Part 22 (1/2)
”I think they were down on the planet before your s.h.i.+p arrived.”
”Oh, that's ridiculous, Prince Trask!” the Mardukan cried. ”You can't hide a s.h.i.+p on a planet. Not from the kind of instruments we have in the Royal Navy.”
”We have pretty fair detection ourselves,” Trask reminded him.
”There's one place where you can do it. At the bottom of an ocean, with a thousand or so feet of water over her. That's where I was going to hide the _Nemesis_, if I got here ahead of Dunnan.”
Prince Bentrik's fork stopped half way to his mouth. He lowered it slowly to his plate. That was a theory 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 detection of their own. Come in directly over the ocean, out of the sun, and n.o.body'd see the s.h.i.+p.”
”Is that a regular s.p.a.ce Viking trick?”
”No. I invented it myself, on the way from Seshat. But if Dunnan wanted to ambush your s.h.i.+p, he'd have thought of it, too. It's the only practical way to do it.”
Dunnan, or Nevil Ormm; he wished he knew, and was afraid he would go on wis.h.i.+ng all his life.
Bentrik started to pick up his fork again, changed his mind, and sipped from his winegla.s.s instead.
”You may find you're quite welcome on Marduk, at that,” he said.
”These raids have only been a serious problem in the last four years. I believe, as you do, that this enemy of yours is responsible for all of them. We have half the Royal Navy out now, patrolling our trade-planets. Even if he wasn't aboard the _Enterprise_ when you blew her up, you've put a name on him and can tell us a good deal about him.” He set down the winegla.s.s. ”Why, if it weren't so utterly ridiculous, one might even think he was making war on Marduk.”
From Trask's viewpoint, it wasn't ridiculous at all. He merely mentioned that Andray Dunnan was psychotic and let it go at that.
The _Victrix_ was not completely unrepairable, although quite beyond the resources at hand. A fully equipped engineer-s.h.i.+p from Marduk could patch her hull and replace her Dillinghams and her Abbot lift-and-drive engines and make her temporarily s.p.a.ceworthy, until she could be gotten to a s.h.i.+pyard. They concentrated on repairing the _Nemesis_, and in another two weeks she was ready for the voyage.
The six hundred hour trip to Marduk pa.s.sed pleasantly enough. The Mardukan officers were good company, and found their s.p.a.ce Viking opposite numbers equally so. The two crews had become used to working together on Audhumla, and mingled amicably off watch, interesting themselves in each other's hobbies and listening avidly to tales of each other's home planets. The s.p.a.ce Vikings were surprised and disappointed at the somewhat lower intellectual level of the Mardukans. They couldn't understand that; Marduk was supposed to be a civilized planet, wasn't it? The Mardukans were just as surprised, and inclined to be resentful, that the s.p.a.ce Vikings all acted and talked like officers. Hearing of it, Prince Bentrik was also puzzled. Fo'c'sle hands on a Mardukan s.h.i.+p belonged definitely to the lower orders.
”There's still too much free land and free opportunity on the Sword-Worlds,” Trask explained. ”n.o.body does much bowing and sc.r.a.ping to the cla.s.s above him; he's too busy trying to shove himself up into it. And the men who s.h.i.+p out as s.p.a.ce Vikings are the least cla.s.s-conscious of the lot. Think my men may have trouble on Marduk about that? They'll all insist on doing their drinking in the sw.a.n.kiest places in town.”
[Ill.u.s.tration]
”No. I don't think so. Everybody will be so amazed that s.p.a.ce Vikings aren't twelve feet tall, with three horns like a Zarathustra d.a.m.nthing and a spiked tail like a Fafnir mantich.o.r.e that they won't even notice anything less. Might do some good, in the long run. Crown Prince Edvard will like your s.p.a.ce Vikings. He's much opposed to cla.s.s distinctions and caste prejudices. Says they have to be eliminated before we can make democracy really work.”
The Mardukans talked a lot about democracy. They thought well of it; their government was a representative democracy. It was also a hereditary monarchy, if that made any kind of sense. Trask's efforts to explain the political and social structure of the Sword-Worlds met the same incomprehension from Bentrik.
”Why, it sounds like feudalism to me!”
”That's right; that's what it is. A king owes his position to the support of his great n.o.bles; they owe theirs to their barons and landholding knights; they owe theirs to their people. There are limits beyond which none of them can go; after that, their va.s.sals turn on them.”
”Well, suppose the people of some barony rebel? Won't the king send troops to support the baron?”
”What troops? Outside a personal guard and enough men to police the royal city and hold the crown lands, the king has no troops. If he wants troops, he has to get them from his great n.o.bles; they have to get them from their va.s.sal barons, who raise them by calling out their people.” That was another source of dissatisfaction with King Angus of Gram; he had been augmenting his forces by hiring off-planet mercenaries. ”And the people won't help some other baron oppress 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 equally surprised.