XXV
"Do you think I was afraid of Viktor of Xochitl?" he demanded. "Halfa dozen ships; we could make a new Van Allen belt around Tanith ofthem, with what we have here. Our real enemy is on Marduk, notXochitl; his name's Zaspar Makann. Zaspar Makann, and Andray Dunnan,the man I came out from Gram to hunt; they're in alliance, andI believe Dunnan is on Marduk, himself, now."
The delegation who had come out from Gram in the yacht of theDuke of Bigglersport were unimpressed. Marduk was only a name tothem, one of the fabulous civilized Old Federation planets noSword-Worlder had ever seen. Zaspar Makann wasn't even that. Andso much had happened on Gram since the murder of Elaine Karvall andthe piracy of the _Enterprise_ that they had completely forgottenAndray Dunnan. That put them at a disadvantage. All the people whomthey were trying to convince, the half-hundred members of the newnobility of Tanith, spoke a language they didn't understand. Theydidn't even understand the proposition, and couldn't argue against it.
Paytrik Morland, who was Gram-born and had been speaking fora return in force to fight against Omfray of Glaspyth and hissupporters, defected from them at once. He had been on Marduk andknew who Zaspar Makann was; he had made friends with the Royal Navyofficers, and had been shocked to hear that they were now enemies.Manfred Ravallo and Boake Valkanhayn, among the more articulate ofthe Raid-Xochitl-Now party, snatched up the idea and seemedconvinced that they'd thought of it themselves all along. Valkanhaynhad been on Gimli and talked to Mardukan naval officers; Ravallo hadbrought Princess Bentrik to Tanith and heard her stories on thevoyage. They began adducing arguments in support of Trask's thesis.Of course Dunnan and Makann were in collusion. Who tipped Dunnan offthat the _Victrix_ would be on Audhumla? Makann; his spies in theNavy tipped him. What about the _Honest Horris_; wasn't Makannblocking any investigation about her? Why was Admiral Shefterretired as soon as Makann got into power?
"Well, here; we don't know anything about this Zaspar Makann," theconfidential secretary and spokesman of the Duke of Bigglersport began.
"No, you don't," Otto Harkaman told him. "I suggest you keep quietand listen, till you find out a little about him."
"Why, I wouldn't be surprised if Dunnan was on Marduk all the timewe were hunting for him," Valkanhayn said.
Trask began to wonder. What would Hitler have done if he'd told oneof his big lies, and then found it turning into the truth? MaybeMakann had been on Marduk.... No; he couldn't have hidden half adozen ships on a civilized planet. Not even at the bottom of anocean.
"I wouldn't be surprised," Alvyn Karffard was shouting, "if AndrayDunnan _was_ Zaspar Makann. I know he doesn't look like Dunnan, weall saw him on screen, but there's such a thing as plastic surgery."
That was making the big lie just a trifle too big. Zaspar Makann wassix inches shorter than Dunnan; there are some things no plasticsurgery could do. Paytrik Morland, who had known Dunnan and had seenMakann on screen, ought to have known that too, but he either didn'tthink of it or didn't want to weaken a case he had completely accepted.
"As far as I can find out, nobody even heard of Makann till aboutfive years ago. That would be about the time Dunnan would havearrived on Marduk," he said.
By this time, the big room in which they were meeting had become ababel of voices, everybody trying to convince everybody else thatthey'd known it all along. Then the Back-To-Gram party received its_coup-de-grace_; Lothar Ffayle, to whom the emissaries of Duke Jorishad looked for their strongest support, went over.
"You people want us to abandon a planet we've built up from nothing,and all the time and money we've invested in it, to go back to Gramand pull your chestnuts out of the fire? Gehenna with you! We'restaying here and defending our own planet. If you're smart, you'llstay here with us."
* * * * *
The Bigglersport delegation was still on Tanith, trying to recruitmercenaries from the King of Tradetown and dickering with aGilgamesher to transport them to Gram, when the big lie turnedinto something like the truth.
The observation post on the Moon of Tanith picked up an emergence attwenty light-minutes due north of the planet. Half an hour later,there was another one at five light-minutes; a very small one, andthen a third at two light-seconds, and this was detectable by radarand microray as a ship's pinnace. He wondered if something hadhappened on Amaterasu or Beowulf; somebody like Gratham or theEverrards might have decided to take advantage of the defensivemobilization on Tanith. Then they switched the call from the pinnaceover to his screen, and Prince Simon Bentrik was looking out of it.
