Classic Audiobook Collection - Space Viking by H. Beam Piper ~ Full Audiobook [scifi]

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

Space Viking by H. Beam Piper audiobook. Genre: scifi The war is over, and the worlds of the Phoenix Cluster are paying the price. Lucas Trask returns home to the planet Tanith to find his people broken by occupation and his wife dead. Refusing to accept a future of quiet ruin, he rallies Tanith's survivors into a hard-edged brotherhood of raiders - the so-called Space Vikings - and launches a campaign across the shattered interstellar frontier. But Trask's crusade is more than vengeance. As he strikes at former enemies and opportunistic rivals, he hunts for the resources, allies, and lost technology that could give Tanith a chance to rebuild in a galaxy where law is fragile and power belongs to whoever can take and hold it.Part military adventure, part political chess match, Space Viking follows Trask as he negotiates uneasy alliances, confronts the ethics of survival by force, and navigates a crumbling civilization still living off the relics of a brighter age. With starship battles, planetfall intrigue, and the constant tension between justice and conquest, Piper delivers a sweeping tale of leadership and the cost of forging a new order from the ashes of the old. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:35:22) Chapter 2 (01:19:38) Chapter 3 (02:13:29) Chapter 4 (02:56:47) Chapter 5 (03:41:21) Chapter 6 (04:33:56) Chapter 7 (05:31:04) Chapter 8 (06:29:16) Chapter 9 (07:13:59) Chapter 27 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Space Viking by H. Beam Piper. One. They stood together at the parapet, their arms about each other's waists, her head against his cheek. Behind the broad-leaved shrubbery gossiped softly with the wind, and from the lower main terrace came music and laughing voices. The city of Wardshaven spread in front of them, white buildings rising from the wide spaces of green treetops, under a shimmer of sun-reflecting. directing air cars above. Far away, the mountains were violet in the afternoon haze, and the huge red

sun hung in a sky as yellow as a ripe peach. His eye caught a twinkle ten miles to the southeast, and for an instant he was puzzled. Then he frowned. The sunlight on the two thousand-foot globe of Duke Angus' new ship, the Enterprise, back at the Gorham shipyards after her final trial crews. Instead, he pressed the girl closer and whispered her name, Elaine, and then, caressing every syllable, Lady Elaine Trask of Traskan. 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's ball, when you were just home, from school on Excalibur."

She looked up from the corner of her eye. That's when I started calling me that, too, she confessed. There's a terrace to the west at Traskin Newhouse, he told her. Tomorrow we'll have dinner there and watch the sunset together. I know. I thought that was to be our sunset watching place. You've been peaking, he accused. Traskin Newhouse was to be your surprise. I always was a present peaker, New Year's, and my birthdays, but I only saw it from the air.

I'll be very surprised at everything inside, she promised, and very delighted. And when she'd seen everything and Traskin Newhouse wasn't a surprise anymore, they'd take a long space trip. He hadn't mentioned that to her yet. To some of the other sword worlds, Excalibur, of course, and more Gron's. and Flamberge and Durendel. No, not Dorendel. The war had started there again.

But they'd have so much fun, and she would see clear blue skies again, and stars at night. The cloud veil hid the stars from Graham, and Delaide had missed them, since coming home from Excalibur. The shadow of an aircar fell briefly upon them, and they looked up and turned their heads,

in time to see it sink with graceful dignity toward the landing stage of Carvel House, and he glimpsed its blazonery, soared an atom symbol, the badge of the ducal house of Ward. He wondered if it were Duke Angus himself, or just some of his 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 she responded ardently. It must have been all of five minutes since they'd done that before. A slight cough behind them brought them apart and their heads around.

It was Cesar Carval, gray-haired and portly, the breast of his blue coat gleaming with orders and decorations, and a sapphire in the pommel of his dress dagger twinkling. "'I thought I'd find you two here,' Elaine's father smiled. "'You'll have tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow together, but need I remind you that today we have guests, and more coming every minute. Who came in the ward car, Elaine asked? Rovard Gralfus, and Otto Harciman. You never met him, did you, Lucas? No, not by introduction. I'd like to, before he spaces out.

He had nothing against Harkhamen personally, only against what he represented. Is the Duke coming? Oh, surely. Lionel of New Haven and the Lord of Northport are coming with him. They're at the palace now. Carval hesitated. His nephew's back 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 to speak with her. We got him to leave without too much unpleasantness. It'll be something for me to to take notice of if he keeps it up after tomorrow. For his seconds, and Andrei Dunnins, that was, he hoped it wouldn't come to that. He didn't want to have to shoot a kinsman to the

house of Ward, and a crazy man to boot. I'm terribly sorry for him, Elaine was saying. Father, you should have let me talk to him. I might have made him understand. Cesar Carval was shocked. child, you couldn't have subjected yourself to that. The man is insane. Then he saw her bare shoulders and was even more shocked. Elaine, your shawl! Her hands went up and couldn't find it.

She looked about in confused embarrassment. Amused, Lucas picked it up from the shrub unto which she had tossed it and draped it over her shoulders, his hands lingering briefly. Then he gestured to the older man to precede him, and they entered the Arbor'd Walk. At the other end, in an open circle, a fountain played, white marble girls and boys bathing in the jade green basin.

Another piece of loot from one of the old Federation planets. That was something he'd tried to avoid in furnishing Traskin Newhouse. There'd be a lot of that coming to Graham after Otto Harkaman took the Enterprise to space. I'll have to come back sometime and visit them. Elaine whispered to him. They'll miss me. You'll find a lot of new friends at your new home, he whispered back.

You wait till tomorrow. I'm going to put a word in the Duke's ear about that fellow, Cesar Carval, still thinking of Dunn 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. Dunn's mother had been the Duke's younger sister. From his father he had inherited what had originally been a prosperous barony.

Now it was mortgage to the top of the manor house aerial mast. The Duke had once assumed Dunnons' debts and refused to do so again. Dunn had gone to space a few times as a junior officer on trade and raid voyages into the old federation. He was supposed to be a fair astrogator. He had expected his uncle to give him command of the old federation. the enterprise, which had been ridiculous. Disappointed in that, he had recruited a mercenary company and was seeking military employment. It was suspected that he was in correspondence

with his uncle's worst enemy, Duke Omphrey of Glaspet. And he was obsessively in love with Elaine Carval, a passion which seemed to nourish itself on its own hopelessness. Maybe it would be a good idea to take that space trip right away. There ought to be a ship leaving Bigler Sport for one of the other sword worlds before long. They paused at the head of the escalators. The garden below was thronged with guests, the bright shawls of the ladies and the coats of the men, making shifting color patterns among the flower beds and on the lawns and under the trees. Serving robots, flame yellow and black in the carve-all colors, floated about playing soft music and offering refreshments.

There was a continuous spiral of changing costume color around the circular robotable. Voices babbled happily like a mountain river. As they stood looking down, another air car circled low. Green and gold lettered Pan Planet News Service. Cesar Carval swore in irritation. Didn't there used to be something they called privacy? He asked.

It's a big story, Cesar. It was. More than the marriage of two people who happened to be in love with each other. It was the marriage of the farming and ranching barony of Traskin and the Carval steel mills. More, it was public announcement that the wealth and fighting men of both baronies were now aligned behind Duke Angus of Wardshaven. So it was a general holiday. Every industry had closed down at noon today, and would be closed until morning after next, and there would be dancing in every park and feasting in every tavern. To sword-worlders, any excuse for a holiday was better than none. There are people, Cesar, they have a right to have a good time with us. I know everybody at Traskin is watching this by screen. He raised his hand and waved to the newscar, and when it swung

its pickup around, he waved again. Then they went down the long escalator. Lady Lavinna Carval was the center of a cluster of matrons and dowagers, around which tomorrow's bridesmaids fluttered like many colored butterflies. She took possession of her daughter and dragged her into the feminine circle. He saw Rovard Groffes, small in Saturnine, Duke Angus henchman, and Bert Sanderson, Lady Levina's brother. They spoke. And then an upper servant, his tabard blazoned with the yellow flame and black hammer of Carville Mills, approached his master with some tale of domestic crisis, and the two went away together.

"'You haven't met Captain Harkham and Lucas,' Rovard Grawfis 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 wish we had a few like him around here.' That was his main objection. There were fewer and fewer men of that sort on any of the sword worlds. Two. A dozen men clustered around the bartending robot, his cousin and family lawyer, Nicolet Trask, Lothar Fale, the banker,

Alex Gorham, the shipbuilder, and his son Basil, Baron Rathmore, more of the Wardshaven nobles whom he knew only distantly, and Otto Harciman. Harkaman was a space Viking. That would have set him apart, even if he hadn't topped the tallest of them by a head. He wore a short black jacket, heavily gold-braided, and black trousers inside ankle boots. The dagger on his belt was no mere dress ornament. His tousled red-brown hair was long enough to furnish extra padding in a combat helmet, and his beard was cut square at the bottom.

He had been fighting on Dorendel, for one of the branches of the royal house contesting fratricidily 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 the clothes he stood in and his personal weapons, and the loyalty of half a dozen adventurers as penniless as himself. when Duke Angus had invited him to Graham to command the enterprise. "'A pleasure, Lord Trask.

I've met your lovely bride to be, and now that I meet you, let me congratulate both.' Then, as they were having a drink together, he put his foot in it by asking, "'You're not an investor in the Tanneth adventure, are you?' He said he wasn't, and would have let it go at that. young Basil Gorham had to get his foot in, too. Lord Trask does not approve of the Tanneth Adventure, he said scornfully. He thinks we should stay home and produce wealth, instead of exporting robbery and murder to the old Federation for it.

The smile remained on Otto Harkiman's face, only the friendliness was gone. He unobtrusively shifted his drink to his dad. left hand. "'Well, our operations are definable as robbery and murder,' he agreed. "'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 how many innocents,

if that's what they are, you massac. in the Old Federation. You couldn't possibly do anything worse than those people 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 Gorham exploded. Young man, Harkaman reproved. The conversation was between Lord Trask and myself,

and when somebody makes a statement you don't understand, don't tell him he's crazy. Ask him what he means. What do you mean, Lord Trask? You should know. You've just rated Graham for eight hundred of our best men. You rated me for close to forty vacueros, farm workers, lumbermen, machine operators, and I doubt I'll be able to replace them with as good. He turned to the elder Gorham. Alex, how many of you lost to Captain Harciman? Gorum tried to make it a dozen, pressed, he admitted to a score and a half. Roboticians, machine supervisors, programmers, a couple of engineers, a foreman. There was grudging agreement from the others.

Bert Sandrason's engine works had lost almost as many, of the same kind. Even Lothar failed admitted to losing a computer man and a guard sergeant. And after they were gone, the farms and ranches and factories and factories. would go on, almost, but not quite as before. Nothing on Graham, nothing on any of the sword worlds, was done as efficiently as three centuries ago. The whole level of sword-world life was sinking, like the east coastline of this continent,

so slowly as to be evident only from the records and monuments of the past. He said as much, and added, and the genetic loss. The best sword-world genes are literally escaping 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 the sword worlds. They got home once in a while.

Now they're conquering planets 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 fathered my share of brats in the Old Federation, and I know Space Vikings whose fathers were born on Old Federation planets. He turned to Basil Gorham. You see, the gentleman isn't crazy at all. That's what happened to the Terran Federation, by the way. The good men all left to colonize, and the stuffed shirts and yes-men and herd followers and safety firsters stayed on Terra and tried to govern the galaxy.

"'Well, maybe this is all new to you, Captain,' Rovard Groffes said sourly. "'But Lucas Trask's dirge for the decline and fall of the sword worlds as an old song to the rest of us. I have too much to do to stay here and argue.' Lothar fail evidently did intend to stay and argue. All you're saying, Lucas, is that we're expanding. You want us to sit here and build up population pressure, like Terra in the first 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 centuries to reach that.

That had been since the ninth century atomic era, at the end of the big war. Ten thousand men and women on Abagore, refusing to surrender, had taken the remnant of the System State's Alliance Navy to space, seeking a world the Federation had never heard of and wouldn't find for a long time. That had been the world they had called Excalibur. From it, their grandchildren had colonized Joyuz, and Dorendel, and Flamberge.

Holtaclear had been colonized in the next generation from Jyuz, and Graham from Halterclear. We're not expanding, Lothar, we're contracting. We stopped expanding 350 years ago, when that ship came back to Morglay, from the Old Federation, and reported what had been happening out there since the big war. Before that, we were discovering new planets and colonizing them. Since then, we've been 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 cars were circling like vultures over a sick cow. Harkaman wondered, hopefully, if it mightn't be a fight. Some drunk being bounced, Nicolay, Lucas' cousin commented. Cesar's let all Wardshaven in here today. But Lucas, this Tanneth adventure, we're not making any hit-and-run raid, we're taking over a whole planet. It'll be another sword world in

forty or fifty years. Inside another century, we'll conquer the whole Federation, Baron Rathmore declared. He was a politician, and never let exaggeration worry him. What I don't understand, Harkman said, is why you support Duke Angus, Lord Trask, if you think the Tanneth adventure is doing Graham so much harm. If Angus didn't do it, somebody else would. But Angus is going to make himself king of Graham, and I don't think anybody else could do that. This planet needs a single sovereignty.

I don't know how much you've seen of it outside this duchy, but don't take Wardshaven as typical. Some of these duchies, like Glaspeth or Didrixburg, or literal snake pits. All the major barons are at each other's throats, and they can't even keep their own knights and petty barons in order. Why, there's a miserable little war down in South Maine continent that's been going on for over two centuries. That's probably where Dunn's going to take that army of his, a robot manufacturing baron said.

I hope it gets wiped out, and Dunn with it. You don't have to go to South Maine, just go to Glass, somebody else said. Well, if we don't get a planetary monarchy to keep order, this planet will de-civilize like anything in the old Federation. Oh, come, Lucas, Alex Gorham protested. That's pulling it out too far. Yes, for one thing, we don't have the neo-barians, somebody said.

And if they ever came out here, we blow them to MC-square in nothing flat. Might be a good thing if they did, too. It would stop us squabbling among ourselves." Harkman looked at him in surprise. "'Just who do you think the neo-barbarians are, anyhow?' he asked. "'Some race of invading nomads, Attila's huns in spaceships?' "'Well, isn't that who they are?' Gorham asked. "'Niffelheim, no. There aren't a dozen and a half planets in the old Federation that still have hyperdrive, and they're all civilized. That's if civilized is what Gilgamesh is, he added. These are homemade barbarians, workers and peasants who revolted to seize and divide the wealth,

and then found they'd smash the means of production and killed off all the technical brains. Survivors on planets hit during the interstellar wars, from the 11th to the 13th centuries, who lost the machinery of civilization, followers of political leaders on local dictatorship planets, companies of mercenaries thrown out of employment and living by pillage, religious fanatics following self-annointed prophets. You think we don't have plenty of neo-barbarian material here on Graham? Trask demanded.

If you do, take a look around. Glassbith, somebody said. That collection of overripe gallows fruit André Dunnins recruited, Rathmore mentioned. Alex Gorham was grumbling that his shipyard was full of them, agitators stirring up trouble, trying to organize a strike to get rid of the robots. Yes, Harkhamen pounced on that last. I know of at least forty instances, on a dozen and a half planets in the last eight centuries of anti-technological movements.

They had them on Terra, back as far as the second century preatomic, and after Venus seceded from the First Federation, before the Second Federation was organized. "'You're interested in history?' Rathmore asked. "'A hobby. All spacemen have hobbies. There's very little work aboard ship in hyperspace. Bordom is the worst enemy. My guns and missiles officer, Van Larch, is a painter. Most of his work was lost with the Coruscandy on Durandall, but he kept us from starving a few times on Flamberge by painting pictures and selling them. My hyperspacial astrogator, Gwatt Kirby, composes music.

He tries to express the mathematics of hyperspacial theory in musical terms. I don't care much for it myself, he admitted. I study history. You know, it's odd. Practically everything that's happened on any of the inhabited planets happened on Tara before the first spaceship. The garden immediately around them was quiet now. Everybody was over by the landing stage escalators. Harkaman would have said more, but at that moment he saw half a dozen of Cesar Carval's uniformed guardsmen run past. They were helmeted and in bulletproofs. One of them had an auto rifle, and the rest carried knobbed plastic trunches.

The Space Viking set down his drink. Let's go, he said. Our host is calling up his troops. I think the guests ought to find battle stations, too. Three. The gaily dressed crowd formed a semicircle facing the landing stage escalators. Everybody was staring in embarrassed curiosity, those behind, craning over the shoulders of those in front.

The ladies had drawn up their shawls in frigid formality. Many had even covered their heads. There were four news service cars hovering above. Whatever was going on was getting a planet-wide screen showing. The Carval Guardsmen were trying to get through. Their sergeant was saying 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. Mediating briefly on the uses of bad manners in an emergency, Trask followed with the others. The big space Viking plowed to the front, where Cesar Carval and Rovard Grophis and several others were standing. Facing them, four men in black black men,

cloak stood with their backs to the escalators. Two were common folk retainers, hired gunmen to be precise. They were at pains to keep their hands plainly in sight, and seemed to be wishing themselves elsewhere. The man in front wore a diamond sunburst jewel on his beret, and his cloak was lined with pale blue silk. His thin, pointed face was deeply lined about the mouth and penciled with a thin black mustache. His eyes showed white all around the irises, and now and then his mouth would twitch in an involuntary grimace. André Dunnan. Trask wondered briefly how soon he would have to look at him from 25 meters over the sights of a pistol. The face of the slightly taller man who stood at his shoulder

was paper white, expressionless, with a black beard. His name was a Neville Orm. Nobody was quite sure whence he had come, and he was Dunn's henchman and constant companion. "'You lie!' Dunn was shouting. "'You lie damnably! In your stinking teeth! All of you! You've intercepted every message she's tried to send me!' "'My daughter has sent you no messages, Lord Dunn,' Cesar Carval said, with forced patience. None but the one I just gave you, that she wants nothing whatever to do with you.

You think I believe that? You're holding her a prisoner. Satan only knows how you've been torturing her to force her into this abominable marriage. There was a stir among the bystanders. That was more than well-mannered restraint could stand. Out of the murmur of incredulous voices, one woman's was quite audible.

"'Well, really, he actually is crazy.' Dunn, like everybody else, heard it. "'Crazy, am I?' he blazed. "'Because I can see through this hypocritical sham. "'Here's Lucas Trask. He wants an interest in Carval Mills. "'And here's Cesar Carvall. "'He wants access to iron deposits on Traxon land. "'And my loving uncle, he wants the help of both of them.

means stealing umphrey of Glasspeth's duchy. And here's this lone shark of a fail, trying to claw my lands away from me. And Rovard Groffes, the fetch-dog of my uncle, who won't lift a finger to save his kinsman from ruin, and this foreigner Harkaman, who swindled me out of command of the enterprise, you're all plotting against me. Sir Neville, Groffes said, you can see that Lord Dunnons not him, himself. If you're a good friend to him, you'll get him out of here before Duke Angus arrives." Orm leaned forward and spoke urgently in Dunn's ear. Dunn pushed him angrily away. "'Great Satan! Are you against me, too?' he demanded.

Orm 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 Lady Sandrason and five or six other matrons.

They all had their shawls over their heads, right ends over left shoulders. They all stopped except Elaine, who took a few steps forward and confronted André Dunnan. He had never seen her look more beautiful, but it was the icy beauty of a honed dagger. Lord Dunnan, what do you wish to say to me? she asked. Say it quickly and then go. You are not welcome here.

Elaine, Dunn cried, taking a step forward. Why do you cover your head? Why do you speak to me as a stranger? I am André, who loves you. Why are you letting them force you into this wicked marriage? No one is forcing me. I am marrying Lord Trask willingly and happily because I love him. Now please go and make no more trouble at my wedding. That's a lie. They're making you say that. You don't have to marry him. They can't make you. Come with me now. They won't dare stop you. I'll take you away from all these cruel, greedy people. You love me. You've all. You've all. You've all. You've all. You've all. You've all. You've all. 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 now become André Dunn's reality, in which an Elaine Carval, whom his imagination had created, existed only to love him. Confronted by the real Elaine, he simply rejected the reality. I never loved you, Lord Dunnan, and I never told you so.

I never hated 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, which parted in front of her. Her mother and her aunt and the other ladies followed. "'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 against me, betraying me. I know what it's about. You all want to cheat me of my rights, and keep my usurping uncle on the ducal throne. And you, you false-hearted harlot, you're the

worst of them all!' Sir Neville Orm caught his shoulder and spun him around, propelling him toward the escalators. Dunn struggled, screaming inarticulately like a wounded wolf. Orm was cursing, furiously. You too, he shouted. Help me here! Get hold of him! Dunn was still howling as they forced him onto the escalator. The backs of the two retainers' cloaks

badged with the Dunin crescent, light blue on black, hiding him. After a little, an air car with the blue crescent blazonry lifted and sped away. Lucas, he's crazy, Cesar Carval was insisting. Elaine hasn't spoken fifty words to him since he came back from his last voyage. He laughed and put a hand on Carval's shoulder. I know that, Caesar. You don't think, do you, that I need assurance of it?

Crazy. I'll say he's crazy, Rovald Grophis put in. Did you hear what he said about his rights? Wait till his grace hears about that. Does he lay claim to the ducal throne, Sir Rovard? Otto Harkaman asked sharply and seriously. Oh, he claims that his mother was born a year and a half before Duke Angus, and the true date of her birth falsified to give Angus the succession. Why, his present grace was three years old when she was born.

I was old Duke Fergus Esquire. I carried Angus on my shoulder what André Dunn's mother was presented to the lords and barons the day after she was born. "'Of course he's crazy,' Alex Gorham agreed. I don't know why the Duke doesn't have him put under psychiatric treatment. I'd put him under treatment, Harkaman said, drawing a finger across under his beard. Crazy men who pretend to thrones are bombs that ought to be deactivated before they blow things up. We couldn't do that, Grawfish said. After all, he's Duke Angus' nephew. I could do it, Harkaman said. He only has three hundred men in.

in this company of his. Why you people ever let him recruit them, Satan only knows, he parenthesized. I have 800, 500 ground fighters. I'd like to see how they shape up in combat, before we space out. I can have them ready for action in two hours, and it'd be all over before midnight. No, Captain Harkhamen, his grace would never permit it, Groffus vetoed. You have no idea of the political harm that would do among the independent lords on whom we're counting for support. You weren't here on Graham when Duke Richard of Didricksburg had his sister Sancia's second husband poisoned. End of Chapter 3. Space Viking

4 They halted under the colonnade. Beyond the lower main terrace was crowded, and a medley of old love-songs was wafting from the sound outlets for the sixth or eighth or eight-year. time around. He looked at his watch. It was ninety seconds later than the last time he had done so. Give it fifteen more minutes to get started, and another fifteen to get away after the marriage toasts and the felicitations. And no marriage, however pompous, lasted more than half an hour. An hour then, till he and Elaine would be in the air car, bulleting toward Traskin.

The love song stopped abruptly. After a momentary silence, a trumpet, considerably amplified, blared the Ducal salute. The crowd stopped shifting, the buzz of voices ceased. At the head of the landing stage escalators, there was a glow of color, and the Ducal party began moving down. A platoon of guards in red and yellow, with gilded helmets and tasseled halberds, an esquire bearing the sword of state. duke angus with his counsel 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 new service air cars got into position above the procession. Cousin Nicolet and a few others stepped out from between the pillars and into the sunlight. There was a similar movement at the other end of the terrace. The Ducal Party reached the end of the central walkway, halted and deployed. All right, let's shove off, cousin Nicolet said, stepping forward. Ten minutes since they had come out. outside, another five to get into position. Fifty minutes now, till he and Elaine, Lady

Elaine Trask of Traskin, 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 Carval black and flame yellow appeared across the terrace. The music began again. This time the stately Noble's wedding march, arrogant and at the same time tender. Cesar Carval's gentleman's secretary and the Carval lawyer, executives of the steel mills, the Carval Guard Captain, Caesar himself with a lane on his arm. She was wearing a shawl of black and yellow.

He looked around in sudden fright. "'For the love of Satan, where's our shawl?' he demanded, and then relaxed when one of his gentlemen exhibited it, green and tawny in Traskan colors. The bridesmaids, led by Lady Lavina Carval. 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 a small pointed beard. He was bareheaded, except for the narrow gold circlet which he spent most of his waking

time scheming to convert into a royal crown. The guard-captain repeated the question. I am Sir Nicolet Trask. I bring my cousin and liege lord, Lucas, Lord Trask, Baron of Traskan. He comes to receive the lady, Demoiselle Elaine, daughter of Lord Caesar Carval, Baron of Carval Mills, and the sanction of your grace to the marriage between them. Sir Maximon Zorgay, Cesar Carval's henchman, named himself and his Lord. They brought the lady Demoiselle Elaine to be wed to Lord Trask of Traskin.

The Duke, satisfied that these were persons whom he could address directly, asked if the terms of the marriage agreement had been reached. Both parties affirmed this. Sir Maximon passed a scroll to the Duke. Duke Angus began to read the stiff and precise legal phraseology. Marriages between noble houses were not matters to be left open to dispute. A great deal of spilled blood and burned powder had resulted from ambiguity on some point of succession or inheritance or dower rights.

Lucas bore it patiently. He didn't want his great-grandchildren and Elaine's shooting it out over a matter of a misplaced comma. And these persons here before us do enter into this marriage freely, the Duke asked, when the reading had ended. He stepped forward as he spoke, and his esquire gave him the two-hand sword of state, heavy enough to behead a bisonoid. Trask stepped forward. Cesar Carval brought Elaine up. The lawyers and henchmen obliqueed off to the sides. "'How say you, Lord Trask?' he asked, almost conversationally.

"'With all my heart, your grace. And you, Lady Demoiselle, Elaine? It is my greatest wish, Your Grace.' The Duke took the sword by the blade and extended it. They laid their 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 into our legitimate and lawful successors? We do. Not only he and Elaine, but all around them, and all the throng in the gardens answered, the spectators in shouts. Very clearly, above it all, somebody with more enthusiasm than discretion,

was bawling. Long live Angus, the first of Graham! And we, Angus, do confer upon you two, and your houses, the right to wear our badge as you see fit, and pledge ourselves to maintain your rights against any and all who may presume to invade them. And we declare that this marriage between you two and this agreement between your respective houses

does please us, and we avow you too, Lucas and Elaine, to be lawfully wed, and whoso questions this marriage challenges us, in our teeth and to our despite. That wasn't exactly the wording used by a ducal lord on Graham. It was the formula employed by a planetary king, like Napoleon of Flamberge, or Rodolf of Excalibur. And, now that he thought of it, Angus had consistently used the royal first-person plural. Maybe that fellow who had shouted about Angus I first of Graham had only been doing what he'd been paid to do. This was being telecast, an Amfrey of Glasbeth and Richard of Didricksburg would both be listening.

As of now, they'd start hiring mercenaries. Maybe that would get rid of Dunin for him. The Duke gave the two-hand sword back to his esquire. The young knight 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 her mother caught and folded it. He stepped forward and draped the trass colors over her shoulders,

and then took her in his arms. The cheering broke out again. and some of Cesar Carval's guardsmen began firing a pom-pom somewhere. It took a little longer than he expected to finish with the toasts and shake hands with those who crowded around. Finally, the exit march started, down the long walkway to the landing stage, and the Duke and his party moved away to the rear to prepare for the wedding feast at which everybody but the bride and groom would celebrate.

One of the bridesmaids gave Elaine a huge sheaf of, flowers, which she was to toss back from the escalator. She held it in the crook of one arm and clung to his with the other. "'Darling, we really made it,' she was whispering, as though it were too wonderful to believe. Well, wasn't it? One of the news cars, orange and blue, that was Westland's telecast and teleprint, had floated just ahead of them and was letting down toward the landing stage. For a moment he was angry. That went beyond the outer orbit limits of journalistic

propriety, even for Westland's T&T. Then he laughed. Today he was too happy for anger about anything. At the foot of the escalator, Elaine kicked off her gilded slippers. There was another pair in the car. He'd seen to that personally. And they stepped onto the escalator and turned about. The bridesmaids rushed forward and began struggling for the slippers to the damage and disarray

of their gowns. And when they were halfway up, Elaine heaved the bouquet and it burst apart among them, like a bomb of colored fragrance, and the girls below snatched at the flowers shrieking deliriously. Elaine stood, blowing kisses to 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 air car had let down directly in front of them, blocking their way. Now he was really furious and started forward with a curse. Then he saw who was in the car. André Dunnan, his thin face contorted and the narrow mustache writhing on his upper lip. He had a slit beside the window open and 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 a blasting multiple report. Something sled him in the chest. His right leg crumpled under him. He fell. He fell and fell and fell endlessly, through darkness, out of consciousness. Five. He was crucified and crowned with a crown of thorns. Who had they done that, too, somebody long ago on Terra? His arms were drawn out stiffly and hurt. His feet and legs hurt, too, and he couldn't move them.

And there was this prickling at his brow, and he was blind. No, his eyes were just closed. He opened them, and there was a white wall in front of him, patterned with a blue snow-crystal design, and he 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 he was 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 robometic, and the tubes would be for medication and wound drainage and intravenous feeding, and the wires would be to electrodes embedded in his body for diagnosis,

and the crown of thorns thing would be more electrodes for an encephalograph. He'd been on one of those robometics before, when he'd been gored by a bisonoid on the cattle range. That was what it was, but he was still under treatment. But that seemed so long ago. So many things he must have dreamed them seemed to have happened. Then he remembered and struggled futilely to rise. "'Elaine!' he called.

"'Elane! Where are you?' There was a stir and somebody came into his limited view, his cousin Nicolay Trask. "'Nicolay, André Dunnan,' he said. "'What happened to Elaine?' Nicolay winced, as though something he had expected to hurt had hurt 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 think she 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. Nice," Nicolay was telling him. One in the leg, smashed the femur, and one in the chest. That one missed your heart by an inch. Pity did. He was beginning to remember clearly now. I threw her down and tried to cover her.

I must have thrown her straight into the burst and only caught the last of it myself. There was something else. Oh, yes. Dunin! Did they get him?" Nicolay shook his head. head. He got away, stole the Enterprise, and took her off planet. I want to get him myself. He started to rise again. Nicolay 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 bit him 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 had gotten so dark. He woke again, fitfully, and it would be daylight, and he could see the yellow sky through an open window, or it would be night and the wall lights would be on.

There would always be somebody with him. Nicolay's wife, Dame Cecilia, Rovard Groffas, Lady Lavina, Carval. He must have slept a long time, for she was much older than he remembered, and her brother, Bert Sanderson, and a woman with dark hair in a white smock with a gold caduceus on her breast. Once Duchess Flavia, and once Duke Angus himself. He asked where he was, not much caring. They told him at the Ducco 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, because there was something he wanted desperately to show her. Stars in the sky at night, that was it. But there were no stars. There was no Elaine. There was no anything. And he wished that there was no Lucas Trask either. But there was an André Dunin.

He could see him standing, black cloaked on the terrace, the diamonds in his beret jewel glittering evilly. He could see the mad face peering at him over the rising barrel of a submachine gun, and then he would hunt for 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 feeding tubes 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 Groffes told him. They had too much trouble at Carvel House as it was. You know, Cesar got shot, too. No. So that was why Cesar hadn't come to see him. Was he killed? Wounded. He's in worse shape than you are.

When the shooting started he went charging up the escalator. Didn't have anything but his dress dagger. Dunn gave him a quick burst. I think that was why he didn't have time to finish you off. By that time the guards who had been shooting blanks from that rapid-fire gun got in a clip of live rounds and fired at him. He got out of there as fast as he could. They have Cesar on a robometic like yours.

He isn't in any danger. The drainage tubes and medication tubes came out. The tangle of wires around him was removed, and the electrodes with them. They bandaged his wounds and dressed him in a loose robe and lifted him from the robometic to a couch, where he could sit up when he wished. They began giving him solid food and wine to drink and allowed him to smoke. The woman doctor told him he'd had a bad time, as though he didn't know that. He wondered if she expected him to thank her for keeping him alive.

"'You'll be up and around in a few weeks,' his cousin added. "'I've seen to it that everything at Traskan Newhouse will be ready for you by then. I'll never enter that house as long as I live, and I wish that wouldn't be more than the next minute. That was to be Elaine's house. 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 found that he enjoyed their company. He wanted to know what had really happened and how Dunnan had gotten away. He pirated the enterprise, Rovard Groffes told him.

He had that company of mercenaries of his, and he'd bribed some of the people at Gorham Shipyards. I thought Alex would kill his chief of security when he found out what had happened. We can't prove anything. We're trying hard enough to, but we're sure Umpfrey of Glasbeth furnished the money. He's been denying it just a shade too 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 do it the night before the wedding. Then he tried to persuade the Lady Demoiselle Elling to elope with him. He seems to have actually thought that was possible. And when she humiliated him, he decided to kill both of you first. He turned to Otto Harkaman, who had accompanied him. As long as I live, I'll regret not taking you at your word and accepting your offer then. How did he get hold of that Westland, Westland's telecast and teleprint car.

Oh, the morning of the wedding, he screened Westland's editorial office and told them he had an inside story on the marriage, and why the Duke was sponsoring it, made it sound as though there was some scandal, insisted that a reporter come to Dunenhouse for a face-to-face interview. They sent a man, and that was the last they saw him alive. Our people found his body at Dunnowne House when we were searching the place after. afterward. We found the car at the shipyard. It had taken a couple of hits from the guns at Carval House, but you know what those press cars are built to stand. He went 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 almost short enough to burn him. With an effort, he leaned forward to crush it out. Rovard, how soon will that second ship be finished? Grawfus laughed bitterly. Building the Enterprise took everything we had. The Dutchie's on the edge of bankruptcy now. We stopped work on the second ship six months ago because we didn't have enough money to keep on with her

and still get the Enterprise finished. We were expecting the Enterprise to make enough in the Old Federation to finish the second one. Then, with two ships and a base on Tannet, the money would begin coming in instead of going out. But now— "'It leaves me where I was on Flamberge,' Harkhamen added. "'Worse!

King Napoleon was going to help the Emerson's, and I'd have gotten a 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 few tottering steps, paused to lean on the cane, and then forced himself to open the window and stood for a moment staring out. Then he turned. Captain Harkman, it might be that you could still get a command here on Graham. That's if you don't mind commanding under me as owner aboard. I'm going hunting for

Andre Dunnan. They both looked at him. After a moment, Harkiman said, I'd count it and honor, Lord Trask. But where will you get a ship? She's half finished now. You already have a crew for her. Duke Angus can finish her for me and pay for it by pledging his new barony of Traskin. He had known Rovard Gruffus all his life.

Until this moment he had never seen Duke Angus henchmen show surprise. You mean you'll trade Traskin for that ship? he demanded. Finished, equipped, and ready for space, yes. The Duke will agree to that, Grawfus said promptly. But Lucas, Traskin is all you own. If I have a ship, I won't need them.

I am turning space Viking. That brought Harkman to his feet with a roar of approval. Grawfus looked 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 on the sword worlds,

because Graham was a sword world, and Traskin was on Graham, and Traskin was to have been the home where he and Elaine would live, and where their children and children's children would be born and live. Now the little point on which all of it had rested was gone. That was another Lucas Trask, Rovard. He's dead now. Six. Grophis excused himself to make a screen call, and then returned to excuse himself again.

Evidently, Duke Angus had dropped whatever he was 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 been pleasant to be a shipless captain living on strangers' bounty. I'd hate, though, to have you think, some time, that I'd advance my 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 own good luck. Harkaman started to pack tobacco into his pipe.

