XXV
"Do you think I was of Viktor of Xochitl?" he demanded. "Half a dozen ships; we make a new Van Allen around Tanith of them, with what we have here. Our enemy is on Marduk, not Xochitl; his name's Zaspar Makann. Zaspar Makann, and Andray Dunnan, the man I came out from Gram to hunt; they're in alliance, and I Dunnan is on Marduk, himself, now."
The who had come out from Gram in the of the Duke of Bigglersport were unimpressed. Marduk was only a name to them, one of the Old Federation no Sword-World[Pg 146]er had seen. Zaspar Makann wasn't that. And so much had on Gram since the of Elaine Karvall and the of the Enterprise that they had Andray Dunnan. That put them at a disadvantage. All the people they were trying to convince, the half-hundred members of the new of Tanith, spoke a language they didn't understand. They didn't the proposition, and couldn't argue against it.
Paytrik Morland, who was Gram-born and had been speaking for a return in to against Omfray of Glaspyth and his supporters, from them at once. He had been on Marduk and who Zaspar Makann was; he had friends with the Royal Navy officers, and had been to that they were now enemies. Manfred Ravallo and Boake Valkanhayn, among the more of the Raid-Xochitl-Now party, up the idea and that they'd of it themselves all along. Valkanhayn had been on Gimli and talked to Mardukan officers; Ravallo had Princess Bentrik to Tanith and her on the voyage. They in support of Trask's thesis. Of Dunnan and Makann were in collusion. Who Dunnan off that the Victrix would be on Audhumla? Makann; his in the Navy him. What about the Honest Horris; wasn't Makann any about her? Why was Admiral Shefter retired as soon as Makann got into power?
"Well, here; we don't know anything about this Zaspar Makann," the and of the Duke of Bigglersport began.
"No, you don't," Otto Harkaman told him. "I you keep and listen, till you out a little about him."
"Why, I wouldn't be if Dunnan was on Marduk all the time we were for him," Valkanhayn said.
Trask to wonder. What would Hitler have done if he'd told one of his big lies, and then it into the truth? Maybe Makann had been on Marduk.... No; he couldn't have a dozen ships on a planet. Not at the of an ocean.
"I wouldn't be surprised," Alvyn Karffard was shouting, "if Andray Dunnan was Zaspar Makann. I know he doesn't look like Dunnan, we all saw him on screen, but there's such a thing as plastic surgery."
That was making the big just a too big. Zaspar Makann was six than Dunnan; there are some no plastic do. Paytrik Morland, who had Dunnan and had Makann on screen, ought to have that too, but he either didn't think of it or didn't want to a case he had accepted.
"As as I can out, nobody of Makann till about five[Pg 147] years ago. That would be about the time Dunnan would have on Marduk," he said.
By this time, the big room in which they were meeting had a of voices, trying to else that they'd it all along. Then the Back-To-Gram party its coup-de-grace; Lothar Ffayle, to the of Duke Joris had looked for their support, over.
"You people want us to a we've up from nothing, and all the time and money we've in it, to go to Gram and your out of the fire? Gehenna with you! We're here and our own planet. If you're smart, you'll here with us."
The Bigglersport was still on Tanith, trying to from the King of Tradetown and with a Gilgamesher to transport them to Gram, when the big into something like the truth.
The post on the Moon of Tanith up an at twenty light-minutes north of the planet. Half an hour later, there was another one at five light-minutes; a very small one, and then a third at two light-seconds, and this was by and as a ship's pinnace. He if something had on Amaterasu or Beowulf; somebody like Gratham or the Everrards might have to take of the on Tanith. Then they the call from the over to his screen, and Prince Simon Bentrik was looking out of it.
"I'm to see you! Your wife and son are here, about you, but safe and well." He to to somebody to Count Steven of Ravary and tell him to tell his mother. "How are you?"
"I had a leg when I left Moonbase, but that's on the way," Bentrik said. "I have little Princess Myrna with me. For all I know, she's Queen of Marduk, now." He slightly. "Prince Trask, we've come as beggars. We're help for our planet."
