"'When somebody makes a statement you don't understand, don't tell
him he's crazy. Ask him what he means.' Who said that?"
"On target," Harkaman grinned. "'What _do_ you mean, Lord Trask?'"
"I can't catch Dunnan by pursuit; I'll have to get him by
interception. You know the source of that quotation, too. This looks
to me like a good place to intercept him. When he learns I have a
base here, he'll hit it, sooner or later. And even if he doesn't,
we can pick up more information on him, when ships start coming in
here, than we would batting around all over the Old Federation."
Harkaman considered for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, if we could set
up a base like Nergal or Xochitl," he agreed. "There'll be four or
five ships, Space Vikings, traders, Gilgameshers and so on, on
either of those planets all the time. If we had the cargo Dunnan
took to space in the _Enterprise_, we could start a base like that.
But we haven't anything near what we need, and you know what Spasso
and Valkanhayn have."
"We can get it from Gram. As it stands, the investors in the Tanith
Adventure, from Duke Angus down, lost everything they put into it.
If they're willing to throw some good money after bad, they can get
it back, and a handsome profit to boot. And there ought to be
planets above the rowboat and ox-cart level not too far away that
could be raided for a lot of things we'd need."
"That's right; I know of half a dozen within five hundred light-years.
They won't be the kind Spasso and Valkanhayn are in the habit of
raiding, though. And besides machinery, we can get gold, and valuable
merchandise that could be sold on Gram. And if we could make a go of
it, you'd go farther hunting Dunnan by sitting here on Tanith than by
going looking for him. That was the way we used to hunt marsh pigs on
Colada, when I was a kid; just find a good place and sit down and wait."
[Illustration]
* * * * *
They had Valkanhayn and Spasso aboard the _Nemesis_ for dinner; it
didn't take much guiding to keep the conversation on the subject of
Tanith and its resources, advantages and possibilities. Finally,
when they had reached brandy and coffee, Trask said idly:
"I believe, together, we could really make something out of this planet."
"That's what we've been telling you, all along," Spasso broke in
eagerly. "This is a wonderful planet--"
"It could be. All it has now is possibilities. We'd need a
spaceport, for one thing."
"Well, what's this, here?" Valkanhayn wanted to know.
"It was a spaceport," Harkaman told him. "It could be one again. And
we'd need a shipyard, capable of any kind of heavy repair work.
Capable of building a complete ship, in fact. I never saw a ship
come into a Viking base planet with any kind of a cargo worth
dickering over that hadn't taken some damage getting it. Prince
Viktor of Xochitl makes a good half of his money on ship repairs,
and so do Nikky Gratham on Jagannath and the Everrards on Hoth."
"And engine works, hyperdrive, normal space and pseudograv," Trask
added. "And a steel mill, and a collapsed-matter plant. And
robotic-equipment works, and--"
"Oh, that's out of all reason!" Valkanhayn cried. "It would take
twenty trips with a ship the size of this one to get all that stuff
here, and how'd we ever be able to pay for it?"
"That's the sort of base Duke Angus of Wardshaven planned. The
_Enterprise_, practically a duplicate of the _Nemesis_, carried
everything that would be needed to get it started, when she was
pirated."
"When she was--?"
"Now you're going to have to tell the gentlemen the truth,"
Harkaman chuckled.
"I intend to." He laid his cigar down, sipped some of his brandy,
and explained about Duke Angus' Tanith adventure. "It was part of a
larger plan; Angus wanted to gain economic supremacy for Wardshaven
to forward his political ambitions. It was, however, an entirely
practical business proposition. I was opposed to it, because I
thought it would be too good a proposition for Tanith and work to
the disadvantage of the home planet in the end." He told them about
the _Enterprise_, and the cargo of industrial and construction
equipment she carried, and then told them how Andray Dunnan had
pirated her.
"That wouldn't have annoyed me at all; I had no money invested in
the project. What did annoy me, to put it mildly, was that just
before he took the ship out, Dunnan shot up my wedding, wounded me
and my father-in-law, and killed the lady to whom I had been married
for less than half an hour. I fitted out this ship at my own
expense, took on Captain Harkaman, who had been left without a
command when the _Enterprise_ was pirated, and came out here to
hunt Dunnan down and kill him. I believe that I can do that best by
establishing a base on Tanith myself. The base will have to be
operated at a profit, or it can't be operated at all." He picked up
the cigar again and puffed slowly. "I am inviting you gentlemen to
join me as partners."