"'Have you ever been off Graham 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 setting yourself to?' The Space Vikings snapped his lighter and puffed. You know, of course, how big the old Federation is. You know the figures, that is, but do they mean anything to you? I know they don't to a good many spacemen even.

We talk glibly about ten to the hundredth power, but emotionally we still count one, two, three, many. A ship in hyperspace logs about a light year and hour. You can go from here to Excalibur in 30 hours. But you could send a radio message announcing the birth of a son, and he'd be a father before it was received. The Old Federation, where you're going to hunt Dunan, occupies a space volume of 200 billion cubic light 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 to do it. There are planets in the Old Federation where space Vikings come and go, raid and trade bases, like the one Duke Angus planned to establish on Tanneth.

At one or another of them, I'll pick up word of Dunham 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 raiding the old Federation for over three hundred years, Lord Trask. At present, I'd say there are at least, 200 space Viking ships in operation.

Why haven't we rated it bare long ago? Well, that's the answer. Distance and voyage time. You know, Dunn could die of old age, which is not a usual cause of death among space Vikings before you caught up with him. And your youngest ship's boy could die of old age before he found out about it.

Well, I can go hunting for a little bit. him till I die, then. There's nothing else that means anything to me. I thought it was something like that. I won't be with you all your life. I want a ship of my own, like the Coruscandy, that I lost on Durandall. Someday I'll have one. But till you can command your own ship, I'll command her for you. That's a promise. Some note of ceremony seemed indicated. "'Summing a robot, he had it poor wine for them, and they pledged each other. "'Rovard Grawfus had recovered his aplomb by the time he returned accompanied by the Duke. "'If Angus had ever lost his, he gave no indication of it.

"'The effect on everybody else was literally seismic. "'The general accepted view was that Lord Trask's reason "'had been unhinged by his tragic loss. "'There might, he conceded, be more than a moment. a crumb of truth in that. At first, his cousin Nicolay raged at him for alienating the barony from the family, and then he learned that Duke Angus was appointing him vicar baron and giving him Traskin new house for his residence.

Immediately he began acting like one at the deathbed of a rich grandmother. The Wardshaven Financial and Industrial Barons, whom he had known only distantly, on the other hand, came flocking around him. offering assistance and hailing him as the savior of the duchy. Duke Angus' credit, almost obliterated by the loss of the enterprise, was firmly reestablished, and theirs with it. There were conferences at which lawyers and bankers argued interminably. He attended a few at first, found himself completely uninterested,

and told everybody so. All he wanted was a ship. The best ship possible, as soon as possible. Alex Gorham had been the first to be notified. He had commenced work on the unfinished sister ship of the Enterprise immediately. Until he was strong enough to go to the shipyard himself, he watched the work on the 2,000-foot globular skeleton by screen, and conferred either in person or by screen with engineers and shipyard executives.

His rooms at the Ducal Palace were converted, almost overnight, from sick rooms to offices. The doctors, who had recently been urging him to find new interests and activities, were now warning of the dangers of over-exertion. Harkaman finally added his voice to theirs. You take it easy, Lucas. They had dropped formality and were on a first-name basis now. You got hulled pretty badly.

You let damage control work on you. and don't strain the machinery till it's fixed. We have plenty of time. We're not going to get anywhere chasing Dunnan. The only way we can catch him is by interception. The longer he moves around in the old Federation before he hears where after him, the more of a trail he'll leave.

Once we can establish a predictable pattern, we'll have a chance. Then, sometime, he'll come out of hyperspace somewhere and find us waiting for him. Do you think he went to Tanneth? Harkhamen heaved himself out of his chair and prowled about the room for a few minutes. Then he came back and sat down again. No, that was Duke Angus idea, not his.

He couldn't put in a base on Tanneth anyhow. You know the kind of a crew he has. There had been an extensive inquiry into Dunnons' associates and accomplices. Duke Angus was still hoping for positive proof, to implicate Amfrey of Glasspeth in the piracy. Dunnan had with him a dozen and a half employees of the Gorham shipyards whom he had corrupted. There was some technical ability among them, but for the most part they were agitators and troublemakers and incompetent workmen. Even under the circumstances Alex Gorham was glad to see the last of them. As for Dunnins' own

mercenary company, there were about a score of former spacemen among them. The rest grated down from bandits through thugs and sneak thieves to barroom bums. Dunnins himself was an astrogator, not an engineer. That gang aren't even good enough for routine raiding, Harkman said. They'd never under any circumstances be able to put a base on Tanneth, unless Dunnins completely crazy, which I doubt he has gone to some regular Viking base planet, like Hoth or Nurgal, or Dagon, or Zoxchill, to recruit officers and engineers and able spaceman. All that machinery and robotic equipment and so on that was going to Tannath,

was that aboard when he took the ship? Yes, and that's another reason why he'd go to some planet like Hoth or Nurgal or Zoxchill. On a Viking-occupied planet in the old Federation, that stuff's almost worth its weight in gold. What's Tanneth like? Almost completely terotype, third of a class G sun. Very much like Halterclear or Flamberge.

It was one of the last planets the Federation colonized before the big war. Nobody knows what happened exactly. There wasn't any interstellar war. At least you don't find any big slag puddles where cities used to be. They probably did a lot of fighting among themselves after they got out of the Federation. There's still some traces of combat damage around.

Then they started to decivilize, down to the pre-mechanical level, wind and water power and animal power. They have draft animals that look like introduced Terran caribows, and a few small sailboats and big canoes and bateau on the rivers. They have gunpowder, which seems to be the last. thing any people lose. I was there five years ago. I liked Tanneth for a base. There's one moon, almost solid nickel iron, and fissionable ore deposits. Then, like a fool, I hired out to the Elmer Sands on Durendel and lost my ship. When I came here, your Duke was thinking about Zipototech. I convinced him that Tanneth was a better planet for his purpose. Dunn and might go there at

that. He might think he was scoring one on Duke Angus. After all, he has all that equipment. And nobody to use it. If I were done in, I'd go to Nergal or Zachtitl. There are always a couple of thousand space Vikings on either, spending their loot and taking it easy between raids. He could sign on a full crew on either. I suggest we go to Zachtitl first. We might pick up news, of him, if nothing else. All right, they'd try Zott Chittle first. Harkaman knew the planet, and was friendly with the Haltaclear Noble who ruled it. The work went on to the Gorham Shipyard.

It had taken a year to build the enterprise, but the steel mills and engine works were over the preparatory work of tooling up, and material and equipment was flowing in a steady stream. Lucas let him persuade him to take more rest. and day by day grew stronger. Soon he was spending most of his time at the shipyard, watching the engines go in, Abbott, 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 in collapsium-plated steel. Then the ship lifted out to an orbit

a thousand miles off planet, followed by swarms of armored workcraft and cargo lighters. The rest of the work was more easily done in space. At the same time, the four two hundred-foot pinnaces that would be carried aboard were being finished. Each of them had its own hyperdrive engines and could travel as far and as fast as the ship herself. Otto Harkaman was beginning to be distressed because the ship still lacked 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 be name-marked. Elaine, Trask thought at once, and almost at once rejected it. He didn't want her name associated with the things that ship would do in the old Federation.

Revenge, Avenger, retribution, vendetta, none appealed to him. A news commentator, turgidly and a good-obeyedly and a good-obeyed. eloquent about the nemesis which the criminal Dunnan had invoked against himself supplied it. Nemesis, it was. Now he was studying his new profession of interstellar robbery and murder, against which he had once invaded. Otto Harkhamen's handful of followers became his teachers. Van Larch, guns and missiles, who was also a painter.

Gwatt Kirby, sour and pessimistic, the hyperspacial aspect, astrogator, who tried to express his science in music. Charles Renner, the normal space astrogator. Alvin Carford, the exec, who had been with Harkhamen longest of all, and Sir Patrick Morland, a local recruit, formerly guard captain to Count Lionel of New Haven, who commanded the ground fighters and the combat contragravity. They were using the farms and villages of Traskin for drill and practice, and he noticed that while the nemesis would carry only 500 ground and air fighters,

over a thousand were being trained. He commented to Rovard Grawfus. "'Yes, don't mention it outside,' the Duke's henchman said. "'You and Sir Patrick and Captain Harkaman will pick the 500 best. The Duke will take the rest into his service. Some of these days, Omfrey of Glasbeth will find out what a space-vike-es. raid is really like. And Duke Angus would take his new subjects of Glasbeth to redeem the pledges on his new barony of Traskin. Some old pre-atomic writer, Harkaman was fond of quoting,

had said, "'Gold will not always get you good soldiers, but good soldiers can get you gold.' The nemesis came back to the Gorham Yards and settled onto her curved landing legs like a monstrous spider. The Enterprise had borne the Ward, Sword, and Atom symbol. The nemesis should bear his own badge, but the bisonoid head tawny on green of Traskin was no longer his. He chose a skull impaled on an upright sword, and it was blazoned on the ship when he and Harkaman took her out for her shakedown crews. When they landed again at the Gorham Yards, two hundred hours later, they learned that a tramp freighter from Morglay had come into Bigler Sport in their absence with news of André Dunnan.

Her captain had come towards Haven at Duke Angus' urgent invitation, and was waiting for them at the Ducal Palace. They sat a dozen of them around a table at the Duke's private apartments. The freighter captain, a small, precise man with a graying beard, alternately puffed at a cigarette and sipped from a beaker of brandy. I spaced out from Morglay two hundred hours ago, he was saying. I'd been there twelve local days, three hundred galactic standard hours, and the run from Kirtana 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, or Kirtana now. The room was still. The breeze fluttered curtains at the open windows. From the garden below, winged night things twittered. I never expected it, Harkaman said. I thought he'd take the ship out to the old Federation at once. He poured wine for himself.

Of course, Dunn'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 man. move, Rovard Groffes said. We have very little direct trade with Kirtana. It's only an accident we heard about this when we did. The freighter captain's beaker was half empty. He filled it to the brim from the decanter. She was the first Graham ship there for years, he agreed. That attracted notice, of course, and his having the blazonry changed from the sword and atom symbol

to the Blue Crescent, and the ill feeling on the part of other captains and planet-side employers about 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 a cargo together for Morglay to pay much attention, almost a full spaceship complement, officers and spacemen of every kind, and a lot of industrial engineers and technicians.' Then he is going to use that equipment that was aboard and put in a base somewhere,

somebody said. If he left Kirtana twelve hundred hours ago, he's still in hyperspace, Goat Kervi said. It's over two thousand from Kirtana to the nearest old Federation planet. How far to Tanneth, Duke Angus asked. I'm sure that's where he's gone. 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 Tanneth would be the last place he'd go, Harkman said.

But this change is the whole outlook. He could have gone to Tanneth. He's crazy, and you're trying to apply sane logic to him, Gwatt Kirby said. You're figuring what you 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,' Rovard Groffes said. "'Dunan hates all of us. He hates his grace here. He hates Lord Lucas and Cesar Carval. Of course, he may think he killed both of them. He hates Captain Harkaman. So how could he score all of us off at once? By taking Tanneth.'

"'You say he was buying supplies and ammunition?' That's right. Gun ammunition, ships missiles, and a lot of ground defense missiles. What was he buying them with? Trading machinery? No. Gold. Yes, Lothar fail found out that a lot of gold was transferred to Dunham from banks in Glasbeth and Didricksburg, Grawfis said. He got that aboard when he took the ship, evidently. All right, Trask said. We can't be sure of any. anything, but we have some reasons for thinking he went to Tanneth, and that's more than we have for any other planet in the old Federation. I won't try to estimate the odds against our

finding him there, but they're a good deal bigger anywhere else. We'll go there first. End of Chapter 6. Space Viking 7 The outside viewscreen, which had been vacantly gray for over 3,000 hours, was now a vertiginous swirl of color, the indescribable color of a collapsing hyperspacial field. No two observers ever saw it alike, and no imagination could vision the actuality. Trask found that he was holding his breath. So, he noticed, was Otto Harkaman beside him. It was something, evidently, that nobody got used to. Even Guad Kirby, the astrogator, was sitting with his pipe clenched in his mouth,

staring at the screen. Then, in an instant, the stars, which had literally not been there before, filled the screen with a blaze of splendor against the black velvet backdrop of normal space. Dead in the center, brighter than all the rest, Ertado Star, the son of Taneth burned yellowly. The light from it was ten hours old. Pretty good, Gwatt, Harkaman said, picking up his cup. Good, Cahena. It was perfect, somebody else said. Kirby was relighting his pipe.

Oh, I suppose it'll have to do, he grudged around the stem. He had gray hair and an untidy mustache, and nothing was ever quite good enough to satisfy him. I could have made it a little closer. Need three microjumps now, and I'll have to cut the last one pretty fine. Now don't bother me. He began punching buttons for data and fiddling with set screws and vernears. For a moment in the screen, Tras could see the face of André Dunnan.

He blinked it away and reached for his cigarettes, and put one in his mouth wrong in too. When he reversed it and snapped his lighter, he saw that his hand was trembling. Otto Harkaman must have seen that too. "'Take it easy, Lucas,' he whispered. "'Keep your optimism under control. 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 a disappointment. If we don't,

and he is, it's a disaster.' Others, it seemed, thought the same way. The battle The shuttle station's board was a solid blaze of red light for full combat readiness. All right, Kirby said, jumping. Then he twisted the red handle to the right and shoved it in viciously. Again the screen boiled with colored turbulence. Again, dark and mighty forces stalked through the ship like demons in a sorcerer's tower. The screen turned featureless gray as the pickup stared blind Finally, into some dimensionless no-place.

Then it convulsed with color again, and this time, Ertado's star, still in the center, was a coin-sized disk, with little sparks of its seven planets scattered around it. Tanneth was the third, the inhabitable planet of a G-class system usually was. It had a single moon, barely visible in the telescopic screen, 500 miles in diameter, and 50,000 off-planet. You know, Kirby said, as though he was afraid to admit it, that wasn't too bad. I think we can make it in one more microjump. Sometime Trask supposed he'd be able to use the expression micro

about a distance of 55 million miles, too. What do you think about it, Harkhamen asked him, as deferentially as those seeking expert guidance instead of examining his apprentice. Where should Gwatt put us? As close as possible, of course. That would be a light second at the least. If the nemesis came out of hyperspace any closer to anything the size of Tanneth,

the collapsing field itself would kick her back. We have to assume Dunn has been there at least 900 hours. By that time he could have put in a detection station and maybe missile launchers on the moon. The Enterprise carries four pinnaces, the same as the nemesis. In his place, I'd have at least two of them on off-planet patrol. So let's accept it that we'll be detected as soon as we come out of the last jump, and come out with the moon directly between us and the 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 off by the planet, Harkaman said, Would you? The big man shook his tousled head. No. If they have launches on the moon, they could launch at us in a curve around the planet, by data relayed from the other side, and we be at a disadvantage replying.

Just go straight in. You hearing this, what? Yeah, it makes sense. Sort of. Now, stop pestering me. Charles, look here a minute. The normal space Astrogator conferred with him. Alvin Carford, the executive officer, joined them.

Finally, Kirby pulled out the big red handle, twisted it, and said, All right, jumping. He shoved it in. I suppose I cut it too fine. Now we'll get kicked back half a million miles. The screen convulsed again. When it cleared, the third planet was directly in the center. Its small moon, looking almost as large, was a little above and to the right. Sun lit on one side and planet lit on the other. Kirby locked the red handle, gathered up his tobacco and lighter in things from the ledge,

and pulled down the cover of the instrument console, locking it. "'All yours, Charles,' he told Renner. "'Eight hours to atmosphere,' Renner said. "'That's if we don't have to waste a lot of time shooting up Junior there.' Van Larch was looking at the moon in the 600-power screen. "'I don't see anything to shoot. "'Five hundred miles, one planet-buster, or four or five thermonuculars,' he said. "'It wasn't right,' Trask thought indignantly.

"'Minutes ago, Tannath had been six and a half billion miles away, seconds ago, fifty-odd million, and now a quarter of a million, and looking close enough to touch in the screen. It would take them eight hours to reach it. Why on hyperdrive you could go 48 trillion miles in that time? Well, it took a man just as long to walk across a room today as it had taken Farrow I, or Homo sap. In the telescopic screen, Tanneth looked like any picture of any terra-type planet from space,

with cloud-blurred contours of seas and continents. and a vague mottling of gray and brown and green, topped at the pole by an ice cap. None of the surface features, not even the major mountain ranges or rivers, were yet distinguishable, but Harkaman and Charles Renner and Alvin Carford and the other old hand seemed to recognize it.

Carford was talking by phone to Paul Correth, the signals and detection officer who could detect nothing from the moon and nothing that was getting through the Van Allen belt from the planet. Maybe they'd guessed wrong at that. Maybe Dunnand hadn't gone to Tanneth at all. Harkaman, who had the knack of putting himself to sleep at will, with some sixth or nth sense posted as a sentry, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Trask wished he could too. It would be hours before anything happened, and until then he needed all the rest he could get.

Like more coffee, chain-smoked cigarettes, he rose and prowled about the command room, looked at screens. Signals and detection was getting a lot of routine stuff. Van Allen count, micrometeor count, surface temperature, gravitation field strength, radar and scanner echoes. He went back to his chair and sat down, staring at the screen image. The planet didn't seem to be getting any closer at all, and it ought to. They were approaching at better than escape velocity.

He sat and stared at it. He woke with a start. The screen image was much larger now. River courses and shadow lines of mountains were clearly visible. It must be early autumn in the northern hemisphere. There was snow down to the 60th parallel, and the belt of brown was pushing south against the green. Harkaman was sitting up, eating lunch.

By the clock it was four hours later. "'Have a good nap,' he asked. "'We're picking up stuff now, radio and screen signals. Not much, but some. The locals wouldn't have learned enough for that in the five years since I was here. We didn't stay long enough for one thing. On decivized planets that were visited by space Vikings, the locals picked up bits and scraps of technology very quickly.

In the four months of idleness and long conversations while they were in hyperspace, he had heard many stories confirming that. But from the level to which Tannath had sunk, radio and screen communication in five 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 who had made themselves unpopular with their shipmates, men who just liked the planet and wanted to stay. They were always welcomed by the locals, for what they could do and teach. No, we weren't there long enough for that. Only 350 hours. This we're getting is outside stuff. Somebody's there beside the locals.

Dunn. He looked again at the battle stations board. It was still uniformly red-lighted. Everything was on full combat ready. He summoned a mess, robot, selected a couple of dishes, and began to eat. After the first mouthful, he called to Alvin Carford. "'Is Paul getting anything new?' he asked. Carford checked.

A little contra-gravity field distortion effect. It was still too far to be sure. He went back to his lunch. He had finished it and was lighting a cigarette over his coffee when a red light flashed and a voice from one of the speakers shouted. "'Detection! Detection! From Planet! radar and micro-ray." Carford began talking rapidly into a handphone. Harkaman unhooked one beside him and listened. Coming from a definite point, about 25th 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 into an orbit, but the decreasing distance created the illusion of increasing speed. The red lights flashed once more. Ship detected, just outside atmosphere, coming around the planet from the west. Is she the enterprise? Can't tell yet, Carford said, and then cried, there she is in the screen. That spark, about 30 degrees north, just off the west side. Aboard her, too, voices from speakers would be shouting, Ship detected!

And the Battlestation board would be blazing red. And Andrei Dunnan at the command desk. She's calling us. That was Paul Koroff's voice, out of the squawk box on the desk. Standard Sword World Impulse Code. Interrogative. What ship are you? Informative.

Her screen combination. Request. Please communicate. All right, Harkman said. Let's be polite and communicate. What's your screen combination? Korif's voice gave it, and Harkaman punched it out. The communication screen in front of them lit at once. Trask shoved over his chair beside Harkhamans, his hands tightening on the arms. Would it be Dunnin himself, and what would his face show when he saw who confronted 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. Her command room was identical with his own. This one was different in arrangements and fittings. The Enterprise was a new ship, this one was old, and had suffered for years at the hands of a slack captain and a slovenly crew. And the man who sat facing him in the screen was not Andre Dunnan, or any man he'd ever seen before. A dark dark, dark-faced man, with an old scar that ran down one cheek from a little below the eye. He had curly black hair on his head and on a V of chest exposed by an open shirt. There was an ashtray in front of him, and a thin curl of smoke rose from a cigar in it, and coffee steamed in

an ornate but battered silver cup beside it. He was grinning gleefully. "'Well, Captain Harkaman of the Enterprise, I believe, Welcome to Tanneth. Who's the gentleman with you? He isn't the Duke of Wardshaven, is he? Eight. He glanced quickly at the showback over the screen to assure himself that his face was not betraying him.

Beside him, Otto Harkaman was laughing. By, Captain Valkenhain, this is an unexpected pleasure. That's the space scourge you're in, I take it. What are you doing here on Tanneth? A voice from one of the speakers shouted that a second ship had been detected coming over the North Pole. The dark-faced man in the screen smirked quite complacently. "'That's Garvin Spaso in the Lamia,' he said. "'And what we're doing here, we've taken this planet over. We intend keeping it, too.'

"'Well, so you and Garvin have teamed up. You two were just made for one another. and you have a little planet all your very own. I'm so happy for both of you. What are you getting out of it, beside poultry? The other 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. Tanneth is our planet. You think you can take it away from us? I know we could, and so do you. Harkham and told him, We outgun you and Spaso together. Why, a couple of our pinnisus 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 his disappointment. If this fellow thought the nemesis was the enterprise, before he could check himself he had finished the 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 Valkenhain, Harkhamen apologized. This is the nemesis.

The gentleman with me, Lord Lucas Trask, is owner aboard, for whom I am commanding. Lord Trask, Captain Bok-Valk-Valkenhane of the space scourge. Captain Volcan-Hane is a space Viking. He said that, as though expecting it to be disputed. So, I am told, is his associate, Captain Spasso, who ship is approaching. You mean to tell me that the Enterprise hasn't been here? Volcanhain 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, Harkerman replied, this ship is the property and private adventure of Lord Trask. The enterprise, for which we are looking, is owned and commanded by one André Dunnan. The man with a scarred face and hairy chest had picked up his cigar and was puffing on it mechanically. Now he took it out of his mouth, as though he wondered how it had gotten there in the first place.

But isn't the Duke of Wardshaven sending a ship here to establish a base? That was what we'd heard. We heard you'd gone from flamberge to Graham to command it for him. Where did you hear this? And when? On Hoth. That'd be about two thousand hours ago. A Gilgamesher brought the news from Zox Chittle.

Well, considering it was fifth or sixth hand, your information was good enough when it was fresh. It was a year and a half old when you got it, though. How long have you been here on Tanneth? "'About a thousand hours.' Harkaman clucked sadly at that. "'Pity you wasted all that time. "'Well, it was nice talking to you, Boke.

"'Say hello to Garvin for me when he comes up.' "'You mean you're not staying?' Valkenhane was horrified. "'An odd reaction for a man "'who had just been expecting a bitter battle to drive them away. "'You're just spacing right out again?' "'Harkiman shrugged. "'Do we want to waste time he?

here, Lord Trask? The Enterprise has obviously gone somewhere else. She was still in hyperspace when Captain Vulcanhane and his accomplice arrived here. Is there anything worth staying for? That seemed to be the reply Harkhamen was expecting. Beside, poultry, that is. Harkaman shook his head. This is Captain Vulcanhane's planet, his and Captain Spassos. Let them be stuck with it. But look, this is a good planet. There's a big local city, maybe ten or twenty thousand people, temples and palaces and everything. Then there are a couple of old Federation cities.

The one we're at is in good shape, and there's a big spaceport. We've been doing a 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, could we make some kind of a deal?' Valkenhain asked. A mendicant wine was beginning to creep into his voice. "'I can get Garvin on screen and switch him over to your ship.' "'Well, we have a lot of Sword World merchandise aboard,' Harkman said.

"'We could make you good prices on some of it. How are you fixed for robotic equipment?' "'But aren't you going to stay here?' Volkenhane was almost in a panic. Listen, suppose I talk to Garvin, and we all get together on this. Just excuse me for a minute. As soon as he had blanked out, Harkman threw back his head and guffawed, as though he had just heard the funniest and bodiest joke in the galaxy.

Trask himself didn't feel like laughing. The humor escapes me, he admitted. He came here on a fool's errand. I'm sorry, Lucas. Harkaman was still shaking with mirth. I know it's a letdown, but that pair of chisling chicken thieves, I could almost pity them if it weren't so funny. He laughed again.

You know what their idea was? Trask shook his head. Who are they? What I call them, a couple of chicken thieves. They raid planets like Set and Hertha and Melchard. where the locals haven't anything to fight with, or anything worth fighting for. I didn't know they'd teamed up, but that figures. Nobody else would team up with either of them.

What must have happened, this story of Duke Angus Tanneth Adventure must have filtered out to them, and they thought that if they got here first, I'd think it was cheaper to take them in than run them out. I probably would have, too. They do have ships, of a sort, and they do raid, after a fashion. But now there isn't going to be any Tanneth base, and they have a no-good planet, and they're stuck with it. Can't they make anything out of it themselves? Like what, Harkhamen hooted.

They have no equipment, and they have no men, not for a job like that. The only thing they can do is space out and forget it. We could sell them equipment. We could, if they had anything to use for money. They haven't. One thing, we do want to let down and give the men a chance to walk on ground and look at a sky for a while. The girls here aren't too bad either, Harkman said.

As I remember, some of them even take a bath now and then. That's the kind of news of Dunnan we're going to get. By the time we'd get to where he'd been reported, he'd be a couple of thousand light years away, he said disgustedly. I agree. We ought to give the men a chance to get off the ship here. We can stall this pair along for a while, and we won't have any trouble with them. The three ships were slowly converging toward a point fifteen thousand miles off planet and over the sunset line. The space scourge bore the device of a mailed fist,

clutching a comet by the head. It looked more like a wisconsin, whisk broom than a scourge. The lamia bore a coiled snake with the head, arms, and bust of a woman. Balkin-Hane 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 Alvin Carford. They both laughed. Just holding ships meetings, Carford said. They'll be yacking back and forth for a couple of hours yet. Yes, Volcan-Hane and Spasso don't own their ships, Harkiman explained. They've gone in debt to their crews for supplies and maintenance till everybody owns everything

in common. The ships look like it, too. They don't even command, really. They just preside over elected command councils. Finally, they had both of them more or less commanders on screen. Volcan Hane had zipped up his shirt and put on a jacket. Garvin Spasso. was a small man, partly bald. His eyes were a shade too close together, and his thin mouth had a

bitterly crafty twist. He began speaking at once. "'Captain! Boak tells me you say you're not here in the service of the Duke of Ordshaven at all,' he said grievantly. "'That's correct,' Harkaman said. "'We came here because Lord Trask thought another Graham ship the Enterprise would be here. Since he 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 giving our men a couple of hundred hours liberty.

They've been in hyperspace for three thousand hours. "'See?' Spasso clamored. He wants to trick us into letting him land. "'Captain Spasso,' Tras cut in. "'Will you please stop insulting everybody's intelligence, your own included?' Spasso glared at him, belligerently, but hopefully. I understand what you thought you were going to do here. You expected Captain Harkhamen here to establish a base for the Duke of Wardshaven.

And you thought, if you were here ahead of him and in a posture of defense, that he take you into the Duke's service rather than waste ammunition and risk damage and casualties wiping you out. Well, I'm very sorry, gentlemen. Captain Harkiman is in my service, and I'm not in the least interested in establishing a base on Tanneth. Valconhain and Spasso looked at each other. At least in the two side-by-side screens, their eyes shifted, each to the other's screen in 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 want to put in a base here. That opened up a glorious vista. Instead of merely capitalizing on their nuisance value, they might find themselves holding the balance of power in a struggle for the planet. All sorts of profitable perfidies were possible. Why, sure, you can land Otto, Valken Haynes said, I know what it's like to be three thousand hours in Hyper myself.

You're at this old city, with the two tall tower buildings, aren't you? Harkerman asked. He looked up at the viewscreen. All to be about midnight there now. How's the spaceport? When I was here it was pretty bad. Oh, we've been fixing it up. We've got a big gang of locals working for us. The city was familiar, from Otto Harkiman's descriptions, and from the pictures Van Larch had painted during the long jump from Graham. As they came in, it looked impressive, spreading for miles around the 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 Terran Federation, must have done so confident that it would have become a metropolis of a populous and prospering world. Then the sun of the Federation, had gone down. Nobody knew what had happened on Tanneth after that, but evidently none of it had been good. At first, the two towers seemed as sound as when they had been built. Gradually, it became apparent that one was broken at the top. For the most part, the smaller buildings scattered widely around them were standing, though here and there mounds of brush-grown rubble showed where some had fallen in. The spaceport looked good.

a central octagon mass of buildings, the landing berths and beyond the triangular areas of airship docks and warehouses. The central building was outwardly intact, and the ship berths seemed clear of wreckage 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 were approaching a living city had vanished. The inner spaces between the buildings were choked with forest growth. broken by a few small fields and garden plots. At one time there had been three of the high buildings, literally vertical cities in themselves.

Where the third had stood was a glazed crater, with a ridge of fallen rubble lying away from it. Somebody must have landed a medium missile, about 20 kilotons, against its base. Something of the same sort had scored on the far edge of the spaceport, and one of the eight arrowheads of docks and warehouses was an indistinguishable slag pile. The rest of the city seemed to have died of neglect rather than violence. It certainly hadn't been bombed out.

Harkhamond thought most of the fighting had been done with sub-neutron bombs or omega-ray bombs that killed people without damaging the real estate. Or bio-weapons, a man-made plague that had gotten out of control and all but deep. populated the planet. It takes an awful lot of people working together at an awful lot of jobs to keep a civilization running. Smash the installations and kill the top technicians and scientists, and the masses don't know how to rebuild, and go back to stone hatchets. Kill off enough of the masses, and even if the planet and the know-how is left, there's nobody to do the work. I've seen planets that de-civilized both ways.

Tanneth, I think, is one of the latter. That had been during one of the long after-dinner bull sessions on the way out from Graham. Somebody, one of the noble gentleman adventurers who had joined the company after the piracy of the enterprise and the murder, had asked, But some of them survived. Don't they know what happened? In the old times there were sorcerers. They built the old buildings by wizard-artes.

Then the sorcerers fought among themselves and went away, Harkerman said. That's all they know about it. You could make any kind of an explanation out of that. As the Pinnisus pulled and nudged the nemesis down to her birth, he could see people far down on the spaceport floor at work. Either Volcanhane and Spasso had more men than the size of their ships indicated, or they had gotten a lot of locals to work for them. More than the population of the Moribund City, at least as Harkhamen remembered it,

there had been about 500 in all. They lived by mining the old buildings for metal, and trading metalwork for food and textiles and powder and other things made elsewhere. It was accessible only by ox-carts, traveling a hundred miles across the plains. It had been built by a contra-gravity using people, with utter disregard for natural travel and transportation routes. "'I don't envy the poor buggers,' Harkman said, looking down at the ant-like figures on the spaceport floor.

Boak-Valk-Valkenhain and Garvin Spasso have probably made slaves of the lot of them. If I was really going to put in a base here, I wouldn't thank that pair for the kind of public relations work they've been doing among the locals. Nine. That was just about the situation. Spasso and Valkenhane and some of their officers met them on the landing stage of the big building in the middle of the spaceport, where they had established quarters. Entering and going down a long hallway, they passed a dozen men and women gathering up rubbish from the floor, with shovels and with their hands and putting it into a lifter skid.

Both sexes wore shapeless garments of coarse cloth, like ponchos, and flat-sold sandals. Watching them was another local in a kilt, buskins, and a leather jerkin. He wore a short sword on his belt and carried a wickedly thronged whip. He also wore a space Viking combat helmet, painted with the device of Spasos lamia. He bowed as they approached, 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 can 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.

Harciman's nose was twitching as though he had a bit of rotten fish caught in his mustache. We have about 800 of them. There were only 300 that were any good for work here. We gathered the rest up at villages along the big river, Spasso was saying. How do you get food for them? Harkerman asked, or don't you bother? Oh, we gather that up all over, Valken Hain told him. We send parties out with landing craft.

They'll let down on a village, run the locals out, gather up what's around, and bring it here. Once in a while they put up a fight, but the best they have is a few crossbows and some muzzle-loading muskets. When they do, we burn the village and machine-gun everybody we see. That's the stuff. Harkerman approved. "'If the cow doesn't want to be milk, just shoot her.

Of course, you don't get much milk out of her again, but—' The room to which their hosts guided them was at the far end of the hall. It had probably been a conference room or something of the sort, and originally it had been paneled, but the paneling had long ago vanished. Holes had been dug here and there in the walls, and he remembered having noticed that the door was gone, and the metal groove in which it had slid had been pried out. There was a big table in the middle,

and chairs and couches covered with colored spreads. All the furniture was handmade, cunningly pegged together and highly polished. On the walls hung trophies of weapons, thrusting spears and throwing spears, crossbows and quarrels, and a number of heavy guns, crude things, but carefully made. "'Pick up all this stuff off the locals?' Harkerman asked. "'Yes, we got most of it at a big town down at the forks of the river,' Valcan Haynes said.

"'We shook it down a couple of times. That's where we recruited the fellows we were using to boss the workers.' Then he picked up a stick with a leather-covered knob and beat on a gong, bawling for wine. A voice somewhere replied, "'Yes, master, I come.' and in a few moments a woman entered carrying a jug in either hand. She was wearing a blue bathrobe several sizes too large for her, instead of the poncho things the slaves in the hallway wore.

She had dark brown hair and gray eyes. If she had not been so obviously frightened, she would have been beautiful. She set the jugs on 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 are paying these people anything for the work they do or for the things you take from them, Harkaman said. From the way the space scourge and the lamia people laughed, it evidently was. Harkiman shrugged.

Well, it's your planet. Make any kind of a mess out of it you want to. You think we ought to pay them? Spasso was incredulous. Damn bunch of savages! They aren't as savage as the Zochittle locals were when Haltakle took it over. You've been there. You've seen what Prince Victor does with them now. We haven't got the men or equipment they have on Zochittle, Valken Haynes said.

We can't afford to coddle the locals. You can't afford not to, Harkman told him. You have two ships here. You can only use one for raiding. The other will have to stay here to hold the planet. If you take them both away, the locals, whom you have been studiously antagonizing, will swamp whoever you leave behind. And if you don't leave anybody behind, what's the use of 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 join us?" "'Well, if you want to put it like that,' Valkenhane conceded. "'We'll admit your nemesis would be the big end of it. But why not? Three ships. We could have a real base here. Nikki Greytham's father only had two when he started on Jaganeth,

and look what the Greythams got there now.' "'Are we interested?' Parkerman asked. Not very, I'm afraid. Of course, we've just landed. Tanneth may have great possibilities. Suppose we reserve decision for a while and look around a little. There were stars in the sky, and for good measure a sliver of moon on 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 walking with him. The noise from inside were the nemesis crew, were feasting with those of the lamia and space scourge grew fainter. To the south a star moved, one of the pinnaces they had left on off-planet watch. There was firelight far below, and he could hear singing. Suddenly he realized that it was the poor devils of locals whom Valconhain 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 a year or so, and then hitch

a ride home from some base planet and cash in 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 along with it. Well, brutality and bad manners I can condone. But Spasso and Valkenhane or a pair of ignominious little crooks and stupid along with it. If Andrade Dunnan had gotten here ahead of us, he might have done one good thing in this wretched life. I can't understand why he didn't come here. I think he still will, Rathmore said. I knew him, and I knew Neville Orm. Orm's ambitious, and Dunnons 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 Tanneth. That would be something constructive. Dunn's a destroyer. I think he took that cargo of equipment somewhere and sold it. I think he'll wait till he's fairly sure the other ship is finished. Then he'll come in and shoot the place up, the way he bit off that abruptly.

