrounding it. They were packed almost solid with people, surging forward toward the thin cordon of police. The front of themob looked like a checkerboard--a block in civilian dress, then ablock in the curiously effeminate-looking uniforms of ZasparMakann's People's Watchmen, then more in ordinary garb, and morePeople's Watchmen. Over the heads of the crowds, at intervals, floated small contragravity lifters on which were mounted theamplifiers that were bellowing:

"SPACE VI-KING--GO HOME! SPACE VI-KING--GO HOME!"

The police stood motionless, at parade rest; the mob surged closer. When they were fifty yards away, the blocks of People's Watchmen ranforward, then spread out until they formed a line six deep acrossthe entire front; other blocks, from the rear, pushed the ordinarydemonstrators aside and took their place. Hating them more everysecond, Trask grudged approval of a smart and disciplined maneuver. How long, he wondered, had they been drilling in that sort oftactics? Without stopping, they continued their advance on thepolice, who had now shifted their stance. 

"SPACE VI-KING--GO HOME! SPACE VI-KING--GO HOME!"

"Fire!" he heard himself yelling. "Don't let them get any closer, fire now!"

They had nothing to fire with; they had only truncheons, no betterweapons than the knobbed swagger-sticks of the People's Watchmen. They simply disappeared, after a brief flurry of blows, and theMakann storm-troopers continued their advance. 

And that was that. The gates of the Palace were shut; the mob, behind a front of Makann People's Watchmen, surged up to them andstopped. The loud-speakers bellowed on, reiterating their four-wordchant. 

"Those police were murdered, " he said. "They were murdered by theman who ordered them out there unarmed. "

"That would be Count Naydnayr, the Minister of Security, " somebody said. 

"Then he's the one you want to hang for it. "

"What else would you have done?" Crown Prince Edvard challenged. 

"Put up about fifty combat cars. Drawn a deadline, and openedmachine-gun fire as soon as the mob crossed it, and kept on firingtill the survivors turned tail and ran. Then sent out more cars, andshot everybody wearing a People's Watchmen uniform, all over town. Inside forty-eight hours, there'd be no People's Welfare party, andno Zaspar Makann either. "

The Crown Prince's face stiffened. "That may be the way you dothings in the Sword-Worlds, Prince Trask. It's not the way we dothings here on Marduk. Our government does not propose to be guiltyof shedding the blood of its people. "

He had it on the tip of his tongue to retort that if they didn't, the people would end by shedding theirs. Instead, he said softly:

"I'm sorry, Prince Edvard. You had a wonderful civilization here onMarduk. You could have made almost anything of it. But it's too latenow. You've torn down the gates; the barbarians are in. "

[Illustration][Illustration]

XXIII

The colored turbulence faded into the gray of hyperspace;five hundred hours to Tanith. Guatt Kirbey was securing hiscontrol-panel, happy to return to his music. And Vann Larch would goback to his paints and brushes, and Alvyn Karffard to the workingmodel of whatever it was he had left unfinished when the _Nemesis_had emerged at the end of the jump from Audhumla. 

Trask went to the index of the ship's library and punched for_History, Old Terran_. There was plenty of that, thanks to OttoHarkaman. Then he punched for _Hitler, Adolf_. Harkaman was right;anything that could happen in a human society had already happened, in one form or another, somewhere and at some time. Hitler couldhelp him understand Zaspar Makann. 

By the time the ship came out, with the yellow sun of Tanithin the middle of the screen, he knew a great deal about Hitler, occasionally referred to as Schicklgruber, and he understood, withsorrow, how the lights of civilization on Marduk were going out. 

Beside the _Lamia_, stripped of her Dillinghams and crammed withheavy armament and detection instruments, the _Space Scourge_ andthe _Queen Flavia_ were on off-planet watch. There were half a dozenother ships on orbit just above atmosphere; a Gilgamesher, one ofthe Gram-Tanith freighters, a couple of free-lance Space Vikings, and a new and unfamiliar ship. When he asked the moonbase who shewas, he was told that she was the _Sun Goddess_, Amaterasu. Thatwas, by almost a year, better than he had expected of them. OttoHarkaman was out in the _Corisande_, raiding and visiting thetrade-planets. 

He found his cousin, Nikkolay Trask, at Rivington; when he inquiredabout Traskon, Nikkolay cursed. 

"I don't know anything about Traskon; I haven't anything to do withTraskon, any more. Traskon is now the personal property of our wellloved--very well loved--Queen Evita. The Trasks don't own enoughland on Gram now for a family cemetery. You see what you did?" headded bitterly. 

"You needn't rub it in, Nikkolay. If I'd stayed on Gram, I'd havehelped put Angus on the throne, and it would have been about thesame in the end. "

"It could be a lot different, " Nikkolay said. "You could bringyour ships and men back to Gram and put yourself on the throne. "

"No; I'll never go back to Gram. Tanith's my planet, now. But I willrenounce my allegiance to Angus. I can trade on Morglay or Joyeuseor Flamberge just as easily. "

"You won't have to; you can trade with Newhaven and Bigglersport. Count Lionel and Duke Joris are both defying Angus; they've refusedto furnish him men, they've driven out his tax collectors, thosethey haven't hanged, and they're building ships of their own. Angusis building ships, too. I don't know whether he's going to use themto fight Bigglersport and Newhaven, or attack you, but there's goingto be a war before another year's out. "

The _Goodhope_ and the _Speedwell_, he found, had gone back to Gram. They were commanded by men who had come into favor at the court ofKing Angus recently. The _Black Star_ and the _Queen Flavia_--whosecaptain had contemptuously ignored an order from Gram to re-christenher _Queen Evita_--had remained. They were his ships, not KingAngus'. The captain of the merchantman from Wardshaven now on orbitrefused to take a cargo to Newhaven; he had been chartered by KingAngus, and would take orders from no one else. 

"All right, " Trask told him. "This is your last voyage here. Youbring that ship back under Angus of Wardshaven's charter and we'llfire on her. "

Then he had the regalia he had worn in his last audiovisual toAngus dusted off. At first, he had decided to proclaim himselfKing of Tanith. Lord Valpry, Baron Rathmore and his cousin alladvised against it. 

"Just call yourself Prince of Tanith, " Valpry said. "The title won'tmake any difference in your authority here, and if you do lay claimto the throne of Gram, nobody can say you're a foreign king tryingto annex the planet. "

He had no intention of doing anything of the kind, but Valpry wasquite in earnest. 

So he sat on his throne, as sovereign Prince of Tanith, andrenounced his allegiance to "Angus, Duke of Wardshaven, self-styledKing of Gram. " They sent it back on the otherwise empty freighter. Another copy went to the Count of Newhaven, along with a cargo inthe _Sun Goddess_, the first non-Space-Viking ship into Gram fromthe Old Federation. 

 * * * * *

Seven hundred and fifty hours after the return of the _Nemesis_, the _Corisande II_ emerged from her last microjump, and immediatelyHarkaman began hearing of the Battle of Audhumla and the destructionof the _Yo-Yo_ and the _Enterprise_. At first, he merely reported asuccessful raiding voyage, from which he was bringing rich booty. Oddly varigated booty, it was remarked, when he began itemizing it. 

"Why, yes, " he replied. "Secondhand booty. I raided Dagon for it. "

Dagon was a Space Viking base planet, occupied by a character namedFedrig Barragon. A number of ships operated from it, including acouple commanded by Barragon's half-breed sons. 

"Barragon's ships were raiding one of our planets, " Harkaman said. "Ganpat. They looted a couple of cities, destroyed one, killed a lotof the locals. I found out about it from Captain Ravallo of the_Black Star_, on Indra; he'd just been from Ganpat. Beowulf wasn'ttoo far out of the way, so we put in there, and found the_Grendelsbane_ just ready to space out. " The _Grendelsbane_ was thesecond of Beowulf's ships, sister to the _Viking's Gift_. "So shejoined us, and the three of us went to Dagon. We blew up one ofBarragon's ships, and put the other one down out of commission, andthen we sacked his base. There was a Gilgamesher colony there; wedidn't bother them. They'll tell what we did, and why. "

"That should furnish Prince Viktor of Xochitl something to ponder, "Trask said. "Where are the other ships, now?"

"The _Grendelsbane_ went back to Beowulf; she'll stop at Amaterasuto do a little trading on the way. The _Black Star_ went to Xochitl. Just a friendly visit, to say hello to Prince Viktor for you. Ravallo has a lot of audiovisuals we made during the DagonOperation. Then she's going to Jagannath to visit Nikky Gratham. "

 * * * * *

Harkaman approved his attitude and actions with regard to King Angus. 

"We don't need to do business with the Sword-Worlds at all. We haveour own industries, we can produce what we need, and we can tradewith Beowulf and Amaterasu, and with Xochitl and Jagannath and Hoth, if we can make any sort of agreement with them; everybody agrees tolet everybody else's trade-planets alone. It's too bad you couldn'tget some kind of an agreement with Marduk. " Harkaman regretted thatfor a few seconds, and then shrugged. "Our grandchildren, if any, will probably be raiding Marduk. "

"You think it'll be like that?"

"Don't you? You were there; you saw what's happening. The barbariansare rising; they have a leader, and they're uniting. Every societyrests on a barbarian base. The people who don't understandcivilization, and wouldn't like it if they did. The hitchhikers. The people who create nothing, and who don't appreciate what othershave created for them, and who think civilization is something thatjust exists and that all they need to do is enjoy what they canunderstand of it--luxuries, a high living standard, and easy workfor high pay. Responsibilities? Phooey! What do they havea government for?"

Trask nodded. "And now, the hitchhikers think they know more aboutthe car than the people who designed it, so they're going to grabthe controls. Zaspar Makann says they can, and he's the Leader. " Hepoured a drink from a decanter that had been looted on Pushan; therewas a planet where a republic had been overthrown in favor of adictatorship four centuries ago, and the planetary dictatorship hadfissioned into a dozen regional dictatorships, and now they weredown to the peasant-village and handcraft-industry level. "I don'tunderstand it, though. I was reading about Hitler, on the way home. I wouldn't be surprised if Zaspar Makann had been reading aboutHitler, too. He's using all Hitler's tricks. But Hitler came topower in a country which had been impoverished by a military defeat. Marduk hasn't fought a war in almost two generations, and that onewas a farce. "

"It wasn't the war that put Hitler into power. It was the fact thatthe ruling class of his nation, the people who kept things running, were discredited. The masses, the homemade barbarians, didn't haveanybody to take their responsibilities for them. What they have onMarduk is a ruling class that has been discrediting itself. A rulingclass that's ashamed of its privileges and shirks its duties. Aruling class that has begun to believe that the masses are just asgood as they are, which they manifestly are not. And a ruling classthat won't use force to maintain its position. And they have ademocracy, and they are letting the enemies of democracy shelterthemselves behind democratic safeguards. "

"We don't have any of this democracy in the Sword-Worlds, if that'sthe word for it, " he said. "And our ruling class aren't ashamed oftheir power, and our people aren't hitchhikers, and as long as theyget decent treatment they don't try to run things. And we're notdoing so well. "

The Morglay dynastic war of a couple of centuries ago, stillsputtering and smoking. The Oskarsan-Elmersan War on Durendal, intowhich Flamberge and now Joyeuse had intruded. And the situation onGram, fast approaching critical mass. Harkaman nodded agreement. 

