Space Viking, H. Beam Piper [best classic romance novels txt] 📗

Tanith is producing. We ought to have a little money of our own to invest, too.”

“But, Otto; both ships?” That worried Trask. “Suppose Dunnan comes and finds nobody here but Spasso and the Lamia?”

“Chance we’ll have to take. Personally, I think we have a year to a year and a half before Dunnan shows up here. I know, we were fooled trying to guess what he’d do before. But the sort of raid I have in mind, we’ll need two ships, and in any case, I don’t want to leave both those ships here while we’re gone, even if you do.”

“When it comes to that, I don’t think I do, either. But we can’t trust Spasso here alone, can we?”

“We’ll leave enough of our people to make sure. We’ll leave Alvyn⁠—that’ll mean a lot of work for me that he’d otherwise do, on the ship. And Baron Rathmore, and young Valpry, and the men who’ve been training our sepoys. We can shuffle things around and leave some of Valkanhayn’s men in place of some of Spasso’s. We might even talk Spasso into going along. That’ll mean having to endure him at our table, but it would be wise.”

“Have you picked a place to raid?”

“Three of them. First, Khepera. That’s only thirty light-years from here. That won’t amount to much; just chicken-stealing. It’ll give our green hands some relatively safe combat-training, and it’ll give us some idea of how Spasso’s and Valkanhayn’s people behave, and give them confidence for the next job.”

“And then?”

“Amaterasu. My information about Amaterasu is about twenty years old. A lot of things can happen in twenty years. All I know of it⁠—I was never there myself⁠—is it’s fairly civilized⁠—about like Terra just before the beginning of the Atomic Era. No nuclear energy, they lost that, and of course nothing beyond it, but they have hydroelectric and solarelectric power, and nonnuclear jet aircraft, and some very good chemical-explosive weapons, which they use very freely on each other. It was last known to have been raided by a ship from Excalibur twenty years ago.”

“That sounds promising. And the third planet?”

“Beowulf. We won’t take enough damage on Amaterasu to make any difference there, but if we saved Amaterasu for last, we might be needing too many repairs.”

“It’s like that?”

“Yes. They have nuclear energy. I don’t think it would be wise to mention Beowulf to Captains Spasso and Valkanhayn. Wait till we’ve hit Khepera and Amaterasu. They may be feeling like heroes, then.”

XI

Khepera left a bad taste in Trask’s mouth. He was still tasting it when the colored turbulence died out of the screen and left the gray nothingness of hyperspace. Garvan Spasso⁠—they had had no trouble in inducing him to come along⁠—was staring avidly at the screen as though he could still see the ravished planet they had left.

“That was a good one; that was a good one!” he was crowing. He’d said that a dozen times since they had lifted out. “Three cities in five days, and all the stuff we gathered up around them. We took over two million stellars.”

And did ten times as much damage getting it, and there was no scale of values by which to compute the death and suffering.

“Knock it off, Spasso. You said that before.”

There was a time when he wouldn’t have spoken to the fellow, or anybody else, like that. Gresham’s law, extended: Bad manners drive out good manners. Spasso turned on him indignantly.

“Who do you think you are⁠—?”

“He thinks he’s Lord Trask of Tanith,” Harkaman said. “He’s right, too; he is.” He looked searchingly at Trask for a moment, then turned back to Spasso. “I’m just as tired as he is of hearing you pop your mouth about a lousy two million stellars. Nearer a million and a half, but two million’s nothing to pop about. Maybe it would be for the Lamia, but we have a three-ship fleet and a planetary base to meet expenses on. Out of this raid, a ground-fighter or an able spaceman will get a hundred and fifty stellars. We’ll get about a thousand, ourselves. How long do you think we can stay in business doing this kind of chicken-stealing.”

“You call this chicken-stealing?”

“I call it chicken-stealing, and so’ll you before we get back to Tanith. If you live that long.”

For a moment, Spasso was still affronted. Then, temporarily, his vulpine face showed avaricious hope, and then apprehension. Evidently he knew Otto Harkaman’s reputation, and some of the things Harkaman had done weren’t his idea of an easy way to make money.

Khepera had been easy; the locals hadn’t had anything to fight with. Small arms, and light cannon which hadn’t been able to fire more than a few rounds. Wherever they had attempted resistance, the combat cars had swooped in, dropping bombs and firing machine guns and auto-cannon. Yet they had fought, bitterly and hopelessly⁠—just as he would have, defending Traskon.

Trask busied himself getting coffee and a cigarette from one of the robots. When he looked up, Spasso had gone away, and Harkaman was sitting on the edge of the desk, loading his short pipe.

“Well, you saw the elephant, Lucas,” Harkaman said. “You don’t seem to have liked it.”

“Elephant?”

“Old Terran expression I read somewhere. All I know is that an elephant was an animal about the size of one of your Gram megatheres. The expression means, experiencing something for the first time which makes a great impression. Elephants must have been something to see. This was your first Viking raid. You’ve seen it, now.”

He’d been in combat before; he’d led the fighting-men of Traskon during the boundary dispute with Baron Manniwel, and there were always bandits and cattle rustlers. He’d thought it would be like that. He remembered, five days, or was it five ages, ago, his excited anticipation as the city grew and spread in the screen and the Nemesis came dropping down toward it. The pinnaces, his four and the two from the Space Scourge,