XIX
Prince Trask of Tanith and Prince Simon Bentrik were together on an upper of what had originally been the house of a Federation period plantation. It had been a number of other since; now it was the of a town that had around it, which had, somehow, from the Dunnan blitz. Normally about five or ten thousand, the place was now with almost fifty thousand from a dozen other that had been destroyed, overflowing the and into a of and shelters, and already permanent were going up to them. Everybody, locals, Mardukans and Space Vikings, had been with the work of and reconstruction; this was the the two had been able to in any at all. Prince Bentrik's of it was by the that from where he sat he see, in the distance, the of his ship.
"I we can her off-planet again, let alone into hyperspace."
"Well, we'll you and your to Marduk in the Nemesis, then." They were speaking loudly, above the and of below. "I you didn't think I'd you here."
"I don't know how either of us will be received. Space Vikings haven't been popular on Marduk, lately. They may thank you for me to trial," Bentrik said bitterly. "Why, I'd have who let his ship as I did mine. Those two were in I they'd come out of hyperspace."
"I think they were on the your ship arrived."
"Oh, that's ridiculous, Prince Trask!" the Mardukan cried. "You can't a ship on a planet. Not from the of we have in the Royal Navy."
"We have ourselves," Trask him. "There's one place where you can do it. At the of an ocean, with a thousand or so of water over her. That's where I was going to the Nemesis, if I got here ahead of Dunnan."[Pg 104]
Prince Bentrik's stopped way to his mouth. He it slowly to his plate. That was a 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 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 it myself, on the way from Seshat. But if Dunnan wanted to your ship, he'd have of it, too. It's the only practical way to do it."
Dunnan, or Nevil Ormm; he he knew, and was he would go on all his life.
Bentrik started to up his again, his mind, and from his instead.
"You may you're welcome on Marduk, at that," he said. "These have only been a problem in the last four years. I believe, as you do, that this enemy of yours is for all of them. We have the Royal Navy out now, our trade-planets. Even if he wasn't the Enterprise when you her up, you've put a name on him and can tell us a good about him." He set the wineglass. "Why, if it weren't so ridiculous, one might think he was making on Marduk."
From Trask's viewpoint, it wasn't at all. He mentioned that Andray Dunnan was and let it go at that.
The Victrix was not unrepairable, although the at hand. A engineer-ship from Marduk her and replace her Dillinghams and her Abbot lift-and-drive and make her spaceworthy, until she be to a shipyard. They on repairing the Nemesis, and in another two she was for the voyage.
The six hundred hour to Marduk passed enough. The Mardukan officers were good company, and their Space Viking opposite numbers so. The two had used to together on Audhumla, and off watch, themselves in each other's and to of each other's home planets. The Space Vikings were and at the level of the Mardukans. They couldn't that; Marduk was to be a planet, wasn't it? The Mardukans were just as surprised, and to be resentful, that the Space Vikings all and talked like officers. Hearing of it, Prince Bentrik was also puzzled. Fo'c'sle hands on a Mardukan ship definitely to the orders.
"There's still too much free land[Pg 105] and free opportunity on the Sword-Worlds," Trask explained. "Nobody much and to the class above him; he's too trying to himself up into it. And the men who ship out as Space Vikings are the least class-conscious of the lot. Think my men may have trouble on Marduk about that? They'll all on doing their in the places in town."
"No. I don't think so. Everybody will be so that Space Vikings aren't twelve tall, with three like a Zarathustra and a like a Fafnir that they won't notice anything less. Might do some good, in the long run. Crown Prince Edvard will like your Space Vikings. He's much to class and prejudices. Says they have to be we can make work."
The Mardukans talked a about democracy. They well of it; their government was a democracy. It was also a monarchy, if that any of sense. Trask's to the political and social of the Sword-Worlds met the same from Bentrik.
"Why, it like to me!"
