VII
The viewscreen, which had been for over three thousand hours, was now a of color, the color of a field. No two saw it alike, and no the actuality. Trask that he was his breath. So, he noticed, was Otto Harkaman, him. It was something, evidently, that nobody got used to. Even Guatt Kirbey, the astrogator, was with his pipe in his mouth, at the screen.
Then, in an instant, the stars, which had not been there before, the screen with a of against the black of normal space. Dead in the center, than all the rest, Ertado's Star, the sun[Pg 33] of Tanith, yellowly. The light from it was ten hours old.
"Pretty good, Guatt," Harkaman said, up his cup.
"Good, Gehenna; it was perfect," somebody else said.
Kirbey was his pipe. "Oh, I it'll have to do," he grudged, around the stem. He had and an mustache, and nothing was good to satisfy him. "I have it a little closer. Need three microjumps, now, and I'll have to cut the last one fine. Now don't me." He for data and with and verniers.
For a moment, in the screen, Trask see the of Andray Dunnan. He it away and for his cigarettes, and put one in his mouth wrong-end-to. When he it and his lighter, he saw that his hand was trembling. Otto Harkaman must have that, too.
"Take it easy, Lucas," he whispered. "Keep your 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 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, the same way. The battle-stations was a solid of red light for full readiness.
"All right," Kirbey said. "Jumping."
Then he the red to the right and it in viciously. Again the screen with turbulence; again dark and through the ship like in a sorcerer's tower. The screen as the into some noplace. Then it with color again, and this time Ertado's Star, still in the center, was a coin-sized disk, with the little of its seven around it. Tanith was the third—the of a G-class was. It had a single moon, visible in the screen, five hundred miles in and fifty thousand off-planet.
"You know," Kirbey said, as though he was to admit it, "that wasn't too bad. I think we can make it in one more microjump."
Some time, Trask supposed, he'd be able to use the "micro-" about a of fifty-five miles, too.
"What do you think about it?" Harkaman asked him, as as though expert of his apprentice. "Where should Guatt put us?"
"As close as possible, of course." That would be a light-second at the least; if the Nemesis came out[Pg 34] of any closer to anything the size of Tanith, the itself would her back. "We have to assume Dunnan's been there at least nine hundred hours. By that time, he have put in a detection-station, and maybe missile-launchers, on the moon. The Enterprise 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 as soon as we come out of the last jump, and come out with the moon directly us and the planet. If it's occupied, we can it off on the way in."
"A of captains would try to come out with the moon off by the planet," Harkaman said.
"Would you?"
The big man his head. "No. If they have on the moon, they at us in a around the planet, by data from the other side, and we'd be at a replying. Just go in. You this, Guatt?"
"Yeah. It makes sense. Sort of. Now, stop me. Sharll, look here a minute."
The normal-space with him; Alvyn Karffard, the executive officer, joined them. Finally Kirbey out the big red handle, it, and said, "All right, jumping." He it in. "I I cut it too fine; now we'll a miles."
The screen again; when it the third was directly in the center; its small moon, looking almost as large, was a little above and to the right, on one and on the other. Kirbey locked the red handle, up his tobacco and and from the ledge, and the of the instrument-console, locking it.
"All yours, Sharll," he told Renner.
"Eight hours to atmosphere," Renner said. "That's if we don't have to waste a of time up Junior, there."
Vann Larch was looking at the moon in the six hundred power screen.
"I don't see anything to shoot. Five hundred miles; one planetbuster, or four or five thermonuclears," he said.
It wasn't right, Trask indignantly. Minutes ago, Tanith had been six and a billion miles away. Seconds ago, fifty-odd million. And now, a of a million, and looking close to touch in the screen, it would take them eight hours to it. Why, on you go forty-eight miles in that time.
Well, it took a man just as long to walk across a room today as it had taken Pharaoh the First, or Homo Sap.
In the screen Tanith[Pg 35] looked like any picture of any Terra-type from space, with cloud-blurred of and and a of and and green, at the by an icecap. None of the surface features, not the major or rivers, were yet distinguishable, but Harkaman and Sharll Renner and Alvyn Karffard and the other old hands to it. Karffard was talking by phone to Paul Koreff, the signals-and-detection officer, who nothing from the moon and nothing that was through the Van Allen from the planet.
Maybe they'd wrong, at that. Maybe Dunnan hadn't gone to Tanith at all.