"You've come as guests, and you'll all the help we can give you." He the Xochitl scare, and the big which was to be a lie; Tanith had the ships and men and the will to act. "What happened? Makann the King and took over?"
It came to that, Bentrik told him. It had started the election. The People's Watchmen had that had been openly and legally on Marduk for to the Neobarbarian and then to People's Welfare arsenals. Some of the police had gone over to Makann; the had been into inaction. There had been in working-class of all the as for terrorization. The election had been[Pg 148] a of and intimidation. Even so, Makann's party had failed of a complete majority in the Chamber of Representatives, and had been to up a in order to elect a Chamber of Delegates.
"And, of course, they elected Makann Chancellor; that did it," Bentrik said. "All the opposition in the Chamber of Representatives have been arrested, on all of charges—sex-crimes, bribes, being in the pay of powers, nothing too absurd. Then they through a law the Chancellor to in the Chamber of Representatives by appointment."
"Why did the Crown Prince himself to a thing like that?"
"He that he some control. The Royal Family is an almost symbol to the people. Even Makann was to to the King and the Crown Prince...."
"It didn't work; he played right into Makann's hands. What happened?"
The Crown Prince had been assassinated. The assassin, an unknown man to be a Gilgamesher, had been to death by People's Watchmen Prince Edvard at once. Immediately Makann had the Royal Palace to protect the King, and there had been by People's Watchmen everywhere. The Mardukan Planetary Army had to exist; Makann's was that there had been a plot against the King and the government. Scattered over the in small detachments, the army had been out in two nights and a day. Now Makann was it up again, from the People's Welfare Party.
"You weren't just on your hands, were you?"
"Oh, no," Bentrik replied. "I was doing something I wouldn't have myself of, a years ago. Organizing a in the Royal Mardukan Navy. After Admiral Shefter was retired and up in an asylum, I and into a contragravity-lifter at the Malverton Navy Yard. Finally, when I was suspected, one of the officers—he was and to death later—managed to me onto a for the Moonbase. I was an in the hospital there. The day the Crown Prince was murdered, we had a of our own. We killed we of being a Makannist. The Moonbase has been under attack from the since."
There was a him; turning, he saw Princess Bentrik and the boy enter the room. He rose.
"We'll talk about this later. There are some people here...."
He them and away, shoo-ing else out of the room.
The news was all over Rivington, and then all over Tanith, while the[Pg 149] was still down. There was a at the spaceport, as the little craft, with its of the and planet-throned dragon, settled onto its landing legs, and reporters of the Tanith News Service with their screen pickups. He met Prince Bentrik, a little in of the others, and managed to to him hastily:
"While you're talking to here, always that Andray Dunnan is with Zaspar Makann, and as soon as Makann his position he's sending an against Tanith."
"How in did you that out, here?" Bentrik demanded. "From the Gilgameshers?"
Then Harkaman and Rathmore and Valkanhayn and Lothar Ffayle and the others were up behind, and more people were off the pinnace, and Prince Bentrik was trying to his wife and his son at the same time.
"Prince Trask." He started at the voice, and was looking into under coal-black hair. His gave a jump, and he said, "Valerie!" and then, "Lady Alvarath; I'm most happy to see you here." Then he saw who was her, and on his to himself to a size. "And Princess Myrna. Welcome to Tanith, Your Highness!"
The child her arms around his neck. "Oh, Prince Lucas! I'm so to see you. There's been such happened!"
"There won't be anything here, Princess Myrna. You are among friends; friends with you have a treaty. Remember?"
The child to cry, bitterly. "That was when I was just a play-Queen. And now I know what they meant when they talked about when Grandpa and Pappa would be through being King. Pappa didn't to be King!"
Something big and warm and soft was trying to push them; a dog with long and ears. In a year and a half, can surprisingly. Mopsy was trying to his face. He took the dog by the and straightened.
"Lady Valerie, will you come with us?" he asked. "I'm going to for Princess Myrna."