"That's right; that's what it is. A king his position to the support of his great nobles; they theirs to their and knights; they theirs to their people. There are limits which none of them can go; after that, their turn on them."
"Well, the people of some rebel? Won't the king send to support the baron?"
"What troops? Outside a personal and men to[Pg 106] police the city and the lands, the king has no troops. If he wants troops, he has to them from his great nobles; they have to them from their barons, who them by calling out their people." That was another of with King Angus of Gram; he had been his by off-planet mercenaries. "And the people won't help some other his people; it might be their turn next."
"You mean, the people are armed?" Prince Bentrik was incredulous.
"Great Satan, aren't yours?" Prince Trask was surprised. "Then your democracy's a farce, and the people are only free on sufferance. If their aren't by arms, they're worthless. Who has the arms on your planet?"
"Why, the Government."
"You the King?"
Prince Bentrik was shocked. Certainly not; idea. That would be ... why, it would be despotism! Besides, the King wasn't the Government, at all; the Government 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 by the King, but the King had to him from the party the most seats in the Chamber of Representatives, and he the Ministers, who the executive work of the Government, only their in the different Ministries were career-officials who were by for the jobs and promoted up the from there.
This left Trask if the Mardukan hadn't been by Goldberg, the Old Terran who always did the hard way. It also left him just how in Gehenna the Government of Marduk got anything done.
Maybe it didn't. Maybe that was what saved Marduk from having a despotism.
"Well, what the Government from the people? The people can't; you just told me that they aren't armed, and the Government is."
He continued, now and then for breath, to every he had of, from those by the Terran Federation the Big War to those at Eglonsby on Amaterasu by Pedrosan Pedro. A of the very were pushing the and people of Gram to against Angus I.
"And in the end," he finished, "the Government would be the only property owner and the only on the planet, and every[Pg 107]body else would be slaves, at tasks, Government-issued and Government food, their children as the Government and for jobs for them by the Government, reading a book or a play or a that the Government had not approved...."
Most of the Mardukans were laughing, now. Some of them were him of being just too ridiculous.
"Why, the people are the Government. The people would not themselves into slavery."
He Otto Harkaman were there. All he of history was the little he had from reading some of Harkaman's books, and the long, ship in or in the at Rivington. But Harkaman, he was sure, have hundreds of instances, on of and over ten centuries of time, in which people had done that and hadn't what they were doing, after it was too late.
"They have something about like that on Aton," one of the Mardukan officers said.
"Oh, Aton; that's a dictatorship, pure and simple. That Planetary Nationalist got into fifty years ago, the after the with Baldur...."
"They were voted into power by the people, weren't they?"
"Yes; they were," Prince Bentrik said gravely. "It was an measure, and they were powers. Once they were in, they the permanent."
"That couldn't on Marduk!" a declared.
"It if Zaspar Makann's party of the Assembly at the next election," somebody else said.
"Oh, then Marduk's safe! The sun'll go first," one of the junior Royal Navy officers said.
After that, they talking about women, a any will any other to discuss.
Trask a note of the name of Zaspar Makann, and took occasion to it up in with his guests. Every time he talked about Makann to two or more Mardukans, he at least three or more opinions about the man. He was a political demagogue; on that agreed. After that, opinions diverged.
Makann was a lunatic, and all the he had were a of like him. He might be a lunatic, but he had a large following. Well, not so large; maybe they'd up a seat or so in the Assembly, but that was doubtful—not of them in any to elect an Assemblyman. He was just a crook, a of half-witted for all he[Pg 108] out of them. Not just plebes, either; a of were him, in that he would help them up the labor unions. You're nuts; the labor were him, he'd the into concessions. You're nuts; he was by the interests; they were he'd the Gilgameshers off the planet.
Well, that was one thing you had to give him for. He wanted to out the Gilgameshers. Everybody was in of that.
Now, Trask something he'd from Harkaman. There had been Hitler, at the end of the First Century Pre-Atomic; hadn't he into power was in of out the Christians, or the Moslems, or the Albigensians, or somebody?
