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

practically taking a free ride, so anything on hand, stuff that nobody would ordinarily think of shipping in interstellar trade, went aboard. A two thousand foot freighter had a great deal of cargo space.

Baron Trask of Traskon hadn’t even begun to realise what Tanith base was going to cost Gram.

XVII

As might be expected, the Beowulfers finished their hypership first. They had started with everything but a little know-how which had been quickly learned. Amaterasu had had to begin by creating the industry they needed to create the industry they needed to build a ship. The Beowulf ship⁠—she was named Viking’s Gift⁠—came in on Tanith five and a half years after the Nemesis and the Space Scourge had raided Beowulf; her skipper had fought a normal-drive ship in that battle. Beside plutonium and radioactive isotopes, she carried a general cargo of the sort of luxury-goods unique to Beowulf which could always find a market in interstellar trade.

After selling the cargo and depositing the money in the Bank of Tanith, the skipper of the Viking’s Gift wanted to know where he could find a good planet to raid. They gave him a list, none too tough but all slightly above the chicken-stealing level, and another list of planets he was not to raid; planets with which Tanith was trading.

Six months later they learned that he had showed up on Khepera, with which they were now trading, and had flooded the market there with plundered textiles, hardware, ceramics and plastics. He had bought kregg-meat and hides.

“You see what you did, now?” Harkaman clamored. “You thought you were making a customer; what you made was a competitor.”

“What I made was an ally. If we ever do find Dunnan’s planet, we’ll need a fleet to take it. A couple of Beowulf ships would help. You know them; you fought them, too.”

Harkaman had other worries. While cruising in Corisande II, he had come in on Vitharr, one of the planets where Tanith ships traded, to find it being raided by a Space Viking ship based on Xochitl. He had fought a short but furious ship-action, battering the invader until he 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 out both with the captain and Prince Viktor, serving them with an ultimatum 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 were Space Vikings, not Gilgameshers. I told him we weren’t Gilgameshers, either, as he’d find out on Xochitl the next time one of his ships raided 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 ships and 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 ships on any of their trade-planets. No mention of the incident was made in any of the reports sent back to Gram. The Gram situation was deteriorating rapidly enough. Finally, there was an audiovisual message from Angus himself; he was seated on his throne, wearing his crown, and he began speaking from the screen abruptly:

“We, Angus, King of Gram and Tanith, are highly displeased with our subject, Lucas, Prince and Viceroy of Tanith; we consider ourselves very badly served by Prince Trask. We therefore command him to return to Gram, and render to us account of his administration of our colony and realm of Tanith.”

After some hasty preparations, Trask recorded a reply. He was sitting on 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 to acknowledge the suzerainty of the King of Gram, formerly Duke of Wardshaven. It is our earnest desire, if possible, to remain at peace and friendship with the King of Gram, and to carry on trade relations with him and with his subjects.

“We must, however, reject absolutely any efforts on his part to dictate the internal policies of our realm of Tanith. It is our earnest hope,”⁠—dammit, he’d said “earnest,” he should have thought of some other word⁠—“that no act on the part of his Majesty the King of Gram will create any breach in the friendship existing between his realm and ours.”

Three months later, the next ship, which had left Gram while King Angus’ summons was still in hyperspace, brought Baron Rathmore. Shaking hands with him as he left the landing craft, Trask wanted to know if he’d been sent out as the new Viceroy. Rathmore started to laugh 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 blessed sovereign you can stomach?”

“Lucas, you have enough ships and men here to take Gram,” Rathmore said. “Proclaim yourself King of Tanith and then lay claim to the throne of Gram and the whole planet would rise for you.”

Rathmore had lowered his voice, but even so the open landing stage was no place for this sort of talk. He said so, ordered a couple of the locals to collect Rathmore’s luggage, and got him into a hall-car, taking him down to his living quarters. After they were in private, Rathmore began again:

“It’s more than anybody can stand! There isn’t one of the old great nobility he hasn’t alienated, or one of the minor barons, the landholders and industrialists, the people who were always the backbone of Gram. And it goes from them down to the