"I'm glad to see you! Your wife and son are here, worried about you,but safe and well." He turned to shout to somebody to find youngCount Steven of Ravary and tell him to tell his mother. "How are you?"
"I had a broken leg when I left Moonbase, but that's mended on theway," Bentrik said. "I have little Princess Myrna aboard with me.For all I know, she's Queen of Marduk, now." He gulped slightly."Prince Trask, we've come as beggars. We're begging help forour planet."
"You've come as honored guests, and you'll get all the help we cangive you." He blessed the Xochitl invasion scare, and the big liewhich was rapidly ceasing to be a lie; Tanith had the ships andmen and the will to act. "What happened? Makann deposed the Kingand took over?"
It came to that, Bentrik told him. It had started even before theelection. The People's Watchmen had possessed weapons that had beenmade openly and legally on Marduk for trade to the Neobarbarianplanets and then clandestinely diverted to secret People's Welfarearsenals. Some of the police had gone over to Makann; the rest hadbeen terrorized into inaction. There had been riots fomented inworking-class districts of all the cities as pretexts for furtherterrorization. The election had been a farce of bribery andintimidation. Even so, Makann's party had failed of a completemajority in the Chamber of Representatives, and had been compelledto patch up a shady coalition in order to elect a favorable Chamberof Delegates.
"And, of course, they elected Makann Chancellor; that did it,"Bentrik said. "All the opposition leaders in the Chamber ofRepresentatives have been arrested, on all kinds of ridiculouscharges--sex-crimes, receiving bribes, being in the pay of foreignpowers, nothing too absurd. Then they rammed through a lawempowering the Chancellor to fill vacancies in the Chamber ofRepresentatives by appointment."
"Why did the Crown Prince lend himself to a thing like that?"
"He hoped that he could exercise some control. The Royal Familyis an almost holy symbol to the people. Even Makann was forcedto pretend loyalty to the King and the Crown Prince...."
"It didn't work; he played right into Makann's hands. What happened?"
The Crown Prince had been assassinated. The assassin, an unknown manbelieved to be a Gilgamesher, had been shot to death by People'sWatchmen guarding Prince Edvard at once. Immediately Makann hadseized the Royal Palace to protect the King, and immediately therehad been massacres by People's Watchmen everywhere. The MardukanPlanetary Army had ceased to exist; Makann's story was that therehad been a military plot against the King and the government.Scattered over the planet in small detachments, the army had beenwiped out in two nights and a day. Now Makann was recruiting it upagain, exclusively from the People's Welfare Party.
"You weren't just sitting on your hands, were you?"
"Oh, no," Bentrik replied. "I was doing something I wouldn't havethought myself capable of, a few years ago. Organizing a mutineeringconspiracy in the Royal Mardukan Navy. After Admiral Shefter wasforcibly retired and shut up in an insane asylum, I disappearedand turned into a civilian contragravity-lifter operator at theMalverton Navy Yard. Finally, when I was suspected, one of theofficers--he was arrested and tortured to death later--managedto smuggle me onto a lighter for the Moonbase. I was an orderlyin the hospital there. The day the Crown Prince was murdered, wehad a mutiny of our own. We killed everybody we even suspected ofbeing a Makannist. The Moonbase has been under attack from theplanet ever since."
There was a stir behind him; turning, he saw Princess Bentrik andth
e boy enter the room. He rose.
"We'll talk about this later. There are some people here...."
He motioned them forward and turned away, shoo-ing everybody elseout of the room.
* * * * *
The news was all over Rivington, and then all over Tanith, whilethe pinnace was still coming down. There was a crowd at thespaceport, staring as the little craft, with its blazon of thecrowned and planet-throned dragon, settled onto its landing legs,and reporters of the Tanith News Service with their screen pickups.He met Prince Bentrik, a little in advance of the others, andmanaged to whisper to him hastily:
"While you're talking to anybody here, always remember that AndrayDunnan is working with Zaspar Makann, and as soon as Makannconsolidates his position he's sending an expedition againstTanith."
