They together at the parapet, their arms about each other's waists, her against his cheek. Behind, the with the wind, and from the main came music and laughing voices. The city of Wardshaven spread in of them, white from the wide of green treetops, under a of sun-reflecting above. Far away, the were in the haze, and the red sun in a sky as yellow as a peach.
His a ten miles to the southwest, and for an he was puzzled. Then he frowned. The on the two thousand-foot of Duke Angus' new ship, the Enterprise, at the Gorram after her final trial cruise. He didn't want to think about that, now.
Instead, he pressed the girl closer and her name, "Elaine," and then, every syllable, "Lady Elaine Trask of Traskon."
"Oh, no, Lucas!" Her was joking and apprehensive. "It's luck to be called by your married name 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 on Excalibur."
She looked up from the of her eye.
"That was when I started calling me that, too," she confessed.
"There's a to the west at Traskon New House," he told her. "Tomorrow, we'll have our dinner there, and watch the together."
"I know. I that was to be our sunset-watching place."
"You have been peeking," he accused. "Traskon New House was to be your surprise."
"I always was a present-peeker, New Year's and my birthdays. But I only saw it from the air. I'll be very at inside," she promised. "And very delighted."
And when she'd and Traskon New House wasn't a any more, 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 Morglay and Flamberge and Durendal. No, not Durendal; the had started there again. But they'd have so much fun. And she would see clear again, and at night. The cloud-veil the from Gram, and Elaine had missed them, since home from Excalibur.
The of an upon them and they looked up and their heads, in time to see it with toward the landing-stage of Karval House, and he its blazonry—sword and atom-symbol, the of the house of Ward. He if it were Duke Angus himself, or just some of his people come ahead of him. They should to their guests, he sup[Pg 5]posed. Then he took her in his arms and her, and she ardently. It must have been all of five minutes since they'd done that before.
A them them and their around. It was Sesar Karvall, gray-haired and portly, the of his with orders and and the in the of his dress-dagger twinkling.
"I I'd you two here," Elaine's father smiled. "You'll have tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow together, but need I you that today we have guests, and more every minute."
"Who came in the Ward car?" Elaine asked.
"Rovard Grauffis. And Otto Harkaman; you met him, did you, Lucas?"
"No; not by introduction. I'd like to, he out." He had nothing against Harkaman personally; only against what he represented. "Is the Duke coming?"
"Oh, surely. Lionel of Newhaven and the Lord of Northport are with him. They're at the Palace now." Karvall hesitated. "His nephew's in town."
Elaine was distressed; she started to say: "Oh, dear! I he doesn't—"
"Has Dunnan been Elaine again?"
"Nothing to take notice of. He was here, yesterday, to speak with her. We got him to without too much unpleasantness."
"It'll be something for me to take notice of, if he it up after tomorrow."
For his and Andray Dunnan's, that was; he it wouldn't come to that. He didn't want to have to shoot a to the house of Ward, and a man to boot.
"I'm sorry for him," Elaine was saying. "Father, you should have let me talk to him. I might have him understand."
Sesar Karvall was shocked. "Child, you couldn't have to that! The man is insane!" Then he saw her shoulders, and was more shocked. "Elaine, your shawl!"
Her hands up and couldn't it; she looked about in embarrassment. Amused, Lucas it from the onto which she had it and it over her shoulders, his hands briefly. Then he to the older man to them, and they entered the walk. At the other end, in an open circle, a played; white marble girls and boys in the jade-green basin. Another piece of from one of the Old Federation planets; that was something he'd to avoid in Traskon New House. There'd be a of that[Pg 6] to Gram, after Otto Harkaman took the Enterprise to space.
"I'll have to come back, some time, and visit them," Elaine to him. "They'll miss me."
"You'll a of new friends at your new home," he back. "You wait till tomorrow."
"I'm going to put a word in the Duke's ear about that fellow," Sesar Karvall, still of Dunnan, was saying. "If he speaks to him, maybe it'll do some good."
"I it. I don't think Duke Angus has any over him at all."