Harkaman, who had the of himself to sleep at will, with some or n-th posted as a sentry, in his chair and closed his eyes. Trask he could, too. It would be hours anything happened, and until then he needed all the he get. He more coffee, chain-smoked cigarettes; he rose and about the room, looking at screens. Signals-and-detection was a of stuff—Van Allen count, count, surface temperature, gravitation-field strength, and echoes. He to his chair and sat down, at the screen-image. The didn't to be any closer at all, and it ought to; they were it at than velocity. He sat and at it.
He with a start. The screen-image was much larger, now. River and the lines of were visible. It must be early autumn in the northern hemisphere; there was to the and a of was pushing south against the green. Harkaman was up, lunch. By the clock, it was four hours later.
"Have a good nap?" he asked. "We're up some stuff, now. Radio and screen signals. Not much, but some. The wouldn't have learned for that in the five years since I was here. We didn't long enough, for one thing."
On that were visited by Space Vikings, the up and of technology very quickly. In the four months of and long while they were in he had many that. But from the level to which Tanith had sunk, radio and screen in five years was a little too much of a jump.
"You didn't any men, did you?"
That frequently—men who took up with local women, men who had themselves with their shipmates, men who just liked the and wanted to stay. They were always[Pg 36] by the for what they do and teach.
"No, we weren't there long for that. Only three hundred and fifty hours. This we're is stuff; somebody's there the locals."
Dunnan. He looked again at the battle-stations board; it was still red-lighted. Everything was on full ready. He a mess-robot, a of dishes, and to eat. After the mouthful, he called to Alvyn Karffard:
"Is Paul anything new?" he asked.
Karffard checked. A little contragravity-field effect. It was still too to be sure. He to his lunch. He had it and was a cigarette over his coffee when a red light and a voice from one of the speakers shouted.
"Detection! Detection from planet! Radar, and microray!"
Karffard talking into a hand-phone; Harkaman one him and listened.
"Coming from a point, about twenty-fifth north parallel," he said, aside. "Could be from a ship against the planet. There's nothing at all on the moon."
They to be the more and more rapidly. Actually, they weren't, the ship was to into an orbit, but the the of speed. The red lights once more.
"Ship detected! Just atmosphere, around the from the west."
"Is she the Enterprise?"
"Can't tell, yet," Karffard said, and then cried: "There she is, in the screen! That spark, about thirty north, just off the west side."
Aboard her, too, voices from speakers would be shouting, "Ship detected!" and the station would be red. And Andray Dunnan, at the command-desk—
"She's calling us." That was Paul Koreff'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," Harkaman said. "Let's be and communicate. What's her screen-combination?"
Koreff's voice gave it, and Harkaman it out. The screen in of them at once; Trask over his chair Harkaman's, his hands on the arms. Would it be Dunnan himself, and what would his when he saw who him out of his own screen?
It took him an to that the other ship was not the Enterprise at all. The Enterprise was the Nemesis' twin; her command[Pg 37] room was with his own. This one was different in and fittings. The Enterprise was a new ship; this one was old, and had for years at the hands of a captain and a crew.
And the man who sat him in the screen was not Andray Dunnan, or any man he had before. A dark-faced man, with an old that ran one from a little the eye; he had black hair, on his and on a V of by an open shirt. There was an in of him, and a thin of rose from a cigar in it, and coffee in an but cup it. He was gleefully.
"Well! Captain Harkaman, of the Enterprise, I believe! Welcome to Tanith. Who's the with you? He isn't the Duke of Wardshaven, is he?"
VIII
He at the over the screen, to himself that his was not him. Beside him, Otto Harkaman was laughing.
"Why, Captain Valkanhayn; this is an pleasure. That's the Space Scourge you're in, I take it? What are you doing here on Tanith?"
A voice from one of the speakers that a second ship had been over the north pole. The dark-faced man in the screen complacently.
"That's Garvan Spasso, in the Lamia," he said. "And what we're doing here, we've taken this over. We it, too."
"Well! So you and Garvan have up. You two were just for one another. And you have a little planet, all your very own. I'm so happy for of you. What are you out of it—beside poultry?"
The other's self-assurance started to slip. He it into place.
"Don't kid me; we know why you're here. Well, we got here first. Tanith is our planet. You think you can take it away from us?"
"I know we could, and so do you," Harkaman told him. "We you and Spasso together; why, a of our the Lamia apart. The only question is, do we want to bother?"