"Is it Princess Myrna, or is it Queen Myrna?" he asked.
Prince Bentrik his head. "We don't know. The King was alive when we left Moonbase, but that was five hundred hours ago. We don't know anything about her mother, either. She was at the Palace when Prince Edvard was murdered; we've nothing about her. The King a screen appearances, Makann wanted him to say. Under hypnosis. That was the very least of what they did to him. They've him into a zombi."
"Well, how did Myrna to Moonbase?"
"That was Lady Valerie, as much as else. She and Sir Thomas[Pg 150] Kobbly, and Captain Rainer. They the at Cragdale with and else they up, Prince Edvard's space-yacht, and took off in her. Took a of from ground off, and from ships around Moonbase in. Ships of the Royal Mardukan Navy!" he added furiously.
The in which they had the to Tanith had taken a hits, too, the blockade. Not many; her captain had her into almost at once.
"They sent the off to Gimli," Bentrik said. "From there, they'll try to as many of the Royal Navy as haven't gone over to Makann. They're to on Gimli and my return. If I don't return in fifteen hundred hours from the time I left Moonbase, they're to use their own judgment. I'd that they'd move in on Marduk and attack."
"That's sixty-odd days," Otto Harkaman said. "That's an long time to that to out, against a whole planet."
"It's a base. It was four hundred years ago, when Marduk was a of six other planets. It out against attack, once, for almost a year. It's been since."
"And what have they to at it?" Harkaman persisted.
"When I left, six ships of the Royal Navy, that had gone over to Makann. Four fifteen-hundred-footers, same class as the Victrix, and two thousand-footers. Then, there were four of Andray Dunnan's ships—"
"You mean, he is on Marduk?"
"I you that, and I was how you'd out. Yes: Fortuna, Bolide, and two merchantmen, a Baldurbuilt ship called the Reliable, and your friend Honest Horris."
"You didn't Dunnan was on Marduk?" Boake Valkanhayn asked.
"Actually, I didn't. I had to have some of a story, to talk those people out of that against Omfray of Glaspyth." He left Valkanhayn's own on a against Xochitl. "Now that it out to be true, I'm not surprised. We decided, long ago, that Dunnan was to Marduk. It that we him. Maybe he was reading about Hitler, too. He wasn't any raid; he was conquest, in the only way a great can be conquered—by subversion."
"Yes," Harkaman put in. "Five years ago, when Dunnan started this programme, who was this Makann, anyhow?"
"Nobody," Bentrik said. "A in Drepplin; he had a of fellow-crackpots, who met in the room of a and had their office in a cigar box. The next year, he had a of offices and was time on a of tele[Pg 151]casts. The year after that, he had three of his own, and was and of thousands of people. And so on, upward."
"Yes. Dunnan him, and moved in him, the same way Makann moved in the King. And Dunnan will have him the way he had Prince Edvard shot, and use the as a to his personal followers."
"And then he'll own Marduk. And we'll have the Mardukan out of on Tanith," Valkanhayn added. "So we go to Marduk and him now, while he's still little to smash."
There had been a who had wanted to do that about Hitler, and a great many, later, who had that it hadn't been done.
"The Nemesis, the Corisande, and the Space Scourge for sure?" he asked.
Harkaman and Valkanhayn agreed; Valkanhayn the Viking's Gift of Beowulf would go along, and Harkaman was almost sure of the Black Star and Queen Flavia. He to Bentrik.
"Start that off for Gimli at once; the hour if possible. We don't know how many ships will be there, but we don't want them in detail-attacks. Tell whoever's in there that ships from Tanith are on the way, and to wait for them."
Fifteen hundred hours, less the five hundred Bentrik was in space from Marduk. He hadn't time to voyage-time to Gimli from the other Mardukan trade-planets, and nobody how many ships would respond.
"It may take us a little time to an together. Even after we through about it. Argument," he told Bentrik, "is not a of democracies."
