King David's Spaceship
( CoDominion )
Jerry Pournelle
The novel forms part of Pournelle’s Future History known as the CoDominium series. Chronologically, it is second to last in the series, contemporaneous with events in The Mote in God’s Eye.
In content it resembles Pournelle’s military fiction series Falkenberg’s Legion, also from the CoDominium series, in that it is the story of a capable military leader undertaking a campaign on a backward planet. In this case the leader is from a planet that has recovered technologically to the steam, steel and coal stage, who visits a planet of city states surrounded by barbarians, fighting with medieval weapons.
The story is notable for showing the conflicting motives of the different factions without demonizing any of them, save possibly the merchants’ faction whose motives are to use the forces of the Imperial Space Navy to enhance their own profits.
King David’s Spaceship
by Jerry Pournelle
CHRONOLOGY
1969: Neil Armstrong sets foot on Earth’s moon. 1990: Series of treaties between United States andSoviet Unioncreated the CoDominium.
2008: First interstellar drive tested.
2020: First interstellar colonies. Great Exodus begins.
2110: Coronation of Lysander I of Sparta
2111: Formation Wars begin.
2250: Leonidas I proclaims Empire of Man.
2250–2600: Empire of Man enforces interstellar peace.
2273: Prince Samual’s World becomes Member Principality of Empire.
2603: Secession Wars begin.
2627: Prince Samual’s World drawn into conflict.
2632: First bombardment of Prince Samual’s World.
2637: First Battle of Makassar.
2640: Secession Wars continue. Dark Ages in many systems. Effective termination of First Empire.
2658: Second battle offMakassar; remnants of loyalist fleet take refuge on Prince Samual’s World.
2680: Battle of Prince Samual’s World. Loyalist officers deposed.
2681: Brief occupation of Prince Samual’s World by secessionists.
2694: Loyalist-engineered coup on Prince Samual’s World.
2711: Bombardment of Prince Samual’s World; effective end of high-energy civilization.
2723: Last starship visits Prince Samual’s World; many loyalist families evacuated by remnant of Empire.
2740: Prince Samual University founded to preserve knowledge.
2748–2770: Local independent cities and petty states battle for possession of Prince Samual University; townsmen defend University.
2770: Treaty establishes independence of University under protection of coalition of local city-states.
2791: Plague Year on Prince Samual’s World.
2800: Interstellar trade ceases. Piracy and brigandage. Dark Ages throughout former Empire of Man.
2810: First Hundred Year War begins on Prince Samual’s World.
2864: Petty kingdom of Haven begins expansion, consolidates gains.
2870: Effective end of Secession Wars in Old Empire.
2903: Leonidas IV ofSpartaproclaims the Second Empire of Man. The Oath of Reunion is sworn.
2915: Fifty Year War begins on Prince Samual’s World. Many petty states eliminated.
2917: Plague Year on Prince Samual’s World.
2990: Haven begins new campaign of unification.
3013: Prince Samual’s World discovered by units of Imperial Navy.
For Dan Alderson and Gary Hudson with many thanks.
PART ONE
COLONY
CHAPTER ONE
THE BLUE BOTTLE
The crowd was noisy in the Blue Bottle, although it was early in the evening. Tavern girls squealed as customers pinched them, gaily clad waiters brought round after round of drinks, and throughout much of the room everyone was shouting merrily.
The reason was not hard to find, for in one corner of the crowded room three officers of the Imperial Navy held court, buying drinks for anyone on Prince Samual’s World who would sit with them and laugh at their jokes. Some of the regulars held back, their distaste for the enforced association more evident with every round, but for each of them there were four others from Haven City more than willing to share the Emperor’s humor and liquor. Before the night ended the officers would doubtless have new recruits for the Royal and Imperial Marines, young lads suddenly sobered to find themselves in an iron service out among the stars, never to see their homes and discovering that Imperial officers were not such jolly good fellows when you were under their command.