"Well, you still haven't told us how we're going to get the money to
finance it," Spasso insisted.
"The Duke of Wardshaven, and the others who invested in the original
Tanith adventure will put it up. It's the only way they can recover
what they lost on the _Enterprise_."
"But then, this Duke of Wardshaven will be running it, not us,"
Valkanhayn objected.
"The Duke of Wardshaven," Harkaman reminded him, "is on Gram. We are
here on Tanith. There are three thousand light-years between."
That seemed a satisfactory answer. Spasso, however, wanted to know
who would run things here on Tanith.
"We'll have to hold a meeting of all three crews," he began.
"We will do nothing of the kind," Trask told him. "I will be running
things here on Tanith. You people may allow your orders to be
debated and voted on, but I don't. You will inform your respective
crews to that effect. Any orders you give them in my name will be
obeyed without argument."
"I don't know how the men'll take that," Valkanhayn said.
"I know how they'll take it if they're smart," Harkaman told him.
"And I know what'll happen if they aren't. I know how you've been
running your ships, or how your ships' crews have been running you.
Well, we don't do it that way. Lucas Trask is owner, and I'm
captain. I obey his orders on what's to be done, and everybody else
obeys mine on how to do it."
Spasso looked at Valkanhayn, then shrugged. "That's how the man
wants it, Boake. You want to give him an argument? I don't."
"The first order," Trask said, "is that these people you have
working here are to be paid. They are not to be beaten by these
plug-uglies you have guarding them. If any of them want to leave,
they may do so; they will be given presents and furnished
transportation home. Those who wish to stay will be issued rations,
furnished with clothing and bedding and so on as they need it, and
paid wages. We'll work out some kind of a pay-token system and set
up a commissary where they can buy things."
Disks of plastic or titanium or something, stamped and
uncounterfeitable. Get Alvyn Karffard to see about that. Organize
work-gangs, and promote the best and most intelligent to foremen.
And those guards could be taken in hand by some ground-fighter
sergeant and given Sword-World weapons and tactical training; use
them to train others; they'd need a sepoy army of some sort. Even
the best of good will is no substitute for armed force,
conspicuously displayed and unhesitatingly used when necessary.
"And there'll be no more of this raiding villages for food or
anything else. We will pay for anything we get from any of the
locals."
"We'll have trouble about that," Valkanhayn predicted. "Our men
think anything a local has belongs to anybody who can take it."
"So do I," Harkaman said. "On a planet I'm raiding. This is our
planet, and our locals. We don't raid our own planet or our own
people. You'll just have to teach them that."
X
It took Valkanhayn and Spasso more time and argument to convince
their crews than Trask thought necessary. Harkaman seemed satisfied,
and so was Baron Rathmore, the Wardshaven politician.
"It's like talking a lot of uncommitted small landholders into
taking somebody's livery-and-maintenance," the latter said. "You
can't use too much pressure; make them think it's their own idea."
There were meetings of both crews, with heated arguments; Baron
Rathmore made frequent speeches, while Lord Trask of Tanith and
Admiral Harkaman--the titles were Rathmore's suggestion--remained
loftily aloof. On both ships, everybody owned everything in common,
which meant that nobody owned anything. They had taken over Tanith
on the same basis of diffused ownership, and nobody in either crew
was quite stupid enough to think that they could do anything with
the planet by themselves. By joining the _Nemesis_, it appeared that
they were getting something for nothing. In the end, they voted to
place themselves under the authority of Lord Trask and Admiral
Harkaman. After all, Tanith would be a feudal lordship, and the
three ships together a fleet.
Admiral Harkaman's first act of authority was to order a general
inspection of fleet units. He wasn't shocked by the condition of the
two ships, but that was only because he had expected much worse. They
were spaceworthy; after all, they had gotten here from Hoth under
their own power. They were only combat-worthy if the combat weren't
too severe. His original estimate that the _Nemesis_ could have
knocked both of them to pieces was, if anything, over-conservative.
The engines were only in fair shape, and the armament was bad.
"We aren't going to spend our time sitting here on Tanith," he told
the two captains. "This planet is a raiding base, and 'raiding' is
the operative word. And we are not going to raid easy planets. A
planet that can be raided with impunity isn't worth the time it takes
getting to it. We are going to have to fight on every planet we hit,
and I am not going to jeopardize the lives of the men under me,
which includes your crews as well as mine, because of under-powered
and under-armed ships."