Actually, there was very little argument, and most of that among the Mardukans. Prince Bentrik that Crown Princess Myrna would have to be taken along; King Mikhyl would be either or into by now, and they would have to have somebody to take the throne. Lady Valerie Alvarath, Sir Thomas Kobbly, the tutor, and the nurse Margot to be from her. Prince Bentrik was firm, with less success, on his wife and son on Tanith. In the end, it was that the entire Mardukan party would space out on the Nemesis.
The leader of the Bigglersport an about going to the of while their own was being enslaved. He was by else and that Tanith was being where a ought to be, on somebody else's estate. When the Bigglersporters from the meeting, they that their own space-yacht had been and sent off to Amaterasu and Beowulf for assistance, that the of local they had from[Pg 152] the King of Tradetown had been taken over by the Rivington authorities, and that the Gilgamesh they had to transport them to Gram would now take them to Marduk.
The problem into two halves: the purely action that would be to the Moon of Marduk, if it still out, and to the Dunnan and Makann ships, and the ground-fighting problem of out Makann's supporters and the Mardukan monarchy. A great many of the people of Marduk would be of a to turn on Makann, once they had arms and were properly supported. Combat were almost unknown among the people, however, and arms uncommon. All the small arms and light and auto-weapons available were up.
The Grendelsbane came in from Beowulf, and the Sun Goddess from Amaterasu. Three Space Viking ships were still in on Tanith; they joined the expedition. There would be trouble with them on Marduk; they'd want to loot. Let the Mardukans worry about that. They it off as part of the price for Zaspar Makann into power in the place.
There were twelve in line the Moon of Tanith, the three and the Gilgamesher troop-transport; that was the biggest Space Vikings had assembled in their history. Alvyn Karffard said as much while they were the by screen.
"It isn't a Space Viking fleet," Prince Bentrik differed. "There are only three Space Vikings in it. The are the ships of three planets. Tanith, Beowulf and Amaterasu."
Karffard was surprised. "You we're planets? Like Marduk, or Baldur or Odin, or...?"
"Well, aren't you?"
Trask smiled. He'd to something of the a of years ago. He hadn't been sure until now. His most junior staff officer, Count Steven of Ravary, didn't to the compliment.
"We are Space Vikings!" he insisted. "And we are going to with the Neobarbarians of Zaspar Makann."
"Well, I won't argue the last of it, Steven," his father told him.
"Are you people done about who's and who isn't?" Guatt Kirbey asked. "Then give the signal. All the other ships are to jump."
Trask pressed the on the in of him. A light on over Kirbey's as one would on each of the other ships. He said, "Jumping," around the of his pipe, and the red and it in.
Four hundred and fifty hours, in the private that was the Nemesis; outside, nothing else existed, [Pg 154][Pg 153]and there was nothing to do but wait, as each hour them six miles nearer to Gimli. At first, the and terrible Space Viking, Steven, Count of Ravary, was excited, but long he that there was nothing going on; it was just a spaceship, and he'd been on ships before. Her Highness the Crown Princess, or maybe her Majesty the Queen of Marduk, stopped being about the same time, and she and Steven and Mopsy played together. Of course, Myrna was only a girl, and two years than Steven, but she was, or at least might be, his sovereign, and beside, she had been in a space action, if you call what a and its space and if you call being at without being able to shoot an action, and Relentless Ravary, the Interstellar Terror, had not. This up for being a girl and a of going-on-ten.
One thing, there were no lessons. Sir Thomas Kobbly himself as a landscape-painter and most of his time with Vann Larch, and Steven's tutor, Captain Rainer was a normal-space and a in Sharll Renner. This left Lady Valerie Alvarath at a end. There were of to help her in the time, but Rank Hath Its Privileges; Trask to see to it that she did not from ennui.
Sharll Renner and Captain Rainer approached him, the hour dinner, some hundred hours of emergence.
"We think we've out where Dunnan's is," Renner said.
"Oh, good!" Everybody else had, on a different planet. "Where's yours?"
"Abaddon," the Count of Ravary's said. When he saw that the name meant nothing to Trask, he added, "The ninth, outer, of the Marduk system." He said it disgustedly.
