King David's Spaceship

CHAPTER ONE THE BLUE BOTTLE

The crowd was noisy in the Blue Bottle, although it was early in the evening. Tavern girls squealed as customers pinched them, gaily clad waiters brought round after round of drinks, and throughout much of the room everyone was shouting merrily.

The reason was not hard to find, for in one corner of the crowded room three officers of the Imperial Navy held court, buying drinks for anyone on Prince Samual’s World who would sit with them and laugh at their jokes. Some of the regulars held back, their distaste for the enforced association more evident with every round, but for each of them there were four others from Haven City more than willing to share the Emperor’s humor and liquor. Before the night ended the officers would doubtless have new recruits for the Royal and Imperial Marines, young lads suddenly sobered to find themselves in an iron service out among the stars, never to see their homes and discovering that Imperial officers were not such jolly good fellows when you were under their command.

For the moment the whiskey, brandy, and grua-distilled from a cross between a berry and a peach grown only on Prince Samual’s northern continent — flowed freely, the jokes were new to the locals even if they had been told a century before in the barracks at New Annapolis, and His Imperial Majesty’s crimson-and-gold-jacketed officers were relaxed, feeling as at home as they ever did on a barely civilized planet.

The three of them were classmates, not six years out of the Academy, the gold and silver stripes of lieutenants only recently sewn on their sleeves. Closer inspection would have revealed that one of them was a year younger than his friends, a school prodigy admitted early to midshipman status as much because of his talents as his family influence, and that young-and-only-just-lieutenant Jefferson was very, very drunk. His classmates had discreetly opened the top clasp of their stiff tunic collars, but Jefferson’s was half unfastened, revealing a none-too-fresh shirt and a tiny breast-pocket computer beneath.

His natural shyness overcome by countless thimble-sized glasses of grua, Lieutenant Jefferson basked in the esteem of the flatlanders. He had almost forgotten that they were barbarians, and that he and the tiny Navy outpost on Prince Samual were the only representatives of true civilization within ten light-years. The others were singing, and when his turn came he added a verse so obscene it shocked the tavern girls. He grinned and looked about for approval, then tossed off another glass.

Across from Jefferson a young native, browned by field work, too young to be in the Blue Bottle if he were not sitting with the Emperor’s overlords, beamed at his new friend and shouted approval of the song. “Great, Lieu — uh, Jeff, great. Tell us more about what it’s like out there. Tell us about other worlds. Are we the most backward place you’ve ever seen?”

Lieutenant Jefferson belched loudly, murmured an automatic apology, and focused dizzily on his admirers. “Oh hell, no, Simom, not by a full broadside. Samual’s got guns, and factories, and — and long-distance communications, and hydroelectric power; man, you’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. You’ve got no world government, and those wars you’re always in stomp you down or for sure you’d be Class Two status in the Empire instead of a colony. When I think how bad you got torn up in the Secession Wars, it’s amazing you got this far in a few centuries … standard centuries, that is. You’re doing fine here. That right, laddie?” he asked, digging his elbowinto his classmate’s ribs.

Lieutenant Clements turned his black face to Jefferson and grinned, his teeth sparkling. “Sure that’s right, Jeff, you tell ’em this is the best duty we’ve had since we left the capital. Maybe better,” he shouted, turning back to the tavern girl beside him.

“Hear that?” Jefferson asked his companion. “Simom, we’ve been to places where they don’t even have hydrocarbon power, no electricity, no pellet guns, nothing but horses and men running around in iron pants the way you see — well, the way we see in Imperial history books, books about the time when Earth was all there was to it. Friend, you almost have space travel. Another hundred years, another fifty years even, you’d have found us instead of the other way around. Too bad you didn’t,” he added, his voice changing. “Been better for you if you had. Class Two status for sure, maybe Class One. if you’d had real space flight before we got here. Not your fault; the survey ship just happened by looking for a gas giant to scoop some fuel from and decided to look you over. A real pity.” He looked at his empty glass. “Host! Host! More grua!”

Two of the regulars of the Blue Bottle made a point of walking past the officers as they stamped out of the tavern, their kilts swirling, but Jefferson did not notice them. As the headwaiter brought more drinks, Simom asked, “What was it like, that place where they wore iron pants? It is far from here? Have you colonized it? Can we go there?”

“Ho, one at a time,” Jefferson shouted. “Far? Not more than twelve light-years, one jump from here, I think. Let’s see, yeah, there’s nothing between the two suns and theirs is a big one; hell, it’s that thing you people call the Eye of the Needle; you could see it right now if you went outside. And no, no colonies there, not enough to make it worthwhile yet. And we’re spread so thin. Keep a little observation post there to watch for outies, a first lieutenant and a couple of middies, few Marines. Not even a ship in orbit. Detection gear, observation satellite, that’s about all. Nothing important there, except, of course, their Temple.”

Jefferson had allowed his voice to drop for a moment, a note of weariness creeping in as he thought of the immense task of the Imperial Navy trying to reclaim the pieces of an Empire lost and shattered in the Secession Wars, the capital itself only reaching for the stars decades ago. His Majesty hoped to knit together the fragments before another war could send mankind staggering back to primitive conditions. There had been no winners of the last war, and the next would be worse. There must not be a next one, he said to himself. Never again. Then he brightened as the raucous humor and obvious friendship of the natives washed over him. Best enjoy it now, he thought. They wouldn’t be so friendly to the Navy after the colonists arrived — but that was years away, and the night was young.

“The funny part, Simom, is that the Temple is worth more to them than the whole bloody planet, if they only knew it! They were right to make it a holy place and preserve it, but if they only knew! Why, there’s a whole Old-Empire subsection library in that rabbit warren they’ve built up around what used to be the Viceroy’s Palace! The Service librarians almost went out of their minds, some of the history books and things they found there. Even a few science books, operating manuals for old Imperial Fleet stuff; you name it, it’s there, or bits and pieces of it are.

“They don’t even know what it all is! Wouldn’t do them any good if they did, no technology to understand it anyway. And my sweet Savior, how they guard that stuff! Thought we’d never get any of it copied for the archives. If we’d taken just one of those cubes out — yeah, cubes, the library was geared to a computer. Not much like your books. Took a lot of work to get that fixed, I’ll tell you. And those priests watched every second we were there. Never did make copies of most of the stuff; we’ll get it some day. Be a great job for some historian. We had to sneak in, convince their bishops we were from the stars — they still haven’t told the people in the city about us. And the chaplain had to get in on the act, convince them we were religiously orthodox, gave them some song and dance about how we, too, believed that God spoke from their archives. The chaplain said it was all right, the first thing they copied was a Bible, so he didn’t lie about it. Couldn’t harm a thing copying the stuff or they’d have boiled up so thick it’d take a battleship to kill them all. Can’t do that, they’re good people. We’ll need everyone in this sector one day. Whoosh, I talk too much, pour me some more. That grua’s the best thing about this planet. Well,” he added, looking at the tall blond girl who stood at his elbow, “one of the best, anyway.”

Lieutenant Jefferson was not the only drunken officer in the Blue Bottle, but he would hardly have recognized the gray-eyed man in a plain kilt two tables away as a member of the officer class. Colonel Nathan MacKinnie, lately cashiered from service to the Committee of Public Safety of Orleans, preferred whiskey in large glasses, and had had almost as many of those as Jefferson had of grua. MacKinnie was tall, centimeters taller than usual for Samualites, but without the remarkably broad shoulders typical of the planetary dwellers. With his straw-colored hair silvering at the temples, he looked more akin to the senior Imperial Navy officers than the natives. He sat quietly, motioning effortlessly for a new drink from time to time, and smoking countless pipefuls of ’robac. At intervals a particularly loud shout from the Imperial table would bring a grimace to his face, but for the most part he sat emotionlessly, giving no sign of the enormous quantities of whiskey he poured down his gullet.

Hal Stark, MacKinnie’s one-time sergeant, now servant, companion, and comrade, watched his colonel anxiously, mentally computing the amount of whiskey Nathan had drunk, the time since they had eaten, and the earliness of the evening, before he turned to his own drink, his second of the day. He was allowing the amber grua to roll back over his tongue when MacKinnie snapped his pipe against the heel of his hand so hard that the stem broke.

“Damn!” he muttered. “Hal, look at those drunken excuses for officers. And those sots are the rulers of Prince Samual’s World, the ‘representatives of civilization’ as they call themselves, the men who can decree what will be done and snuff out the independence of Orleans like a candle in a hurricane. Babbling, shouting, the overlords of everything we’ve ever known.”