For the moment the whiskey, brandy, and grua-distilled from a cross between a berry and a peach grown only on Prince Samual’s northern continent — flowed freely, the jokes were new to the locals even if they had been told a century before in the barracks at New Annapolis, and His Imperial Majesty’s crimson-and-gold-jacketed officers were relaxed, feeling as at home as they ever did on a barely civilized planet.
The three of them were classmates, not six years out of the Academy, the gold and silver stripes of lieutenants only recently sewn on their sleeves. Closer inspection would have revealed that one of them was a year younger than his friends, a school prodigy admitted early to midshipman status as much because of his talents as his family influence, and that young-and-only-just-lieutenant Jefferson was very, very drunk. His classmates had discreetly opened the top clasp of their stiff tunic collars, but Jefferson’s was half unfastened, revealing a none-too-fresh shirt and a tiny breast-pocket computer beneath.
His natural shyness overcome by countless thimble-sized glasses of grua, Lieutenant Jefferson basked in the esteem of the flatlanders. He had almost forgotten that they were barbarians, and that he and the tiny Navy outpost on Prince Samual were the only representatives of true civilization within ten light-years. The others were singing, and when his turn came he added a verse so obscene it shocked the tavern girls. He grinned and looked about for approval, then tossed off another glass.
Across from Jefferson a young native, browned by field work, too young to be in the Blue Bottle if he were not sitting with the Emperor’s overlords, beamed at his new friend and shouted approval of the song. “Great, Lieu — uh, Jeff, great. Tell us more about what it’s like out there. Tell us about other worlds. Are we the most backward place you’ve ever seen?”
Lieutenant Jefferson belched loudly, murmured an automatic apology, and focused dizzily on his admirers. “Oh hell, no, Simom, not by a full broadside. Samual’s got guns, and factories, and — and long-distance communications, and hydroelectric power; man, you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. You’ve got no world government, and those wars you’re always in stomp you down or for sure you’d be Class Two status in the Empire instead of a colony. When I think how bad you got torn up in the Secession Wars, it’s amazing you got this far in a few centuries … standard centuries, that is. You’re doing fine here. That right, laddie?” he asked, digging his elbowinto his classmate’s ribs.
Lieutenant Clements turned his black face to Jefferson and grinned, his teeth sparkling. “Sure that’s right, Jeff, you tell ’em this is the best duty we’ve had since we left the capital. Maybe better,” he shouted, turning back to the tavern girl beside him.
“Hear that?” Jefferson asked his companion. “Simom, we’ve been to places where they don’t even have hydrocarbon power, no electricity, no pellet guns, nothing but horses and men running around in iron pants the way you see — well, the way we see in Imperial history books, books about the time when Earth was all there was to it. Friend, you almost have space travel. Another hundred years, another fifty years even, you’d have found us inste
ad of the other way around. Too bad you didn’t,” he added, his voice changing. “Been better for you if you had. Class Two status for sure, maybe Class One. if you’d had real space flight before we got here. Not your fault; the survey ship just happened by looking for a gas giant to scoop some fuel from and decided to look you over. A real pity.” He looked at his empty glass. “Host! Host! More grua!”
Two of the regulars of the Blue Bottle made a point of walking past the officers as they stamped out of the tavern, their kilts swirling, but Jefferson did not notice them. As the headwaiter brought more drinks, Simom asked, “What was it like, that place where they wore iron pants? It is far from here? Have you colonized it? Can we go there?”
“Ho, one at a time,” Jefferson shouted. “Far? Not more than twelve light-years, one jump from here, I think. Let’s see, yeah, there’s nothing between the two suns and theirs is a big one; hell, it’s that thing you people call the Eye of the Needle; you could see it right now if you went outside. And no, no colonies there, not enough to make it worthwhile yet. And we’re spread so thin. Keep a little observation post there to watch for outies, a first lieutenant and a couple of middies, few Marines. Not even a ship in orbit. Detection gear, observation satellite, that’s about all. Nothing important there, except, of course, their Temple.”