"Yes; how you had Boake and Manfred out with their ships, our to see if Prince Viktor might be on one of them? Well, what with the time element, and the way the Honest Horris was and from Marduk to some place that wasn't Gimli, and the way Dunnan was able to his ships in as soon as the started on Marduk, we he must be on an of the Marduk system."
"I don't know why we of that, ourselves," Rainer put in. "I nobody thinks of Abaddon for any reason. It's only a small planet, about four thousand miles in diameter, and it's three and a billion miles from primary. It's solid. It would take almost a year to to it on Abbot drive, and if your ship has Dillinghams, why not take a little longer and go to a good planet? So nobody with Abaddon."
But for Dunnan's purpose, it would be perfect. He called Prince Bentrik and Alvyn Karffard to him;[Pg 155] they the idea convincing. They talked about it through dinner, and a afterward. Even Guatt Kirbey, the ship's pessimist, no to it. Trask and Bentrik at once making plans. Karffard if they hadn't wait till they got to Gimli and discuss it with the others.
"No," Trask told him. "This is the flagship; here's where the strategy is decided."
"Well, how about the Mardukan Navy?" Captain Rainer asked. "I think Fleet Admiral Bargham's in at Gimli."
Prince Simon Bentrik was for a moment, as though he realized, with reluctance, that the big was no longer avoidable.
"He may be, at present, but he won't be when I there. I will be."
"But ... Your Highness, he's a admiral; you're just a commodore."
"I am not just a commodore. The King is a prisoner, and for all we know dead. The Crown Prince is dead. The Princess Myrna is a child. I am the position of Regent and Prince-Protector of the Realm."
XXVI
There was a little on Gimli with Fleet Admiral Bargham. Commodores didn't give orders to admirals. Well, maybe did, but who gave Prince Bentrik authority to call himself regent? Regents were elected by the Chamber of Delegates, on nomination of the Chancellor.
"That's Zaspar Makann and his you're talking about?" Bentrik laughed.
"Well, the Constitution...." He of that, somebody asked him what Constitution. "Well, a Regent has to be by election. Even members of the Royal Family can't just make themselves Regent by saying they are."
"I can. I just have. And I don't think there are going to be many more elections, at least for the present. Not till we make sure the people of Marduk can be with the of the government."
"Well, the from Moonbase reported that there were six Royal and four other them," Bargham objected. "I only have four ships here; I sent for the ones on the other trade-planets, but I haven't from any of them. We can't go there with only four ships."
"Sixteen ships," Bentrik corrected. "No, fifteen and one Gilgamesher we're using for a troopship. I think that's enough. You'll here on Gimli, in any case, admiral; as soon as the other ships come in, you'll to Marduk with them. I am now a meeting the Tanith Nemesis. I want your four ship-commanders immediately. I am not you you're here to up the late and as soon as this meeting is over we are out."[Pg 156]
Actually, they out sooner; the meeting the whole three hundred and fifty hours to Abaddon. A ship's captain, if he has a good exec, as all of them had, needs only at his command-desk and look while the ship is going into and from a long jump; the of the time he can study history or his hobby is. Rather than waste three hundred and fifty hours of time, each captain his ship over to his and the Nemesis; on so a the officers' country north of the engine rooms was like a hotel in mid-season. One of the four Mardukans was the Captain Garravay who had Bentrik's wife and son off Marduk, and the other three were just as pro-Bentrik, pro-Tanith, and anti-Makann. They were, on principles, also anti-Bargham. There must be something with any who in his after Zaspar Makann came to power.
So, as soon as they out, there was a party. After that, they settled to the Battle of Abaddon.
There was no Battle of Abaddon.
It was a planet, one in night and the other in from the little of a sun three and a billion miles away, out of the that it from to pole. The on top would be CO2; according to the thermocouples, the surface temperature was well minus-100 Centigrade. No ships on it; there was a little radiation, which have been from naturally minerals; there was no detectable.
There was language in the room of the Nemesis. The captains of the other ships were in, wanting to know what to do.
