Space Viking

by H. Beam Piper

  XVII

  As might be expected, the Beowulfers finished their hypership first.They had started with everything but a little know-how which hadbeen quickly learned. Amaterasu had had to begin by creating theindustry they needed to create the industry they needed to build aship. The Beowulf ship--she was named _Viking's Gift_--came in onTanith five and a half years after the _Nemesis_ and the _SpaceScourge_ had raided Beowulf; her skipper had fought a normal-driveship in that battle. Beside plutonium and radioactive isotopes, shecarried a general cargo of the sort of luxury-goods unique toBeowulf which could always find a market in interstellar trade.

  After selling the cargo and depositing the money in the Bank ofTanith, the skipper of the _Viking's Gift_ wanted to know wherehe could find a good planet to raid. They gave him a list, nonetoo tough but all slightly above the chicken-stealing level, andanother list of planets he was _not_ to raid; planets with whichTanith was trading.

  Six months later they learned that he had showed up on Khepera, withwhich they were now trading, and had flooded the market there withplundered textiles, hardware, ceramics and plastics. He had boughtkregg-meat and hides.

  "You see what you did, now?" Harkaman clamored. "You thought youwere making a customer; what you made was a competitor."

  "What I made was an ally. If we ever do find Dunnan's planet, we'llneed a fleet to take it. A couple of Beowulf ships would help. Youknow them; you fought them, too."

  Harkaman had other worries. While cruising in _Corisande II_, he hadcome in on Vitharr, one of the planets where Tanith ships traded, tofind it being raided by a Space Viking ship based on Xochitl. He hadfought a short but furious ship-action, battering the invader untilhe was glad to hyper out. Then he had gone directly to Xochitl,arriving on the heels of the ship he had beaten, and had had it outboth with the captain and Prince Viktor, serving them with anultimatum to leave Tanith trade-planets alone in the future.

  "How did they take it?" Trask asked, when he returned to report.

  "Just about the way you would have. Viktor said his people wereSpace Vikings, not Gilgameshers. I told him we weren't Gilgameshers,either, as he'd find out on Xochitl the next time one of his shipsraided one of our planets. Are you going to back me up? Of course,you can always send Prince Viktor my head, and an apology--"

  "If I have to send him anything, I'll send him a sky full of shipsand a planet full of hellburners. You did perfectly right, Otto;exactly what I'd have done in your place."

  There the matter rested. There were no more raids by Xochitl shipson any of their trade-planets. No mention of the incident was madein any of the reports sent back to Gram. The Gram situation wasdeteriorating rapidly enough. Finally, there was an audiovisualmessage from Angus himself; he was seated on his throne, wearinghis crown, and he began speaking from the screen abruptly:

  "We, Angus, King of Gram and Tanith, are highly displeased with oursubject, Lucas, Prince and Viceroy of Tanith; we consider ourselvesvery badly served by Prince Trask. We therefore command him to returnto Gram, and render to us account of his administration of our colonyand realm of Tanith."

  After some hasty preparations, Trask recorded a reply. He was sittingon a throne, himself, and he wore a crown just as ornate as King Angus',and robes of white and black Imhotep furs.

  "We, Lucas, Prince of Tanith," he began, "are quite willing toacknowledge the suzerainty of the King of Gram, formerly Duke ofWardshaven. It is our earnest desire, if possible, to remain atpeace and friendship with the King of Gram, and to carry on traderelations with him and with his subjects.

  "We must, however, reject absolutely any efforts on his part todictate the internal policies of our realm of Tanith. It is ourearnest hope,"--dammit, he'd said "earnest," he should have thoughtof some other word--"that no act on the part of his Majesty the Kingof Gram will create any breach in the friendship existing betweenhis realm and ours."

  * * * * *

  Three months later, the next ship, which had left Gram while KingAngus' summons was still in hyperspace, brought Baron Rathmore.Shaking hands with him as he left the landing craft, Trask wanted toknow if he'd been sent out as the new Viceroy. Rathmore started tolaugh and ended by cursing vilely.

  "No. I've come out to offer my sword to the King of Tanith," he said.

  "Prince of Tanith, for the time being," Trask corrected. "The sword,however, is most acceptable. I take it you've had all of our blessedsovereign you can stomach?"

  "Lucas, you have enough ships and men here to take Gram," Rathmoresaid. "Proclaim yourself King of Tanith and then lay claim to thethrone of Gram and the whole planet would rise for you."