"How in blazes did you find that out, here?" Bentrik demanded."From the Gilgameshers?"
Then Harkaman and Rathmore and Valkanhayn and Lothar Ffayle andthe others were crowding up behind, and more people were coming offthe pinnace, and Prince Bentrik was trying to embrace both his wifeand his son at the same time.
"Prince Trask." He started at the voice, and was looking into deepblue eyes under coal-black hair. His pulse gave a sudden jump, andhe said, "Valerie!" and then, "Lady Alvarath; I'm most happy to seeyou here." Then he saw who was beside her, and squatted on his heelsto bring himself down to a convenient size. "And Princess Myrna.Welcome to Tanith, Your Highness!"
The child flung her arms around his neck. "Oh, Prince Lucas! I'm soglad to see you. There's been such awful things happened!"
"There won't be anything awful happen here, Princess Myrna. You areamong friends; friends with whom you have a treaty. Remember?"
The child began to cry, bitterly. "That was when I was just aplay-Queen. And now I know what they meant when they talked aboutwhen Grandpa and Pappa would be through being King. Pappa didn'teven get to be King!"
Something big and warm and soft was trying to push between them;a dog with long blond hair and floppy ears. In a year and a half,puppies can grow surprisingly. Mopsy was trying to lick his face.He took the dog by the collar and straightened.
"Lady Valerie, will you come with us?" he asked. "I'm going to findquarters for Princess Myrna."
* * * * *
"Is it Princess Myrna, or is it Queen Myrna?" he asked.
Prince Bentrik shook his head. "We don't know. The King was alivewhen we left Moonbase, but that was five hundred hours ago. We don'tknow anything about her mother, either. She was at the Palace whenPrince Edvard was murdered; we've heard absolutely nothing abouther. The King made a few screen appearances, parroting things Makannwanted him to say. Under hypnosis. That was probably the very leastof what they did to him. They've turned him into a zombi."
"Well, how did Myrna get to Moonbase?"
"That was Lady Valerie, as much as anybody else. She and Sir ThomasKobbly, and Captain Rainer. They armed the servants at Cragdale withhunting rifles and everything else they could scrape up, capturedPrince Edvard's space-yacht, and took off in her. Took a couple ofhits from ground batteries getting off, and from ships aroundMoonbase getting in. Ships of the Royal Mardukan Navy!" he addedfuriously.
The pinnace in which they had made the trip to Tanith had takena few hits, too, running the blockade. Not many; her captain hadthrown her into hyperspace almost at once.
"They sent the yacht off to Gimli," Bentrik said. "From there,they'll try to rally as many of the Royal Navy units as haven't goneover to Makann. They're to assemble on Gimli and await my return.If I don't return in fifteen hundred hours from the time I leftMoonbase, they're to use their own judgment. I'd expect thatthey'd move in on Marduk and attack."
"That's sixty-odd days," Otto Harkaman said. "That's an awfully longtime to expect that lunar base to hold out, against a whole planet."
"It's a strong base. It was built four hundred years ago, whenMarduk was fighting a combination of six other planets. It held outagainst continuous attack, once, for almost a year. It's beenconstantly strengthened ever since."
"And what have they to throw at it?" Harkaman persisted.
"When I left, six ships of the former Royal Navy, that had goneover to Makann. Four fifteen-hundred-footers, same class as the_Victrix_, and two thousand-footers. Then, there were four ofAndray Dunnan's ships--"
"You mean, he really is on Marduk?"
"I thought you knew that, and I was wondering how you'd found out.Yes: _Fortuna_, _Bolide_, and two armed merchantmen, a Baldurbuiltship called the _Reliable_, and your friend _Honest Horris_."
"You didn't really believe Dunnan was on Marduk?" Boake Valkanhaynasked.
"Actually, I didn't. I had to have some kind of a story, to talkthose people out of that crusade against Omfray of Glaspyth." Heleft unmentioned Valkanhayn's own insistence on a plunderingexpedition against Xochitl. "Now that it turns out to be true,I'm not surprised. We decided, long ago, that Dunnan was planningto raid Marduk. It appears that we underestimated him. Maybe hewas reading about Hitler, too. He wasn't planning any raid; hewas planning conquest, in the only way a great civilization canbe conquered--by subversion."