“Yes, sir. Begging the colonel’s pardon, but I seem to recall a young lieutenant some years ago couldn’t hold his liquor no better than them, if it’s all right to say so.” It was difficult to tell just how much of Stark’s apologetic air was genuine.

Colonel MacKinnie frowned for a moment, then burst into a loud guffaw. “I sure didn’t, did I, Hal?” He looked at the ruined pipe in his hands, then signaled for the barmaid and bought cigars of genuine Earth Stock tobacco for a price he couldn’t afford. “There were a few times when you had to roll me back to barracks, weren’t there? You never missed, either. What are you best at, Hal? Batman, sergeant, or unemployed striker to a colonel with no command?”

“Best at whatever the colonel wants me at, that the right answer? Where are we going next, Colonel?”

MacKinnie shook his head slowly and looked around the room as if there might be some answer to the question. “They haven’t stopped the fighting on South Continent. Maybe we can pick up something there.” He reached into his pouch, and added, “We’d better find something soon, or we starve. But it won’t be the same, Sergeant. Just something to fight over, get the bills paid. What we do won’t matter anymore. The future here belongs to them.” He waved his cigar at young Jefferson, who held the blond girl on his lap, her hands deep inside his open tunic, while he tried to force a glass of grua between her body and his lips. She squealed.

“Worse for you than for me, Colonel. I never did know what we were after, not really anyway, not the way you did. Long as you know, it’s good enough for the troops.” Stark tossed down the last of his drink, then looked back at his officer. “Drink up, Colonel, there’s plenty to do somewhere. We could raise up a fair-sized regiment of men who’d follow you to hell. Tomorrow, I’ll round up some of the old headquarters company and we’ll go show the Southies what war’s really like.”

MacKinnie grinned momentarily as he methodically warmed his cigar before lighting it. The bar was pleasant, the company was good, and for a moment he forgot the hopelessness, even ordering a small grua to dip the end of his cigar into. He inhaled the strong smoke and leaned back in his chair, his feet stretched out under the table. Stark looked at him again, saw the lines leave Nathan’s face, and ordered another round.

It was no good, MacKinnie thought, but there was no point in upsetting the big man next to him. He’d have to play the game out to the end, but, by all the Saints, he was tired now, tired in a way that the sleep and rest and soft duty they’d had for the last weeks could never cure. It was strange, he thought. Colonel of his own regiment at forty local years, a full citizen of Orleans, inevitably to be senior colonel and then general before his last parade. Not bad for a wandering mercenary soldier whose city-state had been extinguished only months before his graduation from its tiny war-academy, set to wandering in search of a living until he’d ended in the ranks of Orleans’s army. Promotion, merit, recognition, citizenship, a good career. And it was all over when the landing boats came down from the ship that still whirled in orbit above Samual.

Ten years of brilliant campaigning had insured that Orleans would not suffer the fate of his native Samand. No power or likely combination of powers could annex the Republic — but in a week the Imperial Navy had accomplished it, so that Orleans was now the Duchy of Orlean, subject to His Majesty King David Second of

Haven, and no Orleanist officers wanted in the Royal Service, thank you. Honor, of course, and an inadequate pension to the hero of Blanthern Pass whose regiment had defeated the best that Haven could put in the field. Well done, old chap! Of course His Majesty had his own colonels, but we have a pension for you sir. No hard feelings, and of course no retaliation against the Orleanists. Well, not much, anyway, and only against a few of the political officers. You were never in politics, were you, Colonel? No, of course not. Too good a soldier. Yes, you can go now. And Colonel Nathan MacKinnie was suddenly an old man, feeling his campaigns and ready to drink far too much. He had left the palace and walked aimlessly before he noticed that Stark was behind him.

He could have fought, of course. Even after the Committee bowed to the inevitable power of the Imperial Navy, he could have taken MacKinnie’s Wolves to the fields, wandering in the forests, cutting down Haven soldiers, fighting tiny actions with formations too small for the Navy to find and blast out of existence with their space weapons. But for how long? And what would the Imperials do to Orleans? How long would the people of the Republic have supported him? How long before the romantic gesture turned stale and the admiration of the citizens turned to hatred and disgust as town after town was bombarded from space, turned to a blackened cinder as Lechfeld was? MacKinnie inhaled his cigar, letting the warm smoke drift over his tongue, out his lips, and into his nostrils, tasting the incredibly pleasing combination of real tobacco and grua before destroying the delicate flavors with the harsh tang of whiskey.

Across the next table, a couple rose and staggered toward the door, leaving him a clear view of Lieutenant Jefferson. The young naval officer was telling ad admiring peasant about a strange planet, a place where they had no guns, only swords, and they worshiped Christ in a temple which once was an Old-Empire library. Both of us drunks, MacKinnie thought. But the boy’s one up. He’s going somewhere, and what he does won’t be undone by something you couldn’t fight, couldn’t understand. Stark was right. The young man did resemble the old Nat MacKinnie, but not this one. The old one was going somewhere, and what he accomplished would be his. And so the same would be true for that boy. Cursing bitterly, Nathan MacKinnie realized that he felt envy for the young men who had conquered his world.

CHAPTER TWO GENTLEMEN ROBBERS

The evening wore on. The first round of entertainers finished their acts. It was too early for the late performers, and for many of the customers it was several drinks too late for anything else. The room became less noisy as the early festive crowd departed, leaving the Blue Bottle to serious drinkers and tavern girls. Only the voice of Lieutenant Jefferson, punctuated by the giggles of the girls at the Navy table, was heard above the low buzz of conversation. MacKinnie decided that it was time to go.

He stood in sudden decision, but when he swept his hand behind him for the cloak he had left on a nearby chair he lost his balance and lurched heavily into a small, round-faced man with a tiny mustache. The little man jumped backward with rabbit agility and began to mumble apologies.

“Not at all, sir,” MacKinnie told him. “My fault entirely. No offense intended,” he added unnecessarily. The little man was unarmed, and the thought of his issuing a challenge to Colonel MacKinnie was humorous. With an effort Nathan suppressed the laugh that the image generated.

“None taken, of course,” the man said. “Would you join me in a drink?” He extended his hand. “Malcolm Dougal,” he said apologetically.

The grip was firmer than MacKinnie would have expected. He took a long look at the chap. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. A kilt of some family plaid, a muted version of a much bolder tartan no longer worn in public, well suited for business. Expensive jacket, minor jewelry in excellent taste, a heavy signet ring on his left hand, probably Prince Samual University although there were other places that copied the design. Except for his small stature you could see a hundred like him in businessmen’s dining clubs anytime you cared to.

On closer inspection, though, Dougal wasn’t really so small. He just appeared to be such a rabbit that you took him a for a small man, and of course anyone standing next to Stark would seem tiny. There was something else about Dougal, an air that was faintly threatening when you looked at him closely, but that was ridiculous. MacKinnie shook his head to clear it of whiskey.

“Thank you, I’ve had more than enough,” Nathan said. “Nathan MacKinnie. I’m sorry, I’m forgetting my manners. Too much whiskey. No offense intended.”

“And none taken. Perhaps we’ll meet again. Good night.”

“And a good night to you, Citizen Dougal.” MacKinnie bowed and faced the exit, leaving Stark to collect their cloaks and pay the bill. Outside, they turned toward the harbor, walking slowly to the waterfront hostel where they had rooms more compatible to MacKinnie’s meager pension than the brick and stone district around the Blue Bottle. MacKinnie had no objection to staying in cheap lodgings, but he was still sufficiently a colonel to want to drink in a gentleman’s tavern.

A light rain began to fall, causing the few citizens out on the street to scurry for cabs. An alcohol steam car whirred quietly by, slowing momentarily as the driver gazed at their faces before deciding they would not be customers. Then a horse-drawn two-wheeler clopped alongside.

The coachman shouted at them. “Good rates, sirs. Anywhere you want to go. Anything you could want to find in Haven, I know where it is. Good rates. You’ll get wet out there, sirs, you will.”

MacKinnie nodded, and the coachman jumped from his bench to hold the canvas doors open for them. “Where will it be, sirs? Blackfriar? Hellfire? Want to meet some ladies? Not like the ones in the Blue Bottle, though there’s plenty that likes them, too, but I mean real ladies, maybe not welcome back home no more but well brought up, you know.” Examining Stark with an expert eye, he added, “And my ladies got real handsome young maids live right there in the house with them for your man there, sir.”

MacKinnie snapped his fingers, ending the chatter, and the coachman climbed back to his seat. He started the team and leaned down to the window. “Where to, sirs?”