XX
Marduk had three moons; a big one, fifteen hundred miles in diameter, and two twenty-mile of rock. The big one was fortified, and a of ships were in around it. The Nemesis was as she from her last hyperjump; ships and came out to meet her, and more were away from the planet.
Prince Bentrik took the screen, and difficulties. The commandant, after the had been twice to him, couldn't understand. A Royal Navy unit out in a with Space Vikings was enough, but being and to Marduk by another Space Viking didn't make sense. He then screened the Royal Palace at Malverton, on the planet; he was to somebody him in the peerage, and then to somebody he as Prince Vandarvant. Finally, after some minutes' wait, a frail, white-haired man in a little black cap-of-maintenance appeared in the screen. Prince Bentrik to his feet. So did all the other Mardukans in the room.
"Your Majesty! I am most honored!"
"Are you all right, Simon?" the old asked solicitously. "They haven't done anything to you, have they?"
"Saved my life, and my men's, and me like a friend and a comrade, Your Majesty. Have I your permission to present, informally, their commander, Prince Trask of Tanith?"
"Indeed you may, Simon. I the my thanks."
"His Majesty, Mikhyl the Eighth, Planetary King of Marduk," Prince Bentrik said. "His Highness, Lucas, Prince Trask, Planetary Viceroy of Tanith for his Majesty Angus the First of Gram."[Pg 109]
The his slightly; Trask a little more deeply, from the waist.
"I am very happy, Prince Trask, first, I confess, at the safe return of my Prince Bentrik, and then at the of meeting one in the of my King Angus of Gram. I will be for what you did for my and for his officers and men. You must at the Palace while you are on this planet; I am orders for your reception, and I wish you to be presented to me this evening." He briefly. "Gram; that is one of the Sword-Worlds, is it not?" Another hesitation. "Are you a Space Viking, Prince Trask?"
Maybe he'd Space Vikings to have three and a and twelve tall, himself.
It took hours for the Nemesis to into orbit. Bentrik most of them in a screen-booth, and visibly relieved.
"Nobody's going to be about what on Audhumla," he told Trask. "There will be a Board of Inquiry. I'm I had to mix you up in that. It's not only about the action on Audhumla; from the Space Minister wants to what you know about this Dunnan. Like yourself, we all he to Em-See-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 more than of them already."
The of into took them around the times, and it was a more at each circuit. Of course, Marduk had a population of almost two billion, and had been civilized, with no of Neobarbarism, since it had been in the Fourth Century. Even so, the Space Vikings were amazed—and to it—at what they saw in the screens.
"Look at that city!" Paytrik Morland whispered. "We talk about the planets, but I they were anything like this. Why, this makes Excalibur look like Tanith!"
The city was Malverton, the capital; like any city of a contragravity-using people, it in a circle of out of green interspaces, by the smaller circles of and suburbs. The was that any of these were as large as Camelot on Excalibur or four Wardshavens on Gram, and Malverton itself was almost the size of the whole of Traskon.
"They aren't any more that we are, Paytrik. There are just more of them. If there were two billion people on Gram—which I there will be—Gram[Pg 110] would have like this, too."
One thing; the government of a like Marduk would have to be something more than the of the Sword-Worlds. Maybe this Goldberg-ocracy of theirs had been upon them by the of the population and its problems.
Alvyn Karffard took a quick look around him to make sure none of the Mardukans were in earshot.
"I don't how many people they have," he said. "Marduk can be had. A how many sheep there are in a flock. With twenty ships, we take this like we took Eglonsby. There'd be in, sure, but after we were in and down, we'd have it."
"Where would we twenty ships?"
Tanith, at a pinch, five or six, the free Space Vikings who used the facilities; they would have to a to the planet. Beowulf had one, and another almost completed, and now there was an Amaterasu ship. But to a Space Viking of twenty.... He his head. The why Space Vikings had a had always been their to under one in strength.
