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later, who had regretted that it hadn't been done. 1
"The Nemesis, the Corisande, and the Space-Scourge for sure?" he asked.
Harkaman and Valkanhayn agreed; Valkanhayn thought the Viking's Gift of
Beowulf would go along, and Harkaman was almost sure of the Black Star and
Queen Flavia. He turned to Bentrik.
"Start that pinnace off for Gimli at once; within the hour
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if possible. We don't know how many ships will be gathered there, but we don't
want them wasted in detail-attacks. Tell whoever's in command 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 estimate voyage time to Gimli from the other Mardukan
trade-planets, and nobody could estimate how many ships would respond.
"It may take us a little time to get an effective fleet together. Even after
we get through arguing about it. Argument," he told Bentrik, "is not
exclusively a feature of democracies."
Actually, there was very little argument, and most of that among the
Mardukans. Prince Bentrik insisted that Crown Princess Myrna would have to be
taken along; King Mikhyl would be either dead or brainwashed into imbecility
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 refused to be
separated from her. Prince Bentrik was equally firm, with less success, on
leaving his wife and son on Tanith. In the end, it was agreed that the entire
Mardukan party would space out on the Nemesis.
The leader of the Bigglersport delegation attempted an impassioned tirade
about going to the aid of strangers while their own planet was being enslaved.
He was booed down by everybody else and informed that Tanith was being
defended where a planet ought to be, on somebody else's real estate. When the
Bigglersporters emerged from the meeting, they found that their own
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space-yacht had been commandeered and sent off to Amaterasu and Beowulf for
assistance, that the regiment of local infantry they had enlisted from the
King of Tradetown had been taken over by the Rivington authorities, and that
the Gilgamesh freighter they had chartered to transport them to Gram would now
take them to Marduk.
The problem broke into two halves: the purely naval action that would be
fought to relieve the Moon of Marduk, if it still held out, and to destroy the
Dunnan and Makann ships, and the ground-fighting problem of wiping out
Makann's supporters and restoring the Mardukan monarchy. A
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great- many of the people of Marduk would be glad of a chance to turn on
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Makann, once they had arms and were properly supported. Combat weapons were
almost unknown among the people, however, and even sporting arms uncommon. All
the small arms and light artillery and auto weapons available were gathered
up.
The Grendelsbane came in from Beowulf, and the SunGoddess from Amaterasu.
Three independent Space Viking ships were still in orbit 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 could charge it off as part
of the price for letting Zaspar Makann get into power in the first place.
There were twelve spacecraft in line outside the Moon of Tanith, counting the
three independents and the forcibly chartered Gilgamesher troop-transport;
that was the biggest fleet Space Vikings had ever assembled in their history.
Alvyn Karffard said as much while they were checking the formation by screen.
"It isn't a Space Viking fleet," Prince Bentrik differed. "There are only
three Space Vikings in it. The rest are the ships of three civilized planets,
Tanith, Beowulf and Amaterasu."
Karffard was surprised. "You mean we're civilized planets? Like Marduk, or
Baldur, or Odin, or . . . ?"
"Well, aren't you?"
Trask smiled. He'd begun to suspect something of the sort a couple of years
ago. He hadn't really been sure until now. His most junior staff officer,
Count Steven of Ravary, didn't seem to appreciate the compliment.
"We are Space Vikings!" he insisted. "And we are going to battle with the
Neobarbarians of Zaspar Makann."
"Well, I won't argue the last half of it, Steven," his father told him.
"Are you people done yacking about who's civilized and who isn't?" Guatt
Kirbey asked. "Then give the signal. All the other ships are ready to jump."
Trask pressed the button on the desk in front of him. A light went on over
Kirbey's control panel, as one would on each of the other ships. He said,
"Jumping," around the
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stem of his pipe, and twisted the red handle and shoved it in.
Four hundred and fifty hours, in the private universe that was the Nemesis;
outside, nothing else existed, and inside there was nothing to do but wait, as
each hour carried them six trillion miles nearer to Gimh. At first, the
ruthless and terrible Space Viking, Steven, Count of Ravary, was wildly
excited, but before long he found that there was nothing exciting going on; it
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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 excited
about the same time, and she and Steven and Mopsy played together. Of course,
Myrna was only a girl, and two years younger 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 lies between a planet and its satellite space and if you call
being shot at without being able to shoot back an action, and Relentless
Ravary, the Interstellar Terror, had not. This rather made up for being a girl [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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