By now, he had from his surprise, but not from his disappointment. If this the Nemesis was the Enterprise—Before he check himself, he had the aloud.
"Then the Enterprise didn't come here at all!"
The man in the screen started. "Isn't that the Enterprise you're in?"
"Oh, no. Pardon my remissness, Captain Valkanhayn," Harkaman apologized. "This is the Nemesis.[Pg 38] The with me, Lord Lucas Trask, is owner-aboard, for I am commanding. Lord Trask, Captain Boake Valkanhayn, of the Space Scourge. Captain Valkanhayn is a Space Viking." He said that as though it to be disputed. "So, I am told, is his associate, Captain Spasso, ship is approaching. You to tell me that the Enterprise hasn't been here?"
Valkanhayn was puzzled, apprehensive.
"You the Duke of Wardshaven has two ships?"
"As as I know, the Duke of Wardshaven hasn't any ships," Harkaman replied. "This ship is the property and private of Lord Trask. The Enterprise, for which we are looking, is owned and by one Andray Dunnan."
The man with the and had up his cigar and was on it mechanically. Now he took it out of his mouth as though he how it had there in the place.
"But isn't the Duke of Wardshaven sending a ship here to a base? That was what we'd heard. We you'd gone from Flamberge to Gram to for him."
"Where did you this? And when?"
"On Hoth. That'd be about two thousand hours ago; a Gilgamesher the news from Xochitl."
"Well, it was or hand, your was good enough, when it was fresh. It was a year and a old when you got it, though. How long have you been here on Tanith?"
"About a thousand hours." Harkaman sadly at that.
"Pity you all that time. Well, it was talking to you, Boake. Say hello to Garvan for me when he comes up."
"You you're not staying?" Valkanhayn was horrified, an odd for a man who had just been a to drive them away. "You're just right out again?"
Harkaman shrugged. "Do we want to waste time here, Lord Trask? The Enterprise has gone else. She was still in when Captain Valkanhayn and his here."
"Is there anything for?" That to be the reply Harkaman was expecting. "Beside poultry, that is?"
Harkaman his head. "This is Captain Valkanhayn's planet; his and Captain Spasso's. Let them be with it."
"But, look; this is a good planet. There's a big local city, maybe ten or twenty thousand people; temples and and everything. Then, there are a of old Federation cities. The one we're at is in good shape, and there's a big spaceport. We've been doing a of work on[Pg 39] it. And the won't give you any trouble. All they have is and a and matchlocks—"
"I know. I've been here."
"Well, couldn't we make some of a deal?" Valkanhayn asked. A was to into his voice. "I can Garvan on screen and him over to your ship—"
"Well, we have a of Sword-World aboard," Harkaman said. "We make you good prices on some of it. How are you for equipment?"
"But aren't you going to here?" Valkanhayn was almost in a panic. "Listen, I talk to Garvan, and we all together on this. Just me for a minute—"
As soon as he had out, Harkaman his and as though he had just the and joke in the galaxy. Trask, himself, didn't like laughing.
"The me," he admitted. "We came here on a fools' errand."
"I'm sorry, Lucas." Harkaman was still with mirth. "I know it's a letdown, but that pair of chicken thieves! I almost them, if it weren't so funny." He laughed again. "You know what their idea was?"
Trask his head. "Who are they?"
"What I called them, a of chicken thieves. They like Set and Hertha and Melkarth, where the haven't anything to with—or anything for. I didn't know they'd up, but that figures. Nobody else would team up with either of them. What must have happened, this of Duke Angus' Tanith must have out to them, and they that if they got here first, I'd think it was to take them in than them out. I 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 Tanith base, and they have a no-good and they're with it."
"Can't they make anything out of it themselves?"
"Like what?" Harkaman 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 it."
"We sell them equipment."
"We if they had anything to use for money. They haven't. One thing, we do want to let and give the men a to walk on ground and look at a sky for a while. The girls here aren't too bad, either," Harkaman said. "As I remember, some of them take a bath, now and then."
"That's the of news of Dunnan we're going to get. By the time we'd to where he's been reported, he'd be a of thousand light-years away," he[Pg 40] said disgustedly. "I agree; we ought to give the men a to off the ship, here. We can this pair along for a while and we won't have any trouble with them."