"Go on in," Trask told them. "Englobe the planet, and go to a mile if necessary. They be on it."
"Well, they're not at the of any ocean, that's for sure," somebody said. It was one of those at which laughs nothing else is about the situation.
Finally, they it, at the north pole, which was no than else on the planet. First leakage, the that would come from a closed-down power plant. Then a of discharge. Finally the screens up the spaceport, a out of a two ranges.
The language in the room was just as bad, but the had changed. It was what a wide range of be by a and obscenities. Everybody who had been Sharll Renner were now him.[Pg 157]
But it was lifeless. The ships came in; air-locked landing-craft full of space-armored ground-fighters down. Screens in the room as they in views. Depressions in the carbon-dioxide where the hundred-foot pad-feet of ships' landing-legs had pressed down. Ranks of cargo-lighters that had to and from other ships or orbit. And, all around the cliff-walled perimeter, air-locked doors to and tunnels. A great many men, with a great of equipment, had been here in the five or six years since Andray Dunnan—or somebody—had this base.
Andray Dunnan. They his badge, the crescent, on black, on things. They that Harkaman as having been part of the original with the Enterprise. They found, in his quarters, a blown-up picture of Nevil Ormm, in black. But what they did not was a single vehicle small to be taken a ship, or a single of equipment, not a pistol or a hand grenade.
Dunnan had gone, but they whither, and where to him. The of Marduk had moved into its final phase.
Marduk was on the other of the sun from Abaddon with ninety-five miles—close, but not so, Trask thought—to spare. Guatt Kirbey and the Mardukan who was helping him it a light-minute. The Mardukan that was fine; Kirbey didn't. The last was at the Moon of Marduk, which was visible in the screen. They came out a light-second and a half, which Kirbey was close. As soon as the screens cleared, they saw that they weren't too late. The Moon of Marduk was under fire and back.
They'd have detection, and he what they were detecting—a of sixteen of the of space-time, as sixteen ships came into in the normal continuum. Beside him, Bentrik had a screen on; it was still milky-white, and he was speaking into a radio hand-phone.
"Simon Bentrik, Prince-Protector of Marduk, calling Moonbase." Then, slowly, he his screen-combination twice. "Come in, Moonbase; this is Simon Bentrik, Prince-Protector, speaking."
He waited ten seconds, and was about to start again, when the screen flickered. The man who appeared in it the of a Mardukan commodore. He needed a shave, but he was happily. Bentrik him by name.
"Hello, Simon; to see you. Your Highness, I mean; what is this Prince-Protector thing?"
"Somebody had to do it. Is the King still alive?"
The off the commodore's face, starting with his eyes.[Pg 158]
"We don't know. At first, Makann had him speaking by screen—you know what it was like—urging to and co-operate with 'our Chancellor.' Makann always appeared on the screen with him."
Bentrik nodded. "I remember."
"Before you left, Makann quiet, and let the King make the speech. After a while, the King wasn't able to speak coherently; he'd stammer, and repeat. So then Makann did all the talking; they couldn't on him to what they were him with an phone. Then he stopped appearing entirely. I there were physical they couldn't allow to be seen." Bentrik was under his breath; the officer at Moonbase nodded. "I for his that he is dead."
Poor Goodman Mikhyl. Bentrik was saying, "So do I." Trask agreed, mentally. The at Moonbase was still talking:
"We got two more RMN ships, a hundred hours after you left." He named them. "And we got one of the Dunnan ships, the Fortuna. We out the Malverton Navy Yard. They're still using the Antarctic Naval Base, but we've out a good of that. We got the Honest Horris. They two to land on us and a of ships. Eight hundred hours ago, they were joined by the of Dunnan's fleet, five ships. They a landing on Malverton while it was away from us. Makann that they were RMN from the trade-planets that had joined him. I the planet-side public that. He also that their commander, Admiral Dunnan, was in of the People's Armed Forces."
Dunnan's ground-fighters would be in of Malverton. By now, the were that Makann was as much his as King Mikhyl VIII had been Makann's.