“Waterfront,” Stark answered. “Imperial Landing Wharf.” He was damned if he’d give this garrulous old coachman the name of the cheap hotel they were forced to live in and let him someday say he’d taken Iron MacKinnie to a flyblown flophouse.

The rain came down harder, forcing the old man to raise the dodger on its elaborately carved wooden braces. “Wonder if he gets many customers in this rig?” Stark mused.

The old man leaned down and cackled. “More than you might think, chum. Lots of gentlemen want to visit my ladies. And lots of real ladies still think cabs are better than steam buggies. We aren’t as fast as those things, but plenty of people remember the good old days when there weren’t nothing but us and they don’t forget old Benjamin, no, they don’t.”

MacKinnie snapped his fingers again, and the coachman turned back to the road, muttering to himself, but after a few moments he again leaned down to his passengers. “Even those Imperial Navy lads, they like the cabs. You hardly see nothing else around Empire House but cabs. Oh, they keep a few steam cars waiting by just in case they’re in a hurry, but you watch, them young officer kids, they never rode in a cab with real horses before. Get the biggest thrill out of it, so they tell me.”

“I expect so,” MacKinnie said absently.

“Been a big lift for the cabbies, the Imperials,” the coachman said. “Just them being here, that’s better than taking over Orleans, not that the Kingdom’s not going to do right by itself out of the Duchy, no, sir.” The old man whistled to himself and looked to the road again, guiding the team through the twisting, narrow streets of the old waterfront town until they emerged on the broad Dock Street, deserted except for a few drunken sailors reeling perilously close to the water’s edge.

Across the narrow protected bay which had given Haven its name, brilliant lights, brighter than anything seen on Prince Samual’s World for three centuries, played on Empire House and the hundred-meter-long landing boat the Imperials used to ferry their people from the destroyer in its orbit. Another city block housed a complex of strange machinery the Imperials used to support their base. Pipelines extended into the harbor. Their power plant had warmed Haven’s waters, making fishermen happy with their catches, but outraged at the rapid growth of shipworms and other vermin.

The brilliant lights also played across the hemisphere that was Marine Barracks, but none was reflected from that sheer black surface. Imperial Marine Barracks was protected by what the Navy people called a Langston Field.

MacKinnie knew little about the Field. Artillery shells fired at it were slowed to a halt, and the explosion was absorbed by the black shield, or perhaps by the metal walls beneath; certainly they did no apparent damage. The Navy proclaimed that resistance was useless: nothing short of an Imperial cruiser would be able to penetrate Marine Barracks. MacKinnie had reason to know that whatever weapons a cruiser might carry, nothing MacKinnie’s Wolves had been able to fire would harm the fortress. It was one reason the Wolves surrendered.

The landing boats were vulnerable, though. In the short fight around Lechfeld he had damaged one badly and killed several of the Marines aboard — then fire came from the skies, a flaming death that scorched the village and baked half a battalion of Wolves in an instant.

But the Imperials could be hurt. They were only men. If they hadn’t had Marine Barracks …

Wishful thinking, MacKinnie told himself. Even if he captured the barracks and destroyed the last of the landing ships the destroyer up there in the sky was safe from anything the entire population of Prince Samual’s World could do. Some of the professors at Prince Samual University were experimenting with rockets which might, built large enough, go so fast they would never come back to ground. They might get to the destroyer. The professors had built one great war rocket which used liquid fuels and went more than two hundred kilometers, but there had only been the one — and even if they had another, how could they make it hit the destroyer?

The Imperial Navy said the destroyer was also protected by a Langston Field. Even if the rocket hit, there would be no more effect than MacKinnie’s howitzers had had on Marine Barracks. The Imperials were right. Resistance was useless. A feeling of helplessness settled over Nathan MacKinnie. He closed his eyes and felt the whiskey reel his head around and around.

He was awakened by shouts. He had no idea how long he had dozed miserably, hoping to get to a rest room and then to bed before the full effects of all that whiskey did their worst. It could not have been long, he knew, because they were not yet around the bay to Empire House.

It took MacKinnie precious moments to rouse himself from the stupor of half-drunken sleep and realize that the coach had been stopped by several men. Robbers? Here in Haven, near Empire House? Bold robbers, then, desperate men indeed.

He snatched open the door and tumbled out in a fighting stance, his pistol in his hands for a moment before a heavy cane struck his wrist and sent the big service pistol spinning into the dark. On the other side of the coach he heard Stark growl deep in his throat, the enraged sound of a deadly fighting man, and he heard the sharp chunk! As his big sergeant’s hand, arched into a blade that could easily crack baked clay, snapped into flesh. Someone over there would not get up for a long time.

He hoped Stark was giving a good account of himself. Whatever Hal could do, MacKinnie was helpless. A pistol pointed at him from the shadows, and on either side were men with shortswords. With a shrug, MacKinnie raised his hands. There was nothing else to do.

He heard Stark strike again, then a dull sound which he could not recognize. Moments later three men carried his sergeant around the coach. One dangled a sandbag from his fingers and looked to the dim figure of the man with the pistol. “He’s only out for a little while as you ordered, sir. I wish I could say the same for two of my men. They may never get up again.”

“That will do,” the voice from the shadows said. It seemed strangely familiar to MacKinnie, but he could not recall it. “Bring Colonel MacKinnie and the others with us, if you please.” The figure vanished into a side street.

MacKinnie felt the point of a sword at his back. The weapon was similar to those carried by the Haven police, and as he thought about it, MacKinnie remembered that shortswords had been standard equipment for Haven soldiers until the present king had increased the length of the bayonets his troops carried and relegated swords to dress uniforms. The men at either side of him seemed quite familiar with their weapons. Very useful skill, MacKinnie thought. Very useful indeed if you wanted quiet work.

They walked on in silence for the better part of a kilometer, twisting through deserted streets and getting soaked by the rain until they entered a multi-storied building no different from the others they had passed. They descended two flights of stairs in utter darkness before one of the men struck a light and another produced an electric torch, and MacKinnie could see three more men carrying Stark.

They had to be military, MacKinnie thought. Their discipline, silent and efficient, was excellent, and it was obvious that this was no simple robbery. There had been ample opportunities to cut their throats and take what little remained of his monthly pension. Besides, the leader had known MacKinnie’s name and rank, and had even insisted on personally examining Stark before they started off. Thieves did not take such good care of their victims.

At the bottom of the stairs they entered a dank stone tunnel which seemed to stretch nearly a hundred meters before it turned, twisted, and ended at the bottom of another flight of stairs. MacKinnie was now genuinely interested in where he was being taken, and needed no prodding from behind to climb vigorously, each step working off more of the whiskey until he was better able to handle himself. Without the fog of drunkenness he felt more in control of the situation, ready to take any opportunity to free himself.

He was halted in a wood-paneled hallway. The only light was from the small electric torch of the guard behind him. They stood for several minutes before a door was opened from the inside and bright light spilled out to blind him. Then he was ushered into a large office. Around the walls hung red drapes of rich material, and over the desk was a large painting of King David Second.

Sergeant Stark was draped on a woolsh-hide couch along one wall of the office, his shoulders so broad that nearly half of him was spilled over, one arm dangling to the elaborately patterned carpet. MacKinnie saw that his companion was breathing steadily, although he was not yet conscious.

Under the copper-edged painting of the king was a rich wood desk, fully two and a half meters by two, its gleaming top bare of papers or any other object, and behind the desk stood Malcolm Dougal, still resembling a rabbit, a nervous smile on his lips as he spoke.

“Welcome, Colonel MacKinnie. Welcome to the headquarters of His Majesty’s Secret Police.”

CHAPTER THREE CITIZEN DOUGAL

MacKinnie looked slowly around the room. Two young men dressed in kilts as plain as Malcolm Dougal’s stood against the door behind him, their pistols held carefully across their chests in a guard position. Plain kilts or no, they were soldiers, and under their dispassionate expressions MacKinnie detected a slight twitch, nervousness perhaps, at the presence of the secret policemen, or, more likely, hatred for Nathan MacKinnie who had defeated their army three campaigns running.

The room gave the general impression of opulence. The only furniture was the desk, two chairs, and the couch, but there might have been anything behind the red drapes which ran from floor to high ceiling along two walls. When Nathan said nothing, Dougal motioned toward one of the woolsh-hide chairs. “Please be seated, Colonel. Can we get you anything? A drink, perhaps? No, I suspected not. Something else? Earth Stock coffee, or chickeest?”