"You know why? Our rulers are the barbarians among us. There isn'tone of them--Napolyon of Flamberge, Rodolf of Excalibur, or Angus ofabout half of Gram--who is devoted to civilization or anything elseoutside himself, and that's the mark of the barbarian. "

"What are you devoted to, Otto?"

"You. You are my chieftain. That's another mark of the barbarian. "

 * * * * *

Before he had left Marduk, Admiral Shefter had ordered a ship toGimli to check on the _Honest Horris_; a few men and a pinnace wouldbe left behind to contact any ship from Tanith. He sent BoakeValkanhayn off in the _Space Scourge_. 

Lionel of Newhaven's _Blue Comet_ came in from Gram with a cargo ofgeneral merchandise. Her captain wanted fissionables and gadolinium;Count Lionel was building more ships. There was a rumor that Omfrayof Glaspyth was laying claim to the throne of Gram, in the rightof his great-grandmother's sister, who had been married to thegreat-grandfather of Duke Angus. It was a completely trivial andirrelevant claim, but the story was that it would be supportedby King Konrad of Haulteclere. 

[Illustration]

Immediately, Baron Rathmore, Lord Valpry, Lothar Ffayle and the otherGram people began clamoring that he should go back with a fleet andseize the throne for himself. Harkaman, Valkanhayn, Karffard and theother Space Vikings were as vehement against it. Harkaman had theloss of the other _Corisande_ on Durendal to remember, and the otherswanted no part in Sword-World squabbles, and there was renewedagitation that he should start calling himself King of Tanith. 

He refused to do either, which left both parties dissatisfied. Sopartisan politics had finally come to Tanith. Maybe that was anothermilestone of progress. 

And there was the Treaty of Khepera, between the Princely State ofTanith, the Commonwealth of Beowulf, and the Planetary League ofAmaterasu. The Kheperans agreed to allow bases on their planet, tofurnish workers, and to send students to school on all three planets. Tanith, Beowulf and Amaterasu obligated themselves to joint defenseof Khepera, to free trade among themselves, and to render one anotherarmed assistance. 

That _was_ a milestone of progress, and no argument about it. 

 * * * * *

The _Space Scourge_ returned from Gimli, and Valkanhayn reportedthat nobody on the planet had ever seen or heard of the _HonestHorris_. They had found a Mardukan Navy ship's pinnace there, mannedentirely by officers, some of them Navy Intelligence. According tothem, the investigation into the activities of that ship had come toan impasse. The ostensible owners claimed, and had papers to proveit, that they had chartered her to a private trader, and he claimed, and had papers to prove it, that he was a citizen of the PlanetaryRepublic of Aton, and as soon as they began questioning him, he wasrescued by the Atonian ambassador, who lodged a vehement protestwith the Mardukan Foreign Ministry. Immediately, the People'sWelfare Party had leaped into the incident and branded theinvestigation as an unwarranted persecution of a national of afriendly power at the instigation of corrupt tools of the GilgameshInterstellar Conspiracy. 

"So that's it, " Valkanhayn finished. "It seems they're having anelection and they're afraid to antagonize anybody who might have avote. So the Navy had to drop the investigation. Everybody onMarduk's scared of this Makann. You think there might be some tie-upbetween him and Dunnan?"

"The idea's occurred to me. Have there been any more raids on Marduktrade-planets since the Battle of Audhumla?"

"A couple. The _Bolide_ was on Audhumla a while ago. There were acouple of Mardukan ships there, and they had the _Victrix_ fixed upenough to do some fighting. They ran the _Bolide_ out. "

A study of the time between the destruction of the _Enterprise_and _Yo-Yo_ and the appearance of the _Bolide_ could give them alimiting radius around Audhumla. It did; seven hundred light-years, which also included Tanith. 

So he sent Harkaman in the _Corisande_ and Ravallo in the _BlackStar_ to visit the planets Marduk traded with, looking for Dunnanships and exchanging information and assistance with the RoyalMardukan Navy. Almost at once, he regretted it; the next Gilgamesherinto orbit on Tanith brought a story that Prince Viktor wascollecting a fleet on Xochitl. He sent warnings off to Amaterasuand Beowulf and Khepera. 

A ship came in from Bigglersport, a heavily armed charteredfreighter. There was sporadic fighting in a dozen places on Gram, now--resistance to efforts on the part of King Angus to collecttaxes, and raids by unidentified persons on estates confiscatedfrom alleged traitors and given to Garvan Spasso, who had nowbeen promoted from Baron to Count. And Rovard Grauffis was dead;poisoned, everybody said, either by Spasso or Queen Evita or both. Even with the threat from Xochitl, some of the former Wardshavennobles began talking about sending ships to Gram. 

Less than a thousand hours after he had left, Ravallo was backin the _Black Star_. 

"I went to Gimli, and I wasn't there fifty hours before aMardukan Navy ship came in. They were glad to see me; it savedthem sending off a pinnace for Tanith. They had news for you, anda couple of passengers. "

"Passengers?"

"Yes. You'll see who they are when they come down. And don't letanybody with side-whiskers and buttoned-up coats see them, " Ravallosaid. "What those people know gets all over the place before long. "

 * * * * *

The visitors were Lucile, Princess Bentrik, and her son, the youngCount of Ravary. They dined with Trask; only Captain Ravallo wasalso present. 

"I didn't want to leave my husband, and I didn't want to come hereand impose myself and Steven on you, Prince Trask, " she began, "buthe insisted. We spent the whole voyage to Gimli concealed in thecaptain's quarters; only a few of the officers knew we were aboard. "

"Makann won the election. Is that it?" he asked. "And Prince Bentrikdoesn't want to risk you and Steven being used as hostages?"

"That's it, " she said. "He didn't really win the election, but hemight as well have. Nobody has a majority of seats in the Chamber ofRepresentatives but he's formed a coalition with several of thesplinter parties, and I'm ashamed to say that a number of CrownLoyalist members--Crowd of Disloyalists, I call them--are votingwith him, now. They've coined some ridiculous phrase about the 'waveof the future, ' whatever that means. "

"If you can't lick them, join them, " Trask said. 

"If you can't lick them, lick their boots, " the Count of Ravary put in. 

"My son is a trifle bitter, " Princess Bentrik said. "I must confessto a trace of bitterness, too. "

"Well, that's the Representatives, " Trask said. "What about the restof the government?"

"With the splinter-party and Disloyalist support, they got amajority of seats in the Delegates. Most of them would haveindignantly denied, a month before, having any connection withMakann, but a hundred out of a hundred and twenty are hissupporters. Makann, of course, is Chancellor. "

"And who is Prime Minister?" he asked. "Andray Dunnan?"

She looked slightly baffled for an instant then said, "Oh. No. The Prime Minister is Crown Prince Edvard. No; Baron Cragdale. That isn't a royal title, so by some kind of a fiction I can'tpretend to understand he is not Prime Minister as a member ofthe Royal Family. "

"If you can't . .. " the boy started. 

"Steven! I forbid you to say that about . .. Baron Cragdale. Hebelieves, very sincerely, that the election was an expression ofthe will of the people, and that it is his duty to bow to it. "

He wished Otto Harkaman were there. He could probably name, withoutstopping for breath, a hundred great nations that went down intorubble because their rulers believed that they should bow insteadof rule, and couldn't bring themselves to shed the blood of theirpeople. Edvard would have been a fine and admirable man, as a littlecountry baron. Where he was, he was a disaster. 

He asked if the People's Watchman had dragged their guns out fromunder the bed and started carrying them in public yet. 

"Oh, yes. You were quite right; they were armed, all the time. Notjust small arms; combat vehicles and heavy weapons. As soon as thenew government was formed, they were given status as a part of thePlanetary Armed Forces. They have taken over every police stationon the planet. "

"And the King?"

"Oh, he carries on, and shrugs and says, 'I just reign here. ' Whatelse can he do? We've been whittling down and filching away thepowers of the Throne for the last three centuries. "

"What is Prince Bentrik doing, and why did he think there was dangerthat you two would be used as hostages?"

"He's going to fight, " she said. "Don't ask me how, or what with. Maybe as a guerrilla in the mountains, I don't know. But if he can'tlick them, he won't join them. I wanted to stay with him and helphim; he told me I could help him best by placing myself and Stevenwhere he wouldn't worry about us. "

"I wanted to stay, " the boy said. "I could have fought with him. But he said that I must take care of Mother. And if he were killed, I must be able to avenge him. "

"You talk like a Sword-Worlder; I told you that once before. " Hehesitated, then turned again to Princess Bentrik. "How is littlePrincess Myrna?" he asked, and then, trying to be casual, added, "and Lady Valerie?"

She seemed so clearly real and present to him, blue eyes andspace-black hair, more real than Elaine had been to him for years. 

"They're at Cragdale; they'll be safe there. I hope. "

XXIV

Attempting to conceal the presence on Tanith of Prince Bentrik'swife and son was pushing caution beyond necessity. Admitted thatthe news would leak back to Marduk via Gilgamesh, it was over sevenhundred light-years to the latter and almost a thousand from thereto the former. Better that Princess Lucile should enjoy Rivingtonsociety, such as it was, and escape, for a moment now and then, fromanxiety about her husband. At ten--no, almost twelve; it had been ayear and a half since Trask had left Marduk--the boy Count of Ravarywas more easily diverted. At last, he was among real Space Vikings, on a Space Viking planet, and he was trying to be everywhere and seeeverything at once. No doubt he would be imagining himself a SpaceViking, returning to Marduk with a vast armada to rescue his fatherand the King from Zaspar Makann. 

Trask was satisfied with that; as a host he left much to be desired. He had his worries, too, and all of them bore the same name: PrinceViktor of Xochitl. He went over with Manfred Ravallo everything thecaptain of the _Black Star_ could tell him. He had talked once withViktor; the lord of Xochitl had been coldly polite and noncommittal. His subordinates had been frankly hostile. There had been five shipson orbit or landed at Viktor's spaceport beside the usualGilgameshers and itinerant traders, two of them Viktor's own, and abig armed freighter had come in from Haulteclere as the _Black Star_was leaving. There was considerable activity at the shipyards andaround the spaceport, as though in preparation for something on alarge scale. 