Dunnan's mother had been the Duke's sister; from his father he had what had originally been a barony. Now it was to the top of the manor-house aerial-mast. The Duke had once Dunnan's debts, and to do so again. Dunnan had gone to space a times, as a junior officer on trade-and-raid into the Old Federation. He was to be a astrogator. He had his uncle to give him of the Enterprise, which had been ridiculous. Disappointed in that, he had recruited a company and was employment: It was that he was in with his uncle's enemy, Duke Omfray of Glaspyth.
And he was in love with Elaine Karvall, a which to itself on its own hopelessness. Maybe it would be a good idea to take that space right away. There ought to be a ship Bigglersport for one of the other Sword-Worlds, long.
They paused at the of the escalators; the garden was with guests, the of the ladies and the of the men making shifting color-patterns among the flower-beds and on the and under the trees. Serving-robots, flame-yellow and black in the Karvall colors, about playing soft music and refreshments. There was a of costume-color around the robo-table. Voices like a river.
As they looking down, another low; green and gold, PANPLANET NEWS SERVICE. Sesar Karvall in irritation.
"Didn't there use to be something they called privacy?" he asked.
"It's a big story, Sesar."
It was; more than the marriage of two people who to be in love with each other. It was the marriage of the and of Traskon and the Karvall mills. More, it was public that the and fighting-men of were now Duke Angus of Wardshaven. So it was a holiday. Every had closed at today,[Pg 7] and would be closed until morning-after-next, and there would be dancing in every park and in every tavern. To Sword-Worlders, any for a was than none.
"They're our people, Sesar; they have a right to have a good time with us. I know at Traskon is this by screen."
He his hand and to the news car, and when it its around, he again. Then they the long escalator.
Lady Lavina Karvall was the center of a of and dowagers, around which tomorrow's like many-colored butterflies. She took of her and her into the circle. He saw Rovard Grauffis, small and saturnine, Duke Angus' henchman, and Burt Sandrasan, Lady Lavina's brother. They spoke, and then an upper-servant, his with the yellow and black of Karvall mills, approached his master with some of crisis, and the two away together.
"You haven't met Captain Harkaman, Lucas," Rovard Grauffis said. "I wish you'd come over and say hello and have a drink with him. I know your attitude, but he's a good sort. Personally, I wish we had a like him around here."
That was his main objection. There were and men of that on any of the Sword-Worlds.
II
A dozen men around the robot—his and family lawyer, Nikkolay Trask; Lothar Ffayle, the banker; Alex Gorram, the shipbuilder, and his son Basil; Baron Rathmore; more of the Wardshaven he only distantly. And Otto Harkaman.
Harkaman was a Space Viking. That would have set him apart, if he hadn't the of them by a head. He a black jacket, gold-braided, and black ankle-boots; the on his was no dress-ornament. His red-brown was long to in a combat-helmet, and his was cut square at the bottom.
He had been on Durendal, for one of the of the house for the throne. The one; he had his ship, and most of his men and, almost, his own life. He had been a on Flamberge, owning only the he in and his personal and the of a dozen as as himself, when Duke Angus had him to Gram to the Enterprise.
"A pleasure, Lord Trask. I've met your bride-to-be, and[Pg 8] now that I meet you, let me both." Then, as they were having a drink together, he put his in it by asking: "You're not an in the Tanith Adventure, are you?"
He said he wasn't, and would have let it go at that. Young Basil Gorram had to his in, too.
"Lord Trask not approve of the Tanith Adventure," he said scornfully. "He thinks we should home and produce wealth, of and to the Old Federation for it."
The on Otto Harkaman's face; only the was gone. He his drink to his left hand.
"Well, our operations are as and murder," he agreed. "Space Vikings are professional and murderers. And you object? Perhaps you me personally objectionable?"
"I wouldn't have your hand or had a drink with you if I did. I don't how many you or you sack, or how many innocents, if that's what they are, you in the Old Federation. You couldn't possibly do anything than those people have been doing to one another for the past ten centuries. What I object to is the way you're the Sword-Worlds."
"You're crazy!" Basil Gorram exploded.