There was a visible tightening to Dougal’s lips as he offered Earth coffee, something which told MacKinnie the offer was a test. Without hesitation Nathan said, “Chickeest, thank you. Black, and lots of it.”

Dougal relaxed. He waited until MacKinnie was fully seated, then motioned to the guards. “That will be all, Corporal. Remain on call.” MacKinnie heard the door close quietly behind him. “They will bring the refreshments in a moment, Colonel,” Dougal said. “And now, you are wondering why you are here.”

“I’m more interested in who you are. I’ve never seen or heard of you before, and I know of most of His Majesty’s officers.”

“The two questions are not unrelated. Malcolm Dougal is actually my name. My position is rather vague in the budgets presented to Parliament, but as it happens, I am the Director of His Majesty’s Secret Police Service.”

MacKinnie nodded. “I suspected that Lord Arindell was too stupid to operate as efficient a service as Haven’s. So Inspector Solon reports to you when he wants his real orders.”

“Yes. You see, I am being honest with you, Colonel. I expect you to be so with me. Had you taken my offer of a drink at the Blue Bottle, I might have brought you here in a more pleasant manner, but I could not take the chance of your refusal. Or of the Imperial Navy noticing either of us. Everything depends on their not becoming suspicious. Everything.”

He leaned forward and regarded MacKinnie intently. “I now ask your word of honor that nothing said here tonight will ever be repeated to anyone without my permission except as it may conform to duties I have assigned you and you have accepted. Please,” he said urgently.

MacKinnie longed for a cigar, but thought better of displaying the Earth tobacco he had in his pouch. The warning had been plain in the way Dougal had pronounced the words “Earth Stock” when offering the coffee. Dougal leaned back in his chair, but his manner was alert, expecting an answer. MacKinnie said the only thing he could under the circumstances. “You have my word, Citizen Dougal. My word of honor.”

“Thank you.” There was a tap at the door, and one of the guards brought in a platinum tray with copper pots of chickeest, pewter mugs, and cigarettes of a popular Haven brand. MacKinnie noticed that everything he had seen since he entered the room was native to Samual.

Behind the guard, the tall thin figure of Inspector Solon, dressed in the midnight-blue undress uniform of the Royal

Haven Police, stood silently in the doorway. He made no move to enter, and Dougal did not speak to him. When the guard left, Solon went out behind him, closing the door.

“You saw the inspector, of course,” Dougal said. “There are two reasons for his being here. First, I wanted you to see that he obeys me so that you know I am who I say I am. But more important, I trust no one else to guard that door until we are finished.” He smiled pleasantly. “I trust I have impressed you sufficiently. Enjoy your chickeest; you will be here for some time.”

“What about my sergeant?”

“He has already been examined by Inspector Solon, and the man who struck him was an expert. There is no permanent harm. He should be joining us in an hour, perhaps less.”

“Then get on with it.” MacKinnie sipped the bitter stuff, never as satisfactory as Earth Stock coffee. Only a few things were that you found among the stars. Men had colonized Prince Samual’s World nearly a thousand standard years ago, but they had lived on Earth for millions.

“Tell me what you know of the plans the Imperial Navy has for Prince Samual, Colonel MacKinnie.”

“Precious little. They appeared less than a year ago, and almost immediately settled in Haven. At first they didn’t interfere with the planetary governments, but then they made an alliance with your King David—”

“Your king also, Colonel,” Dougal interrupted.

“With King David. They helped you conquer the other city-states around Haven, and finally did for you what no Haven army had ever been able to do. They gave you Orleans. I don’t know who’s next, but I presume this goes on until Haven takes all of North Continent. After that … who knows, the Southies, I suppose.”

“And then what will they do, Colonel?”

“Your newspapers keep telling us they’ll help us, give us all kinds of scientific marvels, but I’ve yet to see any of them. You Havenites have kept them all.”

“We haven’t, because there have been none. Every assistance the Imperials have given us has been direct, with their Marines operating the weapons and none of my people even allowed to see their new technology. Go on, what after that?”

“Once you have conquered the whole blasted planet, I guess they take you into their Empire, with David Second as planetary king.”

“And you find that unpleasant?” Dougal smiled.

“What do you want me to say, Citizen Dougal? You’ve told me you head the secret police. You want me to say treason out of my own mouth?”

Malcolm Dougal poured more chickeest, carefully, not spilling a drop, and took a long sip before replying. “Appreciate your situation, Colonel. If I meant you harm, it would happen to you. I need no evidence, and there would be no trial. No one knows you’re here but my most trusted men, and if you never leave this room, why, who will know it? I’m interested in what you think, Iron Man MacKinnie, and it’s damned important to Haven and the whole planet. Now stop being coy and answer my questions.”

It was the first spark of emotion MacKinnie had seen in Dougal save for the slight tightening of the lips when he mentioned Earth. MacKinnie paused for a moment, then answered.

“Yes, I find that unpleasant. I can think of more unpleasant things, such as domination of the planet by one of the Southie despots, but after what you’ve done to Orleans, damned right I find it unpleasant.”

“Thank you.” Dougal was speaking in his normal tone, an apologetic note to his voice, but the resemblance to a rabbit was gone. Now he merely looked like a businessman. “Would you find absolute domination by an Imperial Viceroy even less pleasant?”

“Of course.”

“And why?” Dougal waved in an imperious manner. “I know why. For the same reason that you drink chickeest, bitter as it is. Because he is an outlander, a foreigner, not of Samual at all, and we belong here. This is our world and our home, and I tell you, Colonel MacKinnie, that we will never be slaves to that Empire. Not while I live and not while my sons live.”

“So you hope to escape that by using the Imperial Marines and Navy to conquer the planet?”

“No. I had hoped to do so, but it won’t work. Colonel, once their colonists and viceroy land here, King David will have no more influence over this planet than your sergeant. I thought you knew little of them. Few know anything at all.” He reached under the desk for a moment. Within seconds, MacKinnie heard the door open behind him.

“Yes, my lord,” a flat voice said. Before he turned to look, MacKinnie knew it was Inspector Solon. The voice fit him perfectly, cold and toneless, like a voice from a tomb.

“Bring that book, Inspector,” Dougal said quietly.

“Yes, my lord.” The door did not close, and seconds later Solon crossed the room carrying a sheaf of papers held by a strange clasp.

“Thank you.” Dougal dismissed Solon with a wave and pointed to the papers. “This is the only Imperial artifact we have been able to obtain. It appears to be some kind of work of fiction, about the adventures of a naval officer on a newly settled planet. But it also gives us much information about the structure of the Imperial government, just as one of Cadace’s best-sellers would tell them a lot about the government of Haven even though there’s not a line in it intended to do so. Do you understand?”

MacKinnie nodded.

“Then,” the policeman continued, “understand this. The Empire has several kinds of planetary governments within it. There is Earth itself, which is the honorary capital, but is mostly uninhabitable because of the aftermath of the Seccession Wars. For their own reasons they keep some institutions including their naval and military academies there, but the real capital is called Sparta, and is in another planetary system entirely. After the capitals there are what they call Member Kingdoms, which are planetary governments strong enough to give the Imperial Navy a good fight if the Empire tried to interfere with their internal affairs.”

“All monarchies?” Nathan asked.

“There is at least one republic. Many are monarchies.” Dougal sipped at his chickeest. “Then there are Class One and Class Two worlds. We can’t tell the difference between them, but they have less authority over their own affairs than the Member Kingdoms. They do have representation on the capital in one house of a multi-house advisory council, and some of their people are officers in the Imperial services. The two classes refer to some differences in technology which we do not understand, but the relevant factors are the technology levels when admission to the Empire takes place. They both seem to have something called atomic power which fascinates the physicists at the University, and their own spaceships.”

MacKinnie nodded, recalling some remarks made by the drunken lieutenant in the Blue Bottle. He mentioned this to Dougal, who nodded.

“Good,” Dougal said. “You are here because you overhead him. You see, Colonel, after the Class One and Class Two worlds, there’s nothing left but colonies. And that’s what we’ll be.”

“What’s the status of colonies?” MacKinnie asked.

“They have none. Imperial citizens are imported as an aristocracy to impart civilization. A viceroy governs in the Emperor’s name, and the Navy keeps a garrison to see that no trouble develops. The colonists end in complete control of everything, and the locals do as they’re told or else.”

“How can they govern a whole planet against everybody’s will? What good does it do them to burn half the world to ashes like Lechfeld?” MacKinnie drank the last of his now cooled chickeest, then answered his own question. “But of course they don’t have to fight their own battles, do they? There’s always a local government ready to toady to the Imperials. Someone to do their dirty work for them.” He looked significantly at Dougal.