The three ships were slowly toward a point fifteen thousand miles off-planet and over the line. The Space Scourge the device of a a by the head; it looked more like a than a scourge. The Lamia a with the head, arms and of a woman. Valkanhayn and Spasso were taking their time about back, and he to wonder if they weren't the Nemesis into a cross-fire position. He mentioned this to Harkaman and Alvyn Karffard; they laughed.
"Just ship's meetings," Karffard said. "They'll be and for a of hours, yet."
"Yes; Valkanhayn and Spasso don't own their ships," Harkaman explained. "They've gone in to their for and till in common. The ships look like it, too. They don't command, really; they just over elected command-councils."
Finally, they had of the more or less on screen.[Pg 41] Valkanhayn had up his shirt and put on a jacket. Garvan Spasso was a small man, bald. His were a too close together, and his thin mouth had a twist. He speaking at once:
"Captain, Boake tells me you say you're not here in the service of the Duke of Wardshaven at all." He said it aggrievedly.
"That's correct," Harkaman said. "We came here Lord Trask another Gram ship, the Enterprise, would be here. Since she isn't, there's no point in our being here. We do hope, though, that you won't make any about our and our men a of hundred hours' liberty. They've been in for three thousand hours."
"See!" Spasso clamored. "He wants to us into him land—"
"Captain Spasso," Trask cut in. "Will you stop everybody's intelligence, your own included." Spasso at him, but hopefully. "I what you you were going to do here. You Captain Harkaman here to a for the Duke of Wardshaven, and you thought, if you were here ahead of him and in a of defense, that he'd take you into the Duke's service than waste and and you[Pg 42] out. Well, I'm very sorry, gentlemen. Captain Harkaman is in my service, and I'm not in the least in a on Tanith."
Valkanhayn and Spasso looked at each other. At least, in the two side-by-side screens, their shifted, each to the other's screen on his own ship.
"I it!" Spasso suddenly. "There's two ships, the Enterprise and this one. The Duke of Wardshaven out the Enterprise, and somebody else out this one. They want to put in a here!"
That opened a vista. Instead of on their nuisance-value, they might themselves the of power in a for the planet. All of were possible.
"Why, sure you can land, Otto," Valkanhayn 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?" Harkaman asked. He looked up at the viewscreen. "Ought to be about midnight there now. How's the spaceport? When I was here, it was bad."
"Oh, we've been it up. We got a big of for us—"
Rivington spaceport
The city was familiar, from Otto Harkaman's and from the pictures Vann Larch had painted the long jump from Gram. As they came in, it looked impressive, for miles around the that almost three thousand above it, with a great like an eight-pointed star at one side. Whoever had it, in the of the old Terran Federation, must have done so that it would the of a and world. Then the sun of the Federation had gone down. Nobody what had on Tanith after that, but none of it had been good.
At first, the two towers as as when they had been built; it that one was at the top. For the most part, the smaller around them were standing, though here and there of brush-grown where some had in. The looked good—a of buildings, the landing-berths, and, beyond, the of and warehouses. The was intact, and the ship-berths clear of and rubble.
By the time the Nemesis was the Space Scourge and the Lamia down, by her own pinnaces, the that they were a city had vanished. The the were with forest-growth, by a small[Pg 43] and garden-plots. At one time, there had been three of the high buildings, in themselves. Where the third had was a crater, with a of away from it. Somebody must have a medium missile, about twenty kilotons, against its base. Something of the same had scored on the of the spaceport, and one of the eight of and was an slag-pile.
The of the city to have died of neglect than violence. It hadn't been out. Harkaman most of the had been done with or Omega-ray bombs, that killed the people without the estate. Or bio-weapons; a man-made that had out of and all but the planet.
"It takes an of people, together at an of jobs, to keep a running. Smash the and kill the top and scientists, and the don't know how to and go to hatchets. Kill off of the and if the and the know-how is left, there's nobody to do the work. I've that ways. Tanith, I think, is one of the latter."
That had been one of the long after-dinner sessions on the way out from Gram. Somebody, one of the gentlemen-adventurers who had joined the company after the 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 the old by arts. Then the among themselves and away,'" Harkaman said. "That's all they know about it."
You make any of an out of that.
As the and the Nemesis to her berth, he see people, on the floor, at work. Either Valkanhayn and Spasso had more men than the size of their ships indicated, or they had a of to work for them. More than the population of the city, at least as Harkaman it.
There had been about five hundred in all; they by the old for metal, and for food and and and other elsewhere. It was only by traveling a hundred miles across the plains; it had been by a contragravity-using people with for natural travel and routes.