Xochitl was a thousand light-years from Tanith. He rejectedimmediately the idea of launching a preventative attack; his shipsmight reach Xochitl to find it undefended, and then return to findTanith devastated. Things like that had happened in space-war. Theonly thing to do was sit tight, defend Tanith when Viktor attacked, and then counterattack if he had any ships left by that time. Prince Viktor was probably reasoning in the same way. 

He had no time to think about Andray Dunnan, except, now and then, to wish that Otto Harkaman would stop thinking about him and bringthe _Corisande_ home. He needed that ship on Tanith, and the witsand courage of her commander. 

More news--Gilgamesh sources--came in from Xochitl. There were onlytwo ships, both armed merchantmen, on the planet. Prince Viktor hadspaced out with the rest an estimated two thousand hours before thestory reached him. That was twice as long as it would take theXochitl armada to reach Tanith. He hadn't gone to Beowulf; that wasonly sixty-five hours from Tanith and they would have heard aboutit long ago. Or Amaterasu, or Khepera. How many ships he had wasa question; not fewer than five, and possibly more. He could haveslipped into the Tanith system and hidden his ships on one of theouter uninhabitable planets. He sent Valkanhayn and Ravallomicrojumping their ships from one to another to check. They returnedto report in the negative. At least, Viktor of Xochitl wasn't campedinside their own system, waiting for them to leave Tanith opento attack. 

But he was somewhere, and up to nothing even resembling good, andthere was no possible way of guessing when his ships would beemerging on Tanith. The only thing to do was wait for him. When hedid, Trask was confident that he would emerge from hyperspace intoserious trouble. He had the _Nemesis_, the _Space Scourge_, the_Black Star_ and _Queen Flavia_, the strongly rebuilt _Lamia_, andseveral independent Space Viking ships, among them the _Damnthing_of his friend Roger-fan-Morvill Esthersan, who had volunteered tostay and help in the defense. This, of course, was not purealtruism. If Viktor attacked and had his fleet blown toEm-See-Square, Xochitl would lie open and unprotected, and therewas enough loot on Xochitl to cram everybody's ships. Everybody'sships who had ships when the Battle of Tanith was over, of course. 

He was apologetic to Princess Bentrik:

"I'm very sorry you jumped out of Zaspar Makann's frying pan intoPrince Viktor's fire, " he began. 

She laughed at that. "I'll take my chances on the fire. I seem tosee a lot of good firemen around. If there is a battle you will seethat Steven's in a safe place, won't you?"

"In a space attack, there are no safe places. I'll keep him with me. "

The young Count of Ravary wanted to know which ship he would serveon when the attack came. 

"Well, you won't be on any ship, Count. You'll be on my staff. "

 * * * * *

Two days later, the _Corisande_ came out of hyperspace. Harkaman wasguardedly noncommittal by screen. Trask took a landing craft andwent out to meet the ship. 

"Marduk doesn't like us, any more, " Harkaman told him. "They haveships on all their trade-planets, and they all have orders to fireon any, repeat any, Space Vikings, including the ships of theself-styled Prince of Tanith. I got this from Captain Garravay ofthe _Vindex_. After we were through talking, we fought a nice littleship-to-ship action for him to make films of. I don't think anybodycould see anything wrong with it. "

"This order came from Makann?"

"From the Admiral commanding. He isn't your friend Shefter; Shefterretired on account of quote ill-health unquote. He is now in a quotehospital unquote. "

"Where's Prince Bentrik?"

"Nobody knows. Charges of high treason were brought against him, and he just vanished. Gone underground, or secretly arrested andexecuted; take your choice. "

He wondered just what he'd tell Princess Lucile and Count Steven. 

"They have ships on all the planets they trade with. Fourteenof them. That isn't to catch Dunnan. That's to disperse the Navyaway from Marduk. They don't trust the Navy. Is Prince Edvardstill Prime Minister?"

"Yes, as of Garravay's last information. It seems Makann is behavingin a scrupulously legal manner, outside of making his People'sWatchmen part of the armed forces. Protesting his devotion tothe King every time he opens his mouth. "

"When will the fire be, I wonder?"

"Huh? Oh yes, you were reading up on Hitler. That I don't know. Probably happened by now. "

He just told Princess Lucile that her husband had gone into hiding;he couldn't be sure whether she was relieved or more worried. Theboy was sure that he was doing something highly romantic and heroic. 

Some of the volunteers tired of waiting, after another thousandhours, and spaced out. The _Viking's Gift_ of Beowulf came in witha cargo, and went on orbit after discharging it to join the watch. A Gilgamesher came in from Amaterasu and reported everything quietthere; as soon as her captain had sold his cargo, with a minimum ofhaggling, he spaced out again. His behavior convinced everybody thatthe attack would come in a matter of hours. 

It didn't. 

 * * * * *

Three thousand hours had passed since the first warning had reachedTanith, that made five thousand since Viktor's ships were supposedto have left Xochitl. There were those, Boake Valkanhayn among them, who doubted, now, if he ever had. 

"The whole thing's just a big Gilgamesher lie, " he was declaring. "Somebody--Nikky Gratham, or the Everrards, or maybe Viktorhimself--paid them to tell us that, to pin our ships down here. Or they made it up themselves, so they could make hay on ourtrade-planets. "

"Let's go down to the Ghetto and clean out the whole gang, " somebodyelse took up. "Anything one of them's in, they're all in together. "

"Nifflheim with that; let's all space out for Xochitl, " ManfredRavallo proposed. "We have enough ships to lick them on Tanith, we have enough to lick them on their own planet. "

He managed to talk them out of both courses of action--what was he, anyhow; sovereign Prince of Tanith, or the non-ruling King of Marduk, or just the chieftain of a disciplineless gang of barbarians? One ofthe independents spaced out in disgust. The next day, two otherscame in, loaded with booty from a raid on Braggi, and decided tostay around for a while and see what happened. 

And four days after that, a five-hundred-foot hyperspace yacht, bearing the daggers and chevrons of Bigglersport, came in. As soonas she was out of the last microjump, she began calling by screen. 

Trask didn't know the man who was screening, but Hugh Rathmore did;Duke Joris' confidential secretary. 

"Prince Trask; I must speak to you as soon as possible, " he began, almost stuttering. Whatever the urgency of his mission, one wouldhave thought that a three-thousand-hour voyage would have taken someof the edge from it. "It is of the first importance. "

"You are speaking to me. This screen is reasonably secure. And ifit's of the first importance, the sooner you tell me about it. .. . "

"Prince Trask, you must come to Gram, with every man and every shipyou can command. Satan only knows what's happening there now, butthree thousand hours ago, when the Duke sent me off, Omfray of Glaspythwas landing on Wardshaven. He has a fleet of eight ships, furnishedto him by his wife's kinsman, the King of Haulteclere. They are commandedby King Konrad's Space Viking cousin, the Prince of Xochitl. "

Then a look of shocked surprise came into the face of the man in thescreen, and Trask wondered why, until he realized that he had leanedback in his chair and was laughing uproariously. Before he couldapologize, the man in the screen had found his voice. 

"I know, Prince Trask; you have no reason to think kindly of KingAngus--the former King Angus, or maybe even the late King Angus, I suppose he is now--but a murderer like Omfray of Glaspyth. .. . "

 * * * * *

It took a little time to explain to the confidential secretary ofthe Duke of Bigglersport the humor of the situation. 

There were others at Rivington to whom it was not immediatelyevident. The professional Space Vikings, men like Valkanhayn andRavallo and Alvyn Karffard, were disgusted. Here they'd beensitting, on combat alert, all these months, and, if they'd onlyknown, they could have gone to Xochitl and looted it clean long ago. The Gram party were outraged. Angus of Wardshaven had been badenough, with the hereditary taint of the Mad Baron of Blackcliffe, and Queen Evita and her rapacious family, but even he was preferableto a murderous villain--some even called him a fiend in humanshape--like Omfray of Glaspyth. 

Both parties, of course, were positive as to where their Prince'sduty lay. The former insisted that everything on Tanith that couldbe put into hyperspace should be dispatched at once to Xochitl, tohaul back from it everything except a few absolutely immovablenatural features of the planet. The latter clamored, just as loudlyand passionately, that everybody on Tanith who could pull a triggershould be embarked at once on a crusade for the deliverance of Gram. 

[Illustration]

"You don't want to do either, do you?" Harkaman asked him, when theywere alone after the second day of acrimony. 

"Nifflheim, no! This crowd that wants an attack on Xochitl; you knowwhat would happen if we did that?" Harkaman was silent, waiting forhim to continue. "Inside a year, four or five of these smallplanet-holders like Gratham and the Everrards would combine againstus and make a slag-pile out of Tanith. "

Harkaman nodded agreement. "Since we warned him the first time, Viktor's kept his ships away from our planets. If we attackedXochitl now, without provocation, nobody'd know what to expect fromus. People like Nikky Gratham and Tobbin of Nergal and the Everrardsof Hoth get nervous around unpredictable dangers, and when they getnervous they get trigger-happy. " He puffed slowly on his pipe andthen said: "Then you'll be going back to Gram. "

"That doesn't follow; just because Valkanhayn and Ravallo and thatcrowd are wrong doesn't make Valpry and Rathmore and Ffayle right. You heard what I was telling those very people at Karvall House, theday I met you. And you've seen what's been happening on Gram sincewe came out here. Otto, the Sword-Worlds are finished; they're halfdecivilized now. Civilization is alive and growing here on Tanith. I want to stay here and help it grow. "

"Look, Lucas, " Harkaman said. "You're Prince of Tanith, and I'm onlythe Admiral. But I'm telling you; you'll have to do something, orthis whole setup of yours will fall apart. As it stands, you canattack Xochitl and the Back-To-Gram party would go along, or youcan decide on this crusade against Omfray of Glaspyth and theRaid-Xochitl-Now party would go along. But if you let this go onmuch longer, you won't have any influence over either party. "

"And then I will be finished. And in a few years, Tanith will befinished. " He rose and paced across the room and back. "Well, Iwon't raid Xochitl; I told you why, and you agreed. And I won'tspend the men and ships and wealth of Tanith in any Sword-Worlddynastic squabble. Great Satan, Otto; you were in the Durendal War. This is the same thing, and it'll go on for another half a century. "

"Then what will you do?"

"I came out here after Andray Dunnan, didn't I?" he asked. 

