XXVII
It was like a word puzzle. You at it, looking for more to print into, and you that there are no more, that the puzzle is done. That was how the space-battle of Marduk, the Battle off Marduk, ended. Suddenly there were no more fire-globes opening and fading, no more coming, no more enemy ships to at. Now it was time to take a count of his own ships, and then about the Battle on Marduk.
The Black Star was gone. So was RMNS Challenger, and RMNS Conquistador. Space Scourge was hammered; than after the Beowulf raid, Boake Valkanhayn said. The Viking's Gift was damaged, too, and so was the Corisande, and so, from the looks of the board, was the Nemesis. And three ships were missing—the three Space Vikings, Harpy, Curse of Cagn, and Roger-fan-Morvill Esthersan's Damnthing.
Prince Bentrik over that.[Pg 161] "I can't think that all three of those ships would have been destroyed, without it happen."
"Neither can I. But I can think that all those ships out of the together and in for the planet. They didn't come here to help Marduk, they came here to their holds. I only the people they're all voted the Makann ticket in the last election." A of to him, and he passed it on. "The only people who are to them will be Makann's storm-troops and Dunnan's pirates; they'll be the ones to killed."
"We don't want any more killing than...." Prince Simon off suddenly. "I'm to talk like his late Highness Crown Prince Edvard," he said. "He didn't want bloodshed, either, and look blood was shed. If they're doing what you think they are, I'm we'll have to kill a of your Space Vikings, too."
"They aren't my Space Vikings." He was a little to that, after almost eight years of the name himself, he was using it as an other-people label. Well, why not? He was the ruler of the of Tanith, wasn't he? "But let's not start them till the main war's over. Those three are no than a cold; Makann and Dunnan are the plague."
It would still take four hours to down, in a of deceleration. They started the which had been and on the from Gimli. The Prince-Protector Simon Bentrik spoke: The illegal of the Makann was ended. His were to return to their to the Crown. The People's Watchmen were ordered to their arms and disband; in where they refused, the people were called upon to co-operate with the of the Crown in them, and would be arms as soon as possible.
Little Princess Myrna spoke: "If my is still alive, he is your King; if he is not, I am your Queen, and until I am old to in my own right, I accept Prince Simon as Regent and Protector of the Realm, and I call on all of you to him as I will."
"You didn't say anything about government, or democracy, or the constitution," Trask mentioned. "And I noticed the use of the word 'rule,' of 'reign.'"
"That's right," the self-proclaimed Prince-Protector said. "There's something with democracy. If there weren't, it couldn't be by people like Makann, it from by procedures. I don't think it's unworkable. I think it just has a of what call bugs. It's not safe to a machine till you learn the and them."
"Well, I you don't think our Sword-World doesn't have bugs." He gave examples, and then Otto Harkaman about bar[Pg 162]barism from the top of from the bottom.
"It may just be," he added, "that there is something about government itself. As long as Homo is a wild animal, which he has always been and always will be until he into something different in a or so years, maybe a of government is a political science impossibility, just as of was a physical-science as long as they to do it by chemical means."
"Then we'll just have to make it work the best way we can, and when it down, the next try[Pg 163] will work a little better, for a little longer," Bentrik said.
Malverton in the screens as they came down. The Navy Spaceport, where Trask had almost two years before, was in wreckage, with ships that had been on the ground, and by fires. There was in the air all over the city proper, on building-tops, on the ground, and in the air. That would be the Damnthing-Harpy-Curse of Cagn Space Vikings. The Royal Palace was the center of one of a dozen of that had out of the skirmishing.
Paytrik Morland started for it with the of ground-fighters from the Nemesis. The Gilgamesh freighter, like most of her ilk, had all around; these opening and a of from landing-craft and hundred-foot to one man air-cavalry single-mounts. The top landing-stages and of the were almost by the of auto-cannon and the and of projectiles. Then the vehicles landed, the from the air stopped, and men out as skirmishers, occasionally with small arms.
Trask and Bentrik were in the off the vehicle-bay, on equipment, when the twelve-year-old Count of Ravary joined them and for and a helmet.
"You're not going," his father told him. "I'll have to worry about taking of myself...."
That was the approach. Trask interrupted:
"You're to aboard, Count," he said. "As soon as stabilize, Princess Myrna will have to come down. You'll act as her personal escort. And don't think you're being into the background. She's Crown Princess, and if she isn't Queen now, she will be in a years. Escorting her now will be the of your career. There isn't a officer in the Royal Navy who wouldn't places with you."
"That was the right way to him, Lucas," Bentrik approved, after the boy had gone away, proud of his opportunity and his responsibility.
"It'll do just what I said for him." He stopped for a moment, to play with an idea that had just him. "You know, the girl will be Queen in a years, if she isn't now. Queens need Prince Consorts. Your son's a good boy; I liked him the moment I saw him, and I've liked him since. He'd be a good man on the Queen Myrna."