"Young man," Harkaman reproved, "the was Lord Trask and myself. And when somebody makes a 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 Gram for eight hundred of our best men. You me for close to vaqueros, farm-workers, lumbermen, machine-operators, and I I'll be able to replace them with as good." He to the Gorram. "Alex, how many have you to Captain Harkaman?"
Gorram to make it a dozen; pressed, he to a score and a half. Roboticians, machine-supervisors, programmers, a of engineers, a foreman. There was agreement from the others. Burt Sandrasan's engine-works had almost as many, of the same kind. Even Lothar Ffayle to a and a guard-sergeant.
And after they were gone, the and and would go on, almost but not as before. Nothing on Gram, nothing on any of the Sword-Worlds, was done as as three centuries ago The whole level of Sword-World life was sinking, like the east of this continent, so slowly as to be only from the records and of the past. He said as much, and added:
"And the loss. The best Sword-World are literally[Pg 9] to space, like the of a low-gravity planet, each by fathers to the last. It wasn't so when the Space Vikings directly from the Sword-Worlds; they got home once in a while. Now they're in the Old Federation for bases, and there."
Everybody had to relax; this wouldn't be a quarrel. Harkaman, who had his drink to his right hand, chuckled.
"That's right. I've my of in the Old Federation, and I know Space Vikings fathers were on Old Federation planets." He to Basil Gorram. "You see, the isn't crazy, at all. That's what to the Terran Federation, by the way. The good men all left to colonize, and the and yes-men and herd-followers and safety-firsters on Terra and to the galaxy."
"Well, maybe this is all new to you, captain," Rovard Grauffis said sourly, "but Lucas Trask's for the Decline and Fall of the Sword-Worlds is an old song to the of us. I have too much to do to here and argue."
Lothar Ffayle did to and argue.
"All you're saying, Lucas, is that we're expanding. You want us to here and up population pressure like Terra in the First Century?"
"With three and a billion people spread out on twelve planets? They had that many on Terra alone. And it took us eight centuries to that."
That had been since the Ninth Century, Atomic Era, at the end of the Big War. Ten thousand men and on Abigor, to surrender, had taken the of the System States Alliance to space, a world the Federation had of and wouldn't for a long time. That had been the world they had called Excalibur. From it, their had Joyeuse and Durendal and Flamberge; Haulteclere had been in the next from Joyeuse, and Gram from Haulteclere.
"We're not expanding, Lothar; we're contracting. We stopped three hundred and fifty years ago, when that ship came to Morglay from the Old Federation and reported what had been out there since the Big War. Before that, we were new and them. Since then, we've been the of the Terran Federation."
Something was going on by the to the landing stage. People were moving in that direction, and the news were like over a cow. Harkaman wondered, hopefully, if it mightn't be a fight.
"Some being bounced." [Pg 10]Nikkolay, Lucas' cousin, commented. "Sesar's let all Wardshaven in here, today. But, Lucas, this Tanith adventure; we're not making any hit-and-run raid. We're taking over a whole planet; it'll be another Sword-World in or fifty years."
"Inside another century, we'll the whole Federation," Baron Rathmore declared. He was a politician and let worry him.
"What I don't understand," Harkaman said, "is why you support Duke Angus, Lord Trask, if [Pg 11]you think the Tanith is doing Gram so much harm."
"If Angus didn't do it, somebody else would. But Angus is going to make himself King of Gram, and I don't think else do that. This needs a single sovereignty. I don't know how much you've of it this duchy, but don't take Wardshaven as typical. Some of these duchies, like Glaspyth or Didreksburg, are pits. All the major are at each other's throats, and they can't keep their own and petty-barons in order.[Pg 12]
Why, there's a little in Southmain Continent that's been going on for over two centuries."
"That's where Dunnan's going to take that army of his," a robot-manufacturing said. "I it out, and Dunnan with it."
"You don't have to go to Southmain; just go to Glaspyth," somebody else said.
"Well, if we don't a to keep order, this will like anything in the Old Federation."
"Oh, come, Lucas!" Alex Gorram protested. "That's it out too far."