"So Dunnan has Marduk. All he has to do, now, is make it stick," he said. "I see four ships off Moonbase; how many more have they?"
"These are Bolide and Eclipse, Dunnan's ships, and Royal Mardukan Navy ships Champion and Guardian. There are five off the planet: Ex-RMNS Paladin, and Dunnan ships Starhopper, Banshee, Reliable and Exporter. The last two are as merchantmen, but they're like battlecraft."
The four that had been Moonbase and started toward the fleet; one took a from a Moonbase missile, which her but did no damage. Two ships which had been the also and started out. The room was for a from a computer which was enemy by data and Games Theory. Three more came out from the planet, and the two in[Pg 159] the lead to let them catch up. He wanted to be able to the four from off the the five from the joined them, but Karffard's said it couldn't be done.
"All right, we have to take all our eggs in one basket," he said. "Try to them as soon after they join as possible."
The again. The serving-robots were doing a in coffee. Prince Bentrik's son, his father, had stopped being Ruthless Ravary the Demon of the Spaceways and was a very officer going into his space battle, more and at the same time than he had been in his life. Captain Garravay of the Vindex was making to the other ships from Gimli: "Royal Navy; the first!" He and sympathize, if he couldn't approve of personal ahead of considerations, and a quick sealed-beam call to Harkaman to be prepared to any they left in if they away in search of vengeance. He also ordered the Black Star and the Sun Goddess to the and troop-crammed Gilgamesh out of danger. The two of Dunnan-Makann ships were rapidly, and Alvyn Karffard was into a phone to somebody to more speed.
At a thousand miles, the started going out, and the two groups of ships, four and five, were from each other and from the fleet, at the points of a triangle that was smaller by the second. The fire-globes of spread from their of white light. A red light on the damage-board. An enemy ship took a hit. The captain of the Queen Flavia was on a screen, saying that his ship was damaged. Three ships the Mardukan dragon-and-planet around each other at what looked, in the screen, like just over pistol-range, two of them into the third, which was desperately. The third one up, and somebody was out of a screenspeaker, "Scratch one traitor!"
Another ship up somewhere, and then another. He somebody say, "There one of ours," and which one it was. Not the Corisande, he hoped; no, it wasn't, he see her after two other ships which were, in turn, toward the Black Star, the Sun Goddess and the Gilgamesh freighter. Then the Nemesis and the Starhopper were gun-range, each other savagely.
The had itself into a of gyrating, fire-spitting ships that toward the planet, which was in and out of the main and larger. By the time they were to the of the exosphere, the had started to unwind, ship after ship out of it[Pg 160] and going into orbit, some and some going to attack enemies. Some of them were around the planet, by it. He saw three ships Corisande, Sun Goddess, and the Gilgamesher. He got Harkaman on the screen.
"Where's the Black Star?" he asked.
"Gone to Em-See-Square," Harkaman replied. "We got the two Dunnan-Makanns. Bolide and Reliable."
Then Steven of Ravary, who had been one of the screens, had a call from Captain Gompertz of the Grendelsbane, and at the same moment somebody else was yelling, "Here comes the Starhopper again!"
"Tell him to wait a moment; we have troubles," he said.
Nemesis and Starhopper sledge-hammered each other and with counter-missiles, and then, unexpectedly, the Starhopper to Em-See-Square.
There was an of Em being to Ee off Marduk, today. Including Manfred Ravallo; that him. Manfred was a good man, and a good friend. He had a girl in Rivington.... Nifflheim, there were eight hundred good men the Black Star, and most of them had girls who'd wait in for them on Tanith. Well, what had Otto Harkaman said, so long ago, on Gram? Something about old age not being a of death among Space Vikings, wasn't it?
Then he that Gompertz of the Grendelsbane was trying to him. He told Count Steven to him over.
"We just one of our Mardukans," Gompertz told him, in his Beowulf accent. "I think she was the Challenger. The ship that got her looks like the Banshee; I'm to her."
"Which way; west around the planet? Be right with you, captain."