"I don't the buggers," Harkaman said, looking at the on the floor. "Boake Valkanhayn and Garvan Spasso have of the of them. If I was going to put in a here, I[Pg 44] wouldn't thank that pair for the of public-relations work they've been doing among the locals."
IX
That was just about the situation. Spasso and Valkanhayn and some of their officers met them on the landing stage of the big in the middle of the spaceport, where they had quarters. Entering and going a long hallway, they passed a dozen men and up from the with and with their hands and it into a lifter-skid. Both of cloth, like ponchos, and flat-soled sandals. Watching them was another local in a kilt, and a leather jerkin; he a on his and a whip. He also a Space Viking helmet, painted with the device of Spasso's Lamia. He as they approached, a hand to his forehead. After they had passed, they him at the others, and the of whip-blows.
You make out of people, and some will always be slave-drivers; they will to you, and then take it out on the others. Harkaman's nose was as though he had a of fish in his mustache.
"We have about eight hundred of them. There were only three hundred that were any good for work here; we the up at villages along the big river," Spasso was saying.
"How do you food for them?" Harkaman asked. "Or don't you bother?"
"Oh, we that up all over," Valkanhayn told him. "We send parties out with landing craft. They'll let on a village, the out, up what's around and it here. Once in a while they put up a fight, but the best they have is a and some muzzle-loading muskets. When they do, we the village and machine-gun we see."
"That's the stuff," Harkaman approved. "If the cow doesn't want to be milked, just shoot her. Of course, you don't much milk out of her again, but—"
The room to which their them was at the end of the hall. It had been a room or something of the sort, and originally it had been paneled, but the had long ago vanished. Holes had been here and there in the walls, and he having noticed that the door was gone and the metal in which it had had been out.
There was a big table in the middle, and chairs and with spreads. All the was handmade, together and polished. On the trophies[Pg 45] of weapons—thrusting-spears and throwing-spears, and quarrels, and a number of guns, things, but made.
"Pick all this up off the locals?" Harkaman asked.
"Yes, we got most of it at a big town at the of the river," Valkanhayn said. "We it a of times. That's where we recruited the we're using to the workers."
Then he up a with a leather-covered and on a gong, for wine. A voice, somewhere, replied, "Yes, master; I come!" and in a moments a woman entered a in either hand. She was a too large for her, of the the in the wore. She had dark and eyes; if she had not been so she would have been beautiful. She set the on the table and cups from a against the wall: when Spasso her, she out hastily.
"I it's to ask if you're paying these people anything for the work they do or for the you take from them," Harkaman said. From the way the Space Scourge and Lamia people laughed, it was. Harkaman shrugged. "Well, it's your planet. Make any of a out of it you want to."
"You think we ought to pay them?" Spasso was incredulous. "Damn of savages!"
"They aren't as as the Xochitl were when Haulteclere took it over. You've been there; you've what Prince Viktor with them now."
"We haven't got the men or they have on Xochitl," Valkanhayn said. "We can't to the locals."
"You can't not to," Harkaman told him. "You have two ships, here. You can only use one for raiding; the other will have to here to the planet. If you take them away, the locals, you have been antagonizing, will you behind. And if you don't behind, what's the use of having a base?"
"Well, why don't you join us," Spasso came out with it. "With our three ships we have a thing, here."
Harkaman looked at him inquiringly. "The gentlemen," Trask said, "are this wrongly. They mean, why don't we let them join us?"
"Well, if you want to put it like that," Valkanhayn conceded. "We'll admit, your Nemesis would be the big end of it. But why not? Three ships, we have a here. Nikky Gratham's father only had two when he started on Jagannath, and look what the Grathams got there now."
"Are we interested?" Harkaman asked.[Pg 46]
"Not very, I'm afraid. Of course, we've just landed; Tanith may have great possibilities. Suppose we for a while and look around a little."
There were in the sky, and, for good measure, a of moon on the western horizon. It was only a small moon, but it was close. He walked to the of the landing stage, and Elaine was walking with him. The noise from inside, where the Nemesis were with those of the Lamia and Space Scourge, fainter. To the south, a star moved; one of the they had left on off-planet watch. There was below, and he singing. Suddenly he that it was the of Valkanhayn and Spasso had enslaved. Elaine away quickly.
"Have your of Space Viking glamour, Lucas?"