Malcolm Dougal pretended not to notice. “Yes. There is always one. If not King David, then one of the Southie despots. But it won’t happen, MacKinnie. I’ve found a way to win this fight and get Class Two status for Samual. I’ve found a way, a chance, but I can’t do it alone. I need your help.” Dougal leaned across the desk looking intently at Nathan MacKinnie.

Colonel MacKinnie stood, slowly, stretching to his full height before lifting the copper pitcher and pouring another mug of chickeest. Still moving very carefully, he strode to the couch, examined Stark for a moment, then returned to his chair. “Have you a pipe and ’robac, my lord?” he asked. “This promises to be quite a night. … Why me?”

“I hadn’t intended it to be you until tonight. I had no real plan before, merely studied a series of actions I might be able to take, made preparations for an opportunity, any opportunity, but now that young fool has told us how to save the state. You heard him, of course.”

“If I did, I didn’t understand. What are you going to do?”

“But you must have heard him. You were there when he babbled about the Old Empire library on a planet at the Eye of the Needle.”

MacKinnie thought for a moment, then said, “Yes, but I don’t see how that can help us.”

“You haven’t thought about this for months, as I have. We found that book not long after they landed, Colonel, It took only a few weeks to understand most of the language. It’s not all that different from ours, at least the written forms, which is why the Imperials get around Haven so easily.”

The policeman lit a ’robac cigar, leaned back in his chair, and glared at the ceiling. “Ever since I could read that thing, I’ve thought of little else but ways to escape this trap. There’s no way to avoid being part of the Empire, but by the Saints we can make them take us in as human beings, not slaves!”

“If you had the book so early, you must have understood what they wanted before Haven made the alliance with them.”

“Of course. It was on my advice that His Majesty entered the alliance. Unless we consolidate Prince Samual’s World under a planetary government, we have no chance at all of escaping colonization. And unless it’s under King David, I won’t have any influence over the planetary government, and you will pardon me if I think I may be better at this kind of intrigue than some of the, shall we say, more honorable men of the other city-states?”

“All right,” MacKinnie said. “So you’re a master of intrigue. I still don’t see what we can do.”

Dougal laughed. “You’ve drunk too much whiskey, Iron Man MacKinnie. Tonight and other nights. You’re not above a bit of duplicity yourself. You used several very clever dodges on us. Your record, Colonel — I have it here — your record says you are more than just a simple combat soldier. But it’s pleasing to be able to instruct you.”

Dougal poured more chickeest. “That library is the key to it all. If we had the knowledge that must be there — our people at the University, and the industrial barons of Orleans and Haven, and the miners of Clanranald — what couldn’t they do? We could build a spaceship. A starship, perhaps. And by their own rules the Imperials would have to admit us as a classified world, not a colony. We’d still have to knuckle under to them, but we’d be subjects, not slaves.”

MacKinnie took a deep breath. “That’s quite a plan.”

“It’s the only possible plan.”

“I don’t know — Look. Suppose it’s true. With knowledge, construction plans even, with a planetary government to bring together the technology of North Continent and the resources of South Continent, perhaps it could be done. Perhaps. But we haven’t the time. It would take years.”

“We’ll have years. The Imperials won’t move until we consolidate the kingdoms. They’re in no great hurry. They’ve made it clear they want as little bloodshed and destruction as possible. I can see that it takes time to bring in all the city-states. That will give us time to build the ship. It won’t be easy, building a thing like that under their noses, but they won’t have very many people on this planet, and they won’t suspect a thing until it’s done.”

MacKinnie shook his head. “I don’t see how you can keep them from finding out, but you’re better at that than me. But you can’t get at the library without a ship, and we can’t build a ship without the library. Even if we had one, we couldn’t operate it. There’s been nobody on this planet who ever saw the inside of a starship for hundreds of years. Until the Imperials came, most of the population thought that history before the Secession Wars was just a lot of legends. How in hell do you propose that we get to the Eye of the Needle?”

“That’s the simplest part of the plan, Colonel. The Imperials have already offered to take us there.” He smiled at Nathan’s startled look. “They’re not all Navy and Military, you know. Some Imperial citizens are Traders. There’s one batch of them right now negotiating with King David over the rights to grua. They think our brandy will be worth a fortune on their capital.

“They want platinum and iridium, too; those metals seem to be very useful to them and in short supply. But there isn’t much they can give us in return, because the Navy won’t let them sell us what we really want — technology. The Navy rule is, you can’t trade anything more technologically advanced than what your customer already has without special permission from the Imperial Council. We offered to buy those little devices they all carry around like notebooks. ‘Pocket computers,’ the Navy men call them. They seem to be machines. They can’t sell those.”

“What can they sell?”

“Not much, it appears. But they have offered the king transportation to a world less advanced than ours, someplace where we can try out luck at selling. They suggested a planet at the star we call the Eye of the Needle as the closest, and we are already discussing an expedition to go there and try to organize trade …”

“The Navy will permit this?” MacKinnie asked.

“Under conditions. Stringent conditions, I might add. We can’t take anything more advanced than the natives already have. The Navy inspects our trade mission and goods before we go to the planet. But they will let us go. It appears that the Imperial Traders Association has a good-sized block of votes in the Imperial Council. I don’t pretend to understand capital politics, but the ITA seems very influential. They can force the Navy to let us trade with that planet, Makassar, it’s called.”

“Won’t they be watching to see that we don’t get near the library?” MacKinnie asked. The whiskey fog was gone from his mind now, but more than that, he felt useful again, as if there were something he might do which could not be taken away by a whim of fate. He listened to Dougal with keen interest, not noticing that Sergeant Stark was stirring on the couch to his right.

“They have never mentioned the library,” Dougal said. “Until that young lieutenant babbled about it in the Blue Bottle, I never knew it existed. I think the library’s an anomaly in their records, hot listed as an advanced artifact because it’s so old and the people on Makassar don’t know how to use it. That’s only a guess. I do know they’ve been willing to let us go there.”

Dougal paused and again looked intently at MacKinnie. “That leaves me with the problem of one Colonel MacKinnie, who knows about the library. I decided when I heard about it that we’d have to try to get the knowledge there, and since you know about the library, I’d either have to kill you or send you on the expedition. I don’t know how to get those books, and I’m not sure that anyone on this planet does know. But I’d rather have you on our side than dead. You were very resourceful against Haven, Colonel. Will you swear allegiance to King David and work for Haven now?”

CHAPTER FOUR TRADER

MacKinnie woke to the stale taste of ’robac and the sick feeling of whiskey in his stomach. He lay for a few moments on the caltworm-silk sheets, slowly recalling where he was. There were no windows to the room, and the only light was from a soft glowplate on one wall. To his right there was a rest room with marble appointments, and through it was a connecting door to a room similar to the one where he was lying. He knew it was there, because Sergeant Stark had lumbered unsteadily into it when they left Dougal’s office. They were in the same building, but beyond that MacKinnie had no idea of his location. The only doors leading outside the suite were locked, and he had no doubt that Dougal’s guards stood watch in the hall.

He raised himself on one elbow. To his left a closet stood open, revealing racks of rich clothing. His own kilt and jacket, freshly cleaned and pressed, hung neatly on the door, and with them hung his service pistol. MacKinnie wryly slipped from the bed to examine it, not surprised that there were no cartridges. His watch was in the pouch hanging with his clothes, but it had stopped. He had no idea of the time.

Now that he was up, he decided he might as well stay up. He took his time in the rest room, using luxurious shaving equipment and treating himself to a double dash of the most expensive lotions and powders he had ever seen. If all guests of King David’s secret police fared as well as he, there would be long lines of people hoping to be arrested for high treason, but he suspected there were more dungeons in the building than guest suites.

As he finished shaving, Stark knocked at the door, then waited for MacKinnie to finish. The sergeant had shaved and dressed by the time Nathan had put on his kilt and was buttoning his coat. Stark seemed no different from the hundreds of mornings they had spent in garrison as he expertly straightened MacKinnie’s jacket and made tiny adjustments in the kilt and fall.

“What have we got ourselves into, Colonel?” Stark asked. As he spoke he made tiny signals with his hands, indicating the walls, then his ears.

MacKinnie nodded. “I’m not sure, but it beats chasing Southies. This could be a job worth doing. Tell me, can you round up some of the Wolves who can keep their mouths shut and act like Traders’ guards?”

“Many as you want, Colonel. How many do you think we need?”

“All of them, but I don’t think the Imperial Navy will let us take a regiment to Makassar.”