Besides, he didn't want to Marduk. A raid, if successful, would treasures, but a hundred, a thousand, times as much destruction, and he didn't want to anything civilized.
The landing of the were when he and Prince Bentrik landed, and, at a distance, of air-vehicles circled, a problem for the police. Parting from Bentrik, he was to the prepared for him; it was in the but above Sword-World standards. There were a number of servants, and and and doing work have been doing better. What there were were inefficient, and much work and had been on to copy to the of function.
After of most of the servants, he put on a screen and the newscasts. There were views of the Nemesis from some on nearby, and he the officers and men of the Victrix being disembarked; there were other views of their landing at some on the ground, and he see reporters being away by Navy ground-police. And there was a wide range of opinion.
The Government had already that, (1) Prince Bentrik had the Nemesis and her in as a prize, and, (2) the Space Vikings had Prince Bentrik and were him for [Pg 111]ransom. Beyond that, the Government was trying to on the whole story, and the Opposition was at and plots. Prince Bentrik in the of an against his Majesty who were Marduk to the Space Vikings.
"Why doesn't your Government the and put a stop to that nonsense?" Trask asked.
"Oh, let them rave," Bentrik replied. "The longer the Government waits, the more they'll be when the are published."
Or, the more people will be that the Government had something to up, and had to take time to a story. He the to himself. It was their government; how they it was their own business. He that there was no robot; he had to have a drinks. He up his mind to have a of the Nemesis sent to him.
The presentation would be in the evening; there would be a dinner first, and Trask had not yet been presented, he couldn't with the King, but he was, or to be, Viceroy of Tanith, he as a of and would with the Crown Prince, to there would be an first.
This took place in a small ante-chamber off the hall; the Crown Prince and Crown Princess and Princess Bentrik were there when they arrived. The Crown Prince was a man of middle age, at the temples, with the that lenses. The him and his father was apparent; had the same and expression, and might have been on the same faculty. He hands with Trask, assuring him of the 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 with him." He to Bentrik. "I'm this is your last space adventure, Simon. You'll have to be a from now on."
"I shan't be sorry," Princess Bentrik said. "And if 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 heroes."
"He should be one, for a while."
He should just see a Space Vikings had raided.
Most of the people at the upper end of the table were diplomats—ambassadors from Odin and Baldur and Isis and Ishtar and Aton and[Pg 112] the other worlds. No they hadn't actually and a tail, or and a nose ring, but after all, Space Vikings were just some of Neobarbarians, weren't they? On the other hand, they had all views and of the Nemesis, and had about the ship-action on Audhumla, and this Prince Trask—a Space Viking prince; that enough—had saved a life with only three other lives, one almost at an end, it and the throne. And they had about the screen with King Mikhyl. So they were through the meal, and to as close as possible to him in the to the room.
King Mikhyl a by the emblem, which must have twice as much as a helmet, and fur-edged that would more than a of space armor. They weren't nearly as ornate, though, as the of King Angus I of Gram. He rose to Prince Bentrik's hand, calling him "dear cousin," and him on his and escape. That any court-martial talk on the head, Trask thought. He to shake hands with Trask, calling him "valued friend to me and my house." First person singular; that must be some eyebrows.
Then the King sat down, and the of the up onto the to be received, and it was over and the king rose and proceeded, by his the and and out the wide doors. After a interval, Crown Prince Edvard him and Prince Bentrik the same route, the others in behind, and across the to the ballroom, where there was soft music and refreshments. It wasn't too a on Excalibur, that the drinks and were being by servants.
He was what of functions Angus the First of Gram was by now.
After an hour, a of approached and him that it had pleased his Majesty to Prince Trask to him in his private chambers. There was an at this; Prince Bentrik and the Crown Prince were trying not to too broadly. Evidently this didn't too often. He the from the ballroom, and the of else him.