"I'm afraid Ravallo and Valpry, or even Valkanhayn and Morland, won't be as interested in Dunnan as you are. "

"Then I will interest them in him. Remember, I was reading up onHitler, coming in from Marduk? I will tell them all a big lie. Such a big lie that nobody will dare to disbelieve it. "

XXV

"Do you think I was afraid of Viktor of Xochitl?" he demanded. "Halfa dozen ships; we could make a new Van Allen belt around Tanith ofthem, with what we have here. Our real enemy is on Marduk, notXochitl; his name's Zaspar Makann. Zaspar Makann, and Andray Dunnan, the man I came out from Gram to hunt; they're in alliance, andI believe Dunnan is on Marduk, himself, now. "

The delegation who had come out from Gram in the yacht of theDuke of Bigglersport were unimpressed. Marduk was only a name tothem, one of the fabulous civilized Old Federation planets noSword-Worlder had ever seen. Zaspar Makann wasn't even that. Andso much had happened on Gram since the murder of Elaine Karvall andthe piracy of the _Enterprise_ that they had completely forgottenAndray Dunnan. That put them at a disadvantage. All the people whomthey were trying to convince, the half-hundred members of the newnobility of Tanith, spoke a language they didn't understand. Theydidn't even understand the proposition, and couldn't argue against it. 

Paytrik Morland, who was Gram-born and had been speaking fora return in force to fight against Omfray of Glaspyth and hissupporters, defected from them at once. He had been on Marduk andknew who Zaspar Makann was; he had made friends with the Royal Navyofficers, and had been shocked to hear that they were now enemies. Manfred Ravallo and Boake Valkanhayn, among the more articulate ofthe Raid-Xochitl-Now party, snatched up the idea and seemedconvinced that they'd thought of it themselves all along. Valkanhaynhad been on Gimli and talked to Mardukan naval officers; Ravallo hadbrought Princess Bentrik to Tanith and heard her stories on thevoyage. They began adducing arguments in support of Trask's thesis. Of course Dunnan and Makann were in collusion. Who tipped Dunnan offthat the _Victrix_ would be on Audhumla? Makann; his spies in theNavy tipped him. What about the _Honest Horris_; wasn't Makannblocking any investigation about her? Why was Admiral Shefterretired as soon as Makann got into power?

"Well, here; we don't know anything about this Zaspar Makann, " theconfidential secretary and spokesman of the Duke of Bigglersport began. 

"No, you don't, " Otto Harkaman told him. "I suggest you keep quietand listen, till you find out a little about him. "

"Why, I wouldn't be surprised if Dunnan was on Marduk all the timewe were hunting for him, " Valkanhayn said. 

Trask began to wonder. What would Hitler have done if he'd told oneof his big lies, and then found it turning into the truth? MaybeMakann had been on Marduk. .. . No; he couldn't have hidden half adozen ships on a civilized planet. Not even at the bottom of anocean. 

"I wouldn't be surprised, " Alvyn Karffard was shouting, "if AndrayDunnan _was_ Zaspar Makann. I know he doesn't look like Dunnan, weall saw him on screen, but there's such a thing as plastic surgery. "

That was making the big lie just a trifle too big. Zaspar Makann wassix inches shorter than Dunnan; there are some things no plasticsurgery could do. Paytrik Morland, who had known Dunnan and had seenMakann on screen, ought to have known that too, but he either didn'tthink of it or didn't want to weaken a case he had completely accepted. 

"As far as I can find out, nobody even heard of Makann till aboutfive years ago. That would be about the time Dunnan would havearrived on Marduk, " he said. 

By this time, the big room in which they were meeting had become ababel of voices, everybody trying to convince everybody else thatthey'd known it all along. Then the Back-To-Gram party received its_coup-de-grace_; Lothar Ffayle, to whom the emissaries of Duke Jorishad looked for their strongest support, went over. 

"You people want us to abandon a planet we've built up from nothing, and all the time and money we've invested in it, to go back to Gramand pull your chestnuts out of the fire? Gehenna with you! We'restaying here and defending our own planet. If you're smart, you'llstay here with us. "

 * * * * *

The Bigglersport delegation was still on Tanith, trying to recruitmercenaries from the King of Tradetown and dickering with aGilgamesher to transport them to Gram, when the big lie turnedinto something like the truth. 

The observation post on the Moon of Tanith picked up an emergence attwenty light-minutes due north of the planet. Half an hour later, there was another one at five light-minutes; a very small one, andthen a third at two light-seconds, and this was detectable by radarand microray as a ship's pinnace. He wondered if something hadhappened on Amaterasu or Beowulf; somebody like Gratham or theEverrards might have decided to take advantage of the defensivemobilization on Tanith. Then they switched the call from the pinnaceover to his screen, and Prince Simon Bentrik was looking out of it. 

"I'm glad to see you! Your wife and son are here, worried about you, but safe and well. " He turned to shout to somebody to find youngCount Steven of Ravary and tell him to tell his mother. "How are you?"

"I had a broken leg when I left Moonbase, but that's mended on theway, " Bentrik said. "I have little Princess Myrna aboard with me. For all I know, she's Queen of Marduk, now. " He gulped slightly. "Prince Trask, we've come as beggars. We're begging help forour planet. "

"You've come as honored guests, and you'll get all the help we cangive you. " He blessed the Xochitl invasion scare, and the big liewhich was rapidly ceasing to be a lie; Tanith had the ships andmen and the will to act. "What happened? Makann deposed the Kingand took over?"

It came to that, Bentrik told him. It had started even before theelection. The People's Watchmen had possessed weapons that had beenmade openly and legally on Marduk for trade to the Neobarbarianplanets and then clandestinely diverted to secret People's Welfarearsenals. Some of the police had gone over to Makann; the rest hadbeen terrorized into inaction. There had been riots fomented inworking-class districts of all the cities as pretexts for furtherterrorization. The election had been a farce of bribery andintimidation. Even so, Makann's party had failed of a completemajority in the Chamber of Representatives, and had been compelledto patch up a shady coalition in order to elect a favorable Chamberof Delegates. 

"And, of course, they elected Makann Chancellor; that did it, "Bentrik said. "All the opposition leaders in the Chamber ofRepresentatives have been arrested, on all kinds of ridiculouscharges--sex-crimes, receiving bribes, being in the pay of foreignpowers, nothing too absurd. Then they rammed through a lawempowering the Chancellor to fill vacancies in the Chamber ofRepresentatives by appointment. "

"Why did the Crown Prince lend himself to a thing like that?"

"He hoped that he could exercise some control. The Royal Familyis an almost holy symbol to the people. Even Makann was forcedto pretend loyalty to the King and the Crown Prince. .. . "

"It didn't work; he played right into Makann's hands. What happened?"

The Crown Prince had been assassinated. The assassin, an unknown manbelieved to be a Gilgamesher, had been shot to death by People'sWatchmen guarding Prince Edvard at once. Immediately Makann hadseized the Royal Palace to protect the King, and immediately therehad been massacres by People's Watchmen everywhere. The MardukanPlanetary Army had ceased to exist; Makann's story was that therehad been a military plot against the King and the government. Scattered over the planet in small detachments, the army had beenwiped out in two nights and a day. Now Makann was recruiting it upagain, exclusively from the People's Welfare Party. 

"You weren't just sitting on your hands, were you?"

"Oh, no, " Bentrik replied. "I was doing something I wouldn't havethought myself capable of, a few years ago. Organizing a mutineeringconspiracy in the Royal Mardukan Navy. After Admiral Shefter wasforcibly retired and shut up in an insane asylum, I disappearedand turned into a civilian contragravity-lifter operator at theMalverton Navy Yard. Finally, when I was suspected, one of theofficers--he was arrested and tortured to death later--managedto smuggle me onto a lighter for the Moonbase. I was an orderlyin the hospital there. The day the Crown Prince was murdered, wehad a mutiny of our own. We killed everybody we even suspected ofbeing a Makannist. The Moonbase has been under attack from theplanet ever since. "

There was a stir behind him; turning, he saw Princess Bentrik andthe boy enter the room. He rose. 

"We'll talk about this later. There are some people here. .. . "

He motioned them forward and turned away, shoo-ing everybody elseout of the room. 

 * * * * *

The news was all over Rivington, and then all over Tanith, whilethe pinnace was still coming down. There was a crowd at thespaceport, staring as the little craft, with its blazon of thecrowned and planet-throned dragon, settled onto its landing legs, and reporters of the Tanith News Service with their screen pickups. He met Prince Bentrik, a little in advance of the others, andmanaged to whisper to him hastily:

"While you're talking to anybody here, always remember that AndrayDunnan is working with Zaspar Makann, and as soon as Makannconsolidates his position he's sending an expedition againstTanith. "

"How in blazes did you find that out, here?" Bentrik demanded. "From the Gilgameshers?"

Then Harkaman and Rathmore and Valkanhayn and Lothar Ffayle andthe others were crowding up behind, and more people were coming offthe pinnace, and Prince Bentrik was trying to embrace both his wifeand his son at the same time. 

"Prince Trask. " He started at the voice, and was looking into deepblue eyes under coal-black hair. His pulse gave a sudden jump, andhe said, "Valerie!" and then, "Lady Alvarath; I'm most happy to seeyou here. " Then he saw who was beside her, and squatted on his heelsto bring himself down to a convenient size. "And Princess Myrna. Welcome to Tanith, Your Highness!"

The child flung her arms around his neck. "Oh, Prince Lucas! I'm soglad to see you. There's been such awful things happened!"

"There won't be anything awful happen here, Princess Myrna. You areamong friends; friends with whom you have a treaty. Remember?"

The child began to cry, bitterly. "That was when I was just aplay-Queen. And now I know what they meant when they talked aboutwhen Grandpa and Pappa would be through being King. Pappa didn'teven get to be King!"

Something big and warm and soft was trying to push between them;a dog with long blond hair and floppy ears. In a year and a half, puppies can grow surprisingly. Mopsy was trying to lick his face. He took the dog by the collar and straightened. 

"Lady Valerie, will you come with us?" he asked. "I'm going to findquarters for Princess Myrna. "

 * * * * *

"Is it Princess Myrna, or is it Queen Myrna?" he asked. 

Prince Bentrik shook his head. "We don't know. The King was alivewhen we left Moonbase, but that was five hundred hours ago. We don'tknow anything about her mother, either. She was at the Palace whenPrince Edvard was murdered; we've heard absolutely nothing abouther. The King made a few screen appearances, parroting things Makannwanted him to say. Under hypnosis. That was probably the very leastof what they did to him. They've turned him into a zombi. "

"Well, how did Myrna get to Moonbase?"

"That was Lady Valerie, as much as anybody else. She and Sir ThomasKobbly, and Captain Rainer. They armed the servants at Cragdale withhunting rifles and everything else they could scrape up, capturedPrince Edvard's space-yacht, and took off in her. Took a couple ofhits from ground batteries getting off, and from ships aroundMoonbase getting in. Ships of the Royal Mardukan Navy!" he addedfuriously. 