Jefferson had allowed his voice to drop for a moment, a note of weariness creeping in as he thought of the immense task of the Imperial Navy trying to reclaim the pieces of an Empire lost and shattered in the Secession Wars, the capital itself only reaching for the stars decades ago. His Majesty hoped to knit together the fragments before another war could send mankind staggering back to primitive conditions. There had been no winners of the last war, and the next would be worse. There must not be a next one, he said to himself. Never again. Then he brightened as the raucous humor and obvious friendship of the natives washed over him. Best enjoy it now, he thought. They wouldn’t be so friendly to the Navy after the colonists arrived — but that was years away, and the night was young.
“The funny part, Simom, is that the Temple is worth more to them than the whole bloody planet, if they only knew it! They were right to make it a holy place and preserve it, but if they only knew! Why, there’s a whole Old-Empire subsection library in that rabbit warren they’ve built up around what used to be the Viceroy’s Palace! The Service librarians almost went out of their minds, some of the history books and things they found there. Even a few science books, operating manuals for old Imperial Fleet stuff; you name it, it’s there, or bits and pieces of it are.
“They don’t even know what it all is! Wouldn’t do them any good if they did, no technology to understand it anyway. And my sweet Savior, how they guard that stuff! Thought we’d never get any of it copied for the archives. If we’d taken just one of those cubes out — yeah, cubes, the library was geared to a computer. Not much like your books. Took a lot of work to get that fixed, I’ll tell you. And those priests watched every second we were there. Never did make copies of most of the stuff; we’ll get it some day. Be a great job for some historian. We had to sneak in, convince their bishops we were from the stars — they still haven’t told the people in the city about us. And the chaplain had to get in on the act, convince them we were religiously orthodox, gave them some song and dance about how we, too, believed that God spoke from their archives. The chaplain said it was all right, the first thing they copied was a Bible, so he didn’t lie about it. Couldn’t harm a thing copying the stuff or they’d have boiled up so thick it’d take a battleship to kill them all. Can’t do that, they’re good people. We’ll need everyone in this sector one day. Whoosh, I talk too much, pour me some more. That grua’s the best thing about this planet. Well,” he added, looking at the tall blond girl who stood at his elbow, “one of the best, anyway.”
Lieutenant Jefferson was not the only drunken officer in the Blue Bottle, but he would hardly have recognized the gray-eyed man in a plain kilt two tables away as a member of the officer class. Colonel Nathan MacKinnie, lately cashiered from service to the Committee of Public Safety of Orleans, preferred whiskey in large glasses, and had had almost as many of those as Jefferson had of grua. MacKinnie was tall, centimeters taller than usual for Samualites, but without the remarkably broad shoulders typical of the planetary dwellers. With his straw-colored hair silvering at the temples, he looked more akin to the senior Imperial Navy officers than the natives. He sat quietly, motioning effortlessly for a new drink from time to time, and smoking countless pipefuls of ’robac. At intervals a particularly loud shout from the Imperial table would bring a grimace to his face, but for the most part he sat emotionlessly, giving no sign of the enormous quantities of whiskey he poured down his gullet.
Hal Stark, MacKinnie’s one-time sergeant, now servant, companion, and comrade, watched his colonel anxiously, mentally computing the amount of whiskey Nathan had drunk, the time since they had eaten, and the earliness of the evening, before he turned to his own drink, his second of the day. He was allowing the amber grua to roll back over his tongue when MacKinnie snapped his pipe against the heel of his hand so hard that the stem broke.
“Damn!” he muttered. “Hal, look at those drunken excuses for officers. And those sots are the rulers of Prince Samual’s World, the ‘representatives of civilization’ as they call themselves, the men who can decree what will be done and snuff out the independence of Orleans like a candle in a hurricane. Babbling, shouting, the overlords of everything we’ve ever known.”
“Yes, sir. Begging the colonel’s pardon, but I seem to recall a young lieutenant some years ago couldn’t hold his liquor no better than them, if it’s all right to say so.” It was difficult to tell just how much of Stark’s apologetic air was genuine.
