Harkaman cursed. "Yes. I know how you've been getting along;
chicken-stealing on planets like Set and Xipototec and Melkarth. Not
making enough to cover maintenance expenses; that's why your ship's
in the shape she is. Well, those days are over. Both ships ought to
have a full overhaul, but we'll have to skip that till we have a
shipyard of our own. But I will insist, at least, that your guns and
launchers are in order. And your detection equipment; you didn't get
a fix on the _Nemesis_ till we were less than twenty thousand miles
off-planet."
"We had better get the _Lamia_ in condition first," Trask said. "We
can put her on off-planet watch, instead of that pair of pinnaces."
* * * * *
Work on the _Lamia_ started the next day, and considerable friction-heat
was generated between her officers and the engineers sent over from
the _Nemesis_. Baron Rathmore went aboard, and came back laughing.
"You know how that ship's run?" he asked. "There's a sort of soviet
of officers; chief engineer, exec, guns-and-missiles, astrogator and
so on. Spasso's just an animated ventriloquist's dummy. I talked to
all of them. None of them can pin me down to anything, but they
think we're going to heave Spasso out of command and appoint one of
them, and each one thinks he'll be it. I don't know how long that'll
last, it's a string-and-tape job like the one we're having to do on
the ship. It'll hold till we get something better."
"We'll have to get rid of Spasso," Harkaman agreed. "I think we'll
put one of our own people in his place. Valkanhayn can stay in
command of the _Space Scourge_; he's a spaceman. But Spasso's no
good for anything."
The local problem was complicated, too. The locals spoke Lingua
Terra of a sort, like every descendant of the race that had gone out
from the Sol system in the Third Century, but it was a barely
comprehensible sort. On civilized planets, the language had been
frozen unalterably in microbooks and voice tapes. But microbooks can
only be read and sound tapes heard with the aid of electricity, and
Tanith had lost that long ago.
Most of the people Spasso and Valkanhayn had kidnaped and enslaved
came from villages within a radius of five hundred miles. About half
of them wanted to be repatriated; they were given gifts of knives,
tools, blankets, and bits of metal which seemed to be the chief
standard of value and medium of exchange, and shipped home. Finding
their proper villages was not easy. At each such village, the news
was spread that the Space Vikings would hereafter pay for what they
received.
The _Lamia_ was overhauled as rapidly as possible. She was still
far from being a good ship, but she was much closer to being one than
before. She was fitted with the best detection equipment that could
be assembled, and put on orbit; Alvyn Karffard took command of her,
with some of Spasso's officers, some of Valkanhayn's, and a few from
the _Nemesis_. Harkaman was intending to use her for retraining of
all the _Lamia_ and _Space Scourge_ officers, and rotated them back
and forth.
[Illustration]
The labor guards, a score in number, were relieved of their duties,
issued Sword-World firearms, and given intensive training. The trade
tokens, stamps of colored plastic, were introduced, and a store was
set up where they could be exchanged for Sword-World items. After a
while, it dawned on the locals that the tokens could also be used
for trading among themselves; money seemed to have been one of the
adjuncts of civilization that had been lost along Tanith's downward
path. A few of them were able to use contragravity hand-lifters and
hand-towed lifter-skids; several were even learning to operate
things like bulldozers, at least to the extent of knowing which
lever or button did what. Give them a little time, Trask thought,
watching a gang at work down on the spaceport floor. It won't be
many years before half of them will be piloting aircars.
* * * * *
As soon as the _Lamia_ was on orbital watch, the _Space Scourge_ was
set down at the spaceport and work started on her. It was decided
that Valkanhayn would take her to Gram; enough _Nemesis_ people
would go along to insure good faith on his part, and to talk to Duke
Angus and the Tanith investors. Baron Rathmore, and Paytrik Morland,
and several other Wardshaven gentlemen-adventurers for the latter
function; Alvyn Karffard to act as Valkanhayn's exec, with private
orders to supersede him in command if necessary, and Guatt Kirbey
to do the astrogating.
"We'll have to take the _Nemesis_ and the _Space Scourge_ out,
first, and make a big raid," Harkaman said. "We can't send the
_Space Scourge_ back to Gram empty. When Baron Rathmore and Lord
Valpry and the rest of them talk to Duke Angus and the Tanith
investors, they'll have to have a lot more than some travel films
of Tanith. They'll have to be able to show that 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."