He turned. It was Baron Rathmore, who had come along to for a year or so and then a home from some and cash in politically on having been with Lucas Trask.
"For the moment. I'm told that this aren't typical."
"I not. They're a pack of brutes, and along with it."
"Well, and manners I can condone, but Spasso and Valkanhayn are a pair of little crooks, and along with it. If Andray Dunnan had here ahead of us, he might have done one good thing in his life. I can't why he didn't come here."
"I think he still will," Rathmore said. "I him and I Nevil Ormm. Ormm's ambitious, and Dunnan is vindictive—" He off with a laugh. "I'm telling you that!"
"Why didn't he come here directly, then?"
"Maybe he doesn't want a on Tanith. That would be something constructive; Dunnan's a destroyer. I think he took that of and it. I think he'll wait till he's sure the other ship is finished. Then he'll come in and shoot the place up, the way—" He that off abruptly.
"The way he did my wedding; I think of it all the time."
The next morning, he and Harkaman took an and to look at the city at the of the river. It was new, in the that it had been since the of Federation and the of technologies. It was on a long, mound, to it above flood-level. Generations of labor must have gone into it. To the of a using and it wasn't at all impressive. Fifty to a hundred men with could[Pg 47] have the thing up in a summer. It was only by himself to think in terms of after of earth, after beasts, after cut with and with adzes, after and after brick, that he it. They had it walled, with a of tree-trunks which earth and had been banked, and along the river were docks, at which were moored. The called it Tradetown.
As they approached, a big booming, and a white of was by the of a signal-gun. The boats, long canoe-like and round-bowed, many-oared barges, put out into the river; through they see people from the fields, ahead of them. By the time they were over the city, nobody was in sight. They to have a air-raid in the nine-hundred-odd hours in which they had been to the of Boake Valkanhayn and Garvan Spasso. It hadn't saved them entirely; a of the city had been burned, and there were of shelling. Light chemical-explosive stuff; this city was too good a cow for those two to kill the was over.
They slowly over it at a thousand feet. When they away, black from what might have been or brick-kilns on the outskirts; something had been to the fires. Other of black across the on of the river.
"You know, these people are civilized, if you don't limit the term to and energy," Harkaman said. "They have gunpowder, for one thing, and I can think of some Old Terran that didn't have that much. They have an society, and who has that is starting toward civilization."
"I to think of what'll to this if Spasso and Valkanhayn here long."
"Might be a good thing, in the long run. Good in the long are often while they're happening. I know what'll to Spasso and Valkanhayn, though. They'll start decivilizing, themselves. They'll here for a while, and when they need something they can't take from the they'll go chicken-stealing after it, but most of the time they'll here it over their slaves, and their ships will wear out and they won't be able to them. Then, some time, the locals'll jump them when they aren't and them out. But in the meantime, the locals'll learn a from them."[Pg 48]
They the west again along the river. They looked at a villages. One or two from the Federation period; they had been it was had happened. More had been the past five centuries. A had been destroyed, in for the of self-defense.
"You know," he said, at length, "I'm going to do a favor. I'm going to let Spasso and Valkanhayn me to take this away from them."
Harkaman, who was piloting, sharply. "You or something?"
"'When somebody makes a you don't understand, don't tell him he's crazy. Ask him what he means.' Who said that?"
"On target," Harkaman grinned. "'What do you mean, Lord Trask?'"
"I can't catch Dunnan by pursuit; I'll have to him by interception. You know the of that quotation, too. This looks to me like a good place to him. When he I have a here, he'll it, sooner or later. And if he doesn't, we can up more on him, when ships start in here, than we would around all over the Old Federation."
Harkaman for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, if we set up a like Nergal or Xochitl," he agreed. "There'll be four or five ships, Space Vikings, traders, Gilgameshers and so on, on either of those all the time. If we had the Dunnan took to space in the Enterprise, we start a like that. But we haven't anything near what we need, and you know what Spasso and Valkanhayn have."
"We can it from Gram. As it stands, the in the Tanith Adventure, from Duke Angus down, they put into it. If they're to some good money after bad, they can it back, and a profit to boot. And there ought to be above the and ox-cart level not too away that be for a of we'd need."