The way he did my wedding. I think of it all the time. The next morning he and Harkiman took an air car and went to look at the city at the forks of the river. It was completely new, in the sense that it had been built since the collapse of Federation civilization and the loss of civilized technologies. It was huddled on a long, irregularly triangular mound, evidently to raise it above flood level. Generations of labor must have gone into it, to the eyes of a civilization using contragravity, and powered equipment, it wasn't at all impressive.

Fifty to a hundred men with adequate equipment could have gotten the thing up in a summer. It was only by forcing himself to think in terms of spadeful after spadeful of earth, cartload after cartload creaking behind straining beasts, timber after timber, cut with axes and dressed with adzes, stone after stone, and brick after brick that he could appreciate it. They even had it walled, with a palisade of tree trunks behind which earth and rocks had been banked, and along the river were docks, at which boats were moored. The locals simply called it Trade Town. As they approached, a big gong began booming, and a white puff of smoke was followed

by the thud of a signal gun. The boats, long canoe-like craft and round-bowed many oared barges, put out hastily into the river. Through binoculars they could see people scattering from the surrounding fields, driving cattle ahead of them. By the time they were over the city, nobody was in sight. They seemed to have developed a pretty fair air-raid warning system in the 1900-odd hours in which they had been exposed to the figurative mercies of Boke-Valk-Valk-Valkenhain and Garvin-Spasso.

It hadn't saved them entirely. A section of the city had been burned, and there were evidences of shelling. Light, chemical explosive stuff. This city was too good a cow for even those two to kill before the milking was over. They circled slowly over it at a thousand feet. When they turned away, black smoke began rising from what might have been pottery works or brick kilns on the outskirts. Something resinous had evidently been fed to the fires.

Other columns of black smoke began rising across the countryside on both sides of the river. You know, these people are civilized, if you don't limit the term to contragravity and nuclear energy, Harkman said. They have gunpowder for one thing, and I can think of some rather impressive old Terran civilizations that didn't have that much. They have an organized society, and anybody who has that is starting toward civilization. I hate to think of what'll happen to this planet if Spasso and Valkenhanes stay here long. Might be a good thing in the long run. Good things in the long run are often tough while they're happening.

I know what'll happen to Spasso and Valkenhain, though. They'll start decivizing themselves. They'll stay here for a while, and when they need something they can't take from the locals, they'll go chicken stealing after it. But most of the time, they'll start to be civilizing themselves. stay here, lording it over their slaves, and finally their ships will wear out and they won't be able to fix them. Then, sometime the locals will jump them when they aren't watching and wipe them out. But in the meantime, the locals will learn a lot from them. They turned

the air car west again along the river. They looked at a few villages. One or two dated from the Federation period. They had been plantations before whatever it was had happened. More had been built within the past five centuries. A couple had recently been destroyed, 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 Valkenhain persuade me to take this planet away from them.' Harkaman, who was piloting, turned sharply.

"'You crazy or something?' When somebody makes a statement you don't understand, don't tell him he's crazy, ask him what he means. Who said that? On target, Harkham and grinned. What do you mean, Lord Trask? I can't catch Dunnan by pursuit. I'll have to get him by interception.

You know the source of that quotation, too. This looks to me like a good place to intercept him. When he learns I have a base 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 in here than we would batting around all over the old federation. Harkhamen considered for a moment, then nodded. Yes, if we could set up a base like Nergal or Zah Chittle, he agreed, there'll be four or five ships, space Vikings, traders, Gilgameshers, and so on.

on either of those planets all the time. If we had the cargo Dunin took 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 Spasso and Valkenhain have. We can get it from Graham. As it stands, the investors in the Tannet Adventure, from Duke Angus down, lost everything they put into it.

If they're willing to throw some good money after bad, they can get it back, and a handsome profit to boot. And there ought to be planets above the rowboat and ox-cart level not too far away, that could be rated 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 Valconhain are in the habit of raiding, though. And besides machinery, we can get gold, and valuable merchandise that could be sold on gram.

And if we could make a go of it, you'd go farther hunting Dunnan by sitting down. here on Tanneth, then by going looking for him. That was the way we used to hunt marsh pigs on Kolata when I was a kid. Just find a good place and sit down and wait. They had Valkenhain and Spassau aboard the nemesis for dinner. It didn't take much guiding to keep the conversation on the subject of Tanneth 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 in eagerly.

This is a wonderful planet. It could be. All it has now is possibilities. We'd need a spaceport for one thing. Well, what's this here? Valken Hayne wanted to know. It was a spaceport, Harkman told him. It could be one again. and we'd need a shipyard, capable of any kind of heavy repair work. Capable of building a complete ship, in fact.

I never saw a ship come into a Viking base planet, with any kind of a cargo worth dickering over, that hadn't taken some damage in getting it. Prince Victor of Zochittle makes a good half of his money on ship repairs, and so do Nicky Gratham on Jagannath, and the Everards on Hoth. And engine works, hyperdrive, normal space, and pseudograv, trask added, and a steel mill, and a collapsed matter plant, and robotic equipment works, and— Oh, that's out of all reason, Valkenhain cried.

It would take twenty trips with a ship the size of this one to get all that stuff here, 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, carried everything that would be needed to get it started when she was pirated. When she was, Now you're going to have to tell the gentleman the truth, Harkham and chuckled. I intend to. He laid his cigar down, sipped some of his brandy, and explained about Duke Angus' Tenth Adventure. It was part of a larger plan. Angus wanted to gain economic supremacy

for Wardshaven to forward his political ambitions. It was, however, an entirely practical business proposition. I was opposed to it, because I thought it would be too good a proposition for Tanneth and worked to the disadvantage of the home planet in the end. He told them about the enterprise and the cargo of industrial and construction equipment she carried, and then told them how André Dunnan had pirated her. That wouldn't have annoyed me at all. I had not, I had no money invested in the project. What did annoy me, to put it mildly, was that just before he took the ship out, Dunnons shot up my wedding, wounded me and my father-in-law, and killed the lady to whom I had been married for less than half an hour. I fitted out this ship at my own

expense, took on Captain Harciman, who had been left without a command when the enterprise was pirated, and came out here to hunt Dunnand down and kill him. I believe that I can do that best by establishing a base on Tanneth myself. The base will have to be operated at a profit, or it can't be operated at all. He picked up the cigar again and puffed slowly. I am inviting you, gentlemen, to join me as partners. Well, you still haven't told us how we're going to get the money to finance it, Spasso insisted. The Duke of Wardshaven and the others who invested in the original Tanneth Adventure will put it up. It's the only way they can recover what they lost on the enterprise.

But then this Duke of Wardshaven will be running it, not us, Vulcan Hane objected. The Duke of Wardshaven, Harkhamen reminded him, is on Graham. We are here on Tanneth. There are three thousand light years between. That seemed a satisfactory answer. Spasso, however, wanted to know who would run things here on Tannet. "'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 running things here on Tannath. You people may allow your orders to be debated and voted on, but I don't. You will inform your respective crews to that effect. Any orders you give them in my name will be obeyed without argument.' "'I don't know how the men will take that,' Valkan Haynes. said. "'I know how they'll take it if they're smart,' Harkman told him. "'And I know what'll happen if they aren't. I know how you've been running your ships, or how your ship's crews have been running you. Well, we don't do it that way.

Lucas Trask is owner, and I'm captain. I obey his orders on what's to be done, and everybody else obeys mine on how to do it.' Spasso looked at Valkenhane, then shrugged. That's how the man wants it, Boke. You want to give him an argument? I don't. The first order, Trask said, is that these people you have working here are to be paid. They are not to be beaten by these plug-uglies you have guarding them. If any of them want to leave, they may do so.

They will be given presents and furnished transportation home. Those who wish to stay will be issued rations, furnished with clothing and betting and so on as they need it, and paid wages. We'll work out some kind of a pay token system and set up a commissary where they can buy things. Disks of plastic or titanium or something, stamped and uncounterfeitable. Get Alvin Carford to see about that. Organize work gangs and promote the best and most intelligent to foreman. And those guards could be taken in hand by some ground fighter sergeant

and given sword world weapons and tactical training. Use them to train others. They'd need a seapoy army. of some sort. Even the best of goodwill 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 or anything else. We will pay for anything we get from any of the locals. We'll have trouble about that, Valken Hayne predicted. Our men think anything a local has belongs to anybody who can take it.

So do I, Harkiman said. On a planet I'm raiding, this is our planet, and our locals. We don't raid our own planet or our own people. You'll just have to teach them that. End of Chapter 9. Space Viking. 10. It took Valconhain and Spazzo more time and argument

to convince their crews than Trask thought necessary. Harkhamen seemed satisfied, and so was Baron Rathmore, the Wardshaven politician. It's like talking a lot of uncommitted small landholders into taking somebody's livery and maintenance, the latter said, You can't use too much pressure. Make them think it's their own idea. There were meetings of both crews with heated arguments. Baron Rathmore made frequent speeches, while Lord Trask of Tanneth and Admiral Harkhamen, the titles were Rathmore's suggestion, remained loftily aloof. On both ships, everybody owned everything in common, which meant that nobody owned anything. They had taken over Tanneth on the

same basis of diffused ownership, and nobody in either crew was quite stupid enough to think that they could do anything with the planet by themselves. By joining the nemesis, it appeared that they were getting something for nothing. In the end, they voted to place themselves under the authority of Lord Trask and Admiral Harciman. After all, Tanneth would be a feudal lordship, and the three ships together a fleet. Admiral Harciman's first act of authority was to order a general inspection of fleet units. He wasn't shocked by the condition of the two ships, but that was only because he had expected much worse. They were spaceworthy, after all, they had gotten here from Hoth under their own power. They were only combat worthy if the combat weren't too severe.

His original estimate that the nemesis could have knocked 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 Tannath,' he told the two captains. "'This planet is a raiding base, and raiding is the operative word. And we are not going to raid easy planets. A planet that can be raided with impunity isn't worth the time it takes getting 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 underpowered and underarmed ships. Spazzo 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 Sepatotech and Milkarth, not making enough to cover maintenance expenses. That's why your ship's in the shape she is. Well, those days are over. Both ships ought to have a full overhaul, but we'll have to skip that till we have a shipyard of our own.

But I will insist at least that your guns and lords and lull. launchers are in order. And your detection equipment. You didn't get a fix on the nemesis till we were less than 20,000 miles off planet. We had better get the lamia in condition first, Trask said. We can put her on off-planet watch instead of that pair of pinnaces. Work on the lamia started the next day, and considerable friction heat was generated between her officers and the engineer sent over from the nemesis. and Rathmore went aboard and came back laughing. "'You know how that ship's run?' he asked.

"'There's a sort of Soviet of officers, chief engineer, exec, guns and missiles, Astrogator, and so on. Spassau's just an animated ventriloquist, dummy. I talk to all of them. None of them can pin me down to anything, but they think we're going to heave Spasso out of command and appoint one of them, and each one thinks he'll be it. I don't know how long that'll last.

It's a string and tape job, like the one we're having to do on the ship. It'll hold till we get something better. We'll have to get rid of Spasso, Harkhamen agreed. I think we'll put one of our own people in his place. Valcon Hain can stay in command of the space scourge. He's a spaceman, but Spazzo's not good for anything. The local problem was complicated, too. The locals spoke Linguiterra of a space man.

sort, like every descendant of the race that had gone out from the Sol system in the third century, but it was a barely comprehensible sort. On civilized planets, the language had been frozen unalterably in micro-books and voice tapes, but microbooks can only be read and sound tapes heard with the aid of electricity, and Tanneth had lost that long ago. Most of the people Spasso and Valkenhane had kidnapped and enslaved came from villages within a radio, and of 500 miles. About half of them wanted to be repatriated. They were given gifts of knives, tools, blankets, and bits of metal, which seemed to be the chief standard of value and medium of exchange, and shipped home. Finding their proper villages was not easy. At each such village,

the news was spread that the space Vikings would hereafter pay for what they received. The lamia was overhauled as rapidly as possible. She was still far from being a good ship, but she was much closer being one than before. She was fitted with the best detection equipment that could be assembled and put on orbit. Alvin Carford took command of her, with some of Spassos officers,

some of Alkenhains, and a few from the nemesis. Harciman was intending to use her for retraining of all the lamia and space scourge officers, and rotated them back and forth. The labor guards, a score in number, were relieved of their duties, issued sword-world firearms and given intensive training. The trade tokens, stamps of colored plastic were introduced, and a store was set up where they could be exchanged for sword-world items.

After a while, it dawned on the locals that the tokens could also be used for trading among themselves. Money seemed to have been one of the adjuncts of citizens, civilization that had been lost along Tanneth's downward path. A few of them were able to use contra-gravity handlifters and hand-toed lifter skids. Several were even learning to operate things like bulldozers, at least to the extent of knowing which lever or button did what. Give them a little time, Trask thought, watching a gang at work down on the spaceport floor. It wouldn't be many years before half of them would be piloting air cars.

As soon as the lamia was on orbital watch, the space scourge was set down at the spaceport, and work started on her. It was decided that Valkenhain would take her to Graham. Enough nemesis people would go along to ensure good faith on his part, and to talk to Duke Angus and the Tanneth investors. Baron Rathmore and Patrick Morland, and several other Wardshaven gentlemen adventurers for the latter function, Alvin Carford to act as Valcon Haines' exec, with private orders to supersede him in command if necessary,

and Goat Kirby to do the astrogating. "'We'll have to take the nemesis and the space-gurge out first and make a big raid,' Harkiman said. "'We can't send the space-gurge back to Graham empty. When Baron Rathmore and Lord Valpry and the rest of them talk to Duke Angus and the Taneth investors, they'll have to have a lot more than some travel films of Tanneth. They'll have to be able to show that Tanneth is producing. We ought to have a little money of our own to invest, too. But Otto, both ships?

That worried Trask. Suppose Dunn comes and finds nobody here but Spasso and the Lamia. Chance we'll have to take. Personally, I think we have a year to a year and a half before Dunin shows up here. I know we were fool trying to guess what he'd do before, but the sort of raid I have in mind we'll need two ships, and in any case I don't want to leave both 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't trust Spaso here alone, can we?

We'll leave enough of our people to make sure. We'll leave Alvin. That'll mean a lot of work for me that he'd otherwise do on the ship. and Baron Rathmore and young Valpri, and the men who've been training our sepoys. We can shuffle things around and leave some of Alconhan's men in place of some of Spassos. We might even talk Spasso into going along. That'll mean having to endure him at our table, but it would be wise. Have you picked a place to raid?

Three of them. First, Capera. That's only thirty light years from here. That won't amount to much, just chicken stealing. It'll give our green hands some relatively safe combat training, and it'll give us some idea of how Spazzo's and Valcon Haines' people behave, and give them confidence for the next job. And then... Amaterasu.

My information about Amaterasu is about 20 years old. A lot of things can happen in 20 years. All I know of it, I was never there myself, is its fairly civilized, about like Terra just before the beginning of the atomic era. No nuclear energy, they lost that, and of course nothing beyond it, but they have hydroelectric and solar electric power and non-nuclear jet aircraft, and some very good chemical explosive weapons, which they use very freely on each other.

It was last known to have been raided by a ship from Excalibur 20 years ago. That sounds promising. And the third planet? Beowulf. We won't take enough damage on Amaterasu to make any difference there, but if we saved Amaterasu for last, we might be needing too many repairs.

It's like that? Yes, they have nuclear energy. I don't think it would be wise to mention Beowulf to Captain Spaso and Valkenheim. Wait till we've hit Capera and Amaterasu. They may be feeling like here. Then. Eleven.

Capera left a bad taste in Trask's mouth. He was still tasting it when the colored turbulence died out of the screen and left the gray nothingness of hyperspace. Garvin Spasso. They had had no trouble in inducing him to come along. He was staring avidly at the screen as though he could still see the ravished planet they had left. That was a good one!

That was a good one! He was crowing. He had said that a dozen times since they had lifted out. Three cities in five days, and all the stuff we gathered up around them. We took over two million Stellars, and did ten times as much damage getting it, and there were no scale of 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 or anybody else like that.

Gresham's law extended. Bad manners drive out good manners. Spasso turned on him indignantly. Who do you think you are? He thinks he's Lord Trask of Tanneth, Harkman said. He's right, too. He is. He looked searchingly at Trask for a moment, then turned back to Spasso.

I'm just as tired as he is of hearing you pop your mouth about a lousy two million Stellars. Nearer a million and a half, but two million's nothing to pop about. Maybe it would be for the Lamia, but we have a three-ship fleet and a planetary base to meet expenses on. Out of this raid, a ground fighter or an able spaceman will get 150 Stellars. We'll get about a thousand ourselves. How long do you think we can stay in business doing this kind of chicken stealing?

You call this chicken stealing? I call it chicken stealing. stealing, and so'll you before we get back to Tanneth, if you live that long. For a moment, Spasso was still affronted. Then, temporarily, his vulpine face showed avaricious hope, and then apprehension. Evidently, he knew Otto Harkaman's reputation, and some of the things Harkaman had done weren't his idea of an easy way to make money. Capera had been easy. The locals hadn't anything to fight with, small arms and light cannon, which hadn't been able to fire more than a few rounds. Wherever they had attempted resistance, the combat cars had swooped

in, dropping bombs and firing machine guns and auto-canon. Yet they had fought, bitterly and hopelessly, just as he would have, defending Traskin. Trask busied himself getting coffee and a cigarette from one of the robots. When he looked up, Spasso had gone away. and Harkaman was sitting on the edge of the desk, loading his short pipe. "'Well, you saw the elephant, Lucas,' Harkman said. "'You don't seem to have liked it.' "'Elephant?'

"'Old Terran expression I read somewhere. All I know is that an elephant was an animal about the size of one of your gram megathere's. The expression means experiencing something for the first time which makes a great impression. Elephants must have been something to see. This was your first Viking raid. You've seen it now. He'd been in combat before. He'd led fighting men of Traskin during the boundary dispute with

Baron Manuel, and there were always bandits and cattle rustlers. He'd thought it would be like that. He remembered, five days, or was it five ages ago, his excited anticipation as the city grew and spread in the screen, and the nemesis came with. dropping down toward it. The Pinnis'es, his four, and the two from the space scourge, had gone spiraling out a hundred miles beyond the city. The space scourge had gone into a tighter circle, twenty miles from its center. The nemesis had continued her relentless descent until she was ten miles from the ground, before she began spewing out landing craft and combat cars, and the little egg-shaped one-man-air cavalry mounts. It had been thrilling. It had been thrilling,

Everything had gone perfectly. Not even Valkenheim's gang had goofed. Then the screen views had begun coming in. The brief and hopeless fight in the city. He could still see that silly little field gun. It must have been around 70 or 80-millimeter on a high-wheeled carriage drawn by six shaggy, bandy-legged beasts. They had gotten it unlimbered and were trying to get it on a target

when a rocket from an air car landed directly under the muzzle. Gun, Kaysan, crew, even the draft team fifty yards behind, had simply vanished. Or the little company, some of them women, trying to defend the top of a tall and half-ruinous building with rifles and pistols. One air cavalryman wiped them all out with his machine guns. They don't have a chance, he'd said, half sick, but they keep on fighting. 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 got me. 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 had followed had been a man-made hell. He had gone down, along with Harkhamen, while the fighting, if it could be so-called was still going on. Harkaman had suggested that the men ought to see him moving about among them. For his own part, he had felt a compulsion to share their guilt. He and Sir Patrick Morland had been on foot together in one of the big hollow buildings that had stood since Kepera had been a member republic of the Terran Federation. The air was acrid with smoke, powder smoke, and the smoke of burning. It was surprising how much would burn, in in this city of concrete and vitrified stone. It was surprising, too, how well kept everything

was, at least on the ground level. These people had taken pride in their city. They found themselves alone in a great empty hallway. The noise and horror of the sack had moved away from them, or they from it, and then, when they entered a side hall, they saw a man, one of the locals, squatting on the floor with the body of a woman cradled on his lap. She was dead, half her head had been blown off, but he was clasping her tightly, her blood staining his shirt and sobbing heartbrokenly. A carbine lay forgotten on the floor beside him. "'Poor devil!' Morland said and started forward. "'No!' Tras stopped him with his left hand. With his right he drew his pistol and shot

the man dead. Morland was horrified. "'Great Satan, Lucas! Why did you do that?' "'I wish Andrade Dunnan had done that for me.' He thumbed the safety on and holstered the pistol. "'None of this would be happening if he had. How many more happinesses do you think we've smashed here today?

And we don't even have Dunn's excuse of madness.' The next morning, with everything of value collected and sent aboard, they had started cross-country for 500 miles to another city. The first hundred, over a countryside, a smoke from burning villages, Valkenhane's men had pillaged the night before. There was no warning. Capera had lost electricity and radio and telegraph, and the spread of news was at the speed of one of the beasts

the locals insisted on calling horses. By mid-afternoon they had finished with that city. It had been as bad as the first one. One thing, it was the center of a considerable cattle country. The cattle were native to the planet, heavy-bodied unicorns the size of a gram bisonoid, or one of the slightly mutated Terran caribows on Tanneth, with long hair like a Terran yak.

He had detailed a dozen of the Nemesis ground fighters who had been Vakeros on his Traskan ranches to collect a score of cows and four likely bulls, with enough fodder to last them on the voyage. The odds were strongly against any of them living to a climate themselves to Tanneth, but if they did, they might prove to be one of the most valuable pieces of loot from Kapera. The third city was at the forks of a river, like trade town on Tanneth. Unlike it, it was a real metropolis.

They should have gone there, first of all. They spent two days systematically pillaging it. The caperans carried on considerable river traffic, with stern-wheel steamboats, and the waterfront was lined with warehouses crammed with every sort of merchandise. Even better, the Comparance had money, and for the most part it was gold specie, and the bank vaults were full of it. Unfortunately, the city had been built since the fall of the Federation, and the climb up from the barbarism that had followed, and a great deal of it was wood.

Fire 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 were out of atmosphere, a black smear until the turning planet carried it into darkness and then a lurid glow. It was a filthy business. Harkaman nodded. Robbery and murder always are. You didn't have to ask me who said that space. Face Vikings are professional robbers and murderers.

But who was it said that he didn't care how many planets were raided and how many innocents massacred in the old Federation? A dead man, Lucas Trask of Traskin. You wish now that you'd kept Traskin and stayed on Graham? No, if I had, I'd have spent every hour wishing I was doing what I'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 on my first raid, and had bad dreams about it for a year. He gave his coffee cup back to the robot and got to his feet. Get a little rest for a couple of hours, then draw some alka-dote vitamin pills from the medic. As soon as things are secured, there'll be parties all over the ship, and we'll be expected to look in on every one of them, have a drink and say, Well done, boys. Elaine came to him while he was resting.

She looked at him in horror, and he tried to hide his face from her, and then he realized that he was trying to hide it from himself. Twelve. It came straight down on Eglensby on Amaterasu, the nemesis and space scourge side by side. The radar had picked them up at point five light seconds. By this time, the whole planet knew they were coming, and nobody was wondering why.

Paul Corref was monitoring at least 20 radio stations, assigning somebody to each one as it was identified. What was coming in was uniformly excited, some panicky, and all in fairly standard linguatera. Garvin Spaso was perturbed. So, in the communication screen from the space scourge was Boke-Valk-Valkenhane. They got radio! And they got radar, he clamored. Well, so what? Harkiman asked. They had radio and radar 20 years ago, when Rock Morgan was here in the coal sack.

But they don'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 man with a gun can lick half a dozen with clubs. and two ships with nuclear weapons can lick a whole planet without them. Think it's time, Lucas? He nodded. Paul, can you cut in on that Egglandsby station yet?

What are you going to do? Valcon Hain wanted to know, against it, in 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 be murderers, we'll do it right this time." Valkenhain was aghast, probably at the idea of burning an unlooted city.

Spasso was sputtering something about, "'Teach the dirty Neo-Barbs a lesson!' Korov told him he was switched on. He picked up a handphone. "'Space, Vikings, nemesis and space scourge, calling the city of Egglandsby. Space Vikings!' He repeated it for over. a minute. There was no reply. Van, he called guns and missiles, a sub-crit display job, about four miles over the city. He laid the phone down and looked to the underside view screen.

A little later, a silvery shape dropped away from the ship's south pole. The telescopic screen went off, and the un-magnified screen darkened as the filters went on. Valkenhane, aboard the other ship, was shouting a warning about his own screens. The only unfiltered screen aboard the nemesis was the one tuned to the falling missile. The city of Eglensby rushed upward in it, and then it went suddenly dark. There was an orange-yellow blaze in the other screens. After a while, the filters went off, and the telescopic screen went on again. He picked up the phone.

Space Vikings calling Eglensby. This is your last warning. Communicate at once. Less than a minute later, a voice came out of one of the speakers. Egglensby calling Space Vikings. Your bomb has done great damage. Will you hold your fire until somebody in authority can communicate with you? This is the chief operator at the Central State Telecast Station.

I have no authority to say anything to you, or discuss anything. Oh, good, that sounds like a dictatorship, Harkiman was saying. "'Grab the dictator and shove a pistol in his face, and you have everything.' "'There is nothing to discuss. Get somebody who has authority to surrender 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 Gonzales Jan, secretary to Pedrosan, Pedro, president of the Council of Syndics. We will switch President Pedrosin over as soon as we will switch President Pedrosin over as soon as

can speak directly to the personage and supreme command of your ships. That is myself. Switch him to me at once. After a delay of less than fifteen seconds, they had President Pedrosan Pedro. We are prepared to resist, but we realize what this would cost in lives and destruction of property, he began. You don't begin to. Do you know anything about nuclear weapons? From history, we have no knowledge.

nuclear power of any sort. We can find no fishnables on this planet. The cost, as you put it, would be everything and every body in Eglensby and for a radius of almost a hundred miles. Are you still prepared to resist? The President of the Council of Syndix wasn't, and said so. Trask asked him how much authority his position gave him. I have all powers in any emergency. I think, the voice added tonely. that this is an emergency. The council will automatically 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 motioned to Harkman to take his thumb off the button. How large is this council? 16, elected by the syndicates they represent. There is the syndicate of labor, the syndicate of manufacturers, the syndicate of small businesses, the... Corporate State, First Century Pre-Atomic Ontario. Benny the Moose, Harkaman said, let's all go down and talk to them. When they were sure that the public had been warned to make no resistance, the nemesis went down to two miles, bulking over the center of the city. The buildings were low by the standards of a contra-gravity using people, the highest, barely a thousand feet, and few over five hundred, and they were more closely set than sword-worlders

were accustomed to, with broad roadways between. In several places there were queer arrangements of crossed roadways, apparently leading nowhere. Harkaman laughed when he saw them. "'Air strips! I've seen them on other planets where they've lost contra-gravity. for winged aircraft, powered by chemical fuel. I hope we have time for me to look around here.

I'll bet they even have railroads here. The great damage caused by the bomb was about equal to the effect of a medium hurricane. He had seen worse from high winds at Traskin. Mostly it had been moral, which had been the kind intended. They met President Pedrosan and the Council of Syndics in a spacious and well-furnished chamber near the top of the top of the of one of the medium-high buildings. Valconhain was surprised.

In a loud aside, he considered that these people must be almost civilized. They were introduced. Amaterasuan surnames preceded personal names, which hinted at a culture and a political organization, making much use of registration by alphabetical list. They all wore garments which had the indefinable but unmistakable appearance of uniforms. When they had all seated themselves at a large oval table,

Harkaman drew his pistol and used the butt for a gavel. "'Lord Trask, will you deal with these people directly?' he asked, stiffly formal. "'Certainly, Admiral,' he spoke to the President, ignoring the others. "'We want it understood that we control this city, and we expect complete submission. As long as you remain submissive to us, we will do no damage beyond removal of the things we wish to take from it,

and there will be no violence to any of your people, or any indiscriminate vandalism. The visit we are paying you will cost you heavily, make no mistake about that, but whatever the cost, it will be a cheap price for avoiding what we might otherwise do. The President and the syndics exchanged relieved glances. Let the taxpayers worry about the cost. they'd come out of it with whole skins. You understand we want maximum value and minimum bulk, he continued. Jewels, objects of art, furs, the better grades of luxury goods of all kinds,

rare element metals, and monetary metals, gold and platinum. You have metallic-based currency, I suppose. Oh, no! President Pridrosan was slightly scandalized. Our currency is based on services to society. Our monetary unit is simply called a credit." Harkman snorted impolitely. Evidently, he'd seen economic systems like that before. Trask wanted to know if they used gold or platinum at all.

Gold, to some extent, for jewelry. Evidently, they weren't complete economic Puritans. And platinum in industry, of course. If they want gold, they should have a good. have rated Stalgeland," one of the syndic said. They have a gold standard currency. From the way he said it, he might have been accusing them of eating with their fingers, and possibly of eating their own young.

I know. The maps we are using for this planet are a few centuries old. Stalgaland doesn't seem to appear on them. I wish it didn't appear on ours either. That was General Degro Ector, syndic for state protection. It would have been a good thing for this whole planet if you decided 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 medal among your people. When Trask nodded, he continued. It is also the basis of the Stalgonian currency. The actual currency is paper, theoretically redeemable in gold. In actuality, the circulation is... of gold has been prohibited, and the entire gold wealth of the nation is concentrated in 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. You have contra-gravity, something that is hardly more than a legend here. On the other hand, we have a million and a half ground troops, jet aircraft, armored ground vehicles, and chemical weapons. If you will undertake to attack Stagoland, we will place this entire force at your disposal. General Drag Groh will command them as you direct. All that we ask is that, when you have loaded the gold hordes of Stagoland aboard your ships, you will leave our troops in possession of the country. That was all there was to that meeting. There was a second one. Only Trask, Harkaman, and Sir Patrick Morland represented the space Vikings,

and the Egglandsby government was represented by President Pedrosan and General Daggrove. They met more intimately, in a smaller and more luxurious room in the same building. If you're going to declare war on Stolgolan, you'd better get along with it, Morland advised. What? Pedrosen seemed to have only the vaguest idea of what he was talking about. You mean warn them? Certainly not. We will attack them by surprise.

It will be nothing but plain self-defense, he added righteously. The oligarchic capitalists of Stogelan have been plotting to attack us for years. Yes, if you had carried out your original intention of looting Eglensby, they would have invaded us the moment your ships lifted out. It's exactly what I do in their place. But you maintain nominally friendly relations with them. Of course, we are civilized. The peace-loving government and people of Egglandsby—

Yes, Mr. President, I understand. And they have an embassy here? They call it that, cried Degro. It is a nest of vipers, a plague-spot of espionage and subversion. We'll grab that ourselves right away, Harkiman said. You won't be able to round up all their agents outside it, and if we try to, it would cause suspicion. We will have to put up a front to deceive them.

Yes, you will go on the air at once, calling on the people to collaborate with us, and you will specifically order your troops mobilized to assist us in collecting the tribute we are levying on Eglensby, Trask said. In that way, if any Stalkonian spies see your troops concentrated around our landing craft, they'll think it's to help us load our loot, and we'll announce that a large part of the tribute will consist of military equipment," Degro added. That will explain why our guns and tanks are being loaded on your contra-gravity vehicles. When the Stalkonian Embassy was seized by the Space Vikings, the Ambassador asked

to be taken at once to their leader. He had a proposition. If the Space Vikings would completely disable the Army of Egglandsby and admit Stalgonian, in troops when they were ready to leave, the invaders would bring with them 10,000 kilos of gold. Trask affected to be very hospitable to the offer. Stagaland lay across a narrow and shallow sea from the state of Eglensby. It was dotted with islands, and every one of them was, in turn, dotted with oil wells. Petroleum was what kept the aircraft and ground vehicles of Amaterasu in operation. Oil, rather than ideology, was at the root of the enmity between the two nations. Apparently, the Stalgonian espionage in Eglensby was completely deceived, and the reports

Trask allowed the captive ambassador to make confirmed the deception. Hourly, the Eglensby radio stations poured out exhortations to the people to cooperate with the space Vikings, with an occasional lamentation about the masses of war materials. being taken. Egglandsby espionage in Stagoland was similarly active. The Stalkonian armies were being massed at four seaports on the coast facing Eglensby, and there was a frantic gathering of every sort of ship available. By this time any sympathy that Trask might have felt for either party had evaporated. The invasion of Stagoland started the fifth morning after their arrival over Eglensby. Before dawn the six pinnaces went in, making a wide sweep around the curvature of the planet

and coming in from the north, two to each of the three gold troves. They were detected by radar eventually, but too late for any effective resistance to be organized. Two were even taken without a shot. By mid-morning, all three had been blown open, and the ingots and specie were being removed. The four seaports from whence the the Stalgonian invasion of Egglandsby was to have been launched, were neutralized by nuclear bombing. Neutralized was a nice word, Trask thought. There was no echo in it of the screams of the still living, maimed and burned and blinded around

the fringes of ground zero. The nemesis and the space-gourge from landing craft and from the ships themselves landed Eglandsby troops on Stalingopoulos. While they were sacking the city, with all the usual atrocities, the space Vikings were loading the gold, and anything else that was of more than ordinary value aboard the ships. They were still at it the next morning, when President Pedrosan arrived at the newly conquered capital, announcing his intention of putting the Stalgonian chief of state and his cabinet on trial as war criminals.

Sunset, they were back over Egglandsby. The loot might run as high as a half-billion Excalibur Stellars. Boak, Valk-Valkenhain, and Garvin Spasso were simply beyond astonishment and beyond words. The looting of Egglandsby then began. They gathered up machinery and stocks of steel and light metal alloys. The city was full of warehouses, and the warehouses were crammed with valuables. In spite of the socialistic and egalitarian verbiage behind which the government operated, there seemed to be a numerous elite class, and if gold were not a monetary medal, it was not despised for purposes of ostentation. There were several large art museums.

Van Larch, their nearest approach to an art specialist, took charge of culling the best from them. And there was a vast public library. into this Otto Harkhamen vanished, with half a dozen men and a contra-gravity scow. Its historical section would be much poorer in the future. President Pedrosan Pedro was on the radio from Stalingopoulos that night. "'Is this how you space Vikings keep faith?' he demanded indignantly. "'You've abandoned me and my army here in Stagoland, and you're sacking Egglandsby.

You promised to leave Egglands be alone if I helped you get the gold of Stalgaland. I promised nothing of the kind. I promised to help you take Stalgoland. You've taken it, Trask told him. I promised to avoid unnecessary damage or violence. I've already hanged a dozen of my own men for rape, murder, and wanton vandalism. Now we expect to be out of here in 24 hours. You'd better be back here before then.