"Yes," Harkaman put in. "Five years ago, when Dunnan started thisprogramme, who was this Makann, anyhow?"
"Nobody," Bentrik said. "A crackpot agitator in Drepplin; he hada coven of fellow-crackpots, who met in the back room of a saloonand had their office in a cigar box. The next year, he had a suiteof offices and was buying time on a couple of telecasts. The yearafter that, he had three telecast stations of his own, andwas holding rallies and meetings of thousands of people. Andso on, upward."
"Yes. Dunnan financed him, and moved in behind him, the same wayMakann moved in behind the King. And Dunnan will have him shotthe way he had Prince Edvard shot, and use the murder as a pretextto liquidate his personal followers."
"And then he'll own Marduk. And we'll have the Mardukan navy comingout of hyperspace on Tanith," Valkanhayn added. "So we go to Mardukand smash him now, while he's still little enough to smash."
There had been a few who had wanted to do that about Hitler, anda great many, later, who had regretted that it hadn't been done.
"The _Nemesis_, the _Corisande_, and the _Space Scourge_ for sure?"he asked.
Harkaman and Valkanhayn agreed; Valkanhayn thought the _Viking'sGift_ of Beowulf would go along, and Harkaman was almost sure ofthe _Black Star_ and _Queen Flavia_. He turned to Bentrik.
"Start that pinnace off for Gimli at once; within the hour ifpossible. We don't know how many ships will be gathered there,but we don't want them wasted in detail-attacks. Tell whoever'sin command there that ships from Tanith are on the way, and towait for them."
Fifteen hundred hours, less the five hundred Bentrik was in spacefrom Marduk. He hadn't time to estimate voyage-time to Gimli fromthe other Mardukan trade-planets, and nobody could estimate how manyships 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 toldBentrik, "is not exclusively a feature of democracies."
* * * * *
Actually, there was very little argument, and most of that amongthe Mardukans. Prince Bentrik insisted that Crown Princess Myrnawould have to be taken along; King Mikhyl would be either dead orbrainwashed into imbecility by now, and they would have to havesomebody to take the throne. Lady Valerie Alvarath, Sir ThomasKobbly, the tutor, and the nurse Margot refused to be separatedfrom her. Prince Bentrik was equally firm, with less success, onleaving his wife and son on Tanith. In the end, it was agreed thatthe entire Mardukan party would space out on the _Nemesis_.
The leader of the Bigglersport delegation attempted an impassionedtirade about going to the aid of strangers while their own planetwas being enslaved. He was booed down by everybody else and informedthat Tanith was being defended where a planet ought to be, onsomebody else's real estate. When the Bigglersporters emergedfrom
the meeting, they found that their own space-yacht had beencommandeered and sent off to Amaterasu and Beowulf for assistance,that the regiment of local infantry they had enlisted from the Kingof Tradetown had been taken over by the Rivington authorities, andthat the Gilgamesh freighter they had chartered to transport themto Gram would now take them to Marduk.
The problem broke into two halves: the purely naval action thatwould be fought to relieve the Moon of Marduk, if it still held out,and to destroy the Dunnan and Makann ships, and the ground-fightingproblem of wiping out Makann's supporters and restoring the Mardukanmonarchy. A great many of the people of Marduk would be glad ofa chance to turn on Makann, once they had arms and were properlysupported. Combat weapons were almost unknown among the people,however, and even sporting arms uncommon. All the small arms andlight artillery and auto-weapons available were gathered up.
The _Grendelsbane_ came in from Beowulf, and the _Sun Goddess_ fromAmaterasu. Three independent Space Viking ships were still in orbiton Tanith; they joined the expedition. There would be trouble withthem on Marduk; they'd want to loot. Let the Mardukans worry aboutthat. They could charge it off as part of the price for lettingZaspar 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 charteredGilgamesher troop-transport; that was the biggest fleet SpaceVikings had ever assembled in their history. Alvyn Karffard saidas much while they were checking the formation by screen.
"It isn't a Space Viking fleet," Prince Bentrik differed. "Thereare only three Space Vikings in it. The rest are the ships of threecivilized planets. Tanith, Beowulf and Amaterasu."
Karffard was surprised. "You mean _we're_ civilized planets? LikeMarduk, or Baldur or Odin, or...?"
"Well, aren't you?"