"Oh, that's out of the question. Not the of consanguinity, they're about a sixteenth cousin. But people would say I was the Protectorship to my son onto the Throne."
"Simon, speaking as one to another, you have a to learn. You've learned one impor[Pg 164]tant lesson already, that a ruler must be to use and blood to his rule. You have to learn, too, that a ruler cannot to be by his of what people will say about him. Not what history will say about him. A ruler's only judge is himself."
Bentrik the of his up and experimentally, the of his pistol and carbine.
"All that to me is the peace and well-being of Marduk. I'll have to talk it over with ... with my only judge. Well, let's go."
The top were secure when their car landed. More vehicles were and men; a of landing were past the toward the ground two thousand below. Auto-weapons and small arms and light banged, and and recoilless-rifle crashed, on the terraces. They put the car one of the until they ran into fire from below, at the limit of the advance, and then into a hallway, high to clear the of the men on foot. It looked like the part of the Palace where he had when he had been a guest there but it wasn't.
They came to of and and furnishings, which Makann's People's Watchmen and Andray Dunnan's Space Vikings were making resistance. They entered rooms with plaster and with fumes, with corpses. They passed lifter-skids being out with wounded. They through rooms with their own men—"Keep your off things; this isn't a expedition!" "You cretin, how did you know there wasn't a man that?" In one room, or room or something, there were herded, and men from the Nemesis were setting up veridicators, chairs with and and over them. A of Morland's men were a People's Watchman to one and him into a chair.
"You know what this is, don't you?" one of them was saying. "This is a veridicator. That globe'll light blue; the moment you try to to us, it'll turn red. And the moment it red, I'm going to your teeth your with the of this pistol."
"Have you anything out about the King, yet?" Bentrik asked him.
He turned. "No. Nobody we've questioned so anything later than a month ago about him. He just disappeared." He was going to say something else, saw Bentrik's face, and his mind.
"He's dead," Bentrik said dully. "They him and him and used him as a ventriloquist's on the screen as long as they [Pg 165]could; when they couldn't let the people see him any more, they him into a converter."
They did Zaspar Makann, hours later. Maybe he have told them something, if he had been alive, but he and a of his had themselves in the Throne room and died trying to it. They Makann on the Throne, the top of his away, a pistol death-gripped in his hand, and the Great Crown on the floor, the cap bullet-pierced and with blood and brain tissue. Prince Bentrik it up and looked at it disgustedly.
"We'll have to have something done about that," he said. "I didn't think he'd do just this. I he wanted to the Throne, not on it."
Except for one and that had to be out, the Ministerial Council room was intact. They set up there. Boake Valkanhayn and other ship-captains joined them. There was going on in places the Palace, and the city was still in a turmoil. Somebody managed to in touch with the captains of the Damnthing, the Harpy and the Curse of Cagn and them to the Palace. Trask to with them, to no avail.
"Prince Trask, you're my friend, and you've always with me," Roger-fan-Morvill Esthersan said. "But you know just how any Space Viking captain can his crew. These men didn't come here to the political mistakes of Marduk. They came here for what they away. I myself killed trying to stop them now...."
"I wouldn't try," the captain of the Curse of Cagn put in. "I came here for what I make out of this planet, myself."
"You can try to stop them," said the captain of the Harpy. "You'll it than what you're doing now."
Trask looked at some of the reports that had come in from on the planet. Harkaman had on one of the big to the east, and the people had against Makann's local and were helping out the People's Watchmen with arms they had been furnished. Valkanhayn's had on a large where close to ten thousand of Makann's political had been penned; he had all his available and was calling for more. Gompertz of the Grendelsbane was at Drepplin; he reported just the reverse. The people there had in support of the Makann regime, and he wanted to use against them.
"Could you talk your people into going to some other city?" Trask asked. "We have a city for you; big center. It ought to be looting. Drepplin."
"The people there are Mardukan subjects, too," Bentrik began. Then he shrugged. "It's not what we'd like[Pg 166] to do, it's what we have to. By all means, gentlemen. Take your men to Drepplin, and nobody will object to anything you do."
"And when you have that place out, try Abaddon. You were there, Captain Esthersan. You know what all Dunnan left there."
A of Space Vikings—no, Royal Army of Tanith men—brought in the old woman, dirty, in rags, almost exhausted.
"She wants to talk to Prince Bentrik; won't talk to else. Says she where the King is."
Bentrik rose quickly, her to a chair, a of for her.
"He's still alive, Your Highness. The Crown Princess Melanie and I ... I'm sorry, Your Highness; Dowager Crown Princess ... have been taking of him, the best way we could. If you'll only come quickly...."