“We’ll get as many as you want. Going to be funny calling you Trader, but I reckon I can get used to it.” Stark looked around the chamber, noting the carved wooden furniture, and the crystalline rock formation patterns in the parts of the floor not covered by carpets woven in the Archipelago. “Fancy quarters, uh, Trader, sir.”

“Yes. Well, I suppose we might as well get on with it. We wouldn’t want to keep Dougal and Inspector Solon waiting.”

“Yes, sir. Begging your pardon, sir, I hope he won’t go with us to that crazy place. Going up high like that, off the world even, that’s enough without that walking corpse to give me the creeps.”

“He won’t be coming along. Nervous, Hal?”

“No, sir, not if you say not to be. But I am having a little trouble getting used to the idea.”

“That’s two of us. All right, Hal, tell them we’re ready for breakfast.”

“Yes, sir.” Stark found the speaking tube in a small recess under the dim light, uncapped it, and whistled. After a second there was an answering note. “Our respects, and the colonel and I are ready for breakfast.” Stark listened for a few moments, then returned to MacKinnie. “He says someone will be with us in five minutes, sir. Seemed polite, anyway.” When there was no answer from Nathan, Hal capped the tube.

Four guards were visible when the door opened. At least two of them were from the party which had captured MacKinnie and Stark the night before. Their weapons were holstered, and they were extremely polite as they invited MacKinnie and Stark to accompany them, but Nathan noticed that as one led the way the other three fell in well behind, eyeing Stark nervously as they walked stiffly along.

They were ushered into the big office MacKinnie had seen the night before. The curtains were drawn back along one wall to reveal a walled veranda beyond where Solon and Dougal sat at a glass-topped table sipping chickeest. As MacKinnie approached, Solon stood, nodded to Dougal, and left without speaking to them.

“Good morning, Trader,” Dougal said. He stood, waited for MacKinnie to be seated, and indicated a place at a table a few feet away for Stark. “Your breakfast will be here shortly. I trust you enjoyed your sleep?”

MacKinnie smiled pleasantly. “A great deal more than I thought I would when I was first invited here.”

Dougal nodded. “There have been others who did not enjoy their stay in this building at all.” He dismissed the guards with a wave, then turned back to Nathan. “The subterfuge starts this instant, Trader MacKinnie. We will use your proper name, although we will change your first to Jameson. MacKinnie’s common enough in Haven, and there is a great Trader family by that name.”

“Are you sure the Imperials won’t recognize me?”

“Reasonably. Besides, they aren’t looking for a dead man. Colonel Nathan MacKinnie was killed at Lechfeld. Died of his wounds a few weeks after the battle. Tough old soldier, too proud to say anything when he turned over his sword to the Haven General Staff. The records already show that.”

“But there was a young officer who interviewed me … and the paymaster will know my pension has been paid for months. Then there’s the landlady at our flop.”

“There were these people, Trader. Unfortunately, they all died last night in a series of tragic accidents. The Blue Bottle had another accident, I’m afraid. It burned to the ground, everyone in it killed shortly after the Imperial Navy men had left. Nothing the Watch could do, the fire was so fierce. It almost seems as if someone deliberately set it, but I’m sure His Majesty’s Police will catch the scoundrels if that’s true. More chickeest?”

“And my men? My former officers?”

“They’re being recruited for an expedition to the Archipelago, with offers so generous I’m sure no one will turn them down. If anyone does, well, Traders’ expeditions have been known to have reluctant members in the past.”

Before MacKinnie could reply, the corporal arrived with their food, and Dougal insisted that they eat before resuming the conversation. When they had finished, the policeman signaled, and the corporal brought MacKinnie a pipe. It was one of his own from the rooms where he and Stark had been living. It did not seem necessary to comment on it.

“You haven’t been very active since you left the Service,” Dougal said. “It won’t be difficult to cover your tracks, at least enough to keep the Imperials from looking too closely at you.”

“All right, what’s the drill for today?” MacKinnie asked.

“Mind your aphorisms, Trader. We wouldn’t want your military background to show through, although we will have your records show that you served honorably as a company commander in His Majesty’s Home Guard during the Theberian War. You won’t have to play a part for long; I intend that you leave as soon as possible. We’ll send for the other members of the expedition now. Remember, this is a trading mission, and you are Trader MacKinnie. You’ve met none of them before. Here.” Dougal held out a small box. On opening it, MacKinnie found it full of rings, brooches, and other personal jewelry, all in good taste and the kind of thing he might have worn if the military habit were not so strong in him. He selected a ring, brooch, and earring and put them on.

“Now you look more like a Trader. I have more for your man.” Dougal held out gaudier jewelry, flashier but less expensive than Nathan’s, and waited until Stark had put it on before beckoning to the corporal.

As the others approached, MacKinnie asked quickly, “What are you to these people?”

“A high officer of the secret police. They are all trustworthy servants of the crown, but they do not know the real purpose of this expedition.” Dougal stood, smiling expansively. “Welcome, gentleman, freelady. This is Trader MacKinnie, who will manage King David’s shares of this expedition. He has financed much of it, I might add. Trader, here are your crew and advisors.”

They sorted themselves out and stood expectantly, waiting to be presented. The first was broad-shouldered, of medium height, and stood stiffly erect. Dougal said, “Trader, this is Shipmaster MacLean of the Royal Merchant Service. He is qualified in both sail and motor vessels.”

“Honored,” MacLean mumbled, looking straight ahead. His grip was firm, testing MacKinnie’s, and Nathan was pleased to note the surprise in the officer’s eyes before he let go. The man was so obviously from the Haven Navy that MacKinnie could not understand how the Imperials would be expected to be deceived, but he said nothing.

“And this is Academician Longway, who studies social organization and primitive cultures as well as ancient history.” MacKinnie studied him closely. The man was broad and short, typical of the people of Prince Samual’s World, dark hair and light eyes, and could have been a miner if it were not for the thick spectacles. His kilt was scholarly, dark with a thin red stripe, but the grip was firm and the voice steady.

“Honored to meet you, Trader, and I must say, pleased to be selected for an expedition as important — important and rare — as this. It’s not often a scholar gets the chance to visit a really strange culture. I’ve been to the Archipelago, to many of the islands there, but of course it isn’t the same. I can’t say how pleased I am to be going with you. It’s an historic event.”

“Let’s hope you feel that way when we return,” MacKinnie said. He kept his voice as pleasant as possible, and found that easier than he had thought it would be. He had never liked men who chattered, but the enthusiastic friendliness of the scholar was infectious all the same. Longway motioned to the man who stood behind him.

The man was young, not more than twenty local years. He stood shuffling his feet nervously, his long gangling arms hanging loosely at his sides. He was of very slight build and stood with a stoop that made him seem even shorter than he was. He also wore thick spectacles, and his kilt was plain, smudged with ink and foodstains. He carried a large book under his left arm, and the end of a bulky notebook protruded from his pouch.

“This is my assistant, Scholar-Bachelor Kleinst,” Longway said. “Most brilliant student at the University, I might add. Does very good work.”

“Honored, Trader,” Kleinst mumbled, holding his hand out perfunctorily and withdrawing it limply as soon as possible. His voice matched his appearance, and MacKinnie instantly disliked him. Nathan turned expectantly to the last member of the group.

“Allow me to present Freelady Mary Graham,” Dougal said. “She will serve as your assistant and secretary. I might add that she is a graduate of the University.”

MacKinnie hid his surprise. There were few women in the universities, and fewer still graduated.

He had seen lovelier girls, the city of Haven being noted for the beauty of its women, but there was nothing wrong with Mary Graham’s appearance. She had the typical brown hair and light eyes of the Haven population, but she was considerably smaller than most of the city women; not so small as to be tiny, and well formed for her height. She wore rather severely tailored clothes which did not quite hide a pleasing figure, and Nathan noted that she stood attentively, waiting for him to speak, her nervousness betrayed only by a slight motion of her fingers drumming against her skirt. Nathan guessed her age at something more than twenty, but almost certainly below twenty-five.

“Honored, freelady,” he said, nodding slightly.

“My honor, Trader.”

Her voice was not unpleasant, MacKinnie decided. But her presence annoyed him. There was no need for women in an expedition as important as this, and he was surprised that Dougal would suggest it. In Nathan’s world women were divided into two groups: freeladies to be protected, and camp followers who served no less useful a purpose but who were more or less expendable. Mary Graham did not seem to fit into either category.