Your own people are starting to loot. We did not promise to control 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 of the Space Vikings. Everybody seemed to be trying to grab what he could and let the Vikings be blamed for it. He had been able to keep his own people in order. There had been at least a dozen cases of rape and wanton murder,

and the offenders had been promptly hanged. None of their shipmates, not even the space-scourge company, seemed resentful. 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 Stagoland by the time they had gotten their vehicles stowed and were lifting out. They didn't seem to be making much headway. Harkaman, who had gotten his load of,

of micro-book stowed and was at the command desk, laughed heartily. "'I don't know what Pedrosan'll do. "'Gah, I don't even know what I'd do, if I'd gotten myself into a mess like that. He'll probably bring half his army back, leave the other half in Stagoland, and lose both. Suppose we drop in, in about three or four years, just out of curiosity. If we make twenty percent of what we did this time, the trip would pay for itself.' After they went into hyperspace and had the ships secured, the parties lasted three galactic standard days, and nobody was at all sober. Harkaman was drooling over the mass of historical

material he had found. Spasso was jubilant. Nobody could call this chicken stealing. He kept repeating that as long as he was able to say anything. Capera, he conceded, had been. Lousy two or three million stellar. Puh! End of Chapter 12. Space Viking 13. Beowulf was bad. Valkin-Hain and Spaso had both been opposed to the raid. Nobody raided Beowulf. Beowulf was too tough. Bayowulf had nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, and contra-gravity and normal spacecraft. They even had colonies on a couple of other planets of their system. They had everything

but hyperdrive. Beowulf was a civilized planet, and you didn't raid civilized planets, nod and get away with it. And besides, hadn't they gotten enough lude on Amaterasu? No, we did not, Trask told them. If we're going to make anything out of Tanneth, we're going to need power, and I don't mean windmills and water wheels. 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 hours from the F-7 star, of which Beowulf was the fourth planet, and twenty light minutes apart. Goat Kirby made a microjump that brought the ships within practical communicating distance, and they began making plans in an intership screen conference.

There are, or were, three chief sources of fish and ablors, Harkaman said. The last ship to raid here and get away was Stefan Kintour's Princess of Lyoness, sixty years ago. He hit one on the Antarctic continent. According to his account, everything there was fairly new. He didn't mess things up too badly, in it ought to be still operating. We'll go in from the South Pole, and we'll have to go in fast. They shifted personnel and equipment. They would go in bunched, the pinnaces ahead. They and the

space scourge would go down to the ground, while the better-armed nemesis would hover above to fight off local contra-gravity, shoot down missiles, and generally provide overhead cover. Trask transferred to the space scourge, taking with him Morland and two hundred of the Nemesis ground fighters. Most of the single mounts landing crowsing, craft and manipulators and heavy-duty lifters went with him, jamming the decks around the vehicle ports of Valconhane's ship. They jumped in to six light minutes, and while Valconhane's astrogator was still fiddling with his controls, they began sensing radar and micro-ray detection. When they came out again, they were two light seconds off the South Pole,

and half a dozen ships were either 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. Missiles went out, and counter-missels stopped them in rapidly expanding and quickly vanishing globes of light. Red lights flashed on the damage board, and sirens howled and claxons squawked. In the outside view screens, they saw the nemesis vanish in a blaze. of radiance, and then, while their hearts were still in their throats, come out of it again. Red lights went off on the board as damage-control crews and their robots sealed the

breeches in the hull, and pumped air back into evacuated areas, and then more red lights came on. Occasionally they would glance toward Bok Valconhain, who sat motionless in his chair, chewing a cigar that had gone out long ago. He wasn't enjoying it, and he wasn't enjoying it, but he wasn't showing fear. Once a beowulfur vanished in a supernova flash, and when the ball of incandescence widened to nothing, the ship was gone. All Valconhane said was, Hope one of our boys did that.

They fought their way in and down toward the atmosphere. Another Beowulf ship blew up, a craft about the size of Spasoslamia. A moment later, another. Valconhane was pounding the desk in front of him with his fist and yelling, "'That was one of ours! Find out who launched it! Get his name!' Missiles were coming up from the planet now. Valcanhane's detection officer was trying to locate the source. While he was trying, a big, melon-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 degrees south, 25 degrees east of the sunrise 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 first by expanding red and orange globes in airless space, and then by firepuffs after it entered atmosphere. air. It vanished into the darkness beyond the sunset and then made a sunlight of its own. It was sunlight, a beta-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 down in a command car with Patrick Morland and a couple of others. There were missiles and gun batteries, there were darting patterns of flights of combat vehicles, blazing gunfire, and single vehicles that shot past or blew up in front of them. Robots on contra-gravity, military robots with missiles to launch, and working robots with only their own mass to hurl, flung themselves mindlessly at them. Screens that went crazy from radiation, speakers that jabbered contradictory orders. Finally, the battle, which had raged in the air, over two thousand square miles, of mines and refineries and reaction plants, became two distinct and concentrated battles, one at the

packing plant and storage vaults, and one at the power-unit cartridge factory. Three penises came down to form a triangle over each. The space scourge hung midway between, poured out a swarm of vehicles, and, and, and big claw-armed manipulators. Armored lighters and landing craft shuttle back and forth. The command car looped and dodged from one target to the other. At one, keg-like canisters of plutonium, collapsium-plated and weighing tons apiece, were coming out of the vaults. And at the other, lifters were bringing out loads of nuclear-electric power unit cartridges, some as big as a 10-liter jar to power a spaceship engine, and some of the other. And some were bringing out loads of nuclear-electric power-unit cartridges,

ship engine, and some small as a round of pistol ammunition for things like flashlights. Every hour or so he looked at his watch, and it would be three or four minutes later. At last, when he was completely convinced that he had really been killed and was damned and would spend all eternity in this fire-riven chaos, the nemesis began firing red flares, and the speakers in all the vehicles were signaling recall. He got aboard the space gurd somehow, after assuring himself that nobody who was alive was left behind. There were twenty odd who weren't, and the sick bay was full of wounded who had gone up with cargo,

and more were being helped off the vehicles as they were birthed. The car in which he had been riding had been hit several times, and one of the gunners was bleeding under his helmet and didn't seem aware of it. When he got to the command room, he found Boe-Valk-Valk-Valkenhanes, his face drawn and weary, getting coffee from a robot and lacing it with brandy. "'That's it,' he said, blowing on the steaming cup. It was the battered silver one that had been in front of him when he had first appeared in the nemesis screen.

He nodded toward the damage screen. Everything had been patched up, or the outer decks around the breached portions of the hull sealed. "'Ship secure!' he set down the silver mug and lit a cigar. To quote Garvin Spasso, nobody can call that chicken stealing. No, not even if you count Tizona giraffe birds as chickens. That gram-gum pear brandy you're putting in that coffee, I'll have the same. Just leave out the coffee.

Fourteen. The lamious detection picked them up as soon as they were out of the last microjump. Trask's gnawing fear that Dunin might attack in their absence. had been groundless. Incredibly, he realized, they had been gone only thirty-odd galactic standard days, and in that time Alvin Carford 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 tall buildings.

The locals called the city Riven. A few inscriptions found here and there in it indicated that the original name had been Rivington. He had done considerable mapping, in some detail of the continent on which it was located, and in general, of the rest of the planet. And he had established friendly relations with the people of Trade Town and made friends with their king. Nobody, not even those who had collected it, quite believed their eyes when the loot was unloaded. The little herd of long-haired unicorns, the Kepera locals had called them Craigs, probably a corruption

of the name of some naturalist who had first studied them, had come through the voyage and even the Battle of Beowulf in good shape. Trask, and a few of his former cattlemen from Traskin watched them anxiously, and the ship's doctor, acting veterinarian, made elaborate tests of the vegetation they would be likely to eat. Three of the cows proved to be with calf. These were isolated and watched over with a special solicitude. The locals were inclined to take a poor view of the Craigs at first. Cattle ought to have two horns, one on either side, curved back. It wasn't right for cattle to have only one horn, in the middle, slanting forward. Both ships had taken heavy damage. The nemesis had one Pinnus berth knocked open, and everybody

was glad the Beowulfers hadn't noticed that and gotten a missile inside. The space scourge had taken a hit directly on her south pole while lifting out from the planet, and a good deal of the southern part of the ship was sealed off when she came in. The nemesis was repaired as far as possible and put on off-planet patrol. Then they went to work on the space scourge, transferring much of her armament to ground defense, clearing out all the available cargo space, and repairing her hull as far as possible. To repair her completely was a job for a regular shipyard, like Alex Gorham's on Graham, and that was where the work would be done. Boch Volcanhain would command her on the voyage to and from Graham, since Beowulf Trask had not only ceased to dislike

the man, but was beginning to admire him. He had been a good man once, before ill fortune which had been only part of his own making had overtaken him. He had just let himself go and stopped caring. Now he had taken hold of himself again. It had started showing after they had landed on Amaterasu. He had begun to dress more neatly and speak more grammatically, to look and act more like a spaceman and less like a barfly. His men had begun to jump to obey when he gave an order.

He had opposed the raid on Beowulf, but that had been the dying struggle of the chicken thief he had been. He had been scared going in. Well, who hadn't been, except a few greenhorns brave with the valor of ignorance? But he had gone in and fought his ship well, and had held his station over the Fishnables plant in a hell of bombs and missile, and he had made sure everybody who had gone down and who was still alive, was aboard before he lifted out. He was a space Viking again. Garvin Spaso wasn't and never would be. He was outraged when he heard that Valkenhain would take his ship,

loaded with much of the loot of the three planets to Graham. He came to Trask, fairly spluttering about it. You know what'll happen, he demanded. He'll space out with that cargo, and that'll be the last any of us will hear of him again. He'll probably take it to Joe Hughes or Excalibur and buy himself a lordship with it. Oh, I doubt that, Garvin. A number of our people are going along. Gwatt Kirby will be the astrogator. You trust him, wouldn't you? And Sir Patrick Morland, and Baron Rathmore, and Lord Valky, and Rolfe Hammerding. 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. Tras nodded. Good. Then we'll be sure nothing crooked is pulled, he said seriously. After Spasso was gone, he got in touch with Baron Rathmore. See to it that he gets as much money that's due to him as possible when you get to Graham, and ask Duke Angus as a favor to give him some meaningless position. with a suitably impressive title, Lord Chamberlain of the Ducal Washroom or something.

Then he can prime him with misinformation and give him an opportunity to sell it to Amfrey of Glasbeth. Then, of course, he could be contacted to sell Amfrey out to Angus. A couple of times around, and somebody'll stick a knife in him, and then will be rid of him for good. They loaded the space scourge with gold from Stalgoland and paintings and statues from the art museums and fabrics and furs and jewels and porcelains and plate from the markets of Egglandsby. They loaded sacks and kegs of Specie from Kepera.

Most of the Keparaloot wasn't worth hauling to Graham, but it was far enough in advance of their own technologies to be priceless to the Tanneth locals. Some of these were learning simple machine operations, and a few were able to handle contra-gravity vehicles that had been fitted with adequate safety devices. The former slaveguards had all become sergeants and lieutenants in an infantry regiment that had been formed,

and the king of Treytown borrowed some to train his own army. Some genius in the machine shop altered a matchlock musket to flintlock and showed the local gunsmiths how to do it. The Craigs continued to thrive after the space scourge departed. Several calves were born and seemed to be doing well. The biochemistry of Tanneth and Kappara were safely alike. Trask had hopes for them. Every Viking ship had its own carniculture vats,

but men tired of carniculture meat, and fresh meat was always in demand. Someday he hoped Craig beef would be an item of sale to ships putting in on Tanneth, and the long-haired hides might even find a market in the sword worlds. They had contra-gravity scows plying between Rivington and Treytown regularly now, and air lorries were linking the villages. The boatmen of Treytown rioted occasionally against this unfair competition,

and in Rivington itself, bulldozers and power shovels and manipulators labored, and there was always a rising cloud of dust over the city. There was so much to do, and only a trifle under 25 galactic standard hours in a day to do it. There were whole days in which he never thought once of André Dunnan. A hundred twenty-five days to Graham, and a hundred twenty-five days back. That had long ago passed. Of course there would be the work of repairing the space scourge, the conferences with the

investors in the original Tannath adventure, the business of gathering the needed equipment for the new base. Even so, he was beginning to worry a little. worry about something as far out of his control as the space scourge was useless, he knew. Even Harkaman, usually unperturbable, began to be fretful after 270 days had passed. They were relaxing in the living quarters they had fitted out at the top of the spaceport building before retiring, both sprawled wearily in chairs that had come from one of the better hotels of Egglandsby. Their drinks between them on a low table, the top of which was a small table, the top of which was inlaid with something that looked like ivory, but wasn't. On the floor beside it laid the plans

for a reaction plant and mass energy converter they would build as soon as the space scourge returned with 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 kind of a reaction plant. That was the first time either of them had gotten close to the possibility that the ship mightn't return. Trask laid his cigar in the ashtray. It had come from President Padros and Pedro's private office, and splashed a little more brandy into his glass.

She'll be coming before long. We have enough of our people aboard to make sure nobody else tries to take the ship, and I really believe now that Vulcan Hayne 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 Graham. Glasspeth and Didrickburg could have teamed up and jumped Wardshaven before Duke Angus was ready to invade Glasspeth.

Boke might be landing the ship in a trap at Wardshaven. Be a sorry-looking trap after it closed on him. That would be the first 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 started with, just as a regiment that has been decimated. and recruited up to strength a few times is still the same regiment. The buzz of the communication screen, one of the few things in the room that hadn't been looted somewhere, interrupted him.

They both rose. Harkaman, still carrying his drink, went to put it on. It was a man on duty in the control room, overhead, reporting that two emergencies had just been detected at twenty light minutes due north of the planet. Harkiman gulped his drink and set down the empty glass. All right, you put out a general alert? Switch anything that comes in over to this screen.

He got out his pipe and was packing tobacco into it mechanically. They'll be out of the last microjump and about two light seconds away in a few minutes. Trask sat down again, saw that his cigarette had burned almost to the tip and lit a fresh one from it, wishing he could be as calm about it as Harkaman. Three minutes later, the control tower picked up two emergency. at a light second and a half, a thousand or so miles apart. Then the screen flickered, and Boch-Valk-Valkenhanes was looking out of it, from the desk in the newly refurbished command-room of the space scourge.

He was a newly refurbished Boke-Valkenhain, too. His heavily braided captain's jacket looked like the work of one of the better tailors on Graham, and on the breast was a large and ornate night-star, of unfamiliar design, bearing, among other things, the sword and atom symbol of the House of Ward. Prince Trask, Count Harkaman, he greeted. Space Scourge, Tanneth, 3,200 hours out of Wardshaven on Graham, Baron Valkenhain commanding, accompanied by chartered freighter Rosenanti, Durendel, Captain Morbs, requesting permission and instructions to orbit in.

Baron Valken Hain, Harkhamen asked, "'That's right,' Valkenhain grinned. "'And I have a vellum scroll the size of a blanket to prove it. "'I have a whole cargo of scrolls. "'One says you're Otto, Count Harkaman, "'and another says you're Admiral of the Royal Navy of Graham.' "'He did it,' Tras cried. "'He made himself king of Graham.

"'That's right. "'And you're his trusty and well-loved Lucas, Prince Trask, and Viceroy of His Majesty's realm of Tanneth. Harkaman bristled at that. The Gahena, you say, this is our realm of Tanneth. Is his majesty making it worthwhile to accept his sovereignty? Trask asked.

That is, beside Vellum scrolls. Vulcan Hane was still grinning. Way till we start sending cargo down, and wait till you see what's crammed into the other ship. Did Spasso come back with you, Harkerman asked. Oh, no. Sir Garvin Spasso entered the service of his majesty, King Angus. He is chief of police at Glaspeth now, and nobody can call what he's doing their chicken-stealing either. And chickens he steals. He steals the whole farm to get them.

That didn't sound good. Spasso could make King Angus' name stink all over Glaspeth. Or maybe he'd allow Spaso to crush the adherence of Amfrey, and then hang him for his oppression of the people. He'd read about somebody who'd done something like that in one of Harkhamen's old Terran history books. Baron Rathmore had stayed on Graham, so had Rolf Hemmerding. The rest of the gentlemen adventurers, all with shiny new titles of nobility, had returned. From them, as the two ships were getting into orbit, he'd learned what had happened on

Graham since the nemesis had spaced out. Duke Angus had announced his intention of carrying on with the Taneth Adventure, and had started construction of a new ship at the Gorham Yards. This had served plausibly to explain all the activities of preparation for the invasion of Glasbeth, and had deceived Duke Amfrey completely. Amfrey had already started a ship of his own. The entire resources of his duchy were thrown into an effort to get her fin finished, and to space ahead of the one Angus was building.

Work was going on frantically on her when the Wardshaven invaders hit Glaspet. She was now nearing completion as a unit of the Royal Navy. Duke Omphrey had managed to escape to Didericksburg. When Angus troops moved in on the latter duchy, he had escaped again, this time, off-planet. He was now eating the bitter bread of exile at the court of his wife's uncle, the king of Haltaclear. The Count of New Haven, the Duke of Biglarsport, and the Lord of Northport, all of whom had favored the establishment of a planetary monarchy, had immediately acknowledged Angus as their sovereign. So, with a knife at his throat, had the Duke of Didricksburg. Many other feudal

magnates had refused to surrender their sovereignty. That might mean fighting, but Patrick, now Baron Morland, doubted it. The space-gird stopped that, he said. When they heard about the base here and saw what we'd shipped to Graham, they started changing their minds. Only subjects of King Angus will be allowed to invest in the Taneth adventure. As for accepting King Angus annexation of Taneth and accepting his sovereignty, that would also be advisable.

They would need a sword-world outlet for the loot they took or obtained by barter from other space Vikings, and until they had adequate industries of their own, they would be depended on Graham for many things which could not be gotten by rating. "'I suppose the king knows I'm not here from my health, or his prophet,' he asked Lord Valpre, during one of the screen conversations as the space scourge was getting into orbit. "'My business out here is André Dunnan.' "'Oh, yes,' the Wardshaven Noble replied,

"'in fact, he told me, in so many words, that he would be most happy if you sent him his nephew's head in a block of Lusite. 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 Dunn will try to attack Tanneth. If he doesn't, it isn't because I didn't tell him often enough. When you see the defense armament we're bringing, you'll think he does. It was impressive, but nothing to you.

to the engineering and industrial equipment, mining robots for use on the Iron Moon of Tanneth, and normal space transports for the 50,000 mile run between planet and satellite, a collapsed matter producer, now they could collapsium plate their own shielding, a small, fully robotic steel mill that could be set up and operated on the satellite, industrial robots and machinery to make machinery, and best of all, 200 engineers, and highly skilled technicians. Quite a few industrial baronies on Graham would realize, before long,

what they had lost in those men. He wondered what Lord Trask of Traskin would have thought about that. The Prince of Tanneth was no longer interested in what happened to Graham. Maybe, if things prospered for the next century or so, his successors would be ruling Graham by Viceroy from Tanneth.

Fifteen. As soon as the space-gurge was unloaded, she was put on off-planet watch. Harkaman immediately spaced out in the nemesis, while Trask remained behind. It began unloading the Rosenanti after setting her down at Riffington 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 a dozen planets. None of the cargo he brought back was spectacularly valuable, and he dismissed the whole thing as chicken stealing, but he had lost some men, and the ship showed a few fresh scars. A good deal of what was trans-ship to the Rosenanti was manufactured goods which would compete with merchandise produced on Graham.

That load will be a come-down after what the space scourge took back, but we didn't want to send the Rosenanti back empty, he said. One thing, I had time to do a little reading between stops. The books from the Egglandsby Library? Yes, I learned a curious thing about Amaterasu. Do you know why the planet was so extensively colonized by the Federation when there didn't seem to be any fissionable ores? The planet produced gadolinium. Gadelinium was essential to hyperdrive engines. The engines of a ship the size of the Nemesis required fifty pounds of it. On the sword worlds, it was worth several times its weight in gold. If they still 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 spaceship on diesel oil. I suppose the mines could be reopened, and new refineries built, but... We could trade plutonium for gadolinium. They have none of their own. We could charge our own prices for it, and we wouldn't need to tell them what the gladolinium sells for on the sword worlds. We could, if we could do business with anybody there, after what we did to Egglandsby and Stalgeland, where would we get plutonium? Why do you think the Beowulfers don't have hyperships when they have everything else?' Harkaman snapped his fingers. By Satan, that's it. Then he looked at Tren. in alarm. Hey, you're not thinking of selling Amaterasu plutonium and Beowulf gadolinium,

are you? Why not? We can make a big profit on both ends of the deal. You know what would happen next, don't you? There'd be ships from both planets all over the place in a few years. We want that like we want a hole in the head. He couldn't see the objection. Tanneth and Amaterasu and Beowulf could work up a very good triangular trade. All three would profit. It wouldn't cost men and ship damage and ammunition either. Maybe a mutual defense alliance, too. Think about it later. There was too much to do here on Tanneth at present. There had been mines on the moon of Tanneth before the collapse of the Federation. They had been stripped of their equipment afterward, while Tanneth was still fighting a rear-guard 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, and eventually ingots of finished steel were coming down by shuttlecraft. In the meantime, the shipyard had been laid out and was taking shape. The Graham ship Queen Flavia, she had been the one found unfinished at Glasbeth, came in three months after the Rosenanti started back. She must have been finished while Valkenhain was still in hyperspace. She carried considerable cargo.

Some of it superfluous, but all of it useful. Everybody was investing in the Tanneth adventure now, and the money had to be spent for something. Better, she brought close to a thousand men and women. The leakage of brains and ability from the sword worlds was turning into a flood. Among them was Basil Gorham. Trask remembered him as an insufferable young twerp, but he seemed to be a good shipyard man.

He very frankly predicted that in a few years his father's yards at Wardshaven would be idle, and all the Tanneth ships would be Tanneth built. A junior partner of Lothar Fails also came out to establish a branch of the Bank of Wardshaven at Rivington. As soon as the Queen Flavia had discharged her cargo and passengers, she took on 500 ground fighters from the Lamia, Nemesis, and space scourge companies, and spaced out on a raiding voyage. While she was gone, the second ship,

the one Duke Angus had started at Wardshaven, and King Angus had finished, the Black Star came in. Trask was slightly incredulous at realizing that she had spaced out from Graham almost exactly two years after the nemesis had departed. He still hadn't any idea where André Dunnan was, or what he was doing, or how to find him. The news of the Graham base on Tanneth spread slowly, first by the scheduled liners and tramp freighters that link the sword worlds,

and then by trading ships and outbound space Vikings to the old federation. Two years and six months after the nemesis had come out of hyperspace, to find Boch-Valk-Valk-Valkenhanes and Garvin Spaso on Tanneth, the first independent space Viking came in to sell a cargo and get repairs. They bought his loot. He had been raiding some planet rather above the level of Kepera and below that of Amaterasu, and healed the wounds his ship had taken getting it.

He had been dealing with the Everard family on Hoth and professed himself much more satisfied with the bargains he had gotten on Tanneth, and swore to return. He had never even heard of André Dunnan or the Enterprise. It was a Gilgamesher that brought the first news. He had first heard of Gilgameshers, the word was used indiscriminately for a native of, or a ship from Gilgamesh, on Graham,

from Harkaman and Carford and Van Larch and the others. Since coming to Tanneth, 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, though not on a level with Odin or Isis or Baldur or Marduk or Aiton or any of the other worlds which had maintained the culture of the Terran Federation uninterruptedly.

Perhaps Gilgamesh deserved more credit. Its people had undergone two centuries of darkness and pull themselves out of it by their bootstraps. They had recovered all the old techniques, up to and including the hyperdrive. They didn't raid, they traded. They had religious objections to violence, though they kept these within sensible limits, and were able and willing to fight with fanatical ferocity in defense of their home planet. About a century before, there had been a five-ship Viking raid on Gilgamesh,

One ship returned and had been sold for scrap after reaching a friendly base. Their ships went everywhere to trade, and wherever they traded, a few of them usually settled, and where they settled they made money, sending most of it home. Their societies seemed to be a loose theoscialism, and their religion and absurd popery of most of the major monotheisms of the Federation period, plus doctrinal and and ritualistic innovations of their own. Aside from their propensity for sharp trading, their bigoted refusal to regard anybody not of their creed as more than half human, and their maze of dietary and other taboos in which they hid from social contact with others,

made them generally disliked. After their ship had gotten into orbit, three of them came down to do business. The captain and his exec wore long coats, almost nearly. knee-length, buttoned to the throat, and small white caps like forage caps. The third, one of their priests, wore a robe with a cowl and the symbol of their religion, a blue triangle in a white circle on his breast. They all wore beards that hung down from their cheeks, with their chins and upper lips shaved. They all had the same righteous, disapproving faces, they all refused refreshments of any sort, They sat uneasily, as though fearing contamination from the heathens who had sat in their chairs

before them. They had a mixed cargo of general merchandise, picked up here and there on sub-civilized planets, in which nobody on Tanneth was interested. They also had some good stuff, vegetable amber and flame-bird plumes from Ermensul, ivory or something very like it from somewhere else. and other organic opals and Zarathustra sunstones. They also had some platinum. They wanted machinery, especially contra-gravity engines and robots.

The trouble was they wanted to haggle. Haggling, it seemed, was the 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 is André Dunnan. A ship so named, with such a device, raided Chermash more than a year ago, the priest supercargo said. Some of our people tarry on Chermash 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 brighten slightly. The Chirmashers are heathens and worshippers of false gods. The space Vikings looted their temple and destroyed it utterly.

They carried away the graven images and abominations. Our people bore witness that there was much wailing and lamentation among the idolaters. So that was the first entry on the big It covered, optimistically, the whole of one wall in his office, and for some time that one chalked note about the raid on Shermash, and the date, as nearly as it could be approximated,

looked very lonely on it. The Captain of the Black Star brought back material for a couple more. He had put in on several planets known to be temporarily occupied by space Vikings, to barter loot, give his men some time off ship, and make inquiries. and he had names for a couple of planets, rated by the Blue Crescent ship. One was only six months old. The way news filtered about in the Old Federation,

that was practically hot off the stove. The owner-captain of the Albarak had something to add when he brought his ship in six months later. He sipped his drink slowly, as though he had limited himself to one and wanted to make it last as long as possible. Almost two years ago, on Jagannath, he said. The Enterprise was on orbit there, getting some light repairs.

I met the man a few times. Looks just like those pictures, but he's wearing a small pointed beard now. He sold a lot of loot. General merchandise, precious and semi-precious stones, a lot of carved and inlaid furniture, that looked as though it had come from some Neo-Barb King's palace, and some temple stuff. Buddhist. There were a couple of big gold daibutsus.

His crew were standing drinks for all comers. Some of them were pretty dark above the collar, as though they had been on a hot-star planet not too long before. And he had a lot of Imhotep furs to sell, simply fabulous stuff. What kind of repairs? Combat damage. That was my impression.

He spaced out a little little, over hundred hours after I came in, in company with another ship. The Star Hopper, Captain Teodor Vann. The talk was that they were making a two-ship raid somewhere. The Captain of the Albarak thought for a moment. One other thing. He was buying ammunition, everything from pistol cartridges to hellburners, and he was buying all the air and water recycling equipment and all the carniculture and hydroponic equipment 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 the conversation for Harkhamen and Valconhane and Carford and some of the others. Somebody instantly said, "'That temple stuff came from Chermash. They're Buddhist there.

That checks with the Gilgamesher story.' "'He got the firs on Imhotep. He traded for them,' Harkaman said. "'Nobody gets anything off Imhotep by rating. The planet's in the middle of a glaciation. The land surface down to the 50th parallel is iced over solid. There is one city, ten or fifteen thousand, and the rest of the population is scattered around in settlements of a couple of hundred all along the face of the glaciers.

They're all hunters and trappers. They have some contra-gravity, and when a ship comes in, they spread the news by radio, and everybody brings in his furs to town. They use telescope sites, and everybody over ten years old can hit a man in the head at five hundred yards. And big weapons are no good, they're too well dispersed. So the only way to get anything out of them is to trade for it. I think I know where he was, Alvin Carford 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 are tough, and they have good weapons. That could be where the Enterprise took the combat damage. That started an argument as to whether he'd gone to Chermash first. It was sure that he had gone to Agnigh and then Imhotep. Goat Kirby tried to figure both courses. It doesn't tell us anything either way, he said at length.

Chirmash is a way off to the side from Agnigh and Imhotep in either case. Well, he does have a base somewhere, and it's not on any terra-type planet, Valconhain said. Otherwise, what would he want with all that air and water and hydroponic and carniculture stuff? The old Federation area was full of non-terotype planets, and why should anybody bother going to any of them? Any planet that wasn't oxygen atmosphere, six to eight thousand miles in diameter, and within a narrow surface temperature range, wasn't worth wasting time on. But a planet like that, if one had the survival equipment,

equipment would make a wonderful hideout. What sort of a captain is this Teodor Vonn?' he asked. "'A good one,' Harkman said promptly. "'He has a nasty streak, sadistic, but he knows his business, and he has a good ship and a well-trained crew. You think he and Dunn'n' have teamed up? Don't you? I think, now that he has a base, Dunn'n is getting a fleet together.'

He'll know we're after him by now. Van Larch said, and he knows where we are, and that puts him one up on us. End of Chapter 15. Space Viking. Sixteen. So Andrei Dunnan was haunting him again. Tiny bits of information came in. Dunn's ship had been on Hoth, on Nurgau, selling loot. Now he sold for gold or platinum, and bought little, usually arms and ammunition. Apparently his base, wherever it was, was fully self-sufficient. It was certain, too, that Dunnan knew he was being hunted. One space Viking, who had talked with him, quoted him as saying,

I don't want any trouble with Trask, and if he's smart, he won't look for any with me. This made him all the more positive that somewhere Dunin was building strength for an attack on Tannath. He made it a rule that there should always be at least two ships in orbit off Tanneth, in addition to the Lamia, which was on permanent patrol, and he installed more missile-launching stations both on the moon and on the planet. There were three ships bearing the ward, swords, and atom symbol, and a fourth building on Graham. Count Lionel of New Haven was building one of his own,

and three big freighters shuttled across three thousand light-years between Tanneth and Graham. Caesar Carval, who had never recovered from his wounds, had died. Lady Levina had turned the barony and the business over to her brother, Bert Sandrason, and gone to live on Excalibur. The shipyard at Rivington was finished, and now they had built the landing legs of Harkaman's Corrassandi, too, and were putting up the skeleton. And they were trading with Amaterasu now.

Pedrosan Pedro had been overthrown and put to death by General Dagro Ector, during the disorders following the looting of Eglensby. The troops left behind in Stalga Land had mutinied and made common cause with their late enemies. The two nations were in an uneasy alliance with several other nations combining against them, when the nemesis and the space scourge returned and declared peace against the whole planet. There was no fighting. Everybody knew what had happened to Stalgaland and Eglensby. In the end, all the governments of Amaterasu joined in a loose agreement to get the mines re-eoling. opened and resumed production of gadolinium, and to share in the fishnables being imported in

exchange. It had been harder and had taken a year longer to do business with Beowulf. The Beowulfers had a single planetary government, and they were inclined to shoot first and negotiate afterward, a natural enough attitude in view of the experiences of the past. However, they had enough old Federation period textbooks still in microprint to know what could be done with gadolinium. They decided to write off the past as fair fight and no bad blood and start over again. It would be some years before either planet had hyper ships of their own. In the meantime, both were good customers and rapidly becoming good friends. A number of young amateuris-suans and beowulfers had come to Tanneth to study various technologies.

The Taneth locals was studying too. In the first year, Trask had gathered the more intelligent boys of ten to twelve from each community and begun teaching them. In the past year, he had sent the most intelligent of them off to Graham to school. In another five years, they be coming home to teach. In the meantime, he was bringing teachers to Taneth from Graham. There was a school at Trade Town, and others in some of the larger villages, and at Rivington there was something that could almost be called a college. In another ten years or so, Tanneth would be able to pretend to the status of civilization.

If only Andrade Dunnan and his ships didn't come too soon. They would be beaten off. He was confident of that, but the damage Tanneth would take in the defense would set back his work for years. He knew all too well what space Viking ships could do to a planet. He'd have to find Dunnons' base, smash it, destroy his ships, kill the man himself first. Not to avenge that murder six years ago on Graham.

That was long ago and far away, and Elaine was vanished, and so was the Lucas Trask who had loved and lost her. What mattered now was planting and nurturing civilization on Tanneth. But where would he find Dunn in two hundred billion cubic light years? Dunnan had no such problems. He knew where his enemy was. And Dunnon was gathering strength. The Yo-Yo, Captain Van Humphurt. She had been reported twice, once in company with the Star Hopper, and once with the Enterprise. She bore a blazon of a feminine hand dangling a planet by a string from a finger, a good ship and an able, ruthless captain. The Bolide. She in the Enterprise had made a raid on

Ithun. The Gilgameshers had settled there, and one of their ships had brought that story in. He recruited two ships at once on Melkarth, and there was a good deal of mirth about that among the Tanneth Space Vikings. Melcharth was strictly a poultry planet. Its people had sunk to the village peasant level. They had no wealth worth taking or carrying away. It was, however, a place where a ship could be set down, and there were women, and the locals had not lost the art of distillation and made potent liquors. A crew could have fun there, much less expensively than on a regular Viking base planet, and for the last eight years a Captain Niel Burrick of the Fortuna had been occupying it, taking his ship out for occasional

quick raids and spending most of the time living from day to day, almost on the local level. Once in a while a Gilgamesher would come in to see if he had anything to trade. It was a Gilgamesher who brought the story to Tanneth, and it was almost two years old when he told it. We heard it from the people of the planet, the ones who live where Burrck had his base. First, there was a trading ship came in. You may have heard of her. She is the one called Honest Horace. Trask laughed at that.

Her captain, Horace Strastroff, called himself. honest Horace, a misnomer which he had also bestowed on his ship. He was a traitor of sorts. Even the Gilgameshers despised him, and not even a Gilgamesher would have taken a wretched craft like the Honest Horace to space. He had been to Melkarth before, the Gilgamesher said. He and Burrhic are friends. He pronounced that like a final and damning judgment of both of them. The story the locals told our brethren of the fare dealer was that the honest Horace was landing beside Burricks ship for ten days when the two ships came in. They said one had the blue crescent badge and the other bore a green monster leaping from one star to another.

The Enterprise and the Star Hopper. He wondered why they had gone to a planet like Melkart. Maybe they knew in advance whom they'd find there. The locals thought they would be fighting, but there was not. There was a great feast of all four crews. Then everything of value was loaded aboard the Fortuna, and all four ships lifted and spaced out together. They said Burrick left nothing of any worth whatever behind. They were much disappointed at that.

Have any of them been back since? All three Gilgameshers, Captain, Exec, and Priest, their heads. Captain Gerasch of the Fair Dealer said it had been over a year before his ship put in there. He could still see where the landing legs of the ship had pressed into the ground, but the locals said they had not been back. That made two more ships about which inquiries must be made. He wondered for a moment, why in Gahena Duned would want ships like that. They must make the space scourge and the lamia, as he had first seen them, look like units of the Royal Navy of Excalibur. Then he became frightened, with an irrational

retrospective fright at what might have happened. It could have, too, at any time in the last year and a half. Either or both of those ships could have come in on Tanneth completely unsuspected. It was only by the sheerest accident that he had found out even now about them. Everybody else thought it was a huge joke. They thought it would be a big, bigger joke if Dunnan sent those ships to Taneth now, when they were warned and ready for them. There were other things to worry about. One was the altering attitude of His Majesty, Angus I. When the space scourge returned, the newly titled Baron Valconhain had brought with him, along with the princely title and the commission as viceroy of Taneth, a most cordial,

personal audiovisual greeting, warm and friendly. Angus had made it seated at his desk, bareheaded and smoking a cigarette. The one which had come on the next ship out was just as cordial, but the King was not smoking and wore a small, gold-circled cap of maintenance. By the time they had three ships in service, on scheduled three-month arrivals a year and a half later, he was speaking from his throne, wearing his crown and employing the first-person plural for himself and finally the third-person singular for Trask. By the end of the fourth year there was no audiovisual message from him in person, and a stiff complaint from Rovard Groffas to the effect that his majesty felt it unseemly for a subject

to address his sovereign while seated, even by audiovisual. This was accompanied by a rather apologetic personal message from Grafus, now Prime Minister, to the effect that his majesty felt compelled to stand on his royal dignity at all times, and that, after all, there was a difference between the position and dignity of the Duke of Wardshaven and that of the planetary King of Graham. Prince Trask of Tanneth couldn't quite see it. The king was simply the first nobleman of the planet. Even kings like Rodolf of Excalibur or Napoleon of Flambert didn't try to be anything more. Thereafter, he addressed his greetings and reports to the Prime Minister, always with a personal

message to which Grawfus replied in kind. Not only the form, but also the content of the messages from Graham underwent change. His Majesty was most dissatisfied. His Majesty was deeply disappointed. His Majesty felt that His Majesty's colonial realm of Tanneth was not contributing sufficiently to the Royal Exchequer. And His Majesty felt that Prince Trask was placing entirely too much emphasis upon trade. and not enough upon raiding.