Old King Mikhyl him alone, in a small, room ones of splendor. He fur-lined and a with a collar, and his little black cap-of-maintenance. He was [Pg 113]standing when Trask entered; when the closed the door and left them alone, he Trask to a of chairs, with a low table, on which were and and cigars, between.
"It's a on authority to you from the ballroom," he began, after they had seated themselves and glasses. "You are the cynosure, you know."
"I'm to Your Majesty. It's and here, and I can down. Your Majesty was the center of attention in the room, yet I to a look of as you left it."
"I try to it, as much as possible." The old King took off the little gold-circled cap and it on the of his chair. "Majesty can be wearying, you know."
So he come here and put it off. Trask that some should be on his own part. He the dress-dagger from his and it on the table. The King nodded.
"Now, we can be a of tradesmen, our shops closed for the evening, over our and tobacco," he said. "Eh, Goodman Lucas?"
It like an into a he must at step by step.
"Right, Goodman Mikhyl."
They their to each other and drank; Goodman Mikhyl offered cigars, and Goodman Lucas a light for him.
"I a hard about your trade, Goodman Lucas."
"All true, and mostly understated. We're professional and robbers, as one of my says. The of it is that and just that: a trade, like or selling groceries."
"Yet you two other Space Vikings to my cousin's Victrix. Why?"
So he must tell his tale, so and smooth, again. King Mikhyl's cigar out while he listened.
"And you have been him since? And now, you can't be sure you killed him or not?"
"I'm I didn't. The man in the screen is the only man Dunnan can trust. One or the other would he has his all the time."
"And when you do kill him; what then?"
"I'll go on trying to make a of Tanith. Sooner or later, I'll have one too many with King Angus, and then we will be our Majesty Lucas the First of Tanith, and we will on a and our subjects. And I'll be when I can my off and talk to a men who call me 'shipmate,' of 'Your Majesty.'"
"Well, it would professional for me to a [Pg 114][Pg 115]subject to his sovereign, of course, but that might be an excellent thing. You met the from Ithavoll at dinner, did you not? Three centuries ago, Ithavoll was a of Marduk—it we can't colonies, any more—and it from us. Ithavoll was then a like your Tanith to be. Today, it is a world, and one of Marduk's best friends. You know, sometimes I think a lights are on again, here and there in the Old Federation. If so, you Space Vikings are helping to light them."
"You the we use as bases, and the we teach the locals?"
"That, too, of course. Civilization needs technologies. But they have to be used for ends. Do you know anything about a Space Viking on Aton, over a century ago?"
"Six ships from Haulteclere; four destroyed, the other two returned and without booty."
The King of Marduk nodded.
"That saved on Aton. There were four great nations; the two were at the of war, and the others were waiting to on the and then each other for the spoils. The Space Vikings them to unite. Out of that temporary came the League for Common Defense, and from that the Planetary Republic. The Republic's a dictatorship, now, and just Goodman Mikhyl and Goodman Lucas it's a one and our Majesty's Government doesn't like it at all. It will be sooner or later, but they'll go to and again. The Space Vikings them out of that when the in it couldn't. Maybe this man Dunnan will do the same for us on Marduk."
"You have troubles?"
"You've planets. How it happen?"
"I know how it's on a good many: War. Destruction of and industries. Survivors among ruins, too their own alive to try to keep alive. Then they all knowledge of how to be civilized."
"That's decivilization. There is also by erosion, and while it's going on, nobody it. Everybody is proud of their civilization, their and culture. But is off; ships come in each year. So there is talk about self-sufficiency; who needs off-planet anyhow? Everybody to have money, but the government is always broke. Deficit spending—and always the social services for which the government has to money. The most one, of course, is votes to keep the government in power. And it for the government to anything done.[Pg 116]
"The soldiers are at drill, and their and aren't taken of. The are insolent. And more and more parts of the city are at night, and then in the daytime. And it's been years since a new up, and the old ones aren't being repaired any more."