The pinnace in which they had made the trip to Tanith had takena few hits, too, running the blockade. Not many; her captain hadthrown her into hyperspace almost at once. 

"They sent the yacht off to Gimli, " Bentrik said. "From there, they'll try to rally as many of the Royal Navy units as haven't goneover to Makann. They're to assemble on Gimli and await my return. If I don't return in fifteen hundred hours from the time I leftMoonbase, they're to use their own judgment. I'd expect thatthey'd move in on Marduk and attack. "

"That's sixty-odd days, " Otto Harkaman said. "That's an awfully longtime to expect that lunar base to hold out, against a whole planet. "

"It's a strong base. It was built four hundred years ago, whenMarduk was fighting a combination of six other planets. It held outagainst continuous attack, once, for almost a year. It's beenconstantly strengthened ever since. "

"And what have they to throw at it?" Harkaman persisted. 

"When I left, six ships of the former Royal Navy, that had goneover to Makann. Four fifteen-hundred-footers, same class as the_Victrix_, and two thousand-footers. Then, there were four ofAndray Dunnan's ships--"

"You mean, he really is on Marduk?"

"I thought you knew that, and I was wondering how you'd found out. Yes: _Fortuna_, _Bolide_, and two armed merchantmen, a Baldurbuiltship called the _Reliable_, and your friend _Honest Horris_. "

"You didn't really believe Dunnan was on Marduk?" Boake Valkanhaynasked. 

"Actually, I didn't. I had to have some kind of a story, to talkthose people out of that crusade against Omfray of Glaspyth. " Heleft unmentioned Valkanhayn's own insistence on a plunderingexpedition against Xochitl. "Now that it turns out to be true, I'm not surprised. We decided, long ago, that Dunnan was planningto raid Marduk. It appears that we underestimated him. Maybe hewas reading about Hitler, too. He wasn't planning any raid; hewas planning conquest, in the only way a great civilization canbe conquered--by subversion. "

"Yes, " Harkaman put in. "Five years ago, when Dunnan started thisprogramme, who was this Makann, anyhow?"

"Nobody, " Bentrik said. "A crackpot agitator in Drepplin; he hada coven of fellow-crackpots, who met in the back room of a saloonand had their office in a cigar box. The next year, he had a suiteof offices and was buying time on a couple of telecasts. The yearafter that, he had three telecast stations of his own, andwas holding rallies and meetings of thousands of people. Andso on, upward. "

"Yes. Dunnan financed him, and moved in behind him, the same wayMakann moved in behind the King. And Dunnan will have him shotthe way he had Prince Edvard shot, and use the murder as a pretextto liquidate his personal followers. "

"And then he'll own Marduk. And we'll have the Mardukan navy comingout of hyperspace on Tanith, " Valkanhayn added. "So we go to Mardukand smash him now, while he's still little enough to smash. "

There had been a few who had wanted to do that about Hitler, anda great many, later, who had regretted that it hadn't been done. 

"The _Nemesis_, the _Corisande_, and the _Space Scourge_ for sure?"he asked. 

Harkaman and Valkanhayn agreed; Valkanhayn thought the _Viking'sGift_ of Beowulf would go along, and Harkaman was almost sure ofthe _Black Star_ and _Queen Flavia_. He turned to Bentrik. 

"Start that pinnace off for Gimli at once; within the hour ifpossible. We don't know how many ships will be gathered there, but we don't want them wasted in detail-attacks. Tell whoever'sin command there that ships from Tanith are on the way, and towait for them. "

Fifteen hundred hours, less the five hundred Bentrik was in spacefrom Marduk. He hadn't time to estimate voyage-time to Gimli fromthe other Mardukan trade-planets, and nobody could estimate how manyships would respond. 

"It may take us a little time to get an effective fleet together. Even after we get through arguing about it. Argument, " he toldBentrik, "is not exclusively a feature of democracies. "

 * * * * *

Actually, there was very little argument, and most of that amongthe Mardukans. Prince Bentrik insisted that Crown Princess Myrnawould have to be taken along; King Mikhyl would be either dead orbrainwashed into imbecility by now, and they would have to havesomebody to take the throne. Lady Valerie Alvarath, Sir ThomasKobbly, the tutor, and the nurse Margot refused to be separatedfrom her. Prince Bentrik was equally firm, with less success, onleaving his wife and son on Tanith. In the end, it was agreed thatthe entire Mardukan party would space out on the _Nemesis_. 

The leader of the Bigglersport delegation attempted an impassionedtirade about going to the aid of strangers while their own planetwas being enslaved. He was booed down by everybody else and informedthat Tanith was being defended where a planet ought to be, onsomebody else's real estate. When the Bigglersporters emergedfrom the meeting, they found that their own space-yacht had beencommandeered and sent off to Amaterasu and Beowulf for assistance, that the regiment of local infantry they had enlisted from the Kingof Tradetown had been taken over by the Rivington authorities, andthat the Gilgamesh freighter they had chartered to transport themto Gram would now take them to Marduk. 

The problem broke into two halves: the purely naval action thatwould be fought to relieve the Moon of Marduk, if it still held out, and to destroy the Dunnan and Makann ships, and the ground-fightingproblem of wiping out Makann's supporters and restoring the Mardukanmonarchy. A great many of the people of Marduk would be glad ofa chance to turn on Makann, once they had arms and were properlysupported. Combat weapons were almost unknown among the people, however, and even sporting arms uncommon. All the small arms andlight artillery and auto-weapons available were gathered up. 

The _Grendelsbane_ came in from Beowulf, and the _Sun Goddess_ fromAmaterasu. Three independent Space Viking ships were still in orbiton Tanith; they joined the expedition. There would be trouble withthem on Marduk; they'd want to loot. Let the Mardukans worry aboutthat. They could charge it off as part of the price for lettingZaspar Makann get into power in the first place. 

 * * * * *

There were twelve spacecraft in line outside the Moon of Tanith, counting the three independents and the forcibly charteredGilgamesher troop-transport; that was the biggest fleet SpaceVikings had ever assembled in their history. Alvyn Karffard saidas much while they were checking the formation by screen. 

"It isn't a Space Viking fleet, " Prince Bentrik differed. "Thereare only three Space Vikings in it. The rest are the ships of threecivilized planets. Tanith, Beowulf and Amaterasu. "

Karffard was surprised. "You mean _we're_ civilized planets? LikeMarduk, or Baldur or Odin, or. .. ?"

"Well, aren't you?"

Trask smiled. He'd begun to suspect something of the sort a coupleof years ago. He hadn't really been sure until now. His most juniorstaff officer, Count Steven of Ravary, didn't seem to appreciatethe compliment. 

"We _are_ Space Vikings!" he insisted. "And we are going to battlewith the Neobarbarians of Zaspar Makann. "

"Well, I won't argue the last half of it, Steven, " his father told him. 

"Are you people done yakking about who's civilized and who isn't?"Guatt Kirbey asked. "Then give the signal. All the other ships areready to jump. "

Trask pressed the button on the desk in front of him. A light wenton over Kirbey's control panel as one would on each of the otherships. He said, "Jumping, " around the stem of his pipe, and twistedthe red handle and shoved it in. 

 * * * * *

[Illustration]

Four hundred and fifty hours, in the private universe that was the_Nemesis_; outside, nothing else existed, and inside there wasnothing to do but wait, as each hour carried them six trillion milesnearer to Gimli. At first, the ruthless and terrible Space Viking, Steven, Count of Ravary, was wildly excited, but before long hefound that, there was nothing exciting going on; it was just aspaceship, and he'd been on ships before. Her Highness the CrownPrincess, or maybe her Majesty the Queen of Marduk, stopped beingexcited about the same time, and she and Steven and Mopsy playedtogether. Of course, Myrna was only a girl, and two years youngerthan Steven, but she was, or at least might be, his sovereign, andbeside, she had been in a space action, if you call what liesbetween a planet and its satellite space and if you call being shotat without being able to shoot back an action, and RelentlessRavary, the Interstellar Terror, had not. This rather made upfor being a girl and a mere baby of going-on-ten. 

One thing, there were no lessons. Sir Thomas Kobbly fancied himselfas a landscape-painter and spent most of his time arguing techniqueswith Vann Larch, and Steven's tutor, Captain Rainer was a normal-spaceastrogator and found a kindred spirit in Sharll Renner. This leftLady Valerie Alvarath at a loose end. There were plenty of volunteersto help her fill in the time, but Rank Hath Its Privileges; Traskundertook to see to it that she did not suffer excessively fromshipboard ennui. 

Sharll Renner and Captain Rainer approached him, during the cocktailhour before dinner, some hundred hours short of emergence. 

"We think we've figured out where Dunnan's base is, " Renner said. 

"Oh, good!" Everybody else had, on a different planet. "Where's yours?"

"Abaddon, " the Count of Ravary's tutor said. When he saw that thename meant nothing to Trask, he added, "The ninth, outer, planet ofthe Marduk system. " He said it disgustedly. 

"Yes; remember how you had Boake and Manfred out with their ships, checking our outside planets to see if Prince Viktor might be hidingon one of them? Well, what with the time element, and the way the_Honest Horris_ was shuttling back and forth from Marduk to someplace that wasn't Gimli, and the way Dunnan was able to bring hisships in as soon as the shooting started on Marduk, we thought hemust be on an uninhabited outer planet of the Marduk system. "

"I don't know why we never thought of that, ourselves, " Rainer putin. "I suppose because nobody ever thinks of Abaddon for any reason. It's only a small planet, about four thousand miles in diameter, andit's three and a half billion miles from primary. It's frozen solid. It would take almost a year to get to it on Abbot drive, and if yourship has Dillinghams, why not take a little longer and go to a goodplanet? So nobody bothered with Abaddon. "

But for Dunnan's purpose, it would be perfect. He called PrinceBentrik and Alvyn Karffard to him; they found the idea instantlyconvincing. They talked about it through dinner, and held a generaldiscussion afterward. Even Guatt Kirbey, the ship's pessimist, couldfind no objection to it. Trask and Bentrik began at once makingbattle plans. Karffard wondered if they hadn't better wait till theygot to Gimli and discuss it with the others. 

"No, " Trask told him. "This is the flagship; here's where thestrategy is decided. "

"Well, how about the Mardukan Navy?" Captain Rainer asked. "I thinkFleet Admiral Bargham's in command at Gimli. "

Prince Simon Bentrik was silent for a moment, as though he realized, with reluctance, that the big decision was no longer avoidable. 