After all, why barter with barbarians when it was possible to take what you wanted from them by force? And there was the matter of the blue comet, Count Lionel of New Haven's ship. His Majesty was most displeased that the Count of New Haven was trading with Tanneth from his own spaceport. All goods from Tanneth should pass through the Wardshaven spaceport.

Look, Rovard! He told the audio-visual camera, which was recording his reply to Grophas. You saw the space scourge when she came in, didn't you? That's what happens to a ship that raids a planet where there's anything worth taking. Beowulf is lousy with fissionables. They'll give us all the plutonium we can load in exchange for gadolinium, which we sell them at about twice sword-world prices. We trade plutonium on Amaterasu for gadolinium,

and get it for about half sword-world prices. He pressed the stop button until he could remember the ancient formula. You may quote me as saying that, whoever has advised his majesty, that that isn't good business, is no friend to his majesty or the realm. As for the complaint about the Blue Comet, as long as she is owned and operated by the Count of New Haven, who is a stockholder in the Tanneth Adventure,

she has every right to trade here. He wondered why his majesty didn't stop Lionel of New Haven from sending the blue comet out from Graham. He found out from her skipper the next time she came in. He doesn't dare, that's why. He's king, as long as the great lords, like Count Lionel and Joris of Bigler Sport and Alan of Northport, want him to be.

Count Lionel has more men and more guns and contra-gravity than he has now, and that's without the help he'd get from everybody else. Everything's quiet on Graham now, even the war on South Main Continent 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's vassal barons, was silent for a moment. You ought to know, Prince Trask, he said. André Dunnons' grandmother was the king's mother. Her father was old Baron Zarvus of black. He was what was called an invalid the last 20 years of his life. He was always attended by two male nurses about the size of Otto Harciman. He was also said to be slightly eccentric. The unfortunate grandfather of Duke Angus had always been a subject, nice people avoided. The unfortunate grandfather of King Angus was probably a subject everybody who valued their necks avoided.

Lothar fail had also come out on the Blue Comet. He was just as outspoken. I'm not going back. I'm transferring most of the funds of the Bank of Wartshaven out here. From now on, it'll be a branch of the Bank of Tannath. This is where the business is being done. It's getting impossible to do business at all in Wartshaven. What little business there 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 Graham. Discriminatory taxes, too. Pinched the small landholder and industrial barons, and favored a few big ones, Baron Spaso and his crowd. Barron Spaso now? Bale nodded. Of about half of Glasbeth, and a lot of the Glasbeth barons lost their baronies, some of them, their heads, after Duke Omfrey was run out.

It seems there was a plot against the life of His Majesty. It was exposed by the zeal and vigilance of Sir Garvin Spasso, who was elevated to the peerage and rewarded with the lands of the conspirators. You said business was bad, as business? Fail nodded again. The big Tanneth boom has busted. It got oversold. Everybody wanted in on it.

And they should never have built those two last ships, the speed well and the good hope. The return on them didn't justify it. Then you're creating your own industries and building your own equipment and armament here. That's caused a slump in industry on Graham. I'm glad Levina Carval has enough money invested to live on. And finally, the consumer goods market is getting flooded

with stuff that's coming in from here and competing with Graham industry. Well, that was understandable. One of the ships that made the shuttle trip to Graham would carry enough in her strong rooms, in gold and jewels and the like, to pay a handsome profit on the voyage. The bulk goods that went into the cargo holds was practically taking a free ride, so anything on hand, stuff that nobody would ordinarily think of shipping in interstellar trade went aboard. A two thousand-foot freighter had a great deal of cargo space.

Baron Trask of Traskin hadn't even begun to realize what Tanneth Base was going to cost Graham. 17. As might be expected, the Beowulfers finished their Hyper Ship first. They had started with everything but little know-how, which had been quickly learned. Amaterasu had to begin by creating the industry they needed to create the industry they needed to build a ship. The Beowulf ship, she was named Viking's Gift, came in on Tanneth five and a half years

after the nemesis and the space scourge had raided Beowulf. Her skipper had fought a normal drive-ship in that battle. Beside plutonium and radioactive isotopes, she carried a general cargo of the sort of luxury goods unique to Beowulf, which could always find a market in interstellar trade. After selling the cargo and depositing the money in the bank of Tannath, the skipper of the Vikings' gift wanted to know where he could find a good planet to raid. They gave him a list,

none too tough, but all slightly above the chicken-stealing level. And another list of planets he was not to raid, planets with which Tanneth was trading. Six months later they learned that he had showed up on Kepera, with which they were now trading, and had flooded the market there with plundered textiles, hardware, ceramics, and plastics. He had bought Craigmeat and hides. "'You see what you did now?' Harkiman clamored. You thought you were making a customer.

What you made was a competitor. What I made was an ally. If we ever do find Dunnans' planet, we'll need a fleet to take it. A couple of Beowulf ships would help. You know them. You fought them, too. Harkiman had other worries. While cruising in Coruscandy, too, he had come in on Vithar,

one of the planets where Tanneth ships traded, to find it being raided by a space Viking ship based on Zah Chittal. He had fought a short but furious ship action, battering the invader until he was glad to hyper out. Then he had gone directly to Zah Chiddle, arriving on the heels of the ship he had beaten, and had had it out both with the captain and Prince Victor, serving them with an ultimatum to leave Tanneth trade planets alone in the future. How did they take it?

asked when he returned to report. "'Just about the way you would have. Victor said his people were space Vikings, not Gilgameshers. I told him we weren't Gilgameshers either, as he'd find out on Zah Chiddle the next time one of his ships raided one of our planets. Are you going to back me up? Of course you can always send Prince Victor my head with an apology. If I have to send him anything,

I'll send him a sky full of ships and 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 Zachiddle ships on any of their trade planets. No mention of the incident was made in any of the report sent back to Graham. The Graham's situation was deteriorating rapidly enough. Finally, there was an audiovisual message from Angus himself. He was seated on his throne, wearing his crown, and he began speaking from the screen abruptly. We, Angus, King of Graham and Tanneth, are highly displeased with our subject, Lucas, Prince,

and Viceroy of Tanneth. We consider ourselves very badly served by Prince Trask. We therefore command him to return to Graham, and render to us a count of his administration of our colony and realm of Tanneth. After some hasty preparations, Trask recorded a reply. He was sitting on a throne himself, and wore a crown just as ornade as King Angus, and robes of white and black Imhotep furs. "'We, Lucas, Prince of Tanneth,' he began, are quite willing to acknowledge the suzerainty of the King of Graham, formerly Duke of Wardshaven.

It is our earnest desire, if possible, to remain at peace and friendship with the King of Graham, and to carry on trade relations with him and with his subjects. We must, however, reject absolutely any efforts on his part to dictate the internal policies of our realm of Tannath. It is our earnest hope—dammit he'd said earnest. He should have thought of some other word. That no act on the part of His Majesty the King of Graham will create any breach in the friendship existing between his realm and ours.

Three months later, the next ship, which had left Graham while King Angus Summons was still in hyperspace, brought Baron Rathmore. Shaking hands with him as he left the landing craft, Trask wanted to know if he'd been sent out as the new viceroy. Rathmore started to laugh and ended by cursing vilely. "'No, I've come out to offer my sword to the king of Tanneth,' he said. "'Prince of Tanneth for the time being,' Tras corrected. "'The sword, however, is most acceptable. I take it you've had all of our blessed sovereign you and stomach. "'Lucas, you have enough ships and men here to take, Graham,' Rathmore said.

"'Proclaim yourself King of Tanneth, and then lay claim to the throne of Graham, and the whole planet will rise for you.' Rathmore had lowered his voice, but even so the open landing-stage was no place for this sort of talk. He said so, ordered a couple of the locals to collect Rathmore's luggage, and got him into a hall car, taking him down to his living quarters. After they were in private, Rathmore began again. It's more than anybody can stand. There isn't one of the old great nobility he hasn't alienated, or one of the minor barons, the landholders and industrialists, the people who are always the backbone of Graham, and it goes from them down to the common folk. Assessments on the lords, taxes on the people, inflation to meet the taxes, high prices,

debased coinage. Everybody's being beggared, except this rabble of new lords he has around him, and that slut of a 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 giving him an heir to the throne. He remarried immediately. The girl's name meant nothing to Trask. He did know of her father, a baron valdiva. He was lord of a small estate south of the wardlands and west of New Haven.

Most of his people were out and out bandits and cattle rustlers, and he was as close to being one himself as he could get. Nice family he's married into. A credit to the dignity of the throne. Yes. You wouldn't know this Lady Demoiselle Evita. She was only seventeen when you left Graham, and hadn't begun to acquire a reputation outside her father's lands.

She's made up for lost time since, though. And she has enough uncles and aunts and cousins and ex-lovers and whatnot to fill out an infantry regiment, and every one of them's at court with both hands out to grab everything they can. How does Duke Joris like this? The Duke of Bigler'sport was Queen Flavia's brother. I dare say he's less than delighted. He's hiring mercenaries is what he's doing, and buying combat contra-gravity. "'Lucas, why don't you come back?

"'You have no idea what a reputation you have on Graham now. "'Everybody would rally to you.' He shook his head. "'I have a throne, here on Tanneth. "'On Graham, I want nothing. "'I'm sorry for the way Angus turned out. "'I thought he make a good king. "'But since he's made an intolerable king,

"'the lords and people of Graham will have to get rid of him for themselves. "'I have my own 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 what you're doing on Tanneth. The captain of the free Space Viking Dam Thing was named Roger Fanmoreville, Esther San, which meant that he was some sword-worlders acknowledged bastard by a woman of one of the old

Federation planets. His mother's people could have been Nurgallers. He had coarse black hair, a mahogany-brown skin, and red-brown, almost maroon eyes. He tasted the wine the robot poured for him and expressed appreciation, then began unwrapping the parcel he had brought in. "'Something I found while raiding on tetragrammaton,' he said. "'I thought you might like to have it. It was made on Graham.' It was an automatic pistol, with a belt and holster.

The leather was bisonoid hide. The buckle of the belt was an oval enameled with a crescent, pale blue on black. The pistol was a plain, ten-millimeter military model with grooved plastic grips. On the receiver it bore the stamp of the House of Hoylebar, the firearms manufacturers of Glaspe. Evidently, it was one of the arms Duke Omphrey had provided for André Dunn's original mercenary company. Tetragrammaton, he glanced over to the big board. There was no previous report from that planet. How long ago?

I'd say about three hundred hours. I came from there directly, less than two hundred and fifty hours. Dunn's ships had left the planet three days before I got there. That was practically sizzling hot. Well, something like that had to happen sooner or later. The space Viking was asking him if he knew. what sort of a place tetragamaton was. Neo-barbarian, trying to re-civilize in a crude way.

Small population concentrated on one continent, farming and fisheries, a little heavy industry, in a small way at a couple of towns. They had some nuclear power, introduced a century or so ago by traders from Marduk, one of the really civilized planets. They still depended on Marduk for fissionables. Their export product was an abominably smelling vegetable oil, which furnished the base for delicate perfumes, and which nobody was ever able to synthesize properly. I heard they had steel mills in operation now, the half-breed space Viking said.

It seems that somebody on Rimmon has just reinvented the railroad, and they need more steel than they can produce for themselves. I thought I'd raid tetragrammaton for steel and traded on Riemond for a load of heaven tea. When I got there, though, the whole planet was in a mess, not raiding, but plain, wanton destruction. The locals were just digging themselves out of it when I landed. Some of them, who didn't think they had anything at all left to lose, gave me a fight. I captured a few of them to find out what had happened.

One of them had that pistol. He said he had taken it off a space Viking he'd killed. The ships that raided them were the Enterprise and the Yo-Yo. I knew you'd want to hear about it. I got some of the local stories on tape. Well, thank you. I'll want to hear those tapes. Now, you say you want steel? Well, I haven't any money.

That's why I was going to read Tetragrammaton. Nithelheim with the money, your cargo's paid for all right. ready. This, he said, touching the pistol, and whatever's on the tapes. They played off the tapes that evening. They weren't particularly informative. The locals who had been interrogated hadn't been an actual contact with Dunn's people except in combat. The man who had been carrying the ten-millimeter hoil-bar was the best witness of the lot, and he knew little. He had caught one of them alone, shot him from behind with a shotgun, taken his pistol, and then gotten away as quickly as he could. They had set 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 nuclear missiles. "'Sounds like Dunn,' Hugh Rathmore said in disgust. He just went kill crazy, the bad blood of Blackcliff. There are funny things about this, Boch Valcaine said. I'd say it was a terror raid, but who in Gahena was he trying to terrorize? I wondered about that, too, Harkham and frowned. This town where he landed seems, such as it was, to have been the planetary capital.

They just landed, pretending friendship, which I can't see. why they needed to pretend, and then began looting and massacring. There wasn't anything of real value there. All they took was what the men could carry themselves or stuff into their landing craft, and they did that because they have what amounts to a religious taboo against landing anywhere and leaving without stealing something. The real loot was at these two other towns, a steel mill and big stocks 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 MC Square. That was a terror raid, pure and simple. But as Boak inquires, just who were they terrorizing? If there were big cities somewhere else on the planet, it would figure. But there aren't. They blew out the two biggest cities and all the lude in them.

Then they wanted to terrorize somebody off the planet. But nobody heard about it off planet, somebody protested. The Marduckins would. They trade with tetragamaton, the acknowledged bastard of somebody named Mourville said. They have a couple of ships a year there. That's right, Trask agreed. Marduck. You mean you think Dunnins trying to terrorize Mar-Ville?

Arduck," Valkenhain demanded. Great, Satan! Even he isn't crazy enough for that!" Berrin Rathmore started to say something about what Andrei Dunnan was 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 come to Tanneth and didn't have to look over his shoulder while he was making them. "'I think he is, too,' Trask said.

I think that is exactly what he is doing. Don't ask me why, as Otto is fond of remarking, he's crazy and we aren't, and that gives him an advantage. But what have we gotten since those Gilgameshers told us about his picking up Burricks ship and the honest Horace? Until today, we've heard nothing from any other space Viking. What we have gotten was stories from Gilgameshers about raids on planets where they trade,

and every one of them is also a planet where Marduk ships trade. And in every case, there has been little or nothing reported about valuable loot taken. The stories are all about wanton and murderous bombings. I think André 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 trade planets, hoping to pull the Marduckin Space Navy away from the home planet. Harkaman had stopped being incredulous. And when he gets them all lured away, he'll make a fast

raid? That's what I think. Remember our fundamental postulate. Dunn is crazy. Remember how he convinced himself that he was the rightful heir to the Ducal Crown of Wardshaven? And remember his insane passion for Elaine, he pushed that thought hastily from him. Now he's convinced that he's the greatest space Viking in history. He has to do something worthy of that distinction. When was the last time anybody attacked a civilized planet? I don't mean Gilgamesh. I mean a planet like Marduk. A hundred and twenty years ago, Prince Havlgar of Haltaclear, six ships against Aiton, Two ships got back. He didn't.

Nobody's tried it since, Harkaman said. So Dunnan the Great will do it. I hope he tries, he surprised himself by adding, that's provided I find out what happened. Then I could stop thinking about him. There was a time when he had dreaded the possibility that somebody else might kill Dunnan before he could. Eighteen

C-Shat. Obiddy-Cut. Lugaluru, Out Homla. The young man elevated by his father's death in the Dunin raid to the post of hereditary president of the Democratic Republic of Tetragrammaton had been sure that the Marduk ships which came to his planet traded also on those. There had been some difficulty about making contact,

and the first face-to-face meeting had begun in an atmosphere of bitter distrust on his part. They had met out of doors. Around them spread wrecked and burned buildings, and hastily constructed huts and shelters, and wide spaces of charred and slagged rubble. They blew up the steel mill here and the oil refinery at Jansborough. They bombed and strafed the little farm towns and villages. They scattered radioactives that killed as many as the bombing, and after they had gone away, this other ship came. The damn thing? She bore the head of a beast with three very big horns.

That's the one. They did a little damage at first. When the captain found out what had happened to us, he left some food and medicines for us. Roger Fenmoreville-Estersen 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 when you're back on your feet. feet. We'll be back to trade later. But don't think 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 me anything at all." C. Shat was the closest. They went there first. They were too late. C-Shatt had had it already, and on the evidence of the radioactivity counters not too long ago. There had been two hellburners. The cities on which they had fallen were still smoking pits, literally burned into the ground and the bedrock below, at the center of 500-mile radii of slag and lava and scorched earth and burned forests.

There had been a planet-buster. It had started a major earthquake, and half a dozen thermonuclears. There were probably quite a few survivors. A human planetary population is extremely hard to exterminate completely. But within a century they'd be back to the loincloth and the stone hatchet. "'We don't even know Dunnand did it personally,' Patrick Morland said. "'For all we know, he's down in an airtight cave city on some planet nobody ever heard of, sitting on a golden throne, surrounded by a harem.

He had begun to suspect that Dunin was doing something of just the sort. The greatest space Viking of history would naturally found a space Viking empire. An emperor goes out to look his empire over now and then. I don't spend all my time on Tanneth. Say we try out homeland next. It's the farthest away. We might get there while he's still shooting up Obitikut and Lugaluru. Gwot! Figure us a jump for it.

When the colored turbulence washed away in the screen clear, out-homla looked like Tanneth or Kapera or Amaterasu or any other Terat-type planet, a big disc brilliant with reflected sunlight and glowing with starlit and moonlit atmosphere on the other. There was a single rather large moon, and in the telescopic screen the usual markings of seas and continents and rivers and mountain ranges. But there was nothing to show, oh yes, lights on the sun. the darkened side, and from the size they must be vast cities. All the available data for Out-Homla was long out of date. A considerable civilization must have developed in the last half-dozen centuries. Another light appeared, a hard blue-white spark that spread into a larger,

less brilliant yellow light. At the same time, all the alarm devices in the command room went into a pandemonium of jangling and flashing and squawking and howling and shouting. Radiation, energy release, contragravity distortion effects, infrared output, a welter of indecipherable radio and communication screen signals, radar and scanner ray beams from the planet. Trask's fist began hurting. He found that he had been pounding the desk in front of him with it. He stopped it. We caught him! He caught him!" He was yelling hoarsely.

Full speed in! Continuous acceleration! As much as we can stand! We'll worry about deceleration when we're in shooting distance." The planet grew steadily larger. Carford was taking him at his word about continuous acceleration. There'd be a gahenna of a bill to pay when they started decelerating. On the planet, more bombs were going off just outside atmosphere beyond the sunset line. observed, altitude about a hundred to five hundred miles, hundreds, not thousands,

thirty-five degrees north latitude, fifteen degrees west of the sunset line. Ship is under fire, bomb explosions near her, a voice whooped. Somebody else was yelling that the city lights were really burning cities or burning forests. The first voice, having stopped, broke in again. Ship is visible in telescopic screen just at the sunset line. line. And there's another ship detected, but not visible, somewhere around the equator. And the third one, somewhere out of sight. We can just get the fringe of her contra-gravity field around the planet. That meant there were two sides and a fight. Unless Dunnan had picked up a third ship somewhere. The telescopic view shifted. For a moment, the planet was completely

off-screen, and then its curvature came into the screen against a star-scattered background. They were almost in to 2,000 miles now. Carford was yelling to 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 Corif's voice. She's leaking air and water vapor like crazy. Well, is she a good guy or a bad guy? Morlin was yelling back, as though Korif's spectroscopes could distinguish.

Corif ignored that. Another ship making signal, he said. She's the one coming up over the equator, sword-world impulse code, her communication screen combination, and, and identify yourself. Carford punched out the combination as Corriff furnished it. While Trask was desperately willing his face into immobility, the screen lighted. It wasn't André Dunnan. That was a disappointment.

It was almost as good, though, his henchman. Sir Neville Orm." "'Well, Sir Neville, a pleasant surprise,' he heard himself saying, "'We last met on the terrace at Carvel House, did we not?' For once the paper-white face of André Dunn's Amdane 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 ship came on unfalteringly. Paul Coref, who had gotten more data on mass, engine energy output and dimensions, was identifying her as the Enterprise. "'Well, go for her! Give her everything!' They didn't need the order. Van Larch was speaking rapidly into his handphone,

and Alvin Carford was hurling his voice all over the nemesis, warning of sudden deceleration and direction change, and while he was speaking, things in the command room began sliding. In the telescopic screen the other ship was plainly visible. He could see the oval patch of black with the blue crescent, and in his screen Dunnan would be seeing the sword-impaled skull of the nemesis. If only he could be sure Dunin was there to see it. If it had only been Dunnins' face instead of Orms that he had seen in the screen. As it was, he couldn't be sure. And if one of the missiles that were already going out made a lucky hit, he might never be sure. He didn't care

who killed Dunn' or how. All he wanted was to know that Dunn's death had set him free from a self-assumed obligation that was now meaningless to him. The Enterprise launched counter-missiles, so did the nemesis. There were momentarily unbearable flashes of pure energy, and from them, globes of incandescence spread and vanished. Something must have gotten through. Red lights flashed on the damage board. It had been something heavy enough even to jolt the huge mass of the nemesis. At the same time, the other ship took a hit from something that would have vaporized her had she not been armored in collapsium. Then, as they passed, as they passed, close together, guns hammered back and forth along with missiles. And then the Enterprise was

out of sight, around the horizon. Another ship, the size of Otto Harkhamen's Coruscandy too, was approaching. She bore a tapering, red-nailed feminine hand dangling a planet by a string. They rushed toward each other, planting a garden of evanescent fireflowers between them. They pounded one another with guns, and then they saw them. sped apart. At the same time, Paul Corref was picking up an impulse code signal from the third crippled ship, a screen combination. Tras punched it out as he received it. A man in space armor was looking out from 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 his breastplate was a device

of a dragon-like beast perched with his tail around a planet and a crown above. He had a thin, high-cheeked face with a vertical wrinkle between his eyes and a clipped blonde mustache. "'Who are you, stranger? You're fighting my enemies. Does that make you a friend?' I'm a friend of anybody who owns André Dunnan his enemy. Sword World Ship Nemesis. I'm Prince Lucas Trask of Tanneth, commanding. Royal Marduckan ship Victrix. The thin-faced man gave a wry laugh. Not been living up to her name so well.

I'm Prince Simon Bentrick, commanding. Are you still battleworthy? We can fire about half our guns. We still have a few missiles left. Seventy percent of the ship sealed off, and we've been holed in a dozen places. We have power enough for lift and some steering-weigh. way. We can't make a lateral way, except at the expense of lift."

Which made the Victrix practically a stationary target. He yelled over his shoulder at Carford to cut speed all he could without tearing things apart. When that cripple comes into view, start circling around her. Get into a tight circle above her. He turned back to the man in the screen. If we can get ourselves slowed down enough, we'll do all we can to cover you. All you can is all you can. Thank you, Prince Trask. Here comes the Enterprise, Carford shouted, with obscenely blasphemous embellishments. She hair pinned on us. Well, do something about her. Van Larch was already doing it.

The Enterprise had taken damage in the last exchange. Koref's spectroscopes showed her haloed with air and water vapor. Her instruments would be getting the very same story from the nemesis. Wedge-shaped segments, extending six to eight decks in, were sealed off in several places. The only thing that could be seen with certainty was the blaze of mutually destroying missiles between. The short-range gun duel began and ended 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. She was almost out of sight around the planet when she ran

head on into it, and vanished in an awesome blaze. For a moment he thought she had been destroyed. Then she lurched into sight and went around the curvature of Outhumah. Trask and the Marduckin were shaking hands with themselves at each other in their screens. Everybody in the Nemesis command room was screaming, "'Well shot, Victrix! Well! shot! Then the yo-yo was coming around again, and Van Larch was saying, "'Gahenna with this fooling around, I'll fix the expurgated unprintability.' He yelled orders, a jumble of code letters and numbers, and things began 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

carry shock and sound waves, but very brilliantly. There was brief daylight all over the night side of the planet. "'That was our planet-buster,' Larch said. "'I don't know what we'll use on Dunnan.' "'I didn't know we had one,' Trask admitted. "'Otto had a couple built on Beowulf. The Beowulfers are good nuclear weaponeers.' The Enterprise came back hastily to see what had blown up. Larch put off another entertainment of small stuff, with a 50-megat-ton thermonuclear view-screen

piloted among them. It had its own arsenal of small missiles, and it got through. In the telescopic screen, a jagged hole was visible just below the equator of the Enterprise, the edges curling outward. Something, possibly a heavy missile in an open tube ready for launching, had gone off inside her. What the inside of the ship was like, or how many of her company 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. The jagged crater that had obliterated the bottom of Dunin's blue crescent blazon spread to fill the whole screen. The screen went milky 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 Graham at high noon. Finally, when the light intensity had dropped and the filters went off, there was nothing

left of the Enterprise but an orange haze. Somebody, Patrick, Baron Moreland he saw, was pounding him on the back and screaming in our in his ear. A dozen space-armored officers, with planet-perched dragons on their breasts, were crowding beside Prince Bentrick in the screen from the Victrix, whooping like drunken bisonoid herders on payday night. I wonder, he said, almost inaudibly, if I'll ever know if Andrade Dunnan was on that ship. End of Chapter 18. Space Viking.

Prince Trask of Tanneth and Prince Simon Bentrick were dining together on an upper terrace of what had originally been the mansion house of a Federation period plantation. It had been a number of other things since. Now it was the municipal building of a town that had grown around it, which had somehow escaped undamaged from the Dunin Blitz. Normally about five or ten thousand, the place was now jammed with almost 50,000 homeless refugees from half a dozen other towns that had been destroyed, overflowing the buildings and crowding into a sprawling camp of hastily built huts and shelters, and

already permanent buildings were going up to accommodate them. Everybody, locals, Marduckins, and Space Vikings had been busy with the work of relief and reconstruction. This was the first meal the two commanders had been able to share in any leisure at all. Prince Bentrick's enjoyment of it was somewhat impaired, by the fact that from where he sat he could see in the distance the sphere of his disabled 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 clatter of machinery below.

I don't know how either of us will be received. Space Vikings haven't been exactly popular on Marduk lately. They may thank you for bringing me back to stand trial, Bentrick 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 of of hyperspace." I think they were down on the planet before your ship arrived." "'Oh, that's ridiculous, Prince Trask,' the Marduckin cried.

"'You can't hide a ship on a planet, not from the kind of instruments we have 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 was going to hide the nemesis, if I got here ahead of Dunnan." Prince Bentrick's fork stopped halfway to his mouth. He lowered it slowly to his plate. That was a theory he'd like to accept if he could. But the locals, they didn't know about it. They wouldn't. They have no off-planet detection of their own. Come in 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 C-Shat. But if Dunn wanted to ambush your ship, he'd have thought of it, too. It's the only practical way to do it. Dunnin, or Neville Orm, he wished he knew, and was afraid he would go on wishing all his life. Bantrick started to pick up his fork again, changed his mind, and sipped from his wine-glass instead. said.

You may find you're quite welcome on Marduk at that," he said. These raids have only been a serious problem in the last four years. I believe, as you do, that this enemy of yours is responsible for all of them. We have half the Royal Navy out now patrolling our trade planets. Even if he wasn't aboard the Enterprise when you blew her up, you've put a name on him and can tell us a good deal about him. He set down the wine-glass. Why, if it weren't so utterly ridiculous,

one might even think he was making war on Marduk. From Trask's viewpoint, it wasn't ridiculous at all. He merely mentioned that André Dunn was psychotic and let it go at that. The Victrix was not completely unrepairable, although quite beyond the resources at hand. A fully equipped engineer ship from Marduk could patch her hull and replace her Dillingham's and her Abbott Lift and drive engines and make her temporarily spaceworthy until she could

be gotten to a shipyard. They concentrated on repairing the nemesis, and in another two weeks she was ready for the voyage. The six hundred-hour trip to Marduk passed pleasantly enough. The Marduck and officers were good company and found their space Viking opposites. at numbers equally so. The two crews had become used to working together on Ot Holma and mingled amicably off-watch, interesting themselves in each other's hobbies and listening avidly to tales of each other's home planets. The space Vikings were surprised and disappointed at the somewhat lower intellectual level of the Mardukans. They couldn't understand that. Marduk was supposed to be

a civilized planet, wasn't it? The Mardukes. were just as surprised and inclined to be resentful that the space Vikings all acted and talked like officers. Hearing of it, Prince Bentric was also puzzled. Fauxhall hands on a Marduckin ship belong definitely to the lower orders. There's still too much free land and free opportunity on the sword worlds, Trask explained. Nobody does much bowing and scraping to the class above him. He's too busy, trying to shove himself up into it, and the men who ship out as space Vikings are the least class-conscious of the lot.

Think my men will have trouble on Marduk about that? They'll all insist on doing their drinking in the swankiest places in town. No, I don't think so. Everybody will be so amazed that space Vikings aren't twelve feet tall with three horns like a Zarathustra damn thing and a spiked tail like a Fafnir Mantichore. that they won't even notice anything less. Might do some good in the long run. Crown Prince Edvard will like your space Vikings.

He is much opposed to class distinctions and caste prejudices, says they have to be eliminated before we can make democracy really work. The Marduckins talked a lot about democracy. They thought well of it. Their government was a representative democracy. It was also a hereditary monarchy, if that made any kind of sense. Trask's efforts to explain the political and social structure of the sword worlds met the same incomprehension from Bentric.

Why, it sounds like feudalism to me. That's right, that's what it is. A king owes his position to the support of his great nobles. They owe theirs to their barons and land-holding knights. They owe theirs to their people. There are limits beyond which none of them can go. After that, their vassals turn on them. Well, suppose the people of some barony rebel.

Won't the king send troops to support the baron? What troops? Outside a personal guard and enough men to police the royal city and hold the crown lands, the king has no troops. If he wants troops, he has to get them from his great nobles. They have to get them from their vassal barons, who raise them by calling out their people. That was another source of dissatisfaction with King Angus of Graham. He had been augmenting his forces by hiring off-planet mercenaries.

And the people won't help some other baron oppress his people. It might be their turn next. You mean the people are armed? Prince Bentrick was incredulous. "'Great Satan aren't yours?' Prince Trask was equally surprised. "'Then your democracy's a farce, and the people are only free on sufferance. If their ballots aren't secured by arms, they're worthless.

Who has the arms on your planet?' "'Why, the government?' "'You mean the king?' Prince Bentrick was shocked. Certainly not. Horrid idea. That would be—why, it would be—' despotism. Besides, the king wasn't the government at all. The government ruled in the king's

name. There was the assembly, the chamber of representatives, and the chamber of delegates. The people elected the representatives, and the representatives elected the delegates, and the delegates elected the chancellor. Then there was the prime minister. He was appointed by the king, but the king had to appoint him from the party holding the most seats in the chamber of representatives. And he appointed the ministers, who handled the executive work of the government. Only their subordinates in the different ministries were career officials, who were selected by competitive examination from the bottom jobs, and promoted up the bureaucratic ladder from there. This left Trask wondering if the Marduckin Constitution hadn't been devised by Goldberg,

the legendary old Terran inventor who always did everything the hard way. It always left him wondering just how in Gahena the government of Marduk ever got anything done. Maybe it didn't. Maybe that was what saved Marduk from having a real despotism. Well, what prevents the government from enslaving the people? The people can't. You just told me that they aren't armed and the government is. He continued, pausing now and then for breath, to catalog every tyranny he had ever heard of,

from those practiced by the Terran Federation before the Big War, to those practiced at Eglensby on Amaterasu by Pedrosan Pedro. A few of the very mildest were pushing the nobles and people of Graham to revolt against Angus I. And in the end, he finished, the government would be the only property owner and the only employer on the planet. and everybody else would be slaves, working at assigned tasks, wearing government-issued clothing and eating government food. Their children, educated as the government prescribes, and trained for jobs selected for them by the government, never reading a book or seeing a play, or

thinking of thought that the government had not approved. Most of the Marduckins were laughing now. Some of them were accusing him of being just too utterly ridiculous. Why, the people are the government! The people would not legislate themselves into slavery! He wished Otto Harkaman were there. All he knew of history was the little he had gotten from reading some of Harkaman's books and the long, rambling conversations aboard ship in hyperspace, or in the evenings at Rivington. But Harkaman, he was sure, could have furnished hundreds of instances

on scores of planets and over ten centuries of time, in which people had done exactly that and hadn't known what they were doing, even after it was too late. "'They have something about like that on Aton,' one of the Marduckin officers said. "'Oh, Aiton, that's a dictatorship pure and simple. That planetary nationalist gang got into control fifty years ago

during the crisis after the war with Balder. They were voted into power by the people, weren't they? Yes, they were, Prince Bentrick said gravely. It was an emergency measure, and they were given emergency powers. Once they were in, they made the emergency permanent. That couldn't happen our Marduk, a young nobleman declared. It could have Zaspar-McChan's party wins control of the Assembly at the next election, somebody else said.

Oh, then Marduk's safe. The sun'll go Nova first, one of the junior Royal Navy officer said. After that, they began talking about women. A subject any spaceman will drop any other subject to discuss. Trask made a mental note of the name of Zaspar McCann and took occasion to bring it up in conversation with his shipboard guests. Every time he talked about McCann to two or more,

Marduckins, he heard at least three or more opinions about the man. He was a political demagogue. On that everybody agreed. After that, opinions diverged. McCann was a raving lunatic, and all the followers he had were a handful of lunatics like him. He might be a lunatic, but he had a dangerously large following. Well, not so large. Maybe they'd pick up a seat or or so in the Assembly, but that was doubtful, not enough of them in any representative district to elect an assemblyman. He was just a smart crook, milking a lot of half-witted plebeians for all he could get out of them.

Not just plebes either. A lot of industrialists were secretly financing him, in hope that he would help them break up the labor unions. You're nuts! Everybody knew the labor unions were backing him, hoping him. hoping he'd scare the employers into granting concessions. You're both, nuts. He was backed by the mercantile interests.

They were hoping he'd run the Gilgameshers off the planet. Well, that was one thing you had to give him credit for. He wanted to run out the Gilgameshers. Everybody was in favor of that. Now, Tras could remember something he'd gotten from Harkaman. There had been Hitler. back at the end of the first century pre-atomic. Hadn't he gotten into power because everybody was in favor of running out the Christians

or the Muslims or the Albanians or somebody? 20. Marduk had three moons, a big one, fifteen hundred miles in diameter, and two insignificant twenty-mile chunks of rock. The big one 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 more were detected lifting away from the planet.

Prince Bentric took the communication screen and immediately encountered difficulties. The commandant, even after the situation had been explained twice to him, couldn't understand. A Royal Navy Fleet Unit knocked out in a battle with space Vikings was bad enough, but being rescued and brought to Marduk by another space Viking simply didn't make sense. He then screened the royal palace at Malverton on the planet. First, he was icily polite to somebody, several echelons below him in the peerage,

and then, respectfully polite to somebody he addressed as Prince van der Vand. Finally, after some minutes wait, a frail, white-haired man in a little black cap of maintenance appeared on the screen, Prince Bentrick instantly sprang to his feet. So did all the other Marduckins in the command-room. "'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 and comrade, your majesty.