Mikhyl VIII, Planetary King of Marduk, on a of on the of a narrow room a mass-energy which of the and and power for some of the on one of the middle of the east of the palace. There was a of water, and on a bench a cloth-wrapped of food. A woman, and disheveled, a of mechanic's and nothing else, him. The Crown Princess Melanie, Trask as the and of Cragdale. She to rise, and staggered.
"Prince Bentrik! And it's Prince Trask of Tanith!" she cried. "Just hurry; him out of here and to where he can be taken of. Please." Then she sat again on the and over, unconscious.
They couldn't the story. The Princess Melanie had completely. Her companion, another of the court, only disconnectedly. And the King lay, and in a clean bed, and looked up at them wonderingly, as though nothing he saw or any meaning to him. The doctors do nothing.
"He has no mind, no more mind than a new-born baby. We can keep him alive, I don't know how long. That's our professional duty. But it's no to His Majesty."
The little pockets of in the Palace were out, through the next and afternoon. All but one, underground, the main power plant. They sleep-gas; the had and sent it at them. They blasting; there was a limit to what the of the would stand. And nobody how long it would take to them out.
On the third day, a man out, pushing a white shirt to the of a ahead of him.[Pg 167]
"Is Prince Lucas Trask of Tanith here?" he asked. "I won't speak to else."
They Trask quickly. All that was visible of the other man was the carbine-barrel and the white shirt. When Trask called to him, he his above the which he was hiding.
"Prince Trask, we have Andray Dunnan here; he was leading us, but now we've him and are him. If we turn him over to you, will you let us go?"
"If you all come out unarmed, and Dunnan with you, I promise you, the of you will be let this and allowed to go away unharmed."
"All right. We'll be out in a minute." The man his voice. "It's agreed!" he called. "Bring him out."
There were than two score of them. Some the of high officers of the People's Watchmen or of People's Welfare Party functionaries; a the of Space Viking officers. Among them, they a thin-faced man with a pointed beard, and Trask had to look twice at him he the of Andray Dunnan. It looked more like the of Duke Angus of Wardshaven as he last it. Dunnan looked at him in contempt.
"Your king couldn't without Zaspar Makann, and Makann couldn't without me, and neither can you," he said. "Shoot this of turncoats, and I'll Marduk for you." He looked at Trask again. "Who are you?" he demanded. "I don't know you."
Trask the pistol from his holster, off the safety.
"I am Lucas Trask. You've that name before," he said. "Stand away from him, you people."
"Oh, yes; the who he was going to Elaine Karvall. Well, you won't, Lord Trask of Traskon. She loves me, not you. She's waiting for me now, on Gram...."
Trask him through the head. Dunnan's in incredulity; then his gave way, and he on his face. Trask on the safety and the pistol, and looked at the on the concrete.
It hadn't the least difference. It had been like a snake, or one of the scorpion-things that the old in Rivington. Just no more Andray Dunnan.
"Take that and it in a mass-energy converter," he said. "And I don't want to mention the name of Andray Dunnan to me again."
He didn't look at them Dunnan's away on a lifter-skid; he the fifty-odd of the of Marduk away to freedom, by Paytrik Morland's riflemen. Now there was something to himself for; he'd a and crime[Pg 168] against Marduk by each one of them live. Unless and killed by somebody outside, every one of them would be at some next sunrise. Well, King Simon I with that.
He started when he how he had of his friend. Well, why not? Mikhyl's mind was dead; his would not it more than a year. Then a child Queen, and a long regency, and long were dangerous. Better a King, in name as well as power. And the be by marrying Steven and Myrna. Myrna had accepted, at eight, that she must some day for of state; why not her Steven?
And Simon Bentrik would see the necessity. He was neither a a coward; he only needed to take some time to to ideas. The who had their with their leader's had gone, now. Slowly, he them, thinking.
Don't press the idea on Simon too hard; just him to it and let him it. And there would be the treaty—Tanith, Marduk, Beowulf, Amaterasu; eventually, with the other planets. Nebulously, the idea of a League of Civilized Worlds to take shape in his mind.
Be a good idea if he the title of King of Tanith for himself. And cut from the Sword-Worlds; cut from Gram. Let Viktor of Xochitl have it. Or Garvan Spasso. Viktor wouldn't be the last Space Viking to take his ships against the Sword-Worlds. Sooner or later, in the Old Federation would drive them all home to the that had sent them out.
Well, if he was going to be a king, shouldn't he have a queen? Kings did. He into the little hall-car and started up a long shaft. There was Valerie Alvarath. They'd each other's on the Nemesis. He if she would want to make it permanent, on a throne....
Elaine was with him. He her him, almost tangibly. Her voice was to him: She loves you, Lucas. She'll say yes. Be good to her, and she'll make you happy. Then she was gone, and he that she would return.
Good-by, Elaine.