"He may be, at present, but he won't be when I get there. I will be. "

"But . .. Your Highness, he's a fleet admiral; you're just acommodore. "

"I am not just a commodore. The King is a prisoner, and for all weknow dead. The Crown Prince is dead. The Princess Myrna is a child. I am assuming the position of Regent and Prince-Protector of the Realm. "

XXVI

There was a little difficulty on Gimli with Fleet Admiral Bargham. Commodores didn't give orders to fleet admirals. Well, maybe regentsdid, but who gave Prince Bentrik authority to call himself regent?Regents were elected by the Chamber of Delegates, on nomination ofthe Chancellor. 

"That's Zaspar Makann and his stooges you're talking about?" Bentriklaughed. 

"Well, the Constitution. .. . " He thought better of that, beforesomebody asked him what Constitution. "Well, a Regent has to bechosen by election. Even members of the Royal Family can't justmake themselves Regent by saying they are. "

"I can. I just have. And I don't think there are going to be manymore elections, at least for the present. Not till we make sure thepeople of Marduk can be trusted with the control of the government. "

"Well, the pinnace from Moonbase reported that there were six Royalnavy battleships and four other craft attacking them, " Barghamobjected. "I only have four ships here; I sent for the ones on theother trade-planets, but I haven't heard from any of them. We can'tgo there with only four ships. "

"Sixteen ships, " Bentrik corrected. "No, fifteen and one Gilgamesherwe're using for a troopship. I think that's enough. You'll remainhere on Gimli, in any case, admiral; as soon as the other ships comein, you'll follow to Marduk with them. I am now holding a meetingaboard the Tanith flagship _Nemesis_. I want your four ship-commandersaboard immediately. I am not including you because you're remaininghere to bring up the late comers and as soon as this meeting is overwe are spacing out. "

Actually, they spaced out sooner; the meeting lasted the whole threehundred and fifty hours to Abaddon. A ship's captain, if he has agood exec, as all of them had, needs only sit at his command-deskand look important while the ship is going into and emerging froma long jump; the rest of the time he can study ancient history orwhatever his shipboard hobby is. Rather than waste three hundred andfifty hours of precious time, each captain turned his ship over tohis exec and remained aboard the _Nemesis_; even on so spacious acraft the officers' country north of the engine rooms was crowdedlike a tourist hotel in mid-season. One of the four Mardukans wasthe Captain Garravay who had smuggled Bentrik's wife and son offMarduk, and the other three were just as pro-Bentrik, pro-Tanith, and anti-Makann. They were, on general principles, also anti-Bargham. There must be something wrong with any fleet admiral who remainedin his command after Zaspar Makann came to power. 

So, as soon as they spaced out, there was a party. After that, they settled down to planning the Battle of Abaddon. 

 * * * * *

There was no Battle of Abaddon. 

It was a dead planet, one side in night and the other in dimtwilight from the little speck of a sun three and a half billionmiles away, jagged mountains rising out of the snow that covered itfrom pole to pole. The snow on top would be frozen CO_2; accordingto the thermocouples, the surface temperature was well belowminus-100 Centigrade. No ships on orbit circled it; there wasa little faint radiation, which could have been from naturallyradioactive minerals; there was no electrical discharge detectable. 

There was considerable bad language in the command room of the_Nemesis_. The captains of the other ships were screening in, wanting to know what to do. 

"Go on in, " Trask told them. "Englobe the planet, and go down towithin a mile if necessary. They could be hiding somewhere on it. "

"Well, they're not hiding at the bottom of any ocean, that's forsure, " somebody said. It was one of those feeble jokes at whicheverybody laughs because nothing else is laughable about thesituation. 

Finally, they found it, at the north pole, which was no colder thananywhere else on the planet. First radiation leakage, the sort thatwould come from a closed-down nuclear power plant. Then a modicum ofelectrical discharge. Finally the telescopic screens picked up thespaceport, a huge oval amphitheater excavated out of a valleybetween two jagged mountain ranges. 

The language in the command room was just as bad, but the tone hadchanged. It was surprising what a wide range of emotions could beexpressed by a few simple blasphemies and obscenities. Everybodywho had been deriding Sharll Renner were now acclaiming him. 

But it was lifeless. The ships came crowding in; air-lockedlanding-craft full of space-armored ground-fighters went down. Screens in the command room lit as they transmitted in views. Depressions in the carbon-dioxide snow where the hundred-footpad-feet of ships' landing-legs had pressed down. Ranks ofcargo-lighters that had plied to and from other ships or orbit. And, all around the cliff-walled perimeter, air-locked doors tocaverns and tunnels. A great many men, with a great deal of equipment, had been working here in the estimated five or six years sinceAndray Dunnan--or somebody--had constructed this base. 

Andray Dunnan. They found his badge, the crescent, blue on black, onthings. They found equipment that Harkaman recognized as having beenpart of the original cargo stolen with the _Enterprise_. They evenfound, in his living quarters, a blown-up photoprint picture ofNevil Ormm, draped in black. But what they did not find was a singlevehicle small enough to be taken aboard a ship, or a single scrap ofcombat equipment, not even a pistol or a hand grenade. 

Dunnan had gone, but they knew whither, and where to find him. The conquest of Marduk had moved into its final phase. 

 * * * * *

Marduk was on the other side of the sun from Abaddon withninety-five million miles--close, but not inconveniently so, Traskthought--to spare. Guatt Kirbey and the Mardukan astrogator who washelping him made it within a light-minute. The Mardukan thought thatwas fine; Kirbey didn't. The last microjump was aimed at the Moon ofMarduk, which was plainly visible in the telescopic screen. Theycame out within a light-second and a half, which Kirbey admitted wasreasonably close. As soon as the screens cleared, they saw that theyweren't too late. The Moon of Marduk was under fire and firing back. 

They'd have detection, and he knew what they were detecting--a clumpof sixteen rending distortions of the fabric of space-time, assixteen ships came into sudden existence in the normal continuum. Beside him, Bentrik had a screen on; it was still milky-white, and he was speaking into a radio hand-phone. 

"Simon Bentrik, Prince-Protector of Marduk, calling Moonbase. "Then, slowly, he repeated his screen-combination twice. "Come in, Moonbase; this is Simon Bentrik, Prince-Protector, speaking. "

He waited ten seconds, and was about to start again, when the screenflickered. The man who appeared in it wore the insignia of aMardukan navy commodore. He needed a shave, but he was grinninghappily. Bentrik greeted him by name. 

"Hello, Simon; glad to see you. Your Highness, I mean; what is thisPrince-Protector thing?"

"Somebody had to do it. Is the King still alive?"

The grin slid off the commodore's face, starting with his eyes. 

"We don't know. At first, Makann had him speaking by screen--youknow what it was like--urging everybody to obey and co-operatewith 'our trusted Chancellor. ' Makann always appeared on the screenwith him. "

Bentrik nodded. "I remember. "

"Before you left, Makann kept quiet, and let the King make thespeech. After a while, the King wasn't able to speak coherently;he'd stammer, and repeat. So then Makann did all the talking; theycouldn't even depend on him to parrot what they were giving him withan earplug phone. Then he stopped appearing entirely. I supposethere were physical symptoms they couldn't allow to be seen. "Bentrik was cursing horribly under his breath; the officerat Moonbase nodded. "I hope for his sake that he is dead. "

Poor Goodman Mikhyl. Bentrik was saying, "So do I. " Trask agreed, mentally. The commodore at Moonbase was still talking:

"We got two more renegade RMN ships, within a hundred hours afteryou left. " He named them. "And we got one of the Dunnan ships, the_Fortuna_. We blew out the Malverton Navy Yard. They're still usingthe Antarctic Naval Base, but we've knocked out a good deal of that. We got the _Honest Horris_. They made two attempts to land on us andlost a couple of ships. Eight hundred hours ago, they were joined bythe rest of Dunnan's fleet, five ships. They made a landing onMalverton while it was turned away from us. Makann announced thatthey were RMN units from the trade-planets that had joined him. Isuppose the planet-side public swallowed that. He also announced thattheir commander, Admiral Dunnan, was in command of the People'sArmed Forces. "

Dunnan's ground-fighters would be in control of Malverton. By now, the odds were that Makann was as much his prisoner as King MikhylVIII had been Makann's. 

"So Dunnan has conquered Marduk. All he has to do, now, is make itstick, " he said. "I see four ships off Moonbase; how many more havethey?"

"These are _Bolide_ and _Eclipse_, Dunnan's ships, and former RoyalMardukan Navy ships _Champion_ and _Guardian_. There are fiveorbiting off the planet: Ex-RMNS _Paladin_, and Dunnan ships_Starhopper_, _Banshee_, _Reliable_ and _Exporter_. The lasttwo are listed as merchantmen, but they're performing likeregulation battlecraft. "

The four that had been circling Moonbase broke orbit and startedtoward the relieving fleet; one took a hit from a Moonbase missile, which staggered her but did no evident damage. Two ships which hadbeen orbiting the planet also changed course and started out. Thecommand room was silent except for a subdued chuckling from acomputer which was estimating enemy intentions by observed data andGames Theory. Three more came hurrying out from the planet, and thetwo in the lead slowed to let them catch up. He wanted to be ableto engage the four from off the satellite before the five from theplanet joined them, but Karffard's computers said it couldn't be done. 

"All right, we have to take all our bad eggs in one basket, " hesaid. "Try to hit them as soon after they join as possible. "

 * * * * *

The computers began chuckling again. The serving-robots were doinga rush business in hot coffee. Prince Bentrik's son, sitting besidehis father, had stopped being Ruthless Ravary the Demon of theSpaceways and was a very young officer going into his first spacebattle, more scared and at the same time happier than he had everbeen in his short life. Captain Garravay of the _Vindex_ was makingsignal to the other ships from Gimli: "_Royal Navy; smash thetraitors first!_" He could understand and sympathize, even ifhe couldn't approve of putting personal ahead of tacticalconsiderations, and made a quick sealed-beam call to Harkaman to beprepared to plug any holes they left in formation if they broke awayin search of vengeance. He also ordered the _Black Star_ and the_Sun Goddess_ to shepherd the lightly armed and troop-crammedGilgamesh freighter out of danger. The two clumps of Dunnan-Makannships were converging rapidly, and Alvyn Karffard was screaming intoa phone to somebody to get more speed. 

At a thousand miles, the missiles started going out, and the twogroups of ships, four and five, were equidistant from each other andfrom the allied fleet, at the points of a triangle that was growingsmaller by the second. The first fire-globes of intercepted missilesspread from their seeds of brief white light. A red light flashed onthe damage-board. An enemy ship took a hit. The captain of the_Queen Flavia_ was on a screen, saying that his ship was heavilydamaged. Three ships bearing the Mardukan dragon-and-planet circledmadly around each other at what looked, in the screen, like justover pistol-range, two of them firing into the third, which wasreplying desperately. The third one blew up, and somebody wasyelling out of a screenspeaker, "Scratch one traitor!"