  Rathmore had lowered his voice, but even so the open landing stagewas no place for this sort of talk. He said so, ordered a coupleof the locals to collect Rathmore's luggage, and got him into ahall-car, taking him down to his living quarters. After they werein private, Rathmore began again:

  "It's more than anybody can stand! There isn't one of the old greatnobility he hasn't alienated, or one of the minor barons, thelandholders and industrialists, the people who were always thebackbone of Gram. And it goes from them down to the commonfolk.Assessments on the lords, taxes on the people, inflation to meetthe taxes, high prices, debased coinage. Everybody's being beggaredexcept this rabble of new lords he has around him, and that slut ofa wife and her greedy kinfolk...."

  Trask stiffened. "You're not speaking of Queen Flavia, are you?"he asked softly.

  Rathmore's mouth opened slightly. "Great Satan, don't you know? No,of course not; the news would have come on the same ship I did. Why,Angus divorced Flavia. He claimed that she was incapable of givinghim an heir to the throne. He remarried immediately."

  The girl's name meant nothing to Trask; he did know of her father, aBaron Valdiva. He was lord of a small estate south of the Ward landsand west of Newhaven. Most of his people were out-and-out banditsand cattle-rustlers, and he was as close to being one himself ashe could get.

  "Nice family he's married into. A credit to the dignity of thethrone."

  "Yes. You wouldn't know this Lady-Demoiselle Evita; she was onlyseventeen when you left Gram, and hadn't begun to acquire areputation outside her father's lands. She's made up for lost timesince, though. And she has enough uncles and aunts and cousins andex-lovers and what-not to fill out an infantry regiment, and everyone of them's at court with both hands out to grab everything theycan."

  "How does Duke Joris like this?" The Duke of Bigglersport was QueenFlavia's brother. "I daresay he's less than delighted."

  "He's hiring mercenaries, is what he's doing, and buying combatcontragravity. Lucas, why don't you come back? You have no idea whata reputation you have on Gram, now. Everybody would rally to you."

  He shook his head, "I have a throne, here on Tanith. On Gram I wantnothing. I'm sorry for the way Angus turned out, I thought he'd makea good King. But since he's made an intolerable King, the lords andpeople of Gram will have to get rid of him for themselves. I have myown tasks, here."

  Rathmore shrugged. "I was afraid that would be it," he said. "Well,I offered my sword; I won't take it back. I can help you in whatyou're doing on Tanith."

  * * * * *

  The captain of the free Space Viking _Damnthing_ was namedRoger-fan-Morvill Esthersan, which meant that he was someSword-Worlder's acknowledged bastard by a woman of one of the OldFederation planets. His mother's people could have been Nergalers;he had coarse black hair, a mahogany-brown skin, and red-brown,almost maroon, eyes. He tasted the wine the robot poured for himand expressed appreciation, then began unwrapping the parcel hehad brought in.

  "Something I found while raiding on Tetragrammaton," he said."I thought you might like to have it. It was made on Gram."

  It was an automatic pistol, with a belt and holster. The leather wasbisonoid-hide; the buckle of the belt was an oval enameled with acrescent, pale blue on black. The pistol was a plain 10-mm militarymodel with grooved plastic grips; on the receiver i
t bore the stampof the House of Hoylbar, the firearms manufacturers of Glaspyth.Evidently it was one of the arms Duke Omfray had provided for AndrayDunnan's original mercenary company.

  "Tetragrammaton?" He glanced over to the Big Board; there was noprevious report from that planet. "How long ago?"

  "I'd say about three hundred hours. I came from there directly, lessthan two hundred and fifty hours. Dunnan's ships had left the planetthree days before I got there."

  That was practically sizzling hot. Well, something like that had tohappen, sooner or later. The Space Viking was asking him if he knewwhat sort of a place Tetragrammaton was.

  Neobarbarian, trying to recivilize in a crude way. Small population,concentrated on one continent; farming and fisheries. A little heavyindustry, in a small way, at a couple of towns. They had some nuclearpower, introduced a century or so ago by traders from Marduk, one ofthe really civilized planets. They still depended on Marduk forfissionables; their export product was an abominably-smellingvegetable oil which furnished the base for delicate perfumes, andwhich nobody was ever able to synthesize properly.

  "I heard they had steel mills in operation, now," the half-breedSpace Viking said. "It seems that somebody on Rimmon has justre-invented the railroad, and they need more steel than they canproduce for themselves. I thought I'd raid Tetragrammaton for steeland trade it on Rimmon for a load of heaven-tea. When I got there,though, the whole planet was in a mess; not raiding, but plainwanton destruction. The locals were just digging themselves out ofit when I landed. Some of them, who didn't think they had anythingat all left to lose, gave me a fight. I captured a few of them, tofind out what had happened. One of them had that pistol; he saidhe'd taken it off a Space Viking he'd killed. The ships that raidedthem were the _Enterprise_ and the _Yo-Yo_. I knew you'd want tohear about it. I got some of the locals' stories on tape."