"That's right; I know of a dozen five hundred light-years. They won't be the Spasso and Valkanhayn are in the of raiding, though. And machinery, we can gold, and valuable that be on Gram. And if we make a go of it, you'd go Dunnan by here on Tanith than by going looking for him. That was the way we used to pigs on Colada, when I was a kid; just a good place and and wait."[Pg 49][Pg 50]
They had Valkanhayn and Spasso the Nemesis for dinner; it didn't take much to keep the on the of Tanith and its resources, and possibilities. Finally, when they had and coffee, Trask said idly:
"I believe, together, we make something out of this planet."
"That's what we've been telling you, all along," Spasso in eagerly. "This is a planet—"
"It be. All it has now is possibilities. We'd need a spaceport, for one thing."
"Well, what's this, here?" Valkanhayn wanted to know.
"It was a spaceport," Harkaman told him. "It be one again. And we'd need a shipyard, of any of repair work. Capable of a complete ship, in fact. I saw a ship come into a Viking with any of a over that hadn't taken some it. Prince Viktor of Xochitl makes a good of his money on ship repairs, and so do Nikky Gratham on Jagannath and the Everrards on Hoth."
"And engine works, hyperdrive, normal space and pseudograv," Trask added. "And a mill, and a collapsed-matter plant. And robotic-equipment works, and—"
"Oh, that's out of all reason!" Valkanhayn cried. "It would take twenty with a ship the size of this one to all that here, and how'd we be able to pay for it?"
"That's the of Duke Angus of Wardshaven planned. The Enterprise, a of the Nemesis, that would be needed to it started, when she was pirated."
"When she was—?"
"Now you're going to have to tell the the truth," Harkaman chuckled.
"I to." He his cigar down, some of his brandy, and about Duke Angus' Tanith adventure. "It was part of a larger plan; Angus wanted to economic for Wardshaven to his political ambitions. It was, however, an practical proposition. I was to it, I it would be too good a for Tanith and work to the of the home in the end." He told them about the Enterprise, and the of and she carried, and then told them how Andray Dunnan had her.
"That wouldn't have me at all; I had no money in the project. What did me, to put it mildly, was that just he took the ship out, Dunnan up my wedding, me and my father-in-law, and killed the lady to I had been married for less than an hour. I out this ship at my own expense, took on Captain Harkaman, who had been left without a when the Enterprise[Pg 51] was pirated, and came out here to Dunnan and kill him. I that I can do that best by a on Tanith myself. The will have to be at a profit, or it can't be at all." He up the cigar again and slowly. "I am you to join me as partners."
"Well, you still haven't told us how we're going to the money to finance it," Spasso insisted.
"The Duke of Wardshaven, and the others who in the original Tanith will put it up. It's the only way they can what they on the Enterprise."
"But then, this Duke of Wardshaven will be it, not us," Valkanhayn objected.
"The Duke of Wardshaven," Harkaman him, "is on Gram. We are here on Tanith. There are three thousand light-years between."
That a satisfactory answer. Spasso, however, wanted to know who would here on Tanith.
"We'll have to a meeting of all three crews," he began.
"We will do nothing of the kind," Trask told him. "I will be here on Tanith. You people may allow your orders to be and voted on, but I don't. You will your to that effect. Any orders you give them in my name will be without argument."
"I don't know how the men'll take that," Valkanhayn said.
"I know how they'll take it if they're smart," Harkaman told him. "And I know what'll if they aren't. I know how you've been your ships, or how your ships' have been you. Well, we don't do it that way. Lucas Trask is owner, and I'm captain. I his orders on what's to be done, and else mine on how to do it."
Spasso looked at Valkanhayn, then shrugged. "That's how the man wants it, Boake. You want to give him an argument? I don't."
"The order," Trask said, "is that these people you have here are to be paid. They are not to be by these plug-uglies you have them. If any of them want to leave, they may do so; they will be presents and home. Those who wish to will be rations, with and and so on as they need it, and paid wages. We'll work out some of a pay-token and set up a where they can things."
Disks of plastic or or something, and uncounterfeitable. Get Alvyn Karffard to see about that. Organize work-gangs, and promote the best and most to foremen. And those be taken in hand by some ground-fighter and Sword-World and training; use them to train others; they'd need a army of some sort. Even the best of good will is no for force, and used when necessary.[Pg 52]
"And there'll be no more of this villages for food or anything else. We will pay for anything we from any of the locals."
"We'll have trouble about that," Valkanhayn predicted. "Our men think anything a local has to who can take it."
"So do I," Harkaman said. "On a I'm raiding. This is our planet, and our locals. We don't our own or our own people. You'll just have to teach them that."