Trask closed his eyes. Again, he the sun of Gram on his back, and the laughing voices on the terrace, and he was talking to Lothar Ffayle and Rovard Grauffis and Alex Gorram and Cousin Nikkolay and Otto Harkaman. He said:
"And finally, nobody anything up. And the power-reactors stop, and nobody to be able to them started again. It hasn't that on the Sword-Worlds yet."
"It hasn't here, either. Yet." Goodman Mikhyl away; King Mikhyl VIII looked across the low table at his guest. "Prince Trask, have you of a man named Zaspar Makann?"
"Occasionally. Nothing good about him."
"He is the most man on this planet," the King said. "And I can make nobody it. Not my son."
XXI
Prince Bentrik's ten-year-old son, Count Steven of Ravary, the of an of the Royal Navy; he was by his tutor, an Navy captain. They stopped in the of Trask's suite, and the boy smartly.
"Permission to come aboard, sir?" he asked.
"Welcome aboard, count; captain. Belay the and seats; you're just in time for second breakfast."
As they sat down, he his light-pencil at a robot. Unlike Mardukan robots, which looked like of Pre-Atomic knights, it was a a from the on its own contragravity; as it approached, its top opened like a and of food out. The boy looked at it in fascination.
"Is that a Sword-World robot, sir, or did you it somewhere?"
"It's one of our own." He was proud; it had been on Tanith a year before. "Has an underneath, and it some cooking on top, at the back."
The captain was, if anything, more than his charge. He what into it, and he had some of the that would like that.
"I take it you don't use many servants, with like that," he said.
"Not many. We're all low-popu[Pg 117]lation planets, and nobody wants to be a servant."
"We have too many people on Marduk, and all of them want soft jobs as nobles' servants," the captain said. "Those that want any of jobs."
"You need all your people for men, don't you?" the boy count asked.
"Well, we need a good many. The smallest of our ships will five hundred men; most of them around eight hundred."
The captain an eyebrow. The of the Victrix had been three hundred, and she'd been a big ship. Then he nodded.
"Of course. Most of them are ground-fighters."
That started Count Steven off. Questions, about and and and the Trask had seen.
"I wish I were a Space Viking!"
"Well, you can't be, Count Ravary. You're an officer of the Royal Navy. You're to Space Vikings."
"I won't 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 you, either, count. We'll make a of fireworks, and then we'll each go home and victory. How would that be?"
"I've of like that," the captain said. "We had a with Odin, seventy years ago, that was mostly that of battles."
"Besides, the King is Prince Trask's friend, too," the boy insisted. "Father and Mummy him say so, right on the Throne. Kings don't when they're on the Throne, do they?"
"Good Kings don't," Trask told him.
"Ours is a good King," the Count of Ravary proudly. "I would do anything my King commanded. Except Prince Trask. My house Prince Trask a debt."
Trask approvingly. "That's the way a Sword-World would talk, Count Steven," he said.
The Board of Inquiry, that afternoon, was more like a small and very party. An Admiral Shefter, who to be very high high-brass, while the of doing so. Alvyn Karffard and Vann Larch and Paytrik Morland were there from the Nemesis, and Bentrik and of the officers from the Victrix, and there were a of Naval Intelligence officers, and somebody from Operational Planning, and from Ship Construction and Research & Development. They and in a manner for a while. Then Shefter said:
"Well, there's no or of any for the way Commodore Prince Bentrik was sur[Pg 118]prised. That couldn't have been avoided, at the time." He looked at the Research & Development officer. "It shouldn't be allowed to 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 all the ships as they come in."
Ship Construction didn't think that would take too long.
"We'll see to it that you full on the new system, Prince Trask," the said.
"You you'll have to keep it under your helmets, though," one of the Intelligence men added. "If it got out that we were Space Vikings about our secrets...." He the of his in a way that Trask that was the of on Marduk.
"We'll have to out where the has his base," Operational Planning said. "I take it, Prince Trask, that you're not going to assume that he was on his when you it, and just put paid to him and him?"