Have I your permission to present, informally, their commander, Prince Trask of Tanneth." "'Indeed you may, Simon. I owe the gentleman my deepest thanks.' "'His Majesty, Mikiel the Eighth, planetary King of Marduck,' Prince Bentrick said. "'His Highness Lucas Prince Trask, planetary viceroy of Tanneth for his majesty Angus I of Graham.'

The elderly monarch bowed his head slightly. bowed a little more deeply from the waist. "'I am very happy, Prince Trask. First I confess, at the safe return of my kinsman, Prince Bentrick, and then at the honor of meeting one in the confidence of my fellow sovereign, King Angus of Graham. I will never be ungrateful for what you did for my cousin and for his officers and men. You must stay at the palace while you are on this planet.

I am giving orders for your reception, and I wish you to be formally presented to me this evening." He hesitated briefly. "'Gram, that is one of the sword-wurls, is it not?' Another brief hesitation. "'Are you really a space Viking, Prince Trask?' Maybe he'd expected Space Vikings to have three horns and a spiked tail and stand twelve feet tall himself. It took several hours for the nemesis to get into orbit. Bentrick spent most of them in a screen booth and emerged visibly relieved.

"'Nobody's going to be sticky about what happened on Ot Holma,' he told Trask. "'There will be a board of inquiry. I'm afraid I had to mix you up in that. It's not only about the action on Ot Holma. Everybody from the Space Minister down wants to hear what you know about this fellow Dunn' Like yourself, we all hope he went to MC Square along with his flagship, but we can't take it for granted. We have over a dozen trade planets to protect, and he's hit more than half of them already.

The process of getting into orbit took them around the planet several times, and it was a more impressive spectacle at each circuit. Of course, Marduk had a population of almost two billion, and had been civilized, with no hiatus of neo-barbarism, since it had first been colonized in the fourth century. Even so, the space Vikings were amazed, and stubbornly refused to show it at what they saw in the telescopic screens. "'Look at that city!' Patrick Morlin whispered. "'We talk about civilized planets, but I never realized they were anything like this.

Why, this makes Excalibur look like Tanneth!' The city was Malverton, the capital. Like any city of a contra-gravity-using people, it lay in a rough circle of buildings towering out of green interspaces, surrounded by the smaller circles of spaceports and industrial suburbs. The difference was that any of these were as large as Camelot on Excalibur or four wartshavens on Graham, and Malverton itself was almost half the size of the whole barony of Traskin.

They aren't any more civilized than we are, Patrick. There are just more of them. If there were two billion people on Graham, which I hope there never will be, Graham would have cities like this, too. One thing, the government of a planet like Marduk would have to have something more elaborate than the loose feudalism of the sword worlds. Maybe this Goldbergocracy of theirs had been forced upon them by the sheer complexity of the population and its problems. Alvin Carford took a quick look

around him to make sure none of the Marduckans were in earshot. "'I don't care how many people they have,' he said. "'Marduck can be had. A wolf never cares how many sheep there are in the flock. With twenty ships we could take this planet like we took Eglensby. There'd be losses coming in, sure, but after we were in and down, we'd have it. Where would we get twenty ships? Tanneth, at a pinch, could muster five or six, counting the free-space Vikings who use the base facilities.

They would have to leave a couple to hold the planet. Baywolf had one, and another almost completed. And now there was an Amaterasu ship. But to assemble a space Viking armada of twenty, he shook his head. The real reason why space Vikings had never raided a civilized planet successfully had always been their inability to combine under one command in sufficient strength. Besides, he didn't want to raid Marduk. A raid, if successful, would yield immense treasures,

but cause a hundred, even a thousand times as much destruction, and he didn't want to destroy anything civilized. The landing stages of the palace were crowded, when he and Prince Bentrick landed, and, at a discreet distance, swarms of air vehicles circled, creating a control problem for the police. Parting from Bentrick, he was escorted to the suite prepared for him. It was luxurious in the extreme, but scarcely above Sword World Standards. There were a surprising number of human servants, groveling and fawning and getting underfoot, and doing work robots could have been doing better.

Robots there were were inefficient, and much work and ingenuity had been lavished on efforts to copy human form to the detriment of function. After getting rid of most of the superfluous servants, he put on a screen and began sampling the newscasts. There were telescopic views of the nemesis from some craft on orbit nearby, and he watched the officers and men of the victrix being disembarked. There were other views of their landing at some naval installation. on the ground, and he could see reporters being shoved away by naval ground police, and there was a wide range of commentary opinion. The government had already denied that, one, Prince Bentrick had captured the nemesis

and brought her in as a prize, and, two, the space Vikings had captured Prince Bentrick and were holding him for ransom. Beyond that, the government was trying to sit on the whole story, and the opposition was hinting darkly. at corrupt deals and sinister plots. Prince Bentrick arrived in the midst of an impassioned tirade against Puselanamus traitors surrounding his majesty, who were betraying Marduk to the Space Vikings. Why doesn't your government publish the facts and put a stop to that nonsense? Trask asked. Oh, let them rave, Bentrick replied. The longer the government waits, the more they'll be

ridiculed when the facts are published. Or the more people will be convinced that the government had something to hush up and had to take time to construct a plausible story. He kept the thought to himself. It was their government. How they mismanaged it was their own business. He found there was no bartending robot. He had to have a human servant bring drinks. He made up his mind to have a few of the nemesis robot sent down to him. The formal presentation would be in the evening. There would be a dinner first, and because Trask had not yet been formally presented, he couldn't dine with the king.

But because he was, or claimed to be, viceroy of Tanneth, he ranked as a chief of state and would dine with the crown prince, to whom there would be an informal introduction first. This took place in a small antechamber off the banquet hall. The Crown Prince and Crown Princess and Princess Bentrick were there when they arrived. The Crown Prince was a man of middle age, graying at the temples with a glassy stare that betrayed contact lenses. The resemblance between him and his father was apparent. Both had the same studious and impractical expression that might have been professors on the same university faculty.

He shook hands with Trask, assuring him of the gratitude of the court and royal family. "'You know, Simon is next in succession, after myself and my little daughter,' he said. "'That's too close to take chances with him.' He turned to Bentrick. "'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 Bentrick said. And if anybody owes Prince Trask gratitude I do.

She pressed his hands warmly. Prince Trask, my son wants to meet you very badly. He's ten years old, and he 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 were diplomats, ambassadors from Odin and Balder and Isis and Ishtar and Aitan and the other civilized worlds. No doubt they hadn't actually expected horns and a spiked tail, or even tattooing in a nose ring,

but after all, space Vikings were just some sort of neo-barbarians, weren't they? On the other hand, they had all seen views and gotten descriptions of the nemesis, and had heard about the ship action on Odholma, And this Prince Trask, a space Viking prince, that sounded civilized enough, had saved a life with only three other lives, one almost at an end, between it and the throne. And they had heard about the screen conversation with King MacHill, so they were courteous through the meal and tried to get as close as possible to him in the procession to the throne room. King MacHill wore a golden crown

topped by the planetary emblem, which must have weighed twice as much as a combat helmet and four-edged robes that would weigh more than a suit of space armor. They weren't nearly as ornate, though, as the regalia of King Angus I of Graham. He rose to clasp Prince Bentrick's hand, calling him dear cousin, and congratulating him on his gallant fight and fortunate escape.

That knocks any court-martial talk on the head, Trask thought. He remained standing to shake hands with Trask, calling him, Valued friend to me and my house. First person, singular. That must be causing some lifted eyebrows. Then the king sat down, and the rest of the roomful filed up onto the dais to be received, and finally it was over, and the king rose and proceeded, followed by his immediate suite between the bowing and cursing court and out the wide doors.

After a decent interval, Crown Prince Edvard escorted him and Prince Bentrick down the same route, the others falling in behind, and across the hall to the ballroom where there was soft music and refreshments. It wasn't too unlike a court reception on Excalibur, except that the drinks and canopays were being dispensed by human servants. He was wondering what sort of court functions Angus I of Graham was holding by now. After half an hour, a posse of court functionaries approached and informed him that it had pleased his majesty to command Prince Trask to attend him in his private chambers. There was an audible gasp at this. Both Prince Bentrick and the Crown Prince were trying not to grin too broadly.

Evidently, this didn't happen too often. followed the functionaries from the ballroom, and the eyes of everybody else followed him. Old King Mick Hill received him alone, in a small, comfortably shabby room behind vast ones of incredible splendor. He wore fur-lined slippers and a loose robe with a fur collar, and his little black cap of maintenance. He was standing when Trask entered. When the guards closed the door and left them alone, he beckoned Trass to a couple of chairs with a low table, on which were decanters and glasses and cigars between. "'It's a presumption on royal authority to summon you from the ballroom,' he began,

after they had seated themselves and filled glasses. "'You are quite the sinister, 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 the throne-room, yet I seemed to detect a look of relief as you left it. I tried to hide it as much as possible, the old king took off the little 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. Tras felt that some gesture should be made on his own part. He unfastened the dress dagger from his belt and laid it on the table. The king nodded. Now we can be a couple of honest tradesmen, our shops closed for the evening, relaxing over our wine and tobacco," he said.

"'A. Goodman, Lucas?' It seemed like an initiation into a secret society whose ritual he must guess at step by step. "'Right, Goodman, Mikhil.' They lifted their glasses to each other and drank. Goodman McKill offered 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 and robbers, as one of my fellow tradesmen says.

The worst of it is that robbery and murder become just that, a trade, like servicing robots or selling groceries. Yet you fought two other space Vikings to cover my cousin's crippled victrix. Why? So he must tell his tale, so worn and smooth again. King McHill's cigar went out while he listened. "'And you have been hunting him ever since? And now you can't be sure whether you killed him or not.'

"'I'm afraid I didn't. The man in the screen is the only man Dunnan can really trust. One or the other would stay wherever he has his base all the time.' "'And when you do kill him, What then? I'll go on trying to make a civilized planet of Tanneth. Sooner or later I'll have one quarrel too many with King Angus, and then we will be our majesty, Lucas I first of Tanneth,

and we will sit on a throne and receive our subjects. And I'll be glad when I can get my crown off and talk to a few men who call me shipmate instead of your majesty. Well, it would violate professional ethics for me to advise a subject to renounce his sovereign, of course, but that might be an excellent thing. You met the ambassador from Ithavall at dinner, did you not? Three centuries ago. Ithavall was a colony of Marduk.

It seems we can't afford colonies anymore, and it seceded from us. Ith of all was then a planet like your Tanneth seems to be. Today it is a civilized world, and one of Marduk's best friends. You know, sometimes I think a few lights are coming on again, here and there in the old Federation. If so, you space Vikings are helping to light them. You mean the planets we use as bases and the things we teach the locals? That, too, of course.

Civilization needs civilized technologies. But they have to be used for civilized ends. Do you know anything about a space Viking raid on 8 times? over a century ago. Six ships from Halticleer. Four destroyed. The other two returned damaged and without booty. The King of Marduk nodded.

That raid saved civilization on Aton. There were four great nations. The two greatest were at the brink of war, and the others were waiting to pounce on the exhausted victor and then fight each other for the spoils. The space Vikings forced them to unite. Out of that temporary alliance came the League for Common Defense, and from that the Planetary Republic. The Republic's a dictatorship now, and just between Goodman Mikhail and Goodman Lucas, it's a nasty one,

and our Majesty's government doesn't like it at all. It will be smashed, sooner or later, but they'll never go back to divided sovereignty and nationalism again. The Space Vikings frighten them out of that, when the dangers inherent in it couldn't. Maybe this man Dunnan will do the same for us on Marduk. You have troubles? You've seen de-civilized planets. How does it happen? I know how it's happened on a good many.

War, destruction of cities and industries, survivors among ruins, too busy keeping their own bodies alive, to try to keep civilization alive. Then they lose all knowledge of how to be civilized. That's catastrophic. de-civilization. There is also decivilization by erosion, and while it's going on, nobody notices it. Everybody is proud of their civilization, their wealth, and culture. But trade is falling off, fewer ships come in each year. So there is boastful talk about planetary self-sufficiency.

Who needs off-planet trade anyhow? Everybody seems to have money, but the government is always broke. deficit spending, and always the vital social services for which the government has to spend money. The most vital one, of course, is buying votes to keep the government in power, and it gets harder for the government to get anything done. The soldiers are sloppier at drill, and their uniforms and weapons are taken care of. The non-coms are insolent, and more and more parts of the city are dangerous at night, and then, even in the daytime. And it's been years since a new building went up, and the old ones aren't being repaired anymore. Tras closed his eyes. Again he could feel the mellow son of Graham on his back,

and hear the laughing voices on the lower terrace. And he was talking to Lothar Fale and Rovard Grawfus, and Alex Gorham, and Cousin Nicolay, and Otto Harkaman. He said, And, finally, nobody bothers fixing anything up, and the power reactors stop, and nobody's seems to be able to get them started again. It hasn't quite gotten that far in the sword worlds yet. It hasn't here, either, yet." Goodman McHill slipped away, and King Mikhail Ith looked across the low table at his guest. "'Prince Trask, have you heard of a man named Zaspar-Macon?' Occasionally, nothing good about him. He is the most dangerous man on this planet, the king said,

"'And I can make nobody believe it, not even my son.'" 21. Prince Bentrick's ten-year-old son, Count Stephen of Ravery, wore the uniform of an ensign of the Royal Navy. He was accompanied by his tutor, an elderly Navy captain. They both stopped in the doorway of Trask's suite, and the boy saluted smartly. "'Permission to come aboard, sir,' he asked. Welcome aboard, Count, Captain.

Belay the ceremony and fine seats. You're just in time for a second breakfast. As they sat down, he aimed his ultraviolet light pencil at a serving robot. Unlike Marduckin robots, which looked like surrealist conceptions of pre-atomic armored nights, it was a smooth ovoid floating a few inches from the floor on its own contragravity. As it approached, its top opened like a little bit of a little bit of the floor. a bursting beetle shell and hinged trays of food swung out. The boy looked at it in fascination. "'Is that a sort, world robot, sir, or did you capture it somewhere?' "'It's one of our own.' He was pardonably proud. It had been built on Tanneth a year before.

"'As an ultrasonic dishwasher underneath, and it does some cooking on top at the back.' The elderly captain was, if anything, even more impressed than his usual. young charge. He knew what went into it, and he had some conception of the society that would develop things like that. "'I take it you don't use many human servants, with robots like that,' he said. "'Not many. We're all low-population planets, and nobody wants to be a servant.' "'We have too many people on Marduk, and all of them want soft jobs as noble servants,' the captain said, those that want any kind of jobs. You need all the people for fighting men, don't you?

The boy count asked. Well, we need a good many. The smallest of our ships will carry 500 men, most of them, around 800. The captain lifted an eyebrow. The complement of the Victrix had been 300, and she'd been a big ship. Then he nodded. Of course, most of them are ground fighters. That started Count Stephen off.

Questions about battles and raids and booty and the planet's Trask had seen. I wish I were a space Viking. Well, you can't be, Count Ravery. You're an officer of the Royal Navy. 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 of fireworks, and then we'll each go home and claim victory. How would that be? I've heard of things like that, the captain said. We had a war with Odin, 70 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't lie when they're on the throne, do they?' "'Good kings don't,' Tras told him. "'Ours is a good king,' young Count of Ravery declared proudly. "'I would do anything my king commanded. "'Except fight Prince Trask. "'My house owes Prince Trask a debt.' "'Trass nodded approvingly.

"'That's the way a sword-world noble would talk, Count Stephen,' he said. "'The Board of Inquiry that afternoon was more like a small and very sedate cocktail party. An Admiral Schaefter, who seemed to be very high, high brass, presided while carefully avoiding the appearance of doing so. Alvin Carford and Van Larch and Patrick Morland were there from the nemesis, and Bentrick and several of the officers from the Victricks, and there were a couple of naval intelligence officers,

and somebody from operational planning, and from ship construction and research and development. They chatted pleasantly and in a deceptively random manner for a while. Then Schepter said, Well, there's no blame or censure of any sort for the way Commodore Prince Bentrick was surprised. That couldn't have been avoided at the time. He looked at the Research and Development Officer. It shouldn't be allowed to happen many more times, though.

Not many more, sir. I'd say it'll take my people a month, and then the time it'll take to get all the ships equipped as they come in. Ship construction didn't think that would take too long. Well, see to it that you get full information on the new submarine detection 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 we were informing space Vikings about our technical secrets, He felt the back of his neck in a way that made Trass suspect that beheadment was the customary form of execution on Marduk. "'We'll have to find out where that fellow has his base,' operational planning said. "'I take it, Prince Trask, that you're not going to assume that he was on his flagship when you blew it, and just put paid to him and forget him. Oh, no, I'm assuming that he wasn't. I don't believe he and Orm went anywhere on the same ship.

after he came out here and established a base. I think one of them would stay home all the time. Well, we'll give you everything we have on them, Schefter 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 dare say we'll both get a lot of new information. Have you any idea at all where he might be based, Prince Trask? Only that we think it's a non-terotype planet.

He told them about Dunnons' heavy purchases of air and water recycling equipment and carniculture and hydroponic material. That, of course, helps a great deal. Yes, there are only about five million planets in the former Federation space volume that are inhabitable in artificial environment, including a few completely covered by seas, where you could put in underwater dome cities if you had the time and material. One of the intelligence officers had been nursing a glass with a tiny remnant of cocktail in it. He downed it suddenly, filled the glass again, and glowered at it in silence for a while.

Then he drank it briskly and refilled it. What I should like to know, he said, is how this double obscenity of a Dunin knew we'd have a ship on Otolma just when we did, he said. You're talking about underwater dome cities reminded me of it. I don't think he just pulled that planet out of a hat and then went there, prepared to sit on the bottom of the ocean for a year and a half, waiting for something to turn up. I think he knew the Victrix was coming into Out Holma and just about when. I don't like that, Commodore, Schefter said.

You think I do, sir? The intelligence officer countered. There it is, though. We all have to face it. We do, Schefter agreed. "'Get on it, Commodore, and I don't need to caution you to screen everybody you put onto it very carefully.' He looked at his own glass. It had a bare thimbleful in the bottom. He replenished it slowly and carefully. "'It's been a long time since the Navy's had anything like this to worry about.'

He turned to Trask. "'I suppose I can get in touch with you at the palace whenever I must.' "'Well, Prince Trask and I have been invited as houseguests. at Prince Edvard's, I mean Baron Craggdale's hunting lodge, Ventric said. We'll be going there directly from here. Ah, Admiral Schaefter smiled slightly. Beside not having three horns and 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 Baron Craggdale lay at the head of a sharply sloped mountain valley down which 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 there was a red mauve alpine glow on the great peak that rose from the head of the valley. For the first time in over a year, Elaine was with him, silently clinging to him to see the beauty of it through his eyes. He had thought that she had gone from him forever. The hunting lodge itself was not quite what a sword-wolder would expect a hunting lodge to be. At first sight from the air,

it looked like a sundial, a slender tower rising like a gnomon above a circle of low buildings and formal gardens. The boat landed at the foot of it, and he and Prince and Princess Bentrick and the young Count of Ravery and his tutor descended. Immediately they were beset by a flurry of servants. The second boat, with the Bentrick servants and their luggage, was circling in to land. Elaine, he discovered, wasn't with him anymore. And then he was separated from the Bentricks, and was being floated up and inside shaft in a lifter car. More servants installed him in his rooms, unpacked his cases, drew his bath, and even tried to help him take it,

and fussed over him while he dressed. There were over a score for dinner. Bentrick had warned him that he'd find some odd types. Maybe he meant that they wouldn't all be nobles. Among the commoners there were some professors, mostly social sciences, a labor leader, a couple of representatives and a member of the Chamber of Delegates, and a couple of social workers, whatever that meant.

His own table companion was a lady Valerie Alvarez. She was beautiful. black hair and almost startlingly blue eyes, a combination unusual in the sword worlds, and she was intelligent, or at least cleverly articulate. She was introduced as the lady companion of the Crown Prince's daughter. When he asked where the daughter was, she laughed. She won't be helping entertain visiting space Vikings for a long time, Prince Trask. She is precisely eight years old. I saw her getting ready for bed before it came down here. I'll look in on her after dinner." Then the Crown Prince Melanie, on his other hand,

asked him some question about Swordworld court etiquette. He stuck to generalities, and what he could remember from a presentation at the Court of Excalibur during his student days. These people had a monarchy since before Graham had been colonized. He wasn't going to admit that Grams had been established since he went off planet. The table was small enough for everybody to to hear what he was saying and to feed questions to him. It lasted all through the meal and continued 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 artificialities of the court wanted to know.

Well, we don't use the word government very much, he replied. We talk a lot about authority and sovereignty, and I'm afraid we burn it. entirely too much powder over it, but government always seems to us like sovereignty interfering in matters that don't concern it, as long as sovereignty maintains a reasonable semblance of good public order and makes the more serious forms of crime fairly hazardous for the criminals, we're satisfied. But that's just negative. Doesn't the government do anything positive for the people? He tried to explain the sword-world feudal system to them. It was hard, he found, to explain something you have taken for granted all your life, to somebody who is quite unfamiliar

with it. But the government, the sovereignty, since you don't like the other word, doesn't do anything for the people, one of the professors objected. It leaves all the social services to the whim of the individual lord or baron. And the people. 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 and commanding voice, and that barons and lords who wanted to stay alive listened attentively to it. The assemblyman changed his mind, that wasn't tyranny, it was anarchy, and the professor was still insistent about who performed the social services.

If you mean schools and hospitals and keeping the city clean, the people do that for themselves. The government, if you want to think of it as that, just sees to it that nobody's shooting at them while they're doing it. That isn't what Professor Polwell means, Lucas. He means old-age pensions, Prince Bentrick said, like this thing Zaspar-McCand's whooping for. He'd heard about that on the voyage from Otoma. Every person on Marduk would be retired on an adequate pension after 30 years' regular employment or at the age of 60. When he wanted to know where the money would come from,

he had been told that there would be a sales tax and that the pensions must all be spent within 30 years, which would stimulate business, and the increased business would provide tax money to pay the pensions. We have a joke about three Gilgameshers space wrecked on an uninhabited planet, he said. Ten years later, when they were rescued, all three were immensely wealthy, from trading hats with each other. That's about the way this thing will work. One of the ladies' social workers bristled.

It wasn't right to make derogatory jokes about racial groups. One of the professors harrumped. Wasn't a parallel at all. The self-sustaining rotary pension plan was perfectly feasible. With a shock, Trask recalled that he was a professor of economics. Alvin Carford wouldn't need any twenty ships to loot Marduk, just infiltrated with about a hundred smart confidence men, and inside a year they'd own everything on it.

That started them all off on Zaspar-McHan, though. Some of them thought he had a few good ideas, but was damaging his own case by extremism. One of the wealthier nobles said that he was a reproach to the ruling class. It was their fault that people like McCann could gain a following. One old gentleman said that maybe the Gilgameshers were to blame themselves for some of the animosity toward them. He was immediately set upon by all the others and verbally torn to pieces on the spot.

Tras didn't feel it proper to quote Goodman McKill 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 threat to civilized society on Marduk.' They didn't call him crazy, after all he was a guest, but they didn't ask him what he meant either. They merely told him that McCann 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, Bentrick said, soberly, and I'm afraid the election results will be a shock to us, not to McCann. He hadn't talked that way on the ship.

Maybe he'd been looking around and doing some thinking since he got back. He might have been talking to Goodman McKill, 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 Dreplin now, he said. May I put it on to show you what I mean? When the Crown Prince ascended, he snapped on the screen and twiddled at the selector. A face looked out of it. The features weren't André Dunnins, the mouth was wider, the cheekbones broader, and the chin more rounded. But his eyes were Dunnons, as Trask had seen them on the terrace of Carvel House.

Mad eyes. His high-pitched voice screamed, Our beloved sovereign is a prisoner. He's surrounded by traitors. The ministries are full of them. They're all traitors. The bloodthirsty reactionaries of the falsely so-called crown loyalist party. The grasping conspiracy of the interstellar bankers. The dirty Gilgameshers. They're all leagued together in an unholy conspiracy. And now, this space Viking, this bloody-handed monster from the sword worlds, shut the horrible man off, somebody was yelling in competition with the hypnotic scream of the speaker. The trouble was they couldn't. They could turn off the screen, but Zaspar-McHan would go on

screaming, and millions all over the planet would still hear him. Bentrick twiddled the selector. The voice stuttered briefly and then came echoing out of the speaker, but this time the pickup was somewhere several hundred feet above a great open park. It was densely packed with people, most of them wearing clothes, a farm tramp on Graham would be found dead in, but here and there among them were blocks of men in what was almost but not quite military uniform, each with a short and thick swagger stick with a knobbed head. Across the park in the distance, the head and shoulders of Zaspar McCann loomed a hundred feet high in a huge screen.

Whenever he stopped for breath, a shout would go up, beginning with the blocks of uniformed men. "'McCann! McCann! McCann, the leader! McCann to power!' "'You even let him have a private army?' he asked the Crown Prince. "'Oh, those silly buffoons and their musical comedy uniforms—'

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 Bentrick said. Neither do I. That's what I'm worried about. End of Chapter 21. Space Viking. 22. He succeeded the next morning in convincing everybody that he wanted to be alone for a while, and was sitting in a garden, watching the rainbows in the midst of a big waterfall across the valley. 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 a sleeveless jacket, holding in her arms a long-haired blonde puppy with 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 Mernah, and this is Mopsy.' "'Hello, Mernah, hello Mopsy!'

Hearing his name, the puppy wriggled again and dropped from the child's arms. After a brief hesitation he came over and jumped on to Trask slap, licking his face. While he petted the dog, the girl came over and sat on the bench beside him. 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 you like to be my girl on Marduk? Murna thought that over carefully. I'd like to too, but I couldn't. You see, I'm going to have to be queen someday. Oh? Yes, Grandpa is king now, and when he's through being king, Papa will have to be king. And then when

he's through being king, I can't be king because I'm a girl, so I'll have to be queen, and I can't be anybody's girl, because I'm going to have to marry somebody I don't know for reasons of state." She thought so more and lowered her voice. 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 our faithful subject. Is your majesty absolute ruler of these domains? No, she said disgustedly. We must at all times defer to our royal ministers,

just like Grandpa has to. That means I have to do just what they tell me to. That's Lady Valerie and Margot and Dame Eunice and Sir Thomas. But Grandpa says they're 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 tell you 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 bet you've slain hundreds of cruel and wicked enemies. Thousands, your majesty. He wished that weren't literally true. He didn't know how many of them had been little girls like Myrna and little dogs like Mopsy.

He found that he was holding both of them tightly. The girl was saying, But you feel bad about it. These children must be telepath. has. A space Viking who is also a prince must do many things he doesn't want to do. I know, so does a queen. I hope Grandpa and Papa don't get through being 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 do. Lessons, I bet. He followed her eyes. The girl who had been his dinner companion was approaching.

She wore a wide sun-shade hat and a gown that trailed filmy gauze like sunset-colored mist. There was another woman, in the 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 she is sovereign of three princely domains, and of one dear loving subject. 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 remain incognito. Now your majesty must remain incognito. go with the Minister of the Bedchamber, the Minister of Education awaits an audience."

Arithmetic, I bet. Well, good-bye, Prince Trask. I hope I can see you again. Say good-bye, Mopsy." She went away with her nurse, the little dog looking back over her shoulder. "'I came out to enjoy the gardens alone,' he said. And now I find I'd rather enjoy them in company. If your ministerial duties do not forbid, Could you be the company?" But gladly, Prince Trask, Her Majesty will be occupied with serious affairs of state—square route.

Have you seen the Grottoes? They're down this way." That afternoon one of the gentlemen attendants caught up with him. Baron Cragdale would be gratified if Prince Trass could find the time to talk with him privately. Before they had talked more than a few minutes, however, Baron Cradale abruptly became Crown Prince Edvard. Prince Trask. Admiral Schaefter tells me

that you and he are having informal discussions about cooperation against this mutual enemy of ours, Dunn. This is fine. It has my approval. And the approval of Prince van der Vand, the Prime Minister, and, I might add, that of Goodman-Mcill. I think it ought to go further, though.

A formal treaty between Tanneth and Marduk would be greatly to the advantage of both. I'd be inclined to think so, Prince Edvard. But aren't you proposing marriage on rather short acquaintance? It's only been fifty hours since the nemesis orbited in here. Well, we know a bit about you and your planet beforehand. There's a large Gilgamesher colony here. You have a few on Tanneth, haven't you?

Well, anything one Gilgamesher knows, they all find out, and ours are cooperative with naval intelligence. That would be why André Dunnan was having no dealings with Gilgameshers. He would also be what Zaspar McCann meant when he ranted about the Gilgamesh interstellar conspiracy. I can see where an arrangement like that would be mutually advantageous. I'd be quite in favor of it. Cooperation against Dunnn, of course, and reciprocal trade rights on each other's trade

planets, and direct trade between Marduk and Tanneth. And Beowulf and Amaterasu would come into it too. Does this also have the approval of the Prime Minister and the King? Goodman MacKills in favor of it. There's a distinction between him and the King, as you'll have noticed. The King can't be in favor of anything till the Assembly or the Chancellor express an opinion. Prince van der Vandervant favors it personally. as Prime Minister, he is reserving his opinion.

We'll have to get the support of the Crown Loyalist Party before he can take an equivocal position. Well, Baron Craggdale, speaking as Baron Trask of Traskin, suppose we just work out a rough outline of what this treaty ought to be, and then consult, unofficially, with a few people whom you can trust, and see what can be done about presenting it to the proper government officials. The Prime Minister came to Craggdale that evening, heavily incognito, and accompanied by several

leaders of the Crown Loyalist Party. In principle, they all favored a treaty with Tanneth. Politically, they had doubts. Not before the election. Too controversial a subject. Controversial, it appeared, was the dirtiest dirty name anything could be called on Marduck. It would alienate the labor vote. They'd think increased imports would threaten employment in Marduckin industries.

Some of the interstellar trading companies would like a chance at the Tanneth planets. Others would resent Tanneth ships being given access to theirs. And Zasbar McCann's party were already shrieking protests about the nemesis being repaired by the Royal Navy. And a couple of professors who inclined toward McCann had introduced a resolution calling for the court. court-martial of Prince Bentrick, and an investigation of the loyalty of Admiral Schaefter. And somebody else, probably a stooge of McCannes, was claiming that Bentrick had sold the

Victrix to the Space Vikings, and that the films of the Battle of Out Hulma were fakes, photographed in miniature at the Navy Moon Base. Admiral Schaefter, when Trask flew into see him the next day, was contemptuous about this last. Ignore the whole bloody thing. We get something like that before every general election. On this planet, you can always kick the Gilgameshers and the armed forces with impunity. Neither have votes, and neither can kick back.

The whole thing will be forgotten the day after the election. It always is. That's if McCann doesn't win the election, Trask qualified. That's no matter who wins the election. They can't any of them get along without the Navy, and they bloody well know it. Trask wanted to know if intelligence had been getting anything. Not on how Dunnand found out the Victrix had been ordered to Otholmah, no, Shepter said.

There wasn't any secrecy about it. At least a thousand people, from myself, down to the Shushine 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 yesterday morning, The Honest Horace. 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 Horace Sastroff. He claimed to be from Scothie. The locals there have a few ships. The Space Vikings had a base on Scathie about a hundred or so years ago. Naturally, the ship had no papers.

Tramp trading among the Neobarbs, it might be years before you'd put in on a planet where they'd ever heard of ship's papers. The ship seems to have been in bad shape, probably abandoned on Scathie as a junk a century ago, and tinkered up by the locals. She was in here twice, according to the commercial shipping record. and the second time she was in too bad shape to be moved out, and Sastroff couldn't pay to have her rebuilt, so she was liable for spaceport charges and sold. Some one lung trading company bought her and fixed her up a little. They went bankrupt in a year or so, and she was bought

by another small company, Star Traders Limited, and they've been using her on a milk run to to and from Gimley. They seemed to be a legitimate outfit, but we're looking into them. We're looking for Sastroff, too, but we haven't been able to find him. If you have a ship out Gimleyway, you might find out if anybody there knows anything about her. You may discover that she hasn't been going there at all. We might at that, Schefter agreed. We'll just find out. Everybody at Craggdale knew about the projected treaty with Tanneth by the morning after Trask's first conversation with Prince Edvard on the subject.

The queen of the royal bedroom, the royal playroom, and the royal bathroom was insisting that her domain should have a treaty with Tanneth, too. It was beginning to look to Trask, as though that would be the only treaty 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 already decreed that Lady Valerie should be the space Viking prince's girl on the planet of Marduk. If it got out, these people's welfare lunatics would pick it up and twist it into

evidence of some kind of 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 kept very secret. Gee, Murn his eyes widened, a real secret treaty. just like the wicked rulers of the old dictatorship. She hugged her subject ecstatically. I'll bet Grandpa doesn't even have any secret treaties. In a few days, everybody on Marduk knew that a treaty with Tanneth was being discussed.

If they didn't, it was no fault of Zaspar McCann's party, who seemed to command a disconcertingly large number of telecast stations, and who drenched the ether with horror stories of space Viking atrocities, and denunciations of carefully unnamed traitors surrounding the king and the crown prince who were about to betray Marduk to rapin and plunder. The leak evidently did not come from Craggdale, for it was generally believed that Trask was still at the royal palace at Malverton. At least that was where the mechanics were demonstrating against him. He watched such a demonstration by screen. The pickup was evidently

on one of the landing stages of the palace, overlooking the wide park surrounding it. They were packed almost solid with people, surging forward toward the thin cordon of police. The front of the mob looked like a checkerboard, a block in civilian dress, then a block in the curiously effeminate-looking uniforms of Zaspar-McCand's People's Watchmen, then more in ordinary garb, and more People's Watchmen. Over the heads of the crowds, at intervals, floated small contra-gravity lifters on which were mounted the amplifiers that were bellowing, Space Viking, go home! Space Viking! 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 ran forward, then spread out until they formed a line six deep across the entire front. Other blocks from the rear pushed the ordinary demonstrators aside and took their place. Hating them more every second, Trask grudged approval of a smart and disciplined maneuver. How long, he wondered, had they been drilling in that sort of tactics? Without stopping, they continued their advance on the police, who had now shifted their stance. Space Viking go home! Space Viking 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 trunchons, no better weapons than the knobbed swagger-sticks of the people's watchmen. They simply disappeared, after a brief flurry of blows, and the McCannes stormtroopers continued their advance. And that was that. The gates of the palace were shut. The mob behind a front of McCann's People's Watchmen surged up to them and stopped. The loudspeakers bellowed on, reiterating their four-word chant. "'Those police were murdered,' he said. They were murdered by the man who ordered them out there unarmed. That would be Count Nadenair, 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 opened machine-gun fire as soon as the mob crossed it, and kept on firing till the survivors turned tail and ran.

Then sent out more cars and shot everybody wearing a people's watchman uniform all over town. Inside 48 hours there'd be no one. No people's welfare party and no Zaspar McCann either." The Crown Prince's face stiffened. "'That may be the way you do things in the sword worlds, Prince Trask. It's not the way we do things here on Marduk. Our government does not propose to be guilty of 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. dead, he said softly. I'm sorry, Prince Edvard. You had a wonderful civilization here on Marduk. You could have made almost anything of it, but it's too late now. You've torn down the gates. The barbarians are in.