He was certain that he was again being tested, because a more unlikely group for saving the state would be hard to imagine. Dougal had explained the night before why MacKinnie himself should command the expedition. The Imperials were likely to know of any of Haven’s really competent officers, yet a military background seemed required if anything were to be accomplished on Makassar. Still, MacKinnie did not look or act exactly like a Trader, and the crew assembled here contained an obvious naval officer, a talkative scholar of uncertain abilities, a weakling of almost effeminate appearance, and a girl. Surely, he thought, the Imperials would suspect — but even if they did not, what would be gained by sending this group to Makassar?

Dougal ushered in two more young men wearing battle dress without insignia. “MacReedy and Todd, guards,” Dougal explained.

MacKinnie looked them over carefully and decided they were the most authentic in appearance of any of his expedition. He indicated Hal. “This is Stark, your guard leader. We’ll have a few more guards for the expedition when we find out precisely how many we can take. Guard Leader, please take your men to your table and get to know them.”

“Yes, Trader.” Stark led the men to the other side of the veranda.

MacKinnie turned back to the policeman. “My lord, I am sure the others will excuse us a moment while we discuss the cargo. There are some difficulties about financing which I am sure would only bore them, so perhaps they can be working on equipment lists while we discuss finances in your office?”

“Certainly, Trader.” The others bowed, and MacKinnie led Dougal through the veranda doors to the office beyond.

Once inside, MacKinnie exploded. “How in hell do you expect the Imperials to be stupid enough to pass that crew? This is a thin enough plan to begin with, Dougal. I can’t begin to accomplish the mission if you saddle me with incompetents. My Saviour! You give me an obvious naval commander itching to learn anything he can about their starships, a weak-eyed little intellectual, and I don’t know, maybe the Academician will do, but where did you find that girl? In your freshman spy classes?”

Dougal held up his palm briefly, stopping Nathan’s tirade. “Sit down, Trader, and have something to drink. Calmly, now.”

Still fuming, Nathan sat and stuffed his pipe. “And another thing. I don’t appreciate murder. How many people did you kill last night, anyway?”

“As many as necessary, Trader,” Dougal said coldly. “Think of them as martyrs to Prince Samual’s World, and we’ll erect statues for them when this is over. If it works. What would you have had me do with them after they heard the most important secret on this planet?”

“Swear them to secrecy-” MacKinnie was stopped by the policeman’s laughter. “I suppose not,” Nathan said. “Hide them? Lock them up—”

“So that if one escaped we would really have lost the secret. Tell me, Colonel Iron MacKinnie, do you recommend that the military do things by half measures?”

“No-”

“Nor can we. I am not proud of what was done last night, but in my judgment it was needed. Tell me, did you ever consider guerrilla war against the Imperials? I know that you did. Would not innocent lives have been lost in your war? How many more will be killed in futile resistance to the Imperial colonists if we fail? I wish to hear no more about it.” He lit a cigarette, calmly inhaled, and continued.

“As to your crew. First, of course MacLean is a naval officer. The Imperials will know we intend to send a spy on the expedition. It might as well be a clumsy try so that they don’t suspect you. They will probably be careful to keep MacLean away from their ships’ engines and controls, but I doubt they will object to his going.

“Academician Longway has been on several expeditions to the Archipelago, and he knows as much about primitives and ancient civilizations as any man on this planet. He has fought his way out of tough situations in the past, too. He may be more use to you than you think.”

“All right,” MacKinnie said. “I didn’t object to him anyway. What about the scholar? A strong wind would blow him away.”

“Kleinst is just what he appears to be, except for one small deception. He’s not an historian, he’s a physicist. The best we have who isn’t prominent enough to be known to the Imperials. The boy is sharp enough to learn Longway’s patter sufficiently well to fool anyone not an expert. I admit his appearance is against him, but we can’t be choosy. You’ll need someone who understands what science we know if only to tell you what to bring back.”

MacKinnie lit his pipe. “And the girl?”

“The daughter of one of my officers. She really is a graduate of the University, she’s reliable, and no one expects a girl to be intelligent. She may have an opportunity to learn something you don’t. Pretty girls often do; they have methods not available to men.”

MacKinnie started to interrupt, but Dougal gestured him to silence. “You may keep your shocked proprieties to yourself,” the policeman said. “She is loyal and reliable, if somewhat young, and secretaries are not that uncommon on trading expeditions. We know that among the Imperials women often accompany men. There are even women officers in the Imperial Navy — oh yes, I’m quite serious.”

MacKinnie tried to digest that thought, but couldn’t. It was just too alien. “And which one is your agent watching me?” he demanded.

“All of them. But you won’t betray us. I have enough information on you to fill a small library. The Service has had you in mind as a possible servant to King David since we took Orleans. When you overhead that conversation, I already had more than enough to act on. I don’t waste good men, MacKinnie. Haven will need everyone we can find for the great task ahead of us. We’re saving a planet from slavery! You won’t violate your oath.”

“Thank you for the confidence.” MacKinnie stood. “Just how much do they know?” he asked, indicating the group on the veranda with a wide sweep of his hand.

Dougal smiled faintly. “Enough. They know this to be an expedition to a primitive world, with the ostensible purpose of establishing a trade mission, and an ostensible secret mission of filling the war chest for planetary conquest. They think the real purpose is to learn all they can about Imperial science, customs, military power, and that sort of thing — that this is a straight intelligence mission. They’ve been ordered not to violate Imperial regulations without specific orders from you, but to keep their eyes open whenever they’re around Imperial ships. You and your sergeant know about the library. You can tell them about it when you’ve reached Makassar.” Dougal lit another cigarette.

“I suppose they’ll have to do,” MacKinnie said. “All right. Now what about my cargo?”

“Primitive weapons, in large quantities. Axes, swords, and the like. Armor. Some gold and platinum, but not much because we can sell those to the Imperials directly. Cloth. Good tartan woven from winter-sheared woolsh. Grua. Spices. Some trinkets. You’ll have the list soon enough, and if you think of something primitive the Makassarians might buy, or something you will need, let me know. But don’t try to smuggle in anything the Imperials would object to.”

“Not likely,” MacKinnie said. He sighed and stared at the ashes in the bowl of his pipe. “Ever head a military force? “he asked.

“No. Only police. Why?”

“Old maxim. No plan survives contact with the enemy. This one won’t either.”

“Probably not, but what else have we?”

MacKinnie shrugged. “I don’t know. But it’s insane. Oh, it’s probably the best we can do, but you’d better have a Plan B, because I think your main battle plan has about as much chance of working as I have of swimming the Major Sea.”

CHAPTER FIVE EMPIRE HOUSE

MacKinnie sat alone on the veranda. The others were off on their various errands, leaving him as the only member of the expedition with nothing to do. He had finished his chickeest, and was wishing mightily for a good cup of coffee when Stark arrived.

“Find any of the Wolves?”

“Yes, sir. We can get our pick of the noncoms. The officers are a little harder to find. But are you sure you want any of the men? Being as how you’re supposed to be dead? They’re good at fighting, but they aren’t so long on keeping that kind of secret. Don’t know how good I’ll be, for that matter.”

“What about those two that Dougal furnished? Any use?”

“MacReedy’s typical, si — uh, Trader. Served a hitch in a trading expedition guard unit on South Continent, another on a sea passage through the west end of the Archipelago. He’ll do. Todd’s another case. Officer cadet, I expect. Seems a good lad, probably make colonel some day, but his speech and manners don’t come from the barracks. Keep him from talking too much and he’ll pass.”

“About what I expected,” MacKinnie said. “No point in complaining. Dougal has his own ideas of how this ought to go, and we won’t be able to change anything until we’re off-planet. Maybe not even then. I’m not completely sure who’s in command.”

“I am,” Stark said.

MacKinnie grinned. “Well, let’s be sure of it.” He thought for a moment. “Hal, get us Dunston and Olby, and pick a couple of available corporals. I have a hunch we may need some steady noncoms, and I’d as soon not have all the fighting men come from Haven. Uh — there’s no need for them to advertise that they’re Wolves.”

Stark grinned knowingly. “Yes, Trader.” The grin faded. “Think we’ll have much fighting?”

MacKinnie shrugged. “I don’t know. Dougal does, or he wouldn’t be sending me. I don’t do a lot else. I’ll find out more when I meet the Imperial Traders Association reps, I suppose.”

“Yes, sir. When do we get rolling?”

“Soon as possible. There’s nothing to wait for. Not enough time for proper training of the troops, and not much idea of what to train them for anyway. There’s one hell of a job waiting for us if we do get back with what we’re after, but that’s Dougal’s problem. His and Solon’s, and the Magnates.” He looked up to see Mary Graham and Academician Longway approaching.