Trask smiled. He'd begun to suspect something of the sort a coupleof years ago. He hadn't really been sure until now. His most juniorstaff officer, Count Steven of Ravary, didn't seem to appreciatethe compliment.
"We _are_ Space Vikings!" he insisted. "And we are going to battlewith the Neobarbarians of Zaspar Makann."
"Well, I won't argue the last half of it, Steven," his father told him.
"Are you people done yakking about who's civilized and who isn't?"Guatt Kirbey asked. "Then give the signal. All the other ships areready to jump."
Trask pressed the button on the desk in front of him. A light wenton over Kirbey's control panel as one would on each of the otherships. He said, "Jumping," around the stem of his pipe, and twistedthe 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 wasnothing to do but wait, as each hour carried them six trillion milesnearer to Gimli. At first, the ruthless and terrible Space Viking,Steven, Count of Ravary, was wildly excited, but before long hefound that there was nothing exciting going on; it was just aspaceship, and he'd been on ships before. Her Highness the CrownPrincess, or maybe her Majesty the Queen of Marduk, stopped beingexcited about the same time, and she and Steven and Mopsy playedtogether. Of course, Myrna was only a girl, and two years youngerthan Steven, but she was, or at least might be, his sovereign, andbeside, she had been in a space action, if you call what liesbetween a planet and its satellite space and if you call being shotat without being able to shoot back an action, and RelentlessRavary, the Interstellar Terror, had not. This rather made upfor being a girl and a mere baby of going-on-ten.
One thing, there were no lessons. Sir Thomas Kobbly fancied himselfas a landscape-painter and spent most of his time arguing techniqueswith Vann Larch, and Steven's tutor, Captain Rainer was a normal-spaceastrogator and found a kindred spirit in Sharll Renner. This leftLady Valerie Alvarath at a loose end. There were plenty of volunteersto help her fill in the time, but Rank Hath Its Privileges; Traskundertook to see to it that she did not suffer excessively fromshipboard ennui.
Sharll Renner and Captain Rainer approached him, during the cocktailhour before dinner, some hundred hours short of emergence.
"We think we've figured out where Dunnan's base is," Renner said.
"Oh, good!" Everybody else had, on a different planet. "Where's yours?"
"Abaddon," the Count of Ravary's tutor said. When he saw that thename meant nothing to Trask, he added, "The ninth, outer, planet ofthe Marduk system." He said it disgustedly.
"Yes; remember how you had Boake and Manfred out with their ships,checking our outside planets to see if Prince Viktor might be hidingon one of them? Well, what with the time element, and the way the_Honest Horris_ was shuttling back and forth from Marduk to someplace that wasn't Gimli, and the way Dunnan was able to bring hisships in as soon as the shooting started on Marduk, we thought hemust be on an uninhabited outer planet of the Marduk system."
"I don't know why we never thought of that, ourselves," Rainer putin. "I suppose because nobody ever thinks of Abaddon for any reason.It's only a small planet, about four thousand miles in diameter, andit's three and a half billion miles from primary. It's frozen solid.It would take almost a year to get to it on Abbot drive, and if yourship has Dillinghams, why not take a little longer and go to a goodplanet? So nobody bothered with Abaddon."
But for Dunnan's purpose, it would be perfect. He called PrinceBentrik and Alvyn Karffard to him; they found the idea instantlyconvincing. They talked about it through dinner, and held a generaldiscussion afterward. Even Guatt Kirbey, the ship's pessimist, couldfind no objection to it. Trask and Bentrik began at once makingbattle plans. Karffard wondered if they hadn't better wait till theygot to Gimli and discuss it with the others.
"No," Trask told him. "This is the flagship; here's where thestrategy is decided."
"Well, how about the Mardukan Navy?" Captain Rainer asked. "I thinkFleet Admiral Bargham's in command at Gimli."
Prince Simon Bentrik was silent for a moment, as though he realized,with reluctance, that the big decision was no longer avoidable.
"He may be, at present, but he won't be when I get there. I will be."
"But ... Your Highness, he's a fleet admiral; you're just acommodore."
"I am not just a commodore. The King is a prisoner, and for all weknow dead. The Crown Prince is dead. The Princess Myrna is a child.I am assuming the position of Regent and Prince-Protector of the Realm."
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