Another ship blew up somewhere, and then another. He heard somebodysay, "There went one of ours, " and wondered which one it was. Notthe _Corisande_, he hoped; no, it wasn't, he could see her rushingafter two other ships which were, in turn, speeding toward the_Black Star_, the _Sun Goddess_ and the Gilgamesh freighter. Thenthe _Nemesis_ and the _Starhopper_ were within gun-range, poundingeach other savagely. 

The battle had tied itself into a ball of gyrating, fire-spittingships that went rolling toward the planet, which was swinging in andout of the main viewscreen and growing rapidly larger. By the timethey were down to the inner edge of the exosphere, the ball hadstarted to unwind, ship after ship dropping out of it and goinginto orbit, some badly damaged and some going to attack damagedenemies. Some of them were completely around the planet, hiddenby it. He saw three ships approaching _Corisande_, _Sun Goddess_, and the Gilgamesher. He got Harkaman on the screen. 

"Where's the _Black Star_?" he asked. 

"Gone to Em-See-Square, " Harkaman replied. "We got the twoDunnan-Makanns. _Bolide_ and _Reliable_. "

Then young Steven of Ravary, who had been monitoring one of theintership screens, had a call from Captain Gompertz of the_Grendelsbane_, and at the same moment somebody else was yelling, "Here comes the _Starhopper_ again!"

"Tell him to wait a moment; we have troubles, " he said. 

_Nemesis_ and _Starhopper_ sledge-hammered each other and parriedwith counter-missiles, and then, quite unexpectedly, the_Starhopper_ went to Em-See-Square. 

There was an awful lot of Em being converted to Ee off Marduk, today. Including Manfred Ravallo; that grieved him. Manfred wasa good man, and a good friend. He had a girl in Rivington. .. . Nifflheim, there were eight hundred good men aboard the _BlackStar_, and most of them had girls who'd wait in vain for them onTanith. Well, what had Otto Harkaman said, so long ago, on Gram?Something about old age not being a usual cause of death amongSpace Vikings, wasn't it?

Then he remembered that Gompertz of the _Grendelsbane_ was tryingto get him. He told young Count Steven to switch him over. 

"We just lost one of our Mardukans, " Gompertz told him, in hisstaccato Beowulf accent. "I think she was the _Challenger_. The shipthat got her looks like the _Banshee_; I'm turning to engage her. "

"Which way; west around the planet? Be right with you, captain. "

XXVII

It was like finishing a word puzzle. You sit staring at it, lookingfor more spaces to print letters into, and suddenly you realizethat there are no more, that the puzzle is done. That was how thespace-battle of Marduk, the Battle _off_ Marduk, ended. Suddenlythere were no more colored fire-globes opening and fading, no moremissiles coming, no more enemy ships to throw missiles at. Now itwas time to take a count of his own ships, and then begin thinkingabout the Battle _on_ Marduk. 

The _Black Star_ was gone. So was RMNS _Challenger_, and RMNS_Conquistador_. _Space Scourge_ was badly hammered; worse than afterthe Beowulf raid, Boake Valkanhayn said. The _Viking's Gift_ washeavily damaged, too, and so was the _Corisande_, and so, from thelooks of the damage board, was the _Nemesis_. And three ships weremissing--the three independent Space Vikings, _Harpy_, _Curse ofCagn_, and Roger-fan-Morvill Esthersan's _Damnthing_. 

Prince Bentrik frowned over that. "I can't think that all threeof those ships would have been destroyed, without anybody seeingit happen. "

"Neither can I. But I can think that all those ships broke out ofthe battle together and headed in for the planet. They didn't comehere to help liberate Marduk, they came here to fill their cargoholds. I only hope the people they're robbing all voted the Makannticket in the last election. " A crumb of comfort occurred to him, and he passed it on. "The only people who are armed to resist themwill be Makann's storm-troops and Dunnan's pirates; they'll be theones to get killed. "

"We don't want any more killing than. .. . " Prince Simon broke offsuddenly. "I'm beginning to talk like his late Highness Crown PrinceEdvard, " he said. "He didn't want bloodshed, either, and look whoseblood was shed. If they're doing what you think they are, I'm afraidwe'll have to kill a few of your Space Vikings, too. "

"They aren't my Space Vikings. " He was a little surprised to findthat, after almost eight years of bearing the name himself, he wasusing it as an other-people label. Well, why not? He was the rulerof the civilized planet of Tanith, wasn't he? "But let's not startfighting them till the main war's over. Those three shiploads areno worse than a bad cold; Makann and Dunnan are the plague. "

It would still take four hours to get down, in a spiral ofdeceleration. They started the telecasts which had been filmed andtaped on the voyage from Gimli. The Prince-Protector Simon Bentrikspoke: The illegal rule of the traitor Makann was ended. His deludedfollowers were advised to return to their allegiance to the Crown. The People's Watchmen were ordered to surrender their arms anddisband; in localities where they refused, the loyal people werecalled upon to co-operate with the legitimate armed forces ofthe Crown in exterminating them, and would be furnished armsas soon as possible. 

Little Princess Myrna spoke: "If my grandfather is still alive, he is your King; if he is not, I am your Queen, and until I am oldenough to rule in my own right, I accept Prince Simon as Regentand Protector of the Realm, and I call on all of you to obey himas I will. "

"You didn't say anything about representative government, ordemocracy, or the constitution, " Trask mentioned. "And I noticedthe use of the word 'rule, ' instead of 'reign. '"

"That's right, " the self-proclaimed Prince-Protector said. "There'ssomething wrong with democracy. If there weren't, it couldn't beoverthrown by people like Makann, attacking it from within bydemocratic procedures. I don't think it's fundamentally unworkable. I think it just has a few of what engineers call bugs. It's notsafe to run a defective machine till you learn the defects andremedy them. "

"Well, I hope you don't think our Sword-World feudalism doesn't havebugs. " He gave examples, and then quoted Otto Harkaman about barbarismspreading downward from the top instead of upward from the bottom. 

"It may just be, " he added, "that there is something fundamentallyunworkable about government itself. As long as _Homo sapiens terra_is a wild animal, which he has always been and always will be untilhe evolves into something different in a million or so years, maybea workable system of government is a political science impossibility, just as transmutation of elements was a physical-science impossibilityas long as they tried to do it by chemical means. "

[Illustration]

"Then we'll just have to make it work the best way we can, and whenit breaks down, hope the next try will work a little better, for alittle longer, " Bentrik said. 

 * * * * *

Malverton grew in the telescopic screens as they came down. The NavySpaceport, where Trask had landed almost two years before, was inwreckage, sprinkled with damaged ships that had been blasted on theground, and slagged by thermonuclear fires. There was fighting inthe air all over the city proper, on building-tops, on the ground, and in the air. That would be the _Damnthing_-_Harpy_-_Curse ofCagn_ Space Vikings. The Royal Palace was the center of one ofhalf a dozen swirls of battle that had condensed out of thegeneral skirmishing. 

Paytrik Morland started for it with the first wave ofground-fighters from the _Nemesis_. The Gilgamesh freighter, likemost of her ilk, had huge cargo ports all around; these beganopening and disgorging a swarm of everything from landing-craftand hundred-foot airboats to one man air-cavalry single-mounts. The top landing-stages and terraces of the palace were almostobscured by the flashes of auto-cannon shells and the smoke anddust of projectiles. Then the first vehicles landed, the firingfrom the air stopped, and men fanned out as skirmishers, occasionally firing with small arms. 

Trask and Bentrik were in the armory off the vehicle-bay, putting oncombat equipment, when the twelve-year-old Count of Ravary joinedthem and began rummaging for weapons and a helmet. 

"You're not going, " his father told him. "I'll have enough to worryabout taking care of myself. .. . "

That was the wrong approach. Trask interrupted:

"You're to stay aboard, Count, " he said. "As soon as thingsstabilize, Princess Myrna will have to come down. You'll act asher personal escort. And don't think you're being shoved into thebackground. She's Crown Princess, and if she isn't Queen now, shewill be in a few years. Escorting her now will be the foundation ofyour naval career. There isn't a young officer in the Royal Navy whowouldn't trade places with you. "

"That was the right way to handle him, Lucas, " Bentrik approved, after the boy had gone away, proud of his opportunity and hisresponsibility. 

"It'll do just what I said for him. " He stopped for a moment, toplay with an idea that had just struck him. "You know, the girl willbe Queen in a few years, if she isn't now. Queens need PrinceConsorts. Your son's a good boy; I liked him the first moment I sawhim, and I've liked him better ever since. He'd be a good man onthe throne beside Queen Myrna. "

"Oh, that's out of the question. Not the matter of consanguinity, they're about a sixteenth cousin. But people would say I was abusingthe Protectorship to marry my son onto the Throne. "

"Simon, speaking as one sovereign prince to another, you have a lotto learn. You've learned one important lesson already, that a rulermust be willing to use force and shed blood to enforce his rule. Youhave to learn, too, that a ruler cannot afford to be guided by hisfears of what people will say about him. Not even what history willsay about him. A ruler's only judge is himself. "

Bentrik slid the transpex visor of his helmet up and downexperimentally, checked the chambers of his pistol and carbine. 

"All that matters to me is the peace and well-being of Marduk. I'llhave to talk it over with . .. With my only judge. Well, let's go. "

 * * * * *

The top terraces were secure when their car landed. More vehicleswere coming down and discharging men; a swarm of landing craft weresinking past the building toward the ground two thousand feet below. Auto-weapons and small arms and light cannon banged, and bombs andrecoilless-rifle shells crashed, on the lower terraces. They put thecar down one of the shaftways until they ran into heavy fire frombelow, at the limit of the advance, and then turned into a broadhallway, floating high enough to clear the heads of the men on foot. It looked like the part of the Palace where he had lodged when hehad been a guest there but it probably wasn't. 

They came to hastily constructed barricades of furniture andstatuary and furnishings, behind which Makann's People's Watchmenand Andray Dunnan's Space Vikings were making resistance. Theyentered rooms dusty with powdered plaster and acrid with powderfumes, littered with corpses. They passed lifter-skids being towedout with wounded. They went through rooms crowded with their ownmen--"_Keep your fingers off things; this isn't a lootingexpedition!_" "_You stupid cretin, how did you know there wasn't aman hiding behind that?_" In one huge room, ballroom or concert roomor something, there were prisoners herded, and men from the_Nemesis_ were setting up polyencephalographic veridicators, sturdychairs with wires and adjustable helmets and translucent globesmounted over them. A couple of Morland's men were hustling aPeople's Watchman to one and strapping him into a chair. 