"Oh, no. I'm that he wasn't. I don't he and Ormm on the same ship, after he came out here and a base. I think one of them would home all the time."
"Well, we'll give you we have on them," Shefter promised. "Most of that is and you'll have to keep about it, too. I just over the of what you gave us; I we'll a of new information. Have you any idea at all where he might be based, Prince Trask?"
"Only that we think it's a non-Terra-type planet." He told them about Dunnan's of air-and-water and and material. "That, of course, helps a great deal."
"Yes; there are only about five in the Federation space-volume that are in environment. Including a by seas, where you put in if you had the time and material."
One of the Intelligence officers had been nursing a with a of in it. He it suddenly, the again, and at it in for a while. Then he it and refilled it.
"What I should like to know," he said, "is how this of a Dunnan we'd have a ship on Audhumla just when we did," he said. "Your talking about dome-cities me of it. I don't think he just that out of a and then there prepared to on the of the for a year and a waiting for some[Pg 119]thing to turn up. I think he the Victrix was to Audhumla, and just about when."
"I don't like that, commodore," Shefter said.
"You think I do, sir?" the Intelligence officer countered. "There it is, though. We all have to it."
"We do," Shefter agreed. "Get on it, commodore, and I don't need to you to screen you put onto it very carefully." He looked at his own glass; it had a in the bottom. He it slowly and carefully. "It's been a long time since the Navy's had anything like this to worry about." He to Trask. "I I can in touch with you at the Palace I must?"
"Well, Prince Trask and I have been as house-guests at Prince Edvard's, I Baron Cragdale's, lodge," Bentrik said. "We'll be going there directly from here."
"Ah." Admiral Shefter slightly. Beside not having three and a tail, this Space Viking was definitely with the Royal Family. "Well, we'll keep in contact, Prince Trask."
Cragdale lodge
The where Crown Prince Edvard was Baron Cragdale at the of a sharply-sloping which a river tumbled. Mountains rose on either in high scarps, some with snow, from them. The were forested, as was the between, and there was a red-mauve on the great that rose from the of the valley. For the time in over a year, Elaine was with him, to him to see the of it through his eyes. He had that she had gone from him forever.
The itself was not what a Sword-Worlder would a to be. At sight, from the air, it looked like a sundial, a tower like a above a circle of low and gardens. The at the of it, and he and Prince and Princess Bentrik and the Count of Ravary and his descended. Immediately, they were by a of servants; the second boat, with the Bentrik and their luggage, was in to land. Elaine, he discovered, wasn't with him any more, and then he was from the Bentriks and was being up an in a lifter-car. More him in his rooms, his cases, his and to help him take it, and over him while he dressed.
There were over a score for dinner. Bentrik had him that he'd some odd types; maybe he meant that they wouldn't all be nobles. Among the commoners[Pg 120] there were some professors, mostly social sciences, a labor leader, a of Representatives and a of the Chamber of Delegates, and a of social workers, that meant.
His own table was a Lady Valerie Alvarath. She was beautiful—black hair, and almost eyes, a in the Sword-Worlds—and she was intelligent, or at least articulate. She was as the lady-companion of the Crown Prince's daughter. When he asked where the was, she laughed.
"She won't be helping visiting Space Vikings for a long time, Prince Trask. She is eight years old; I saw her for I came here. I'll look in on her after dinner."
Then the Crown Princess Melanie, on his other hand, asked him some question about Sword-World etiquette. He to generalities, and what he from a presentation at the of Excalibur his student days. These people had a since Gram had been colonized; he wasn't going to admit that Gram's had been since he off-planet. The table was small for to what he was saying and to questions to him. It all through the meal, and when they for coffee in the library.
"But what about your of government, your social structure, that of thing?" somebody, with the of the court, wanted to know.