“That was prompt,” he told her. His smile was forced.

Graham gave a thin answering show of teeth and said, “As soon as you approve the cargo list, Trader, I’ll have the goods taken to the Imperial wharf for loading. It’s all in the warehouses. Have you any other instructions?”

“Yes. Get someone who knows how to make body armor and find out what dimensions are needed. I want a full suit of chain mail for each of us, and that includes you, freelady. And have a variety of swords of the best quality obtainable, all types available, brought for our inspection. We’ll want to choose personal weapons. Guard leader Stark will instruct you on how he wants his men equipped.”

“Yes, sir.” She took a notebook from her pouch and wrote with tiny precise motions. “Is that all?”

“No. Join me for lunch.”

“Yes, sir,” she said in the same tone, then turned to follow Stark to his table.

MacKinnie turned to Longway. “Academician, is there any special equipment you will need?”

“I’m afraid not, Trader. There are many items we could use, but they are all technological and forbidden. I would suggest you have breastplates made for yourself and your men. If the Makassarians have developed archery to any extent, you will need them.”

“An excellent suggestion.” MacKinnie lit his pipe. “Of course we don’t expect to fight pitched battles. I hope we’ll only need armor to protect ourselves from thieves and the like. Still, some decent plate might be useful, if it can be made in time. I’ll tell the freelady.”

“As for the rest,” Longway said, “we know so little about Makassar that it is hard to tell what we should take with us. Notebooks and paper, of course. A few drafting instruments for making maps. Some standard reference works would also be useful. Do you think the Navy will allow books? Does Makassar have movable type?”

“No books,” MacKinnie said. “And don’t ask the Navy about them. Take only handwritten material, and don’t ask the Navy about any specific item without my permission.”

Longway nodded thoughtfully. “If you say so, Trader. I still have some of my personal clothing and trading items to assemble. Am I excused?”

MacKinnie nodded dismissal and went to the table where Stark sat with his men. Todd and MacReedy were quietly drinking ale while Stark issued instructions to Mary Graham. She wrote furiously in her book as he spoke.

Hal had a look of concentration and drummed his fingers against the table as he spoke. “I’d like crossbows, freelady. Good spring steel ones. There’s an armory sergeant, Brighton, in the Orleans garrison who knows how to make them — he used to supply them for our special forces teams. Thirty of those, I’d reckon. They ought to have that many in stock somewhere.”

“Crossbows,” Graham said. “And quarrels?”

“Yes. As many as they have.” Stark paused thoughtfully. “For underneath the armor we’ll want suits of woolsh-hide with the hair left on, good thick stuff. If a man’s going to pound on me with a sword, I want some padding under the chain mail. You go order all that, and I’ll have more for you by the time you get back.”

She nodded and left. MacKinnie sat at the table and poured ale for himself. “She seems to get the job done,” he said. “Maybe she’ll be useful.”

“Never had much use for women on campaign, Trader,” Stark said. “But she doesn’t miss much. I’ll make up my mind when I see the gear, but she’s got it all down in that book of hers and seems to know where to find things in a hurry.”

“Why are we in such a hurry, sir?” Todd asked.

“The Imperial Trader ship is leaving soon,” MacKinnie answered. “We have to be on it or wait for another.”

That’s the official reason, MacKinnie thought. But there’s a better one. If those Navy kids start talking about that library again, to the post commandant, or the Traders, or anyone, eventually somebody’s going to connect us and the library. The sooner we get out of here the better.

It’s a fool’s errand, but it’s worth a try, and the quicker we get back the quicker the Magnates can work on that ship. If we can get them anything, and if they can build one at all.

He knew that Dougal had already suggested that some of the University scientists work on life-support technology, using hints from the stolen novel to guide them. Others could investigate hull designs. But first Dougal would have to secure their loyalty; Prince Samual University was located in Haven, but had been independent, its independence guaranteed by treaties, for centuries. Now that Haven had conquered so many neighbors the University’s independence wasn’t likely to last long, but the rector would hardly take direct orders from King David’s secret police …

That would be Dougal’s job.

But none of it would mean a thing until the secrets of the engines and their energy sources were discovered.

And that’s my job, he thought.

Mary Graham returned for her luncheon engagement, her notebook bulging with subsidiary lists and scraps of paper. MacKinnie held her chair, then examined her with frank curiosity.

She’s pretty enough, MacKinnie thought. And she knows how to dress so as not to emphasize her looks. She gave a lot of thought to that outfit, which means she wants to make a good impression. Why does she want to go on a tomfool expedition like this? There’s only one way to find that out. “You look as if you have some sense,” he said. “Why do you want to come on this insane trip?”

“I think it’s my duty, Trader.” It was obvious that she was choosing her words carefully. If that was an act, she was very good at it. “Citizen Dougal says this could be one of the most important missions in Haven’s history, although he wouldn’t say why.”

“You’re a patriot, then?”

She shrugged. “Not a vehement one. I would like to be part of something important. There’s not much opportunity for that. Not for women.”

True enough. Which was the way things should be. Women on campaign were a nuisance. Although there had been one — he quickly pushed that thought away. He couldn’t think about Laura without pain and anger, and he’d brooded too much anyway. Now he had a job to do, and it was important to keep his mind clear. “And just what do you think you can do for us?” he asked.

“I don’t know, whatever is necessary, I suppose. Many trading expeditions do have secretaries, and my education may be useful to you.”

Nathan laughed softly. “I doubt it.” And I doubt further if you’d do the only thing I think of that might really be useful, he thought. Or will you? She could be a highly trained agent. Haven was said to employ women in their secret-police forces, but the few that Orleans’s security forces had encountered had been obvious, lower class women pretending to be from good families. This girl wasn’t like that. She had the manners of the aristocracy. Like Laura. And Laura had been small, like this girl— Once again he pushed that thought away. “Just what was it you studied at the University, and for that matter whatever possessed you to go there in the first place?”

“I studied a little of everything, Trader. Since there are so few girls in the University, I could study almost anything I liked. My professors didn’t know what to make of me, anyway. Such serious old men, you could almost hear them clucking their tongues when they discovered they were expected to listen to a girl read them papers. But since they didn’t take my efforts to get an education seriously, I could study what I wanted to and go to lectures that interested me. Really, it’s a wonderful way to study.”

“You still haven’t said why you went, freelady.”

“Please call me Mary. After all, I do work for you. Don’t I?” She sipped cold wine, and MacKinnie noticed that she did so gingerly. A telling point; girls of her class wouldn’t be accustomed to drinking wine in the afternoon. “Now. Why I went there,” she said. “I don’t know, it just seemed the thing to do. Shocked all my friends … the few friends I had, anyway. They’re all married now, and I’m a terrible old maid. You can just hear them, ‘Poor Mary, she can’t catch a man and hold onto him!’ But I wasn’t interested in that. There’s so little for girls in Haven, anywhere on North Continent, I guess. No adventure. It was explained in one of Academician Longway’s lectures, that the war left so few women on Samual that men kept them at home so no one would see them, and it’s only recently we were allowed to go out on our own. I don’t know if I believe it, but that’s what he said. Certainly I’d like to do something more than just raise children and help my husband get promoted by flirting with his superiors. I thought the University would help, but it just made people think I was a frimp. That’s why I wanted to go on this expedition so badly.” She stopped, out of breath, and smiled nervously.

“So you have no romantic attachments?”

“Not now. I was engaged once. To the son of one of my father’s friends. But that’s all over.”

“What does you father think of your entering the Service and going off to another planet?” MacKinnie appeared to be relaxed, but he watched the girl closely. He was fairly sure that she was just what she seemed to be, which meant that she would probably be more hindrance than help. By her own account, her education at the University didn’t seem to be anything useful to the expedition.

“He gave his approval, Trader,” she said stiffly. “I have all the necessary permissions duly notarized. Are you afraid he might challenge you?” Her eyes flashed briefly, then she thought better of what she had said. “Oh, I didn’t mean that. Please don’t be angry with me, but I get so tired of having to ask Father’s permission for everything I do.”

“I take it you would prefer some such equality-of-sexes nonsense like Therean.”

“Not that equal, Trader. I’ve no wish for the life of a camp follower or a tavern girl. But — surely there’s a place for us in some honorable work. Not all of the secretaries in Haven were born in the charity wards. If freeladies can manage affairs for Magnates and Traders, why can’t they own property themselves? Academician Longways says they did in the Old Empire. Why, there were even women in Parliament and nobody thought anything of it.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Well