  "Well, thank you. I'll want to hear those tapes. Now, you say youwant steel?"

  "Well, I haven't any money. That's why I was going to raidTetragrammaton."

  "Nifflheim with the money; your cargo's paid for already. This,"he said, touching the pistol, "and whatever's on the tapes."

  * * * * *

  They played off the tapes that evening. They weren't particularlyinformative. The locals who had been interrogated hadn't been inactual contact with Dunnan's people except in combat. The man whohad been carrying the 10-mm Hoylbar was the best witness of the lot,and he knew little. He had caught one of them alone, shot him frombehind with a shotgun, taken his pistol, and then gotten away asquickly as he could. They had sent down landing craft, it seemed,and said they wanted to trade; then something must have happened,nobody knew what, and they had begun a massacre and sacked the town.After returning to their ships, they had opened fire with nuclearmissiles.

  "Sounds like Dunnan," Hugh Rathmore said in disgust. "He just wentkill-crazy. The bad blood of Blackcliffe."

  "There are funny things about this," Boake Valkanhayn said. "I'd sayit was a terror-raid, but who in Gehenna was he trying to terrorize?"

  "I wondered about that, too." Harkaman frowned. "This town where helanded seems, such as it was, to have been the planetary capital.They just landed, pretending friendship, which I can't see why theyneeded to pretend, and then began looting and massacring. Therewasn't anything of real value there; all they took was what the mencould carry themselves or stuff into their landing craft, and theydid that because they have what amounts to a religious tabooagainst landing anywhere and leaving without stealing something.The real loot was at these two other towns; a steel mill and bigstocks of steel at one, and all that skunk-apple oil at the other.So what did they do? They dropped a five-megaton bomb on each one,and blew both of them to Em-See-Square. That was a terror-raid pureand simple, but as Boake inquires, just who were they terrorizing?If there were big cities somewhere else on the planet, it wouldfigure. But there aren't. They blew out the two biggest cities,and all the loot in them."

  "Then they wanted to terrorize somebody off the planet."

  "But nobody'd hear about it off-planet," somebody protested.

  "The Mardukans would; they trade with Tetragrammaton," theacknowledged bastard of somebody named Morvill said. "They havea couple of ships a year there."

  "That's right," Trask agreed. "Marduk."

  "You mean, you think Dunnan's trying to terrorize _Marduk_?" Valkanhayndemanded. "Great Satan, even he isn't crazy enough for that!"

  Baron Rathmore started to say something about what Andray Dunnanwas crazy enough to do, and what his uncle was crazy enough to do.It was just one of the cracks he had been making since he'd cometo Tanith and didn't have to look over his shoulder while he wasmaking them.

  "I think he is, too," Trask said. "I think that is exactly what heis doing. Don't ask me why; as Otto is fond of remarking, he's crazyand we aren't, and that gives him an advantage. But what have wegotten, since those Gilgameshers told us about his picking upBurrik's ship and the _Honest Horris_? Until today, we've heardnothing from any other Space Viking. What we have gotten was storiesfrom Gilgameshers about raids on planets where they trade, and everyone of them is also a planet where Marduk ships trade. And in everycase, there has been little or nothing reported about valuable loottaken. The stories are all about wanton and murderous bombings. Ithink Andray Dunnan is making war on Marduk."

  "Then he's crazier than his grandfather and his uncle both!"Rathmore cried.

  "You mean, he's making a string of terror-raids on their tradeplanets, hoping to pull the Mardukan space-navy away from the homeplanet?" Harkaman had stopped being incredulous. "And when he getsthem all lured away, he'll make a fast raid?"

  "That's what I think. Remember our fundamental postulate: Dunnan iscrazy. Remember how he convinced himself that he was the rightfulheir to the ducal crown of Wardshaven?" And remember his insanepassion for Elaine; he pushed that thought hastily from him. "Now,he's convinced that he's the greatest Space Viking in history. Hehas to do something worthy of that distinction. When was the lasttime anybody attacked a civilized planet? I don't mean Gilgamesh,I mean a planet like Marduk."

  "A hundred and twenty years ago; Prince Havilgar of Haulteclere, sixships, against Aton. Two ships got back. He didn't. Nobody's triedit since," Harkaman said.

  "So Dunnan the Great will do it. I hope he tries," he surprisedhimself by adding. "That's provided I find out what happened. ThenI could stop thinking about him."

  There was a time when he had dreaded the possibility that somebodyelse might kill Dunnan before he could.