"Well, we don't use the word government very much," he replied. "We talk a about authority and sovereignty, and I'm we too much over it, but government always to us like in that don't it. As long as a of good public order and makes the more of for the criminals, we're satisfied."
"But that's just negative. Doesn't the government do anything positive for the people?"
He to the Sword-World to them. It was hard, he found, to something you have taken for all your life to somebody who is 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 objected. "It all the social services to the of the lord or baron."
"And the people have no voice at all; why, that's tyranny," a Assemblyman added.
He to that the people had a very and voice, and that barons[Pg 121] and who wanted to alive to it. The Assemblyman his mind; that wasn't tyranny, it was anarchy. And the was still about who performed the social services.
"If you and and 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 at them while they're doing it."
"That isn't what Professor Pullwell means, Lucas. He means old-age pensions," Prince Bentrik said. "Like this thing Zaspar Makann's for."
He'd about that, on the from Audhumla. Every person on Marduk would be retired on an pension after thirty years regular or at the age of sixty. When he had wanted to know where the money would come from, he had been told that there would be a tax, and that the pensions must all be thirty days, which would business, and the would provide tax money to pay the pensions.
"We have a joke about three Gilgameshers space-wrecked on an planet," he said. "Ten years later, when they were rescued, all three were wealthy, from with each other. That's about the way this thing will work."
One of the lady social bristled; it wasn't right to make about groups. One of the harrumphed; wasn't a at all, the Self-Sustaining Rotary Pension Plan was perfectly feasible. With a shock, Trask that he was a of economics.
Alvyn Karffard wouldn't need any twenty ships to Marduk. Just it with about a hundred men and a year they'd own on it.
That started them all off on Zaspar Makann, though. Some of them he had a good ideas, but was his own case by extremism. One of the said that he was a to the class; it was their fault that people like Makann a following. One old said that maybe the Gilgameshers were to blame, themselves, for some of the toward them. He was set upon by all the others and to pieces on the spot.
Trask didn't it proper to Goodman Mikhyl to this crowd. He took the upon himself for saying:
"From what I've of him, I think he's the most threat to 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 told him that Makann was a with a of half-wits, and just[Pg 122] wait till the election and see what happened.
"I'm to agree with Prince Trask," Bentrik said soberly. "And I'm the election results will be a to us, not to Makann."
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 Mikhyl, too. There was a screen in the room. He toward it.
"He's speaking at a of the People's Welfare Party at Drepplin, now," he said. "May I put it on, to you what I mean?"
When the Crown Prince assented, he on the screen and at the selector.
A looked out of it. The weren't Andray Dunnan's—the mouth was wider, the broader, the more rounded. But his were Dunnan's, as Trask had them on the of Karvall House. Mad eyes. His high-pitched voice screamed:
"Our is a prisoner! He is by traitors! The Ministries are full of them! They are all traitors! The of the so-called Crown Loyalist Party! The of the bankers! The dirty Gilgameshers! They are all together in an conspiracy! And now this Space Viking, this bloody-handed from the Sword-Worlds...."
"Shut the man off," somebody was yelling, in with the of the speaker.
The trouble was, they couldn't. They turn off the screen, but Zaspar Makann would go on screaming, and millions all over the would still him. Bentrik the selector. The voice briefly, and then came out of the speaker, but this time the was hundred above a great open park. It was packed with people, most of them a farm on Gram wouldn't be in, but here and there among them were of men in what was almost but not uniform, each with a and thick swagger-stick with a head. Across the park, in the distance, the and of Zaspar Makann a hundred high in a screen. Whenever he stopped for breath, a would go up, with the of men:
"Makann! Makann! Makann the Leader! Makann to Power!"
"You let him have a private army?" he asked the Crown Prince.
"Oh, those and their musical-comedy uniforms," the Crown Prince shrugged. "They aren't armed."
"Not visibly," he granted. "Not yet."[Pg 123]
"I don't know where they'd arms."
"No, Your Highness," Prince Bentrik said. "Neither do I. That's what I'm about."