"You know what this is, don't you?" one of them was saying. "This isa veridicator. That globe'll light blue; the moment you try to lieto us, it'll turn red. And the moment it turns red, I'm going tohammer your teeth down your throat with the butt of this pistol. "

"Have you found anything out about the King, yet?" Bentrik asked him. 

He turned. "No. Nobody we've questioned so far knows anything laterthan a month ago about him. He just disappeared. " He was going tosay something else, saw Bentrik's face, and changed his mind. 

"He's dead, " Bentrik said dully. "They tortured him and brainwashedhim and used him as a ventriloquist's dummy on the screen as long asthey could; when they couldn't let the people see him any more, they stuffed him into a converter. "

They did find Zaspar Makann, hours later. Maybe he could have toldthem something, if he had been alive, but he and a few of hisfanatical followers had barricaded themselves in the Throne room anddied trying to defend it. They found Makann on the Throne, the topof his head blown away, a pistol death-gripped in his hand, and theGreat Crown lying on the floor, the velvet inner cap bullet-piercedand splattered with blood and brain tissue. Prince Bentrik picked itup and looked at it disgustedly. 

"We'll have to have something done about that, " he said. "I reallydidn't think he'd do just this. I thought he wanted to abolish theThrone, not sit on it. "

Except for one chandelier smashed and several corpses that had to bedragged out, the Ministerial Council room was intact. They set upheadquarters there. Boake Valkanhayn and several other ship-captainsjoined them. There was fighting going on in several places insidethe Palace, and the city was still in a turmoil. Somebody managedto get in touch with the captains of the _Damnthing_, the _Harpy_and the _Curse of Cagn_ and bring them to the Palace. Trask attemptedto reason with them, to no avail. 

"Prince Trask, you're my friend, and you've always dealt fairly withme, " Roger-fan-Morvill Esthersan said. "But you know just how farany Space Viking captain can control his crew. These men didn't comehere to correct the political mistakes of Marduk. They came here forwhat they could haul away. I could get myself killed trying to stopthem now. .. . "

"I wouldn't even try, " the captain of the _Curse of Cagn_ put in. "I came here for what I could make out of this planet, myself. "

"You can try to stop them, " said the captain of the _Harpy_. "You'll find it even harder than what you're doing now. "

Trask looked at some of the reports that had come in from elsewhereon the planet. Harkaman had landed on one of the big cities to theeast, and the people had risen against Makann's local bosses andwere helping wipe out the People's Watchmen with arms they had beenfurnished. Valkanhayn's exec had landed on a large concentrationcamp where close to ten thousand of Makann's political enemies hadbeen penned; he had distributed all his available weapons and wascalling for more. Gompertz of the _Grendelsbane_ was at Drepplin;he reported just the reverse. The people there had risen in supportof the Makann regime, and he wanted authorization to use nuclearweapons against them. 

"Could you talk your people into going to some other city?" Traskasked. "We have a city for you; big industrial center. It ought tobe fine looting. Drepplin. "

"The people there are Mardukan subjects, too, " Bentrik began. Thenhe shrugged. "It's not what we'd like to do, it's what we have to. By all means, gentlemen. Take your men to Drepplin, and nobody willobject to anything you do. "

"And when you have that place looted out, try Abaddon. You wereaground there, Captain Esthersan. You know what all Dunnan left there. "

 * * * * *

A couple of Space Vikings--no, Royal Army of Tanith men--brought inthe old woman, dirty, in rags, almost exhausted. 

"She wants to talk to Prince Bentrik; won't talk to anybody else. Says she knows where the King is. "

Bentrik rose quickly, brought her to a chair, poured a glass of winefor her. 

"He's still alive, Your Highness. The Crown Princess Melanie and I. .. I'm sorry, Your Highness; Dowager Crown Princess . .. Have beentaking care of him, the best way we could. If you'll only comequickly. .. . "

Mikhyl VIII, Planetary King of Marduk, lay on a pallet of filthybedding on the floor of a narrow room behind a mass-energy converterwhich disposed of the rubbish and sewage and generated power forsome of the fixed equipment on one of the middle floors of the eastwing of the palace. There was a bucket of water, and on a roughwooden bench lay a cloth-wrapped bundle of food. A woman, haggardand disheveled, wearing a suit of greasy mechanic's coveralls andnothing else, squatted beside him. The Crown Princess Melanie, whomTrask remembered as the charming and gracious hostess of Cragdale. She tried to rise, and staggered. 

"Prince Bentrik! And it's Prince Trask of Tanith!" she cried. "Just hurry; get him out of here and to where he can be takencare of. Please. " Then she sat down again on the floor and fellover, unconscious. 

 * * * * *

They couldn't get the story. The Princess Melanie had collapsedcompletely. Her companion, another noblewoman of the court, couldonly ramble disconnectedly. And the King merely lay, bathed andfed in a clean bed, and looked up at them wonderingly, as thoughnothing he saw or heard conveyed any meaning to him. The doctorscould do nothing. 

"He has no mind, no more mind than a new-born baby. We can keep himalive, I don't know how long. That's our professional duty. But it'sno kindness to His Majesty. "

 * * * * *

The little pockets of resistance in the Palace were wiped out, through the next morning and afternoon. All but one, farunderground, below the main power plant. They tried sleep-gas; thedefenders had blowers and sent it back at them. They tried blasting;there was a limit to what the fabric of the building would stand. And nobody knew how long it would take to starve them out. 

On the third day, a man crawled out, pushing a white shirt tied tothe barrel of a carbine ahead of him. 

"Is Prince Lucas Trask of Tanith here?" he asked. "I won't speak toanybody else. "

They brought Trask quickly. All that was visible of the other manwas the carbine-barrel and the white shirt. When Trask called tohim, he raised his head above the rubble behind which he was hiding. 

"Prince Trask, we have Andray Dunnan here; he was leading us, butnow we've disarmed him and are holding him. If we turn him over toyou, will you let us go?"

"If you all come out unarmed, and bring Dunnan with you, I promiseyou, the rest of you will be let outside this building and allowedto go away unharmed. "

"All right. We'll be coming out in a minute. " The man raised hisvoice. "It's agreed!" he called. "Bring him out. "

There were fewer than two score of them. Some wore the uniforms ofhigh officers of the People's Watchmen or of People's Welfare Partyfunctionaries; a few wore the heavily braided short jackets of SpaceViking officers. Among them, they propelled a thin-faced man with apointed beard, and Trask had to look twice at him before herecognized the face of Andray Dunnan. It looked more like the faceof Duke Angus of Wardshaven as he last remembered it. Dunnan lookedat him in incurious contempt. 

"Your dotard king couldn't rule without Zaspar Makann, and Makanncouldn't rule without me, and neither can you, " he said. "Shoot thisgang of turncoats, and I'll rule Marduk for you. " He looked at Traskagain. "Who are you?" he demanded. "I don't know you. "

Trask slipped the pistol from his holster, thumbing off the safety. 

"I am Lucas Trask. You've heard that name before, " he said. "Standaway from behind him, you people. "

"Oh, yes; the poor fool who thought he was going to marry ElaineKarvall. Well, you won't, Lord Trask of Traskon. She loves me, notyou. She's waiting for me now, on Gram. .. . "

Trask shot him through the head. Dunnan's eyes widened in momentaryincredulity; then his knees gave way, and he fell forward on hisface. Trask thumbed on the safety and holstered the pistol, andlooked at the body on the concrete. 

It hadn't made the least difference. It had been like shooting asnake, or one of the nasty scorpion-things that infested the oldbuildings in Rivington. Just no more Andray Dunnan. 

"Take that carrion and stuff it in a mass-energy converter, " hesaid. "And I don't want anybody to mention the name of Andray Dunnanto me again. "

He didn't look at them haul Dunnan's body away on a lifter-skid;he watched the fifty-odd leaders of the overthrown misgovernmentof Marduk shamble away to freedom, guarded by Paytrik Morland'sriflemen. Now there was something to reproach himself for; he'dcommitted a separate and distinct crime against Marduk by lettingeach one of them live. Unless recognized and killed by somebodyoutside, every one of them would be at some villainy before nextsunrise. Well, King Simon I could cope with that. 

He started when he realized how he had thought of his friend. Well, why not? Mikhyl's mind was dead; his body would not survive it morethan a year. Then a child Queen, and a long regency, and longregencies were dangerous. Better a strong King, in name as well aspower. And the succession could be safeguarded by marrying Stevenand Myrna. Myrna had accepted, at eight, that she must some daymarry for reasons of state; why not her playmate Steven?

And Simon Bentrik would see the necessity. He was neither a fool nora moral coward; he only needed to take some time to adjust to ideas. The rabble who had bought their lives with their leader's had gone, now. Slowly, he followed them, thinking. 

Don't press the idea on Simon too hard; just expose him to it andlet him adopt it. And there would be the treaty--Tanith, Marduk, Beowulf, Amaterasu; eventually, treaties with the other civilizedplanets. Nebulously, the idea of a League of Civilized Worlds beganto take shape in his mind. 

Be a good idea if he adopted the title of King of Tanith forhimself. And cut loose from the Sword-Worlds; especially cut loosefrom Gram. Let Viktor of Xochitl have it. Or Garvan Spasso. Viktorwouldn't be the last Space Viking to take his ships back againstthe Sword-Worlds. Sooner or later, civilization in the Old Federationwould drive them all home to loot the planets that had sent them out. 

Well, if he was going to be a king, shouldn't he have a queen? Kingsusually did. He climbed into the little hall-car and started up along shaft. There was Valerie Alvarath. They'd enjoyed each other'ssociety on the _Nemesis_. He wondered if she would want to make itpermanent, even on a throne. .. . 

Elaine was with him. He felt her beside him, almost tangibly. Hervoice was whispering to him: _She loves you, Lucas. She'll say yes. Be good to her, and she'll make you happy. _ Then she was gone, andhe knew that she would never return. 

Good-by, Elaine. 

[Illustration: FIN]

Notes:Inconsistent hyphenation; the former forms were all changed to the latter: Space-Scourge (7) vs. Space Scourge (41) Sun-Goddess (3) vs. Sun Goddess (3)

 Jaganath (2) vs. Jagannath (4) Amaterasun (1) vs. Amaterasuan[s] (1) handphone (1) vs. Hand-phone (3) planetside (1) vs. Planet-side (1) slagpile (1) vs. Slag-pile (1) trade planets (3) vs. Trade-planets (10) two hand (1) vs. Two-hand (1) air cavalry (1) vs. Air-cavalry (2) smallarms (1) vs. Small arms (5)

Thinkos: Admiral of the Royal Mardukan Navy. " [Chap. XIV]was changed to Admiral of the Royal Navy of Gram. "

 one of the Gram-Marduk freighters, [Chap. XXIII]was changed to one of the Gram-Tanith freighters,