Twenty-three. The colored turbulence faded into the gray of hyperspace, five hundred hours to Tanneth. Gwatt Kirby was securing his control panel, happy to return to his music. And Van Larch would go back to his paints and brushes, and Alvin Carford to the working model of whatever it was he had left unfinished when the nemesis had emerged at the end of the jump from Out Holma. Trask went to the index of the ship's library and punched for History Old Terran.

There was plenty of that, thanks to Otto Harkman. 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 could help him understand Zasbar-McCann. By the time the ship came out, with the yellow son of Tanneth in the middle of the screen, he knew a great deal about Hitler, occasionally referred to as Shicklegruber,

and he understood, with sorrow, how the lights of civilization on Marduck were going out. Beside the Lamia, stripped of her Dillinghams and crammed with heavy armament and detection instruments, the space scourge and the Queen Flavia were on off-planet watch. There were half a dozen other ships on orbit just above atmosphere. A Gilgamesher, one of the Graham-Tanneth freighters, a couple of freelance space Vikings, and a new and unfamiliar ship. When he asked the Moonbase who she was, he was told that she was the Sun goddess, Amaterasu. That was, by almost a year, better than he had expected of them. Otto Harciman was out in the Coruscandy, raiding and visiting the trade planets. He found his cousin, Nicolay Trask at Rivington. When he inquired

about Traskin, Nicolay cursed. "'I don't know anything about Traskin. I haven't anything to do with Traskin any more.' Traskin is now the personal property of our well-loved, very well-loved, Queen Evita. The Trask's don't own enough land on Graham now for a family cemetery. You see what you did, he added bitterly. You needn't rub it in, Nicolay. If I'd stayed on Graham, I'd have helped put Angus on the throne, and it would have been about the same in the end.

It could be a lot different, Nicolay said. You could bring your ships and your men back to Graham and put yourself on the throne. No, I'll never go back to Graham. Tanneth's my planet now. But I will renounce my allegiance to Angus. I can trade on Morglai or Jouz or Flembert just as easily. You won't have to. You can trade with New Haven and Bigelersport.

Count Lionel and Duke Joris are both defying Angus. They've refused to furnish any. men. They've driven out his tax collectors, those they haven't hanged, and they're building ships of their own. Angus is building ships, too. I don't know whether he's going to use them to fight Bigler's Port and New Haven or attack you, but there's going to be a war before another years out. The Good Hope and the Speedwell he found had gone back to Graham. They were commanded by men who had come into favor at the court of King Angus recently. The Black Star and the Queen Flavia, whose captain had contemptuously ignored an order from Graham

to rechristen her Queen Evita, had remained. They were his ships, not King Angus. The captain of the merchantman from Wardshaven, now on orbit, refused to take a cargo to Newhaven. He had been chartered by King Angus and would take orders from no one else. All right, Trask told him, "'This is your last voyage here. You bring that ship back under Angus of Wardshaven's charter, and we'll fire on her.' Then he had the regalia he had worn in his last audiovisual to Angus dusted off.

At first he had decided to proclaim himself King of Tanneth, Lord Valpry, Baron Rathmore, and his cousin all advised against it. "'Just call yourself Prince of Tanneth,' Valpry said. The title won't make any difference in your authority here, and if you do lay claim to the throne of Graham, nobody can say you're a foreign king trying to annex the planet. He had no intention of doing anything of the kind, but Valprey was quite in earnest. So he sat on his throne, as sovereign Prince of Tanneth, and renounced his allegiance to Angus, Duke of Wardshaven, self-styled King of Graham.

They sent it back on the otherwise empty freighter. Another copy went to the Count of New Haven, along with a cargo in the Sun Goddess, the first non-space Viking ship into Graham from the Old Federation. Seven hundred and fifty hours after the return of the nemesis, the Coruscandy too emerged from her last microjump, and immediately Harkaman began hearing of the Battle of Outhalma and the destruction of the Yo-Yo and the Enterprise. At first he merely reported a successful rating voyage, from which he was bringing rich booty.

Oddly variegated booty, it was remarked when he began itemizing it. Why, yes, he replied, second-hand booty. I rated Dagon for it. Dagon was a space Viking base planet, occupied by a character named Fedrig Beregon. A number of ships operated from it, including a couple commanders. by Baragon's half-breed sons." "'Barrigan ships were raiding one of our planets,' Harkman said. "'Ganpat.

They looted a couple of cities, destroyed one, killed a lot of the locals. I found out about it from Captain Ravallo of the Black Star on Indra. He'd just been from Ganpat. Beowulf wasn't too far out of the way, so he put in there and found the Grendel's Bain just ready to space out. The Grendelsbane was the second of Beowulf's ships, sister to the Viking's gift. So she joined us, and the three of us went to Dagon. We blew up one of Berrigan ships and put the other one down out of commission,

and then we sacked his base. There was a Gilgamesher colony there. We didn't bother them. They'll tell what we did, and why. That should furnish Prince Victor of Zuchittle something to ponder, Trask said. Where are the other ships now? The Grendelsbane went back to Beowulf. She'll stop at Amaterasu to do a little trading on the way.

The Black Star went to Zah Chittle. Just a friendly visit to say hello to Prince Victor for you. Ravallo has a lot of audiovisuals we made during the Dagon operation. Then she's going to Jaganneth to visit Nicky Gratham. Harkaman approved his attitude and actions with regard to, to King Angus. We don't need to do business with the sword worlds at all. We have our own industries.

We can produce what we need. And we can trade with Beowulf and Amaterasu, and with Zachtitl and Jaganath and Hoth. If we can make any sort of agreement with them, everybody agrees to let everybody else's trade planets alone. It's too bad you couldn't get some kind of an agreement with Marduk. Harkhamen regretted that for 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 barbarians are rising. They have a leader, and they're uniting. Every society rests on a barbarian base.

The people who don't understand civilization, and wouldn't like it if they did. The hitchhikers, the people who create nothing, and who don't appreciate what the others have created for them, and who think civilization is something that just exists, that all they need to do is enjoy what they can understand of it, luxuries, a high living standard, and easy work for high pay. Responsibilities? Fooey! What do they have a government for?" Trask nodded. And now the hitchhikers think they know more about the car than the people who designed it, so they're going to grab the controls.

Zasbar McCann says they can, and he's the leader. He poured a drink from a decanter that had been looted on Pushan. There was a planet where a republic had been overthrown in favor of a dictatorship four centuries ago, and the planetary dictatorship

had fissioned into a dozen regional dictatorships, and now they were down to the peasant village and handcraft industry level. I don't understand it, though. I was reading about Hitler on the way home. I wouldn't be surprised if Zaspar-Macon had been reading about Hitler, too. He's using all Hitler's tricks. But Hitler came to power in a country which had been impoverished by a military defeat.

Marduk hasn't fought a war in almost two generations, and that one was a farce. It wasn't the war that put Hitler into power. it was the fact that the ruling class of his nation, the people who kept things running, were discredited. The masses, the homemade barbarians, didn't have anybody to take their responsibilities for them. What they have on Marduk is a ruling class that has been discrediting itself, a ruling class that's ashamed of its privileges and shirks its duties. A ruling class that has begun to believe that the masses are just as good as they are, which they manifestly are not, and a ruling class that won't use force to maintain its position.

And they have a democracy, and they are letting the enemies of democracy shelter themselves behind democratic safeguards. We don't have any of this democracy in the sword worlds, if that's the word for it, he said, and our ruling class aren't ashamed of their power, and our people aren't hitchhikers, and as long as they get decent treatment, they don't try to run things. And we're not doing so well. The Morglaid dynastic war of a couple of centuries ago, still sputtering and smoking. The Oskerson-Elemorson wore on Durendel, into which Flamberge and now Joyuz had intruded.

And the situation on Graham, fast approaching critical mass, Harkaman nodded agreement. You know why? our rulers are the barbarians among us. There isn't one of them, Napoleon of Flambersge, Rodolf of Excalibur, or Angus of about half of Graham, who is devoted to civilization, or anything else outside 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 Schaefter had ordered a ship to Gimley to check on the honest Horace. A few men and a pinnace would be left behind to contact any ship from Tanneth. He sent Boke Valkenhane off in the space scourge. Lionel of New Haven's blue comet came in from Graham with a cargo of general merchandise. Her captain wanted fishnables and gadolinium. Count Lionel was building more ships. There was a rumor that Amfrey of Glasbeth was laying claim to the throne of Graham,

in the right of his great-grandmother's sister, who had been married to the great-grandfather of Duke Angus. It was a completely trivial and irrelevant claim, but the story was that it would be supported by King Conrad of Halterclair. Immediately Baron Rathmore, Lord Valpry, Lotharfail, and the other Graham people began clamoring that he should go back with a fleet and seize the throne for himself. Harkaman, Valkenhane, Carford, and the other space Vikings were as vehement against it. Harkaman had the loss of the other Coruscandy on Dorendal to remember,

and the others wanted no part in sword-world squabbles, and there was renewed agitation that he should start calling himself King of Tanneth. He refused to do either, which left both parties dissatisfied. So partisan politics had finally come to Tanneth. Maybe that was another milestone of progress. And there was the Treaty of Kapera between the princely state of Tanneth, the Commonwealth of Beowulf, and the Planetary League of Amaterasu. The Kaperans agreed to allow bases on their planet,

to furnish workers, and to send students to school on all three planets. Tanneth, Beowulf, and Amaterasu obliged themselves to joint defense of Kepera, to free trade among themselves, and to render one another armed assistance. That was a milestone of progress, and no argument about it. The space scourge returned from Gimley, and Valkenhain reported that nobody on the planet had ever seen or heard of the honest Horace. They had found a Marduckan Navy ship's pinnest there, manned entirely by officers, some of them Navy intelligence.

According to them, the investigation into the activities of that ship had come to an impasse. The ostensible owners claimed, and had papers to prove it, that they had chartered her to a private traitor, and he claimed, and had papers to prove it, that he was a citizen of the planetary republic of Aeton, and as soon as they began questioning him, he was rescued, by the Aetonian ambassador, who lodged a vehement protest with the Marduckin Foreign Ministry. Immediately, the People's Welfare Party had leaped into the incident and branded the investigation as an unwarranted prosecution of a nation of a friendly power at the instigation of corrupt tools of the Gilgamesh Interstellar Conspiracy.

So that's it, Valkenhane finished. It seems they're having an election, and they're afraid to antagonize anybody who might have a vote. So the Navy had to drop the investigation. Everybody on Marduk's scared of this, McCann. You think there might be some tie-up between him and Dunn?' The ideas occurred to me. Have there been any more raids on Marduk trade planets since the Battle of Outhalma? A couple.

The Bolide was on Otlma a while ago. There were a couple of Marduckan ships there, and they had the vitrix fixed up enough 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 a limiting radius around Outholma. It did. 700 light years, which also included Tanneth. So he sent Harkaman in the Coruscandy and Ravallo in the Black Star, to visit the planets Marduk traded with, looking for Dunn ships and exchanging information and assistance with the Royal Marduckan Navy. Almost at once he regretted it.

The next Gilgamesher into orbit on Tannath brought a story that Prince Victor was collecting a fleet on Zochittal. He sent warnings off to Amaterasu and Beowulf and Kepera. A ship came in from Bigler Sport, a heavy heavy, heavily armed chartered freighter. There was sporadic fighting in a dozen places on Graham now, resistance to efforts on the part of King Angus to collect taxes, and raids by unidentified persons on estates confiscated from alleged traitors and given to Garvin Spasso, who had now been promoted from Baron to Count. And Rovard Groffes was dead, poisoned, everybody said,

either by Spasso or Queen Evita or both. Even with the threat from Zochittal, some of the former Wardshaven nobles began talking about sending ships to Graham. Less than a thousand hours after he had left, Ravallo was back in the Black Star. I went to Gimli, and I wasn't there fifty hours before a Mardukka Navy ship came in.

They were glad to see me. It saved them sending off a pinnace for Tanneth. They had news for you. and a couple of passengers. Passengers? Yes. You'll see who they are when they come down. And don't let anybody with side-whiskers and button-up coat see them, Ravallo said.

What those people know gets all over the place before long. The visitors were Lucille, Princess Bentrick, and her son, the young Count of Ravery. They dined with Trask. Only Captain Ravallo was also present. I didn't want to leave my husband, and I didn't want to come here and impose myself and Stephen on you, Prince Trask, she began, but he insisted. We spent the whole voyage to Gimley concealed in the captain's quarters. Only a few of the officers knew we were aboard. McCann won the election, is that it? he asked. And Prince Bentrick doesn't want to risk you

and Stephen being used as hostages? That's it, she said. He didn't really win the election, but he might as well have. Nobody has a majority of seats in the Chamber of Representatives, but he's formed a coalition with several of the splinter parties, and, I'm ashamed to say, that a number of Crown Loyalist members, crowd of disloyalists, I call them, are voting with him now. They've coined some ridiculous phrase about the wave of the future, whatever that means.

If you can't lick them, join them, Trask said. said, "'If you can't lick them, lick their boots,' the Count of Ravery put in. "'My son is a trifle bitter,' Princess Bentrick said. "'I must confess to a trace of bitterness, too.' "'Well, that's the representatives,' Trask said. "'What about the rest of the government? With the Splinter Party and disloyalist support, they got a majority of seats in the delegates. Most of them would have indignantly denied, a month before,

having any connection with McCann, but a hundred out of a hundred and twenty are his supporters. McCann, of course, is Chancellor. And who is Prime Minister, he asked. Andre Dunnan? She looked slightly baffled for an instant, then said, Oh, no, the Prime Minister is Crown Prince Edvard. No, Baron Craggdale. That isn't a royal title.

so by some kind of a fiction I can't pretend to understand he is not Prime Minister as a member of the royal family. If you can't, the boy started, Stephen, I forbid you to say that about Baron Craggdale. He believes, very sincerely, that the election was an expression of the will of the people, and that it is his duty to bow to it. He wished Otto Harciman were there. he could probably name, without stopping for breath, a hundred great nations that went down into rubble because their rulers believed that they should bow instead of rule, and couldn't bring themselves to shed the blood of their people.

Edvard would have been a fine and admirable man, as a little country baron, where he was he was a disaster. He asked if the people's watchman had dragged their guns out from under the bed, and started carrying them in public yet. Oh, yes, you were quite right. They were armed all the time. Not just small arms, combat vehicles and heavy weapons.

As soon as the new government was formed, they were given status as a part of the planetary armed forces. They have taken over every police station on the planet. And the king? Oh, he carries on and shrugs and says, I just reign here. What else can he do? We've been whittling down and filching away the powers of the throne for the last three centuries. What is Prince Bentrick doing? And why did he think there was danger that 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 gorilla in the mountains, I don't know. But if he can't lick them, he won't join them. I wanted to stay with him and help him. He told me I could help him best by placing myself and Stephen where 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-wolder. I told you that once before. He hesitated, then turned again to Princess Bentrick. "'How is Little Princess Myrna?' he asked. And then, trying to be casual, added,

"'And Lady Valerie.' She seemed so clearly real and present to him, blue eyes and space black hair, more real than Elaine had been to him for years. There at Cragdale, they'll be safe there, I hope. Attempting to conceal the presence on Tanneth of Prince Bentrick's wife and son was pushing caution beyond necessity. Admitted that the news would leak back to Marduk via Gilgamesh, it was over 700 light-years to the latter and almost a thousand from there to the former.

Better that Princess Lucille should enjoy Rivington society, such as it was, and escape, for a moment now and then, from anxiety about her husband. At ten, no, almost twelve. It had been a year and a half since Trask had left Marduk. The boy count of ravery was more easily diverted. At last he was among real space Vikings on a space Viking planet, and he was trying to be everywhere and see everything at once. No doubt he would be imagining himself a space Viking.

taking, returning to Marduk with a vast armada to rescue his father and the king from Zaspar-McCann. 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, Prince Victor of Zott Chittle. He went over with Manfred Ravallo everything the captain of the Black Star could tell him. He had talked once with Victor. The Lord of Zachtitl had been coldly polite and non-committal. His subordinates had been frankly hostile. There had been five ships on orbit or landed at Victor's spaceport

beside the usual Gilgameshers and itinerate traders, two of them Victor's own, and a big armed freighter that had come in from Halter Clear as the Black Star was leaving. There was considerable activity at the shipyard, and around the spaceport, as though in preparation for something on a large scale. Zawchiddle was a thousand light-years from Tanneth. He rejected immediately the idea of launching a preventive attack. His ships might reach Zah Chiddle to find it undefended, and then

return to find Tanneth devastated. Things like that had happened in space war. The only thing to do was sit tight, defend Tanneth, and then return to find Tanneth devastated. Things like that had happened in space war. The only thing to do was sit tight, defend Tanneth when Victor attacked and then counterattack if he had any ships left by that time. Prince Victor was probably reasoning in the same way. He had no time to think about André Dunnan, except, now and then, to wish that Otto Harkaman would stop thinking about him and bring the Coruscandy home. He needed that ship on Tanneth, and the wits and courage of her commander. More news, Gilgamesh sources, came in from Zachitl.

There were only two ships, both armed merchantmen on the planet. Prince Victor had spaced out with the rest and estimated two thousand hours before the story reached him. That was twice as long as it would take the Zah Chiddle Armada to reach Tanneth. He hadn't gone to Beowulf. That was only 65 hours from Tanneth, and they would have heard about it long ago. or Amaterasu or Kapera. How many ships he had was a question, not fewer than five, and possibly more.

He could have slipped into the Tanneth system and hidden his ships on one of the outer uninhabitable planets. He sent Valconhane and Ravallo micro-jumping their ships from one to another to check. They returned to report in the negative. At least Victor of Zott Chittle wasn't concerned. camped inside their own system, waiting for them to leave Tanneth open to attack. But he was somewhere, and up to nothing even resembling good, and there was no possible way of guessing when his ships would be emerging on Tannath.

The only thing to do was wait for him. When he did, Trask was confident that he would emerge from hyperspace into serious trouble. He had the nemesis, the space scourge, the black star, Queen Flavia, the strongly rebuilt Lamia, and several independent space Viking ships, among them the damn thing, of his friend Roger Fen Morville Esthersan, who had volunteered to stay and help in the defense. This, of course, was not pure altruism. If Victor attacked and had his fleet blown to MC Square, Zachtl would lie open and unprotected,

there was enough lude on Zah Chittle to cram everybody's ships. Everybody's ships, who had ships when the Battle of Tannath was over, of course. He was apologetic to Princess Bentrick. I'm very sorry you jumped out of Zaspar-McChan's frying-pan into Prince Victor's fire, he began. She laughed at that. I'll take my chances on the fire. I seem to see a lot of good firemen around. And if there is a battle, you will see that Stevens 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 Ravery wanted to know which ship he would serve on when the attack came. Well, you won't be on any ship, Count. You'll be on my staff.

Two days later, the Coruscandy came out of hyperspace. Harkaman was guardedly non-committal by screen. Tras took a landing craft and went out to meet the ship. Marduk doesn't like us anymore, Harkiman told him. They have ships on all their trade planets, and they all have orders to fire on any, repeat, any, space Vikings, including the ships of the self-styled prince of Tanneth. I got this from Captain Garravei of the Vindex. After we were through talking, we fought a nice little ship-to-ship action for him to make films of.

I don't think anybody could see anything wrong with it. This order came from McCann. From the Admiral commanding. He isn't your friend Schefter. Shefter retired, on account of, quote, ill health, unquote. He is now in a, quote, hospital, unquote. Where's Prince Bentrick? Nobody knows. Charges of high treason were brought against him, and he just vanished.

Gone underground, or secretly arrested and executed, take your choice. He wondered just what he'd tell Princess Lucille and Count Stephen. They have ships on all the planets they trade with, fourteen of them. That isn't to catch Dunin. That's to disperse the Navy away from Marduk. They don't trust the Navy. Is Prince Edvard still Prime Minister? Yes, as of Garavet's last information. It seems McCann is behaving in a scrupulously legal manner,

outside of making his people's watchman part of the armed forces, protesting his devotion to the 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 Lucille that her husband had gone into hiding. He couldn't be sure whether she was relieved or more worried. The boy was sure that he was doing

something highly romantic and heroic. Some of the volunteers tired of waiting, after another thousand hours they spaced out. The Viking's gift of Beowulf came in with cargo and went out on orbit after discharging it to join the watch. A Gilgamesher came in from Amaterasu and reported everything quiet there. As soon as her captain had sold his cargo, with a minimum of haggling, he spaced out again. His behavior convinced everybody that the attack would come in a matter of hours. It didn't. Three thousand hours had passed since the first warning had reached Tannet. That made five thousand since Victor's ships were supposed to have left Zochittle. There were those, Boke Valk-Valkenhain among them, who doubted now if he ever had.

The whole thing's just a big Gilgamesher lie, he was declaring. Somebody, Nicky Gratham, or the Everards, or maybe Victor himself, paid them to tell us that, to pin our ships down here, or they made it up themselves, so they could make hay on our trade planets. Let's go down to the ghetto and clean out the whole gang, somebody else took up. Anything one of them's in, they're all in together. Niffelheim with that. Let's all space out for Zutt Chittle, Manfred Ravallo proposed. We have enough ships to lick them on Tanneth.

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 Tanneth, or the non-ruling king of Marduk, or just the chieftain of a disciplinless gang of barbarians. One of the independents spaced out in disgust. The next day, two others came in, loaded with booty from a raid on Braggie, and decided to stay around a while and see what happened.

And four days after that, a five hundred-foot hyperspace yacht bearing the daggers and chevrons of Bigler's port came in. As soon as she was out of the last microjump, she began calling by screen. Trass 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 would have thought that a three thousand-hour voyage would have taken some of the edge out of it. It is of the first important. You are speaking to me. This screen is reasonably secure, and if it's of the first importance, the sooner you tell me about it. Prince Trask, you must come to Graham, with every man and every

ship you can command. Satan only knows what's happening there now, but three thousand hours ago, when the Duke sent me off, Amfrey of Glasbeth was landing on Wardshaven. He has a fleet of eight ships, furnished to him by his wife's kinsman, the King of Halterclear. They are commanded by King Conrad's space Viking cousin, the Prince of Zochittle. Then a look of shock surprise came into the face of the man on the screen, and Trask wondered why, until he realized that he had leaned back in his chair and was laughing uproariously. Before he could apologize, the man in the screen had found his voice.

I know, Prince Trask, you have no reason to think kindly of King Angus, the former King Angus, or maybe even the late King Angus, I suppose he is now, but a murderer like Amphrey of Glasbeth. It took a little time to explain to the Confidential Secretary of the Duke of Bigelersport, the humor of the situation. There were others at Rivington to whom it was not immediately evident. The professional space Vikings, men like Vigler's. Dalkenhain and Ravallo and Alvin Carford were disgusted. Here they'd been sitting, on combat alert, all these months, and if they'd only known

they could have gone to Zah Chittle and looted it clean long ago. The Graham Party were outraged. Angus of Wardshaven had been bad enough, with the hereditary taint of the mad baron of Blackcliff, and Queen Evita and her rapacious family, but even he was preferable to a murdering villain, some even called him a fiend in human shape, like Amfrey of Glasspeth. Both parties, of course, were positive as to where their prince's duty lay. The former insisted that everything on Tanneth that could be put into hyperspace should be dispatched at once to Zah Chittle, to haul back from it everything except a few

absolutely immovable natural features of the planet. The latter clamored, just as loudly and passionately, that everybody on Tanneth who could pull a trigger should be embarked at once on a crusade for the deliverance of Graham. "'You don't want to do either, do you?' Harkerman asked him, when they were alone after the second day of acrimony. "'Niffelheim, no. This crowd that wants an attack on Zah Chittle, you know what would happen if we did that?' Harkaman was silent, waiting for him to continue.

Inside a year, four or five of these small planet holders, like Gratham and the Everards, would combine against us and make a slag pile out of Tanneth. Harkhamen nodded agreement. Since we warned him the first time, Victors kept his ships away from our planets. If we attack Zochittl now, without provocation, nobody know what to expect from us. People like Nicky Gratham and Tobin of Nergal and the Everards of Hoth get nervous around unpredictable dangers, and when they get nervous, they get trigger-happy. He puffed slowly on his pipe and then said,

Then you'll be going back to Graham. That doesn't follow. Just because Valconhain and Ravallo and that crowd are wrong doesn't make Valpry and Rathmore and fail right. You heard what I was telling those very people at you. Carville House the day I met you. And you've seen what's been happening on Graham since we came out here. Otto, the sword worlds are finished. They're half de-civilized now. Civilization is alive and growing here on Tannath. I want to stay here and help it grow.

Look, Lucas, Harkaman said, you're Prince of Tanneth, and I'm only the Admiral. But I'm telling you, you'll have to do something, or this whole setup of of yours will fall apart. As it stands, you can attack Zachthittle and the back-to-gram party would go along, or you can decide on this crusade against Amfrey of Glasbeth and the Raid Zachitl Now party would go along. But if you let this go on much longer, you won't have influence over either party. And then I will be finished, and in a few years Tanneth will be finished. He rose and paced across the room and back. "'Well, I won't Rade Zah Chittle. I told you I, and you agreed.

And I won't spend the men and ships and wealth of Tanneth in any sword-world dynastic squabble. Great Satan, Otto, you were in the Durendel 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 André Dunnan, didn't I? he asked. I'm afraid Ravallo and Valprey, or even Valconhain and Morland, won't be as interested in Dunnan as you are. Then I will interest them in him. Remember, I was reading up on Hitler, coming in from Marduk. I will tell them all a big lie. Such a big lie that nobody will dare

to disbelieve it. End of Chapter 24. Space Viking. 25. Do you think I was afraid of Victor of Zott Chittle, he demanded? Half a dozen ships. We can make a new Van Allen belt around Tanneth of them, with what we have here. Our real enemy is on Marduk, not Zott Chittle. His name's Zaspar McCann. Zaspar McCann and André Dunnan. The man I came out from Graham. to hunt. They're in alliance, and I believe Dunan is on Marduk himself now. The delegation who had come out from Graham in the yacht of the Duke of Bigler Sport were

unimpressed. Marduk was only a name to them, one of the fabulous, civilized old Federation planets no Swordwolder had ever seen. Zaspar McCann wasn't even that. And so much had happened on Graham since the murder of Elaine Carval and the piracy of the Enterprise, that they had completely forgotten André Dunnan. That put them at a disadvantage. All the people whom they were trying to convince, the half-hundred members of the new nobility of Tanneth, spoke a language they didn't understand.

They didn't even understand the proposition, and couldn't argue against it. Patrick Morland, who was Graham-born and had been speaking for a return in force to fight against Amfrey of Glasbeth and his supporters, defected from them at once. He had been on Marduk and knew who Zaspar-McChan was. He had made friends with the Royal Navy officers and had been shocked to hear that they were now enemies. Manfred Ravallo and Boak Valconhain,

among the more articulate of the Raid Zachidl Now party, snatched up the idea and seemed convinced that they'd thought of it themselves all along. Valkenhain, who had been on Gimli and talked to Marduck and Navel civil officers. Rovalho had brought Princess Bentric to Tannath and heard her stories on the voyage. They began adducing arguments in support of Trask's thesis. Of course Dunan and McCann were in collusion. Who tipped Dunanoff that the victrix would be on Odholmah? McCann, his spies in the Navy, tipped him. What about the honest Horace? Wasn't McCann blocking any investigation about her?

Why was Admiral Schefter retired as soon as McCann got into power? Well, here we don't know anything about this Zaspar McCann, the confidential secretary and spokesman of the Duke of Bigdressport began. No, you don't, Otto Harkman told him. I suggest you keep quiet and listen, till you find out a little about him. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if Dunn was on Marduk all the time we were hunting for him, Valkenhane said.

Tras began to wonder. What would Hitler have done if he told one of his big lies and then found it turning into the truth? Maybe McCann had been on Marduk. No, he couldn't have hidden half a dozen ships on a civilized planet, not even at the bottom of an ocean. I wouldn't be surprised, Alphen Carford was shouting. If André Dunnan was Aspar McCann,

I know he doesn't look like Dunnan. We all saw him on the screen, but there's such a thing as plastic surgery." That was making the big lie just a trifle too big. Saspar McCann was six inches shorter than Dunn. There are some things no plastic surgery could do. Patrick Morland, who had known Dunn and had seen McCann on screen, ought to have known that too. But he either didn't think of it, or didn't want to weaken a case, had completely accepted. As far as I can find out, nobody even heard of McCann till about five years ago. That would be about the time Dunnon would have arrived on Marduk," he said.

By this time the big room in which they were meeting had become a babble of voices, everybody trying to convince everybody else that they'd known it all along. Then the Back to Graham Party received its coup de grace. Lothar failed to whom the emissaries of Duffe Duke Joris had 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 Graham and pull your chestnuts out of the fire, Gahena with you, we're staying here and defending our own planet. If you're smart, you'll stay

here with us. The Bigler's Port delegation was still on Tanneth, trying to recruit mercenaries from the King of Trade Town, and dickering with a Gilgamesher to transport them to Graham, when the big lie turned into something like the truth. The observation post on the moon of Tanneth picked up an emergence at twenty light minutes due north of the planet. Half an hour later there was another one at five light minutes, a very small one and then a third at two light seconds, and this was detectable by radar and micro-ray as a ship's pinnice. He wondered if something had happened on Amaterasu or Beowulf. Somebody like Gratham or the Everards might have decided to take advantage of the defensive

mobilization on Tannath. Then they switched the call from the Pinnus over to his screen, and Prince Simon Bentrick 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 returned to shout to somebody to find young Count Stephen of Ravery and tell him to to tell his mother. "'How are you?' "'I had a broken leg when I left Moonbase,

but that's mended on the way,' Bentrick 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 for our planet. You've come as honored guests, and you'll get all the help we can give you.' He blessed the Zah-Chittle invasion scare and the big lie which was rapidly ceasing to be a lie.

Tanneth had the ships and the men and the will to act. What happened? McCann deposed the king and took over. It came to that, Bentrick told him. It had started even before the election. The people's watchmen had possessed weapons that had been made openly and legally on Marduk for trade to the neo-barbarian planets, and then clandestinely diverted to secret people's welfare arsenals.

Some of the police had gone over to McCann. The rest had been terrorized into inaction. There had been riots fomented in working-class districts of all the cities as pretext for further terrorization. The election had been a farce of bribery and intimidation. Even so, McCann's party had failed. of a complete majority in the Chamber of Representatives, and had been compelled to patch up a shady coalition in order to elect a favorable Chamber of Delegates.

And, of course, they elected McCann, Chancellor. That did it, Bentrick said. All the opposition leaders in the Chamber of Representatives have been arrested on all kinds of ridiculous charges, sex crimes, receiving bribes, being in the pay of foreign powers, nothing too absurd. Then they rammed through a law, empowering the Chancellor, to fill vacancies in the Chamber of Representatives by appointment. Why did the Crown Prince lend himself to a thing like that? He hoped that he could exercise some control. The Royal Family is an almost wholly symbol to the people. Even McCann was forced to pretend loyalty to the King and the Crown Prince. It didn't work. He played right into McCann's hands.

What happened? The Crown Prince had been assassinated. The assassin, an unknown man believed to be a Gilgamesher, had been shot to death by People's Watchmen, guarding Prince Edvard at once. Immediately McCann had seized the royal palace to protect the king, and immediately there had been massacres by People's Watchmen everywhere. The Marduckin Planetary Army had ceased to exist. McCann's story was that there had been a military plot against

the king and the government. Scattered all over the planet in small detachments, the army had been wiped out in two nights and a day. Now McCann was recruiting it up again, exclusively from the People's Welfare Party. You weren't just sitting on your hands, were you? Oh, no, Bentrick replied. I was doing something I wouldn't have thought myself capable of a few years ago, organizing a mutineering conspiracy in the Royal Marduckin Navy. After Admiral Schefter was forcibly retired and shut up in an insane asylum, I disappeared and turned into a civilian contra-gravity lifter operator at the Malverton Navy Yard. Finally, when I was suspected, one of the officers, he was arrested and tortured to death

later, managed to smuggle me onto a lighter for the moon base. I was an orderly in the hospital there. The day the Crown Prince was murdered, we had a mutiny of our own. We killed everybody we even suspected of being a mechanist. The moon base has been under attack from the planet ever since. There was a stir behind him. Turning, he saw Princess Bentrick and the boy into the room. He rose. We'll talk about this later. There are some people here. He motioned them forward and turned away, shooing everybody else out of the room. The news was all over Rivington, and then all over Tanneth, while the Pinnis was still coming down.

There was a crowd at the spaceport, staring as the little craft, with its blazon of the crowned and planet-thrown dragon, settled onto its landing legs, and reporters of the Taneth News Service with their screen pickups. He met Prince Bentrick a little in advance of the others. and managed to whisper to him hastily, "'While you're talking to anybody here, always remember that André Dunnan is working with Zaspar McCann, and as soon as McCann consolidates his position,

he's sending an expedition against Tanneth.' "'How in blazes did you find that out here?' Bentrick demanded. "'From the Gilgameshers?' Then Harkaman and Rathmore and Valkenhane and Lothar Fale and the others were crowding up behind. and more people were coming off the pinnace, and Prince Bentrick was trying to embrace both his wife and his son at the same time. Prince Trasked, he started at the voice and was looking into deep blue eyes under cold black hair.

His pulse gave a sudden jump, and he said, Valerie, and then Lady Alvareth, I'm most happy to see you here. Then he saw who was beside her and squatted on his heels to bring him. himself down to a convenient size. And Princess Myrna! Welcome to Tanneth, Your Highness." The child flung her arms around his neck. Oh, Prince Lucas, I'm so glad to see you.

There's been such awful things happened. There won't be anything awful happen here, Princess Mirna. You're among friends, friends with whom you have a treaty, remember? The child began to cry bitterly. That was when I was just a play queen. But now I know what they mean when they talked about when Grandpa and Papa would be through being king. Papa didn't even get to be king."

Something big and warm and soft was trying to push between them. A dog with long, blonde 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 find quarters for Princess Myrna. Is it Princess Murna, or is it Queen Mirna, he asked?

Prince Bentrick shook his head. We don't know. The King was alive when we left Moonbase, but that was five hundred hours ago. We don't know anything about her mother either. She was at the palace when Prince Edvard was murdered. We've heard absolutely nothing about her. The King made a few screen appearances, parroting things mechanistic. wanted him to say, under hypnosis. That was probably the very least of what they did to him. They've turned him into a zombie. Well, how did Myrna get to Moonbase? That was Lady Valerie,

as much as anybody else. She and Sir Thomas Cabley and Captain Rayner. They armed the servants at Craggdale with hunting rifles and everything else they could scrape up, captured Prince Edvard's space yacht, and took off in her. Took a couple of hits from ground battery, is getting off, and from ships around Moonbase getting in. Ships of the Royal Marduckin Navy, he added furiously. The pinnace in which they had made the trip to Tannath had taken a few hits, too, running the blockade. Not many, her captain had thrown her into hyperspace almost at once. They sent the yacht off to Gimley, Bentrick said. From there they'll try to rally as many of the Royal Navy units as haven't gone over to McCann. There to assemble,

on Gimli and await my return. If I don't return in fifteen hundred hours from the time I left Moonbase, they're to use their own judgment. I'd expect that they move in on Marduk and attack." "'That's sixty-odd days,' Otto Harkiman said. That's an awfully long time to expect that lunar base to hold out against a whole planet. It's a strong base. It was built four hundred years ago, when Marduk was fighting a combination of six other planets. It held out against continuous attack once for almost a year. It's been constantly strengthened ever since.