Colonel MacKinnie frowned for a moment, then burst into a loud guffaw. “I sure didn’t, did I, Hal?” He looked at the ruined pipe in his hands, then signaled for the barmaid and bought cigars of genuine Earth Stock tobacco for a price he couldn’t afford. “There were a few times when you had to roll me back to barracks, weren’t there? You never missed, either. What are you best at, Hal? Batman, sergeant, or unemployed striker to a colonel with no command?”
“Best at whatever the colonel wants me at, that the right answer? Where are we going next, Colonel?”
MacKinnie shook his head slowly and looked around the room as if there might be some answer to the question. “They haven’t stopped the fighting on South Continent. Maybe we can pick up something there.” He reached into his pouch, and added, “We’d better find something soon, or we starve. But it won’t be the same, Sergeant. Just something to fight over, get the bills paid. What we do won’t matter anymore. The future here belongs to them.” He waved his cigar at young Jefferson, who held the blond girl on his lap, her hands deep inside his open tunic, while he tried to force a glass of grua between her body and his lips. She squealed.
“Worse for you than for me, Colonel. I never did know what we were after, not really anyway, not the way you did. Long as you know, it’s good enough for the troops.” Stark tossed down the last of his drink, then looked back at his officer. “Drink up, Colonel, there’s plenty to do somewhere. We could raise up a fair-sized regiment of men who’d follow you to hell. Tomorrow, I’ll round up some of the old headquarters company and we’ll go show the Southies what war’s really like.”
MacKinnie grinned momentarily as he methodically warmed his cigar before lighting it. The bar was pleasant, the company was good, and for a moment he forgot the hopelessness, even ordering a small grua to dip the end of his cigar into. He inhaled the strong smoke and leaned back in his chair, his feet stretched out under the table. Stark looked at him again, saw the lines leave Nathan’s face, and ordered another round.
It was no good, MacKinnie thought, but there was no point in upsetting the big man next to him. He’d have to play the game out to the end, but, by all the Saints, he was tired now, tired in a way that the sleep and rest and soft duty they’d had for the l
ast weeks could never cure. It was strange, he thought. Colonel of his own regiment at forty local years, a full citizen of Orleans, inevitably to be senior colonel and then general before his last parade. Not bad for a wandering mercenary soldier whose city-state had been extinguished only months before his graduation from its tiny war-academy, set to wandering in search of a living until he’d ended in the ranks of Orleans’s army. Promotion, merit, recognition, citizenship, a good career. And it was all over when the landing boats came down from the ship that still whirled in orbit above Samual.
Ten years of brilliant campaigning had insured that Orleans would not suffer the fate of his native Samand. No power or likely combination of powers could annex the Republic — but in a week the Imperial Navy had accomplished it, so that Orleans was now the Duchy of Orlean, subject to His Majesty King David Second of
Haven, and no Orleanist officers wanted in the Royal Service, thank you. Honor, of course, and an inadequate pension to the hero of Blanthern Pass whose regiment had defeated the best that Haven could put in the field. Well done, old chap! Of course His Majesty had his own colonels, but we have a pension for you sir. No hard feelings, and of course no retaliation against the Orleanists. Well, not much, anyway, and only against a few of the political officers. You were never in politics, were you, Colonel? No, of course not. Too good a soldier. Yes, you can go now. And Colonel Nathan MacKinnie was suddenly an old man, feeling his campaigns and ready to drink far too much. He had left the palace and walked aimlessly before he noticed that Stark was behind him.
He could have fought, of course. Even after the Committee bowed to the inevitable power of the Imperial Navy, he could have taken MacKinnie’s Wolves to the fields, wandering in the forests, cutting down Haven soldiers, fighting tiny actions with formations too small for the Navy to find and blast out of existence with their space weapons. But for how long? And what would the Imperials do to Orleans? How long would the people of the Republic have supported him? How long before the romantic gesture turned stale and the admiration of the citizens turned to hatred and disgust as town after town was bombarded from space, turned to a blackened cinder as Lechfeld was? MacKinnie inhaled his cigar, letting the warm smoke drift over his tongue, out his lips, and into his nostrils, tasting the incredibly pleasing combination of real tobacco and grua before destroying the delicate flavors with the harsh tang of whiskey.
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