"Yes, for one thing, we don't have the Neobarbarians," somebody said. "And if they came out here, we'd them to Em-See-Square in nothing flat. Might be a good thing if they did, too; it would stop us among ourselves."
Harkaman looked at him in surprise. "Just who do you think the Neobarbarians are, anyhow?" he asked. "Some of nomads; Attila's Huns in spaceships?"
"Well, isn't that who they are?" Gorram asked.
"Nifflheim, no! There aren't a dozen and a 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 barbarians. Workers and who to and the and then they'd the means of production and killed off all the brains. Survivors on the Interstellar Wars, from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Centuries, who the of civilization. Followers of political on local-dictatorship planets. Companies of out of and by pillage. Religious self-anointed prophets."
"You think we don't have of Neobarbarian material here on Gram?" Trask demanded. "If you do, take a look around."
Glaspyth, somebody said.
"That of over-ripe gallows-fruit Andray Dunnan's recruited," Rathmore mentioned.
Alex Gorram was that his was full of them; up trouble, trying to a to of the robots.
"Yes," Harkaman on that last. "I know of at least instances, on a dozen and a planets, in the last eight centuries, of anti-technological movements. They had them on Terra, as as the Second Century Pre-Atomic. And after Venus from the First Federation, the Second Federation was organized."
"You're in history?" Rathmore asked.
"A hobby. All have[Pg 13] hobbies. There's very little work ship in hyperspace; is the enemy. My guns-and-missiles officer, Vann Larch, is a painter. Most of his work was with the Corisande on Durendal, but he us from a times on Flamberge by painting pictures and selling them. My astrogator, Guatt Kirbey, music; he to the of in terms. I don't much for it, myself," he admitted. "I study history. You know, it's odd; that's on any of the on Terra the spaceship."
The garden around them was quiet, now; was over by the landing-stage escalators. Harkaman would have said more, but at that moment he saw a dozen of Sesar Karvall's past. They were and in bullet-proofs; one of them had an auto-rifle, and the plastic truncheons. The Space Viking set his drink.
"Let's go," he said. "Our is calling up his troops; I think the guests ought to battle-stations, too."
III
The gaily-dressed a the landing-stage escalators; was in embarrassed curiosity, those over the of those in front. The ladies had up their in formality; many had their heads. There were four news-service above; was going on was a screen showing. The Karvall were trying to through; their was saying, over and over, "Please, ladies and gentlemen; your pardon, sir," and nowhere.
Otto Harkaman and the aside. "Make way, here!" he bellowed. "Let these pass." With that, he almost a gaily-dressed on either hand; they to angrily, then got out of his way. Meditating on the of manners in an emergency, Trask followed, with the others; the big Space Viking to the front, where Sesar Karvall and Rovard Grauffis and others were standing.
Facing them, four men in black with their to the escalators. Two were retainers; gunmen, to be precise. They were at pains to keep their hands in sight, and to be themselves elsewhere. The man in a diamond on his beret, and his was with silk. His thin, pointed was about the mouth and with a thin[Pg 14] black mustache. His white all around the irises, and now and then his mouth would in an grimace. Andray Dunnan; Trask how soon he would have to look at him from twenty-five over the of a pistol. The of the man who at his was paper-white, expressionless, with a black beard. His name was Nevil Ormm, nobody was sure he had come, and he was Dunnan's and companion.
"You lie!" Dunnan was shouting. "You damnably, in your teeth, all of you! You've every message she's to send me."
"My has sent you no messages, Lord Dunnan," Sesar Karvall said, with patience. "None but the one I just gave you, that she wants nothing to do with you."
"You think I that? You're her a prisoner; Satan only how you've been her to her into this marriage—"
There was a among the bystanders; that was more than well-mannered stand. Out of the of voices, one woman's was audible:
"Well, really! He actually is crazy!"
Dunnan, like else, it. "Crazy, am I?" he blazed. "Because I can see through this sham? Here's Lucas Trask, he wants an in Karvall mills, and here's Sesar Karvall, he wants to iron deposits on Traskon land. And my uncle, he wants the help of of them in Omfray of Glaspyth's duchy. And here's this loan-shark of a Ffayle, trying to my lands away from me, and Rovard Grauffis, the of my uncle who won't a to save his from ruin, and this Harkaman who's me out of of the Enterprise. You're all against me—"
"Sir Nevil," Grauffis said, "you can see that Lord Dunnan's not himself. If you're a good friend to him, you'll him out of here Duke Angus arrives."
Ormm and spoke urgently in Dunnan's ear. Dunnan pushed him away.
"Great Satan, are you against me, too?" he demanded.
Ormm his arm. "You fool, do you want to everything, now—" He his voice; the was inaudible.
"No, you, I won't go till I've spoken to her, to face—"
Dunnan wedding party
There was another among the spectators; the was parting, and Elaine was through, by her mother and Lady Sandrasan and five or six other matrons. They all had their over their heads, right ends over left shoulders; they all stopped[Pg 15] Elaine, who took a steps and Andray Dunnan. He had her look more beautiful, but it was the of a dagger.
"Lord Dunnan, what do you wish to say to me?" she asked. "Say it and then go; you are not welcome here."
"Elaine!" Dunnan cried, taking a step forward. "Why do you your head; why do you speak to me as a stranger? I am Andray, who loves you. Why are you them you into this marriage?"
"No one is me; I am marrying Lord Trask and happily, 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 him; they can't make you. Come with me now. They won't stop you. I'll take you away from all these cruel, people. You love me, you've always loved me. You've told me you loved me, again and again—"
Yes, in his own private dream-world, a world of that had now Andray Dunnan's reality, in which an Elaine Karvall his had only to love him. Confronted by the Elaine, he rejected the reality.
"I loved you, Lord Dunnan, and I told you so. I you, either, but you are making it very hard for me not to. Now go, and let me see you again."
With that, she and started through the crowd, which in of her. Her mother and her aunt and the other ladies followed.
"You to me!" Dunnan after her. "You all the time. You're as as the of them, all and against me, me. I know what it's about; you all want to me of my rights, and keep my uncle on the throne. And you, you false-hearted harlot, you're the of them all!"
Sir Nevil Ormm his and him around, him toward the escalators. Dunnan struggled, like a wolf. Ormm was furiously.
"You two!" he shouted. "Help me, here. Get of him."
Dunnan was still as they him onto the escalator, the of the two retainers' cloaks, with the Dunnan crescent, light on black, him. After a little, an with the and away.
"Lucas, he's crazy," Sesar Karvall was insisting. "Elaine hasn't spoken fifty to him since he came from his last voyage—"
He laughed and put a hand on Karvall's shoulder. "I know that, Sesar. You don't think, do you, that I need of it?"
"Crazy, I'll say he's crazy," [Pg 16]Rovard Grauffis put in. "Did you what he said about his rights? Wait till his Grace about that."
"Does he to the throne, Sir Rovard?" Otto Harkaman asked, and seriously.
"Oh, he that his mother was a year and a Duke Angus and the true date of her birth to give Angus the succession. Why, his present Grace was three years old when she was born. I was old Duke Fergus' esquire; I Angus on my when Andray Dunnan's mother was presented to the and the day after she was born."
"Of he's crazy," Alex Gorram agreed. "I don't know why the Duke doesn't have him put under treatment."
"I'd put him under treatment," Harkaman said, a across under his beard. "Crazy men who to are that ought to be deactivated, they up."
"We couldn't do that," Grauffis said. "After all, he's Duke Angus' nephew—"
"I do it," Harkaman said. "He only has three hundred men in this company of his. Why you people let him them Satan only knows," he parenthesized. "I have eight hundred; five hundred ground-fighters. I'd like to see how they shape up in combat, we space out. I can have them for action in two hours, and it'd be all over midnight."
"No, Captain Harkaman; his Grace would permit it," Grauffis vetoed. "You have no idea of the political that would do among the on we're for support. You weren't here on Gram when Duke Ridgerd of Didreksburg had his sister Sancia's second husband poisoned—"