And what have they thrown at it? Harkaman persisted. When I left, six ships of the former Royal Navy that had gone over to McCann, four fifteen hundred footers, same class as the Victrix, and two thousand footers. Then there were four of André Dunn'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 balder-built ship called the Reliable and your friend Honest Horace.

You didn't really believe Dunn was on Marduk, Boch Valconhain asked. Actually, I didn't. I had to have some kind of a story to talk those people out of that crusade against Omphrey of Glaspeth. He left, unmentioned, Valkenhain's own insistence on a plundering expedition against Zochittal. Now that it turns out to be true, I'm not surprised. We decided, long ago, that Dunn was planning to raid Marduk. It appears that we underestimated him. Maybe he was reading about Hitler, too. He wasn't planning any raid. He was planning conquest, in the only way a great civilization can be conquered, by subversion.

Yes, Harkaman put in, five years ago, when Dunn and started this program, who was this McCann anyhow? Nobody, Bentrick said, a crackpot agitator in Dreplin. He had a coven of fellow crackpots, who met in the back room of a saloon and had their office in a cigar box. The next year he had a suite of offices

and was buying time on a couple of telecasts. The year after that, he had three telecast stations of his own, and was holding rallies and meetings of thousands of people, and so on upward. Yes, Dunnan financed him and moved in behind him, the same way McCann moved in behind the king, and Dunn will have him shot the way he had Prince Edvard shot, and used the murder as a pretext to liquidate his personal followers. And then he'll own Marduk, and then we'll have the Marduken navy coming out of hyperspace on Tanneth, Valconhane added.

So we go to Marduk and smash them now, while he's still little enough to smash. There had been a few who had wanted to do that about Hitler, and a great many later, who had regretted that it hadn't been done. The nemesis, the Coruscandy, and the space scourge for sure, he asked. Harkaman and Valkenhain agreed. Valkenhan thought the Viking's gift of Beowulf would go along, and Harkaman was almost sure of the Black Star and Queen Flavia. He turned to Bentrick.

Start that pinniss off for Gimley at once, within the hour if possible. We don't know how many ships will be gathered there, but we don't want them wasted in detail attacks. Tell whoever's in command there that ships from Tanneth are on the way, and to wait for them. Fifteen hundred hours, less the five hundred, Bentrick was in space from Marduk. He hadn't time to estimate voyage time to Gimli

from the other Marduck and trade planets, and nobody could estimate how many ships would respond. It may take us a little time to get an effective fleet together, even after we get through arguing about it. Arguments, he told Bintrick, is not exclusively a feature of democracies. Actually, there was very little argument, and most of that among the Marduckins. Prince Bentrick insisted that Crown Prince Mernah would have to be taken along. King Macill would be either dead or brainwashed into imbecility by now,

and they would have to have somebody to take the throne. Lady Valerie Alvarath, Sir Thomas Cabley, the tutor and the nurse Margot refused to be separated from her. Prince Bentrick was equally firm, with less success on leaving his wife and son on Tannath. In the end, it was agreed that the entire Marduckin party would space out on the nemesis. The leader of the Bigler's Port delegation attempted an impassioned tirade about going to the aid of strangers while their own planet was being enslaved. He was booed down by everybody else and informed that Tanneth was being defended where a planet ought to be,

on somebody else's real estate. When the Bigelers porters emerged from the meeting, they found that their own space yacht had been commandeered and sent off to Amaterasu and Beowah for assistance, and the regiment of local infantry they had enlisted from the King of Trade Town had been taken over by the Rivington authorities, and that the Gilgamesh freighter they had chartered to transport them to Graham would now take them to Marduk.

The problem broke into two halves. the purely naval action that would be fought to relieve the moon of Marduk, if it still held out, and to destroy the Dunnon and McCann ships, and the ground-fighting problem of wiping out McCann's supporters and restoring the Marduckan monarchy. A great many of the people of Marduk would be glad of a chance to turn on McCann once they had arms and were properly supported. Combat weapons were almost unknown among the people, however, and even sporting arms uncommon. All the small arms and light artillery and auto weapons available were gathered up. The Grendelsbane came in from Beowulf and the Sun goddess from Amaterasu.

Three independent space Viking ships were still in orbit on Tannath. They joined the expedition. There would be trouble with them on Marduk. They'd want to loot. They could charge it off, as part of the price for letting Zaspar-McCann get into power in the first place. There were twelve spacecraft in line outside the moon of Tannath, counting the three independents and the forcibly chartered Gilgamesher troop transport. That was the biggest fleet space Vikings had ever assembled in their history. Alvin Carford said as much while they were checking the formation by screen.

It isn't a space Viking fleet, Prince Bintrich differed. There are only three space Vikings in it. The rest are the ships of three civilized planets, Taneth, Beowulf, and Amaterasu. Carford was surprised. You mean weird civilized planets? Like Marduk or Baldur or Odin or, well, aren't you? Trask smiled.

He'd begun to suspect something of the sort of. a couple of years ago. He hadn't really been sure until now. His most junior staff officer, Count Stephen of Ravery, didn't seem to appreciate the compliment. "'We are space Vikings,' he insisted, and we are going to battle with the neo-barbarbarians of Zaspar McCann. Well, I won't argue the last half of it, Stephen, his father told him. "'Are you people done yacking about who's civilized and who isn't?' Gwatt Kirby asked. "'Then give me the signal. All the other ships are ready to jump.'

Trask pressed the button on the desk in front of him. A light went on over Kirby's control panel as one would on each of the other ships. He said, "'Jumping!' around the stem of his pipe and twisted the red handle and shoved it in. Four hundred and fifty hours in the private universe that was the nemesis. Outside, nothing else existed. An inside, there was nothing to do but wait, as each hour carried them six trillion miles nearer to Gimley.

At first, the ruthless and terrible space Viking, Stephen, Count of Ravery, was wildly excited. But before long, he found that there was nothing exciting going on. It was just a spaceship, and he'd been on ships before. Her Highness, the crowned princess, or maybe her majesty, the Queen of Marduk, stopped being excited about the same time, and she and Stephen and Mopsy played together. Of course, Myrna was only a girl, and two years younger than Stephen, but she was, or at least might be, his sovereign.

And beside, she had been in a space action. if you call what lies between a planet and its satellite space, and if you call being shot at without being able to shoot back in action, and relentless ravery the interstellar terror had not. This rather made up for being a girl and a mere baby of going on ten. One thing, there were no lessons. Sir Thomas Coughley fancied himself as a landscape painter and spent most of his time arguing techniques with Van Larch, and Stevens tutor, Captain Rainer, was a normal space astrogator

and found a kindred spirit in Charles Renner. This left Lady Valerie Alvarath at a loose end. There were plenty of volunteers to help her fill in the time, but rank hath its privileges. Trask undertook to see it that she did not suffer excessively from shipboard on wee. Charles Renner and Captain Rainer approached him during the cocktail hour before dinner, some hundred hours short of emergence. "'We think we figured out where Dunn's base is,' Renner said. "'Oh, good, everybody else had, on a different planet. Where's yours?'

"'Abadan,' the Count of Ravery's tutor said. When he saw that the name meant nothing to Trask, he added, the ninth outer planet of the Marduk system. He said it disgustedly. Yes. Remember how you had Boke and Manfred out with their ships, checking our outside planets to see if Prince Victor might be hiding on one of them? Well, what with the time element,

and the way the honest Horace was shuttling back and forth from Marduk to some place that wasn't Gimli, and the way Dunin was able to bring his ships in as soon as the shooting started on Marduk, we thought he must be on an uninhabited outer planet of the Marduk system. I don't know why we never thought of that ourselves, Rainer put in. I suppose, because nobody ever thinks of Avedon for any reason. It's only a small planet, about 4,000 miles in diameter, and it's three and a half

billion miles from primary. It's frozen solid. It would take almost a year to get to it. on Abbott Drive, and if your ship has Dillingham's, why not take a little longer and go to a good planet? So nobody bothered with Abidon. But for Dunan's purpose, it would be perfect. He called Prince Bentrick and Alvin Carford to him. They found the idea instantly convincing. They talked about it through dinner and held a general discussion afterward. Even Gwad Kirby, the ship's pessimist, could find no objection to it.

Trask and Bentrick began at once making battle plans. Carford wondered if they hadn't better wait till they got to Gimley and discuss it with the others. No, Tras told him, this is the flagship. Here's where the strategy is decided. Well, how about the Marduck and Navy? Captain Rainer asked. I think Fleet Admiral Bargams in command at Gimley. Prince Simon Bentrick was silent for a moment, as though he realized, with reluctant, 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 a Commodore. I am not just a Commodore. The king is a prisoner, and for all we know, dead. The Crown Prince is dead. The Prince Myrna is a child. I am assuming the position of regent and Prince Protector of the Realm. 26. There was a little difficulty on Gimley with Fleet Admiral Bargham. Commodores didn't give orders to fleet admirals. Well, maybe Regents did, but who gave Prince Bentrick authority to call himself regent?

Regents were elected by the Chamber of Delegates, on nomination of the Chancellor. That's Zasbar McCann and his stooges you're talking about, Bentrick laughed. Well, the Constitution, he thought better of that, before somebody asked him what constitution? Well, a regent has to be chosen by election. Even members of the royal family can't just make themselves regent by saying they are. I can, I just have, and I don't think there are going to be any more elections, at least for the present, not till we make sure the people of Marda can be trusted with the control of the government." Well, the Pinnas from Moon Base reported that there were six Royal Navy battleships

and four other craft attacking them, Bargham objected. "'I only have four ships here. I sent for the ones on the other trade planets, but I haven't heard from any of them. We can't go there with only four ships.' "'Sixen ships,' Bentrick corrected. "'No. Fifteen and one Gilgamesher were using. for a troop ship. I think that's enough. You'll remain here on Gimli in any case, Admiral. As soon as the other ships come in, you'll follow to Marduk with them. I am now holding a meeting aboard the Tanneth flagship Nemesis. I want your four ship commanders aboard immediately.

I am not including you, because you're remaining here to bring up the latecomers, and as soon as this meeting is over, we are spacing out. Actually, they spaced out sooner. The meeting lasted the whole 350 hours to Abidon. A ship's captain, if he has a good exec, as all of them had, needs only sit at his command desk and look important while the ship is going into and emerging from a long jump. The rest of the time he can study ancient history, or whatever his shipboard hobby is. Rather than waste 350 hours of precious time, each captain turned his ship over to his exec and remained aboard the nemesis. Even on so spacious a craft, the officer's country north of the engine rooms was crowded like a tourist hotel in mid-season. One of the four Marduckins

was the Captain Garravei who had smuggled Bentrick's wife and son off Marduk, and the other three were just as pro-Bentrick, pro-Tanth, and anti-Macon. They were, on general principles, also anti-bargum. There must be something wrong with any fleet admiral who remained in his command after Zasbar McCann came to power. So, as soon as they spaced out, there was a party. After that, they settled down to planning the Battle of Abadon. There was no Battle of Abidon. It was a dead planet, one-sided night and the other in dim twilight,

from the little speck of a sun three and a half billion miles, away, jagged mountains rising out of the snow that covered it from pole to pole. The snow on top would be frozen CO2. According to the thermocouples, the surface temperature was well below minus 100 centigrade. No ships on orbit circled it. There was a little faint radiation, which could have been from naturally radioactive 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,' Tras told them. "'Englobe the planet, and go down to within a mile if necessary. They could be hiding somewhere on it.' "'Well, they're not hiding at the bottom of any ocean, that's for sure,' somebody said. It was one of those feeble jokes at which everybody laughs, because nothing else is laughable about the situation. Finally, they found it, at the North Pole,

which was no colder than anywhere else on the planet. First radiation leakage. The sort that would come from a closed-down nuclear power plant. Then a modicum of electrical discharge. Finally, the telescopic screens picked up the spaceport, a huge oval amphitheater excavated out of a valley between two jagged mountain ranges. The language in the command room was just as

bad, but the tone had changed. It was surprising what a wide range of emotions could be expressed by a few simple blasphemies and obscenities. Everybody who had been to writing Charles Renner were now acclaiming him. But it was lifeless. The ships came crowding in, air-locked landing 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-foot pad feet of ship's landing legs had pressed down, ranks of cargo lighters that had plied to and from other ships or orbit, and all around the cliff-walled perimeter, air-locked doors to caverns and tunnels. A great many men, with a great deal of equipment, had been working here in the estimated five or

six years since Andre Dunnan, or somebody, had constructed this base. Andre Dunnan. They found his badge, the crescent, blue-on-black, on things. They found equipment that Harkaman recognized as having been part of the original cargo stolen with the enterprise. They even found, in his living quarters, a blown-up photoprint picture of Neville Orm, draped in black. But what they did not find was a single vehicle small enough to be taken aboard a ship, or a single scrap of combat equipment, not even a pistol or a hand grenade. Dunn 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 Abadon, with 95 million miles, close, but not inconveniently so, Trask thought, to spare. Goat Kirby and the Marduckin Astrogator who was helping him made it within a light minute. The Marduckin thought that was fine. Kirby didn't. The last microjump was aimed at the moon of Marduk, which was plainly visible in the telescopic screen. They came out within a light second and a half, which Kirby admitted was reasonably close. As soon as the screens cleared, they saw that they weren'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 clump of sixteen rending distortions of the fabric of spacetime, as sixteen ships came into sudden existence in the normal continuum. Beside him, Bentrick had a screen on. It was still Milky White, and he was speaking into a radio handphone. Simon Bentrick, Prince Protector of Marduk, calling Moonbase. Then, slowly, he repeated his screen combination twice. Come in, Moonbase. This is Simon Bentrick, Prince Protector speaking.

He waited ten seconds and was about to start again when the screen flickered. The man who appeared in it wore the insignia of a Marduckan Navy Commodore. He needed a shave, but he was grinning happily. Bentrick greeted him by name. "'Hello, Simon. Glad to see you. Your Highness, I mean. What is this Prince 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 McCann had him speaking by screen. You know what it was like, urging everybody to obey and cooperate with our trusted Chancellor.

McCann always appeared on the screen with him. Bentrick nodded. I remember. Before you left, McCann kept quiet and let the king make the speech. After a while, the king wasn't able to speak coherently. He'd stammer and repeat. So then McCann did all the talking. They couldn't even depend on him to parrot what they were giving him with an earplug phone.

Then he stopped appearing entirely. I suppose there were physical symptoms they couldn't allow to be seen." Bentrick was cursing horribly under his breath. The officer at the Moonbase nodded. I hope for his sake that he is dead." Poor Goodman McKill. Bentrick 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 after you left,' he named them. "'And we got one of the Dunn ships, the Fortuna. We blew out the Malverton Navy Yard. They're still using the Antarctic Naval Base, but

we've knocked out a good deal of that. We got the Honest Horace. They made two attempts to land on us and lost a couple of ships. Eight hundred hours ago they were joined by the rest of Dunnons fleet, five ships. They made a landing on Malverton while it was turned away from us. McCann announced that they were RMN units from the trade planets that had joined him. I suppose the planet-side public swallowed that. He also announced that their commander, Admiral Dunnan, was in command of the people's armed forces. Dunnons ground fighters would be in control of Melverton.

By now the odds were that McCann was as much his prisoner as King McHill the Eighth had been McCann's. So Dunnon has conquered Marduck. All he has to do now is make it stick, he said. I see four ships off Moon Base. How many more have they? These are bolide and eclipse, Dunnenships, and former Royal Mardukin Navy ships, champion and guardian.

There are five orbiting off the planet, X-R-MNS Palladin, and Dunn ships Star Hopper, Banshee, Reliable, and Exporter. The last two are listed as merchantmen, but they're performing like Regulation Battlecraft, The four that had been circling moonbase broke orbit and started toward the relieving fleet. One took a hit from a moon-based missile, which staggered her but did no evident damage. Two ships, which had been orbiting the planet, also changed course and started out. The command room was silent, except for a subdued chuckling from a computer

which was estimating enemy intentions by observing data and games theory. Three more came hurrying out from the planet, and the two in the lead slowed to let them catch up. He wanted to be able to engage the four from off the satellite before the five from the planet joined them, but Carford's computers said it couldn't be done. All right, we'll have to take all our bad eggs in one basket, he said. Try to hit them as soon after they join as possible. The computers began chuckling again. The serving robots were doing a rush business in hot coffee.

Prince Bantry's son, sitting beside his father, had stopped being ruthless ravery, the demon of the spaceways, and was a very young officer going into his first space battle, more scared and at the same time happier than he had ever been in his short life. Captain Garvey of the Vindex was making signal to the other ships from Gimley. Royal Navy smash the traitors first. He could understand and sympathize, even if he couldn't approve of putting personal ahead of tactical considerations,

and made a quick, sealed beam call to Harkaman to be prepared to plug any holes they left in formation if they broke away in search of vengeance. He also ordered the Black Star and the Sun Goddess to shepherd the lightly armed and troop-crammed Gilgamesh freighter out of danger. The two clumps of Dun & McCann's ships were converging rapidly, and Alvin Carford was screaming into a phone to somebody to get more speed. At a thousand miles the missile started going out, and the two groups of ships, four and five, were equidistant from each other and from

the Allied fleet, at the points of a triangle that was growing smaller by the second. The first fireglobes of intercepted missiles spread from their seeds of brief white. light." A red light flashed on the damage board. An enemy ship took a hit. The captain of the Queen Flavia was on a screen saying that his ship was heavily damaged. Three ships, bearing the Marduccan, dragon, and planet, circled madly around each other, at what looks in the screen like just over pistol range, two of them firing into the third, which was replying desperately. The third one blew up and somebody was yelling out of a screen speaker, "'scratch one traitor!'

Another ship blew up somewhere, and then another. He heard somebody say, "'They're what one of ours!' And wondered which one it was. Not the Coruscandy, he hoped. No, it wasn't. He could see her rushing after two other ships, which were, in turn, speeding toward the Black Star,

the Sun Goddess, and the Gilgamesh freighter. Then the Nemesis and the Star Hopper were within gun range, pounding each other savagely. The battle had tied itself into a ball of gyrating, fire-spitting ships that went rolling toward the planet, which was swinging in and out of the main view-screen and growing rapidly larger. By the time they were down to the inner edge of the exosphere, the ball had started to unwind, ship after ship dropping out of it and going into orbit, some badly damaged, and some going

to attack damaged enemies. Some of them were completely around the planet, hidden by them. it. He saw three ships approaching Coruscandy, Sun Goddess, and the Gilgamesher. He got Harkhamen on the screen. "'Where's the Black Star?' he asked. "'Gone to MC Square,' Harkaman replied. "'We got the two Dunn-McCanns, bow-eyed and reliable.' Then young Stephen of Ravery, who had been monitoring one of the inner-ship screens, had a call from Captain Gomperts of the Grendel's Bain, and at the same moment somebody else was yelling, Here comes the Star Hopper again.

Tell him to wait a moment, we have troubles, he said. Nemesis and Starhopper sledge hammered each other and parried with counter-missiles. And then, quite unexpectedly, the Star Hopper went to M.C. Square. There was an awful lot of M being converted to E off Marduk today, including Manfred Ravallo, that grieved him. Manfred was a good man and a good friend. He had a girl in Rivington. Niffelheim, there were 800 good men aboard the Black Star,

and most of them had girls who'd wait in vain for them on Tannet. Well, what had Otto Harkaman said so long ago on Graham? Something about old age not being a usual cause of death among space Vikings, wasn't it? Then he remembered that Gomperts of the Grendel's Bain was trying to get him. He told young Count Stephen to switch him over. "'We just lost one of our Marduckins,' Gompurts told him, in his staccato Beowulf accent. "'I think she was the challenger. The ship that got her looks like the banshee.

I'm turning to engage her. Which way? West around the planet. Be right with you, Captain.' End of Chapter 26. Chapter 27 of Space Viking. by H. Beam Piper, read by Mark Nelson. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit Libravox.org. Space Viking

27 It was like finishing a word puzzle. You sit staring at it, looking for more spaces to print letters into, and suddenly you realize that there are a word puzzle. are no more, that the puzzle is done. That was how the Space Battle of Marduk, the Battle off Marduk, ended. Suddenly there were no more colored fire globes opening and fading, no more missiles coming, no more enemy ships to throw missiles at. Now it was time to take account of his own ships and then begin thinking about the battle on Marduk. The Black Star was

gone. So was R. Mn-N-S challenger. and R. MNS Conquistador. Space scourge was badly hammered. Worse than after the Beowulf raid, Boke Valkenhane said. The Vikings' gift was heavily damaged too, and so was the Coruscandy. And so, from the looks of the damage board, was the nemesis. And three ships were missing. The three independent space Vikings, Harpy, Curse of Cagan, and Roger Fan Morville-Ester Sands, something." Prince Bentrick frowned over that. I can't think that all three of those ships would have been destroyed without anybody

seeing it happen. Neither can I. But I can think that all those ships broke out of the battle together and headed in for the planet. They didn't come here to help liberate Marduk. They came here to fill their cargo holds. I only hope the people they're robbing all voted the McCann ticket in the last election. A crumb of comfort occurred to him, and he passed it on.

The only people who are armed to resist them will be McCann's storm troops and Dunnins' pirates. They'll be the ones to get killed. "'We don't want any more killing then,' Prince Simon broke off suddenly. "'I'm beginning to talk like his late highness, crowned Prince Edvard,' he said. "'He didn't want bloodshed either, and look whose blood was shed. If they're doing what you think they are, I'm afraid we'll have to kill a few of your space Vikings, too. They aren't my space Vikings.

He was a little surprised to find that, after almost eight years of bearing the name himself, he was using it as an other people label. Well, why not? He was the ruler of the civilized planet of Tanneth, wasn't he? But let's not start fighting them till the main war is over. Those three shiploads are no worse than a bad cold. McCann and Dunham are the plague. It would still take four hours to get down, in a spiral of deceleration.

They started the telecasts which had been filmed and taped on the voyage from Gimley. The Prince Protector Simon Bentrick spoke. The illegal rule of the traitor McCann was ended. His deluded followers were advised to return to their allegiance to the crown. The people's watchmen were ordered to surrender their arms and disband. In localities where they refused, the loyal people were called upon to cooperate with the legitimate armed forces of the crown in exterminating them, and would be furnished arms as soon as possible.

Little Princess Murna spoke, If my grandfather is still alive, he is your king. If he is not, I am your queen, and until I am old enough to rule you. ruled in my own right, I accept Prince Simon as regent and protector of the realm, and I call on all of you to obey him as I will. You didn't say anything about representative government, or democracy, or the Constitution, Trask mentioned, and I noticed the use of the word rule instead of rain. That's right, the self-proclaimed Prince Protector said. There's something wrong with democracy. If there weren't, it couldn't be overthrown by people like McCann,

attacking it from within by democratic procedures. I don't think it's fundamentally unworkable. I think it just has a few of what engineers call bugs. It's not safe to run a defective machine till you learn the defects and remedy them. Well, I hope you don't think our sword world feudalism doesn't have bugs. He gave examples. He gave examples. and then quoted Otto Harkaman about barbarism spreading downward from the top instead of upward from the bottom. "'It may just be,' he added, "'that there is something fundamentally unworkable about government itself.

As long as Homo sapiens' Terra is a wild animal, which he has always been and always will be until he evolves into something different in a million or so years. Maybe a workable system of government is a political science impossibility, just as transmutation of elements was a physical science impossibility, as long as they tried to do it by chemical means. Then we'll just have to make it work the best way we can, and when it breaks down, hope the next try will work a little better for a little longer, Bentrick said. Malverton grew in the telescopic screens as they came down. The Navy spaceport, where Trask had landed almost two years before, was in wreckage,

sprinkled with damaged ships that had been blasted on the ground and slagged by thermonuclear fires. There was fighting in the air all over the city proper, on building-tops, on the ground, and in the air. That would be the Dam Thing, Harpy, Curse of Cagan. space Vikings. The Royal Palace was the center of one of half a dozen swirls of battle that had condensed out of the general skirmishing. Patrick Morland started for it with the first wave of ground fighters from the nemesis. The Gilgamesh freighter, like most of her ilk, had huge cargo ports all around. These began opening and disgorging a swarm of everything from landing craft and hundred-foot airboats to one-man air cavalry single mounts.

The top landing stages and terraces of the planet were almost obscured by the flashes of auto-canon shells and the smoke and dust of projectiles. Then the first vehicles landed. The firing from the air stopped, and men fanned out as skirmishers, occasionally firing with small arms. Trask and Bentrick were in the armory off the vehicle bay,

putting on combat equipment when the twelve-year-old Count of Ravery joined them and began rummaging for weapons and a helmet. "'You're not going,' his father told him. "'I'll have enough to worry about taking care of myself.' That was the wrong approach. Trask interrupted. "'You're to stay aboard, Count,' he said. "'As soon as things stabilize, Princess Myrna will have to come down. You'll act as her personal escort. And don't think you're being shoved into the background. She's crowned princess. And if she

isn't queen now, she will be in a few years. Escorting her now will be the foundation of your naval career. There isn't a young officer in the Royal Navy who wouldn't trade places with you. That was the right way to handle him, Lucas, Bentrick approved, after the boy had gone away, proud of his opportunity and his responsibility. It'll do just what I said for him. He stopped for a moment to play with an idea that had just struck him. You know, the girl will be queen in a few years, if she isn't now. Queens need Prince consorts.

Your son's a good boy. I liked him the first moment I saw him. And I've liked him better ever since. He'd be a good man on the throne beside Queen Myrna. Oh, that's out of the question. question. Not the matter of consanguinity. They're about a 16th cousin, but people would say I was abusing the protectorship to marry my son onto the throne. Simon, speaking as one sovereign prince to another, you have a lot to learn. You've learned one important lesson already,

that a ruler must be willing to use force and shed blood to enforce his rule. You have to learn, too, that a ruler cannot afford to be guided by his fears of what people will say about him, not even what history will say about him. A ruler's only judge is himself. Bentrick slid the transex visor of his helmet up and down experimentally, checked the chambers of his pistol and carbine. All that matters to me is the peace and well-being of Marduk. I'll have to talk it over with with my only judge. Well, let's go.

The top terraces were secure when their car landed. More vehicles were coming down and discharging men. A swarm of landing craft were sinking past the building toward the ground 2,000 feet below. Auto weapons and small arms and light cannon banged, and bombs and recoiless rifle shells crashed on the lower terraces. They put the car down one of the shaftways until they ran into heavy fire from below.

at the limit of the advance and then turned into a broad hallway, 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 he had been a guest there, but it probably wasn't. They came to hastily constructed barricades of furniture and statuary and furnishings, behind which McCann's People's Watchmen and André Dunnan's Space Vikings were making resistance. The entered rooms dusty with powdered plaster, and acrid with powder fumes, littered with corpses. They passed lifter skids being towed out with wounded. They went through rooms crowded with their own men. Keep your fingers off things. This isn't a looting expedition. You stupid cretan! How did you know there wasn't a man hiding behind

that? In one huge room, ballroom or concert room or something, there were prisoners herded. And men from the nemesis were setting up polyencephalographic veridicators, sturdy chairs with wires and adjustable helmets and translucent globes mounted over them. A couple of Morland's men were hustling a people's watchman to one and strapping him into a chair. "'You know what this is, don't you?' one of them was saying. This is a veridicator. That global light blue. The moment you try to lie to us, it'll turn red. And the most moment it turns red, I'm going to hammer your teeth down your throat with the butt of this pistol."

"'Have you found out anything about the king yet?' Bentrick asked him. He turned. "'No. Nobody we've questioned so far knows anything later that a month ago about him. He just disappeared.' He was going to say something else, saw Bentrick's face and changed his mind. "'He's dead,' Bentrick said, Dully. They tortured him and brainwashed him and used him as a ventriloquist dummy on the screen as long as they could.

When they couldn't let the people see him anymore, they stuffed him into a converter. They did find Zasbar McCann hours later. Maybe he could have told them something, if he had been alive, but he and a few of his fanatical followers had barricaded themselves in the throne room and died trying to defend it. They found the can on the throne, the top of his head blown away, a pistol death gripped in his hand and the great crown lying on the floor, the velvet inner cap bullet pierced and splattered with blood and brain tissue.

Prince Bantrick picked it up and looked at it disgustedly. "'We'll have to do something about that,' he said. "'I really didn't think he'd do just this. I thought he wanted to abolish the throne, not sit on it. Except for one chandelier smashed and several corpses that had to be dragged out, the ministerial council room was intact. They set up headquarters there. Boke Valkenhain and several other ship captains joined them.

There was fighting going on in several places inside the palace, and the city was still in a turmoil. managed to get in touch with the captains of the damn thing, the harpy, and the curse of Kagan, and bring them to the palace. Trask attempted to reason with them, to no avail. Prince Trask, you're my friend, and you've always dealt fairly with me, Roger Fan Morville Esther San said, "'But you know just how far any space Viking captain can control his crew. These men didn't come here to correct the political mistakes of Marduk. They came here. They came here for what they could haul away. I could get myself killed trying to stop them now.

I wouldn't even try, the captain of the curse of Kagan 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." Tras looked at some of the reports that had come in from elsewhere on the planet. had landed on one of the big cities to the east, and the people had risen against McCann's local bosses and were helping wipe out the people's watchmen with arms they had been furnished. Valken-Hane's exec had landed on a large concentration camp where close to ten thousand of

McCann's political enemies had been penned. He had distributed all his available weapons and was calling for more. Gompers of the Grendelsbane was at Dreplin. He reported just the reverse. The people there had risen in support of the McCann regime, and he wanted authorization to use nuclear weapons against them. Could you talk your people into going to some other city? Trask asked. We have a city for you. Big industrial center. It ought to be fine looting. Dreplin. The people there are Marduckin's subjects, too, Ventric began.

Then he shrugged. It's not what we like to do. It's what we have to do. By all means, gentlemen, take your men to Dreplen, and nobody will object to anything you do. And when you have that place looted out, try Abidon. You were aground there, Captain Esther San, you know what all done and left there. A couple of Space Vikings, no, Royal Army of Tanneth men, brought in the old woman, dirty, in rags, almost exhausted.

She wants to talk to Prince Bentrick, won't talk to anybody else. else, says she knows where the king is." Bentrick rose quickly, brought her to a chair, poured a glass of wine for her. "'He's still alive, Your Highness. The Crown Princess, Melanie and I—I'm sorry, Your Highness, dowd your Crown Princess, have been taking care of him the best way we could, if you'll only come quickly.' McKill the Eighth, planetary king of Marduk, lay on a pallet of filthy bedding on the floor of a narrow room, behind a mass-energy converter which disposed of the rubbish and sewage and

generated power for some of the fixed equipment on one of the middle floors of the east wing of the palace. There was a bucket of water, and on a rough wooden bench lay a cloth-wrapped bundle of food. A woman, haggard and disheveled, wearing a suit of greasy mechanics cover and nothing else squatted beside him. The crown Princess Melanie, whom Trask remembered as the charming and gracious hostess of Craggdale. She tried to rise and staggered. "'Prince, and it's Prince Trask of Tanneth!' she cried. "'Just hurry, get him out of here to where he can be taken care of. Please!' Then she sat down again on the floor and fell over, unconscious.

They couldn't get the story. The Princess Melanie had collapsed completely. Her companion, another noblewoman of the court, could only ramble disconnectedly, and the king merely lay, bathed and fed in a clean bed, and looked up at them wonderingly, as though nothing he saw or heard conveyed any meaning to him. The doctors could do nothing. "'He has no mind, no more mind than a newborn baby. We can keep him alive. I don't know how long. That's our professional duty, but it's no kindness to His Majesty. The little pockets of resistance in the palace were wiped out through the next morning and

afternoon. All but one, far underground, below the main power plant. They tried sleep gas. The defenders had blowers and sent it back at them. It 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 to the barrel of a carbine

ahead of him. "'Is Prince Lucas Trask of Tanneth here?' he asked. "'I won't speak to anybody else.' They brought Trask quickly. All that was visible of the other man was the carbine barrel and the white shirt. When Trask called to him he raised his head above the rubble behind which he was hiding. Trask, we have Andre Dunnan here. He was leading us, but now we've disarmed him and are holding him. If we turn him over to you, will you let us go? If you all come out unarmed and bring

Dunin with you, I promise you the rest of you will be let outside this building and allowed to go away unharmed. All right, we'll be coming out in a minute. The man raised his voice. It's agreed, he called. Bring him out. There were fewer than two score of them. Some wore the uniforms of high officers of the people's watchmen or of people's welfare party functionaries. A few wore the heavily braided short jackets of space Viking officers. Among them they propelled a thin-faced man with a pointed beard, and Trask had to look twice at him before he recognized the face of André Dunnan. It looked more like the face of Duke Angus of Ordshaven as he looked more like the face of Duke Angus of Ordshaven as

he last remembered it. Dunnan looked at him in incurious contempt. "'Your dotored king couldn't rule without Zaspar McCann, and McCann couldn't rule without me, and neither can you,' he said. "'Shute this gang of turncoats, and I'll rule Marduk for you.' He looked at Trask again. "'Who are you?' he demanded. "'I don't know you.' Trask slipped the pistol from his holster, thumbing on. off the safety. I am Lucas Trask. You've heard that name before, he said. Stand away from behind him,

you people. Oh, yes, the poor fool who thought he was going to marry Elaine Carval. Well, you won't, Lord Trask of Traskin. She loves me, not you. She's waiting for me now on Graham. Trask shot him through the head. Dunnan's eyes widened in momentary incredulity, then his knees gave way, and he fell forward on his face. Trask thumbed on the safety and holstered the pistol, and looked at the body on the concrete. It hadn't made the least difference. It had been like shooting a snake, or one of those nasty scorpion things that infested the old buildings in Rivington. Just no more André Dunnan. Take that carrion and stuff it in a mass energy converter, he said,

and I don't want anybody to mention the name of Andrei Dunn to me again. He didn't look at them hauled Dunn's body away on a lifter skid. He watched the fifty-odd leaders of the overthrown misgovernment of Marduk shamble away to freedom, guarded by Patrick Morland's rifleman. Now there was something to reproach himself for. He'd committed a separate and distinct crime against Marduk by letting each one of them live. Unless recognized and killed by somebody outside, every one of them would be at some villainy before next sunrise. Well, King Simon I could cope with that. He started when he realized how he had thought of his friend. Well, why not?

McHill's mind was dead, his body would not survive it more than a year. Then a child queen and a long regency. And long regencies were dangerous. Better a strong king, in name as well as power. And the succession could be safeguarded by marrying Stephen and Merna. Merna had accepted, at eight, that she must someday marry for reasons of state. Why not her playmate Stephen? And Simon Bentrick would see the necessity.

He was neither a fool nor a moral coward. He only needed to take some time to adjust to ideas. The rabble who had bought their lives with their leaders had gone now. Slowly he followed them, thinking. Don't press the idea on Simon too hard. Just expose him to it and let him adopt it. And there would be the treaty, Tanneth, Marduk, Beowulf, Amaterasu. Eventually, treaties with the other civilized planets.

Nebulously, the idea of a league of civilized worlds began to take shape in his mind. Be a good idea if he adopted the title of King of Tanneth for himself, and cut loose from the sword worlds, especially cut loose from Graham. Let Victor of Zachtel have it, or Garvin Spasso, Victor wouldn't be the last space Viking to take his ships back against the sword worlds. Sooner or later, civilization and the old federation would 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? Kings usually did.

He climbed into the little hall car and started up a long shaft. There was Valerie Alvareth. They'd enjoyed each other's society on the nemesis. He wondered if she would want to make it permanent, even on a throne. Elaine was with him. He felt her beside him, almost tangibly. Her voice 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, and he knew that she would never return. Goodbye. Elaine. The end of Space Viking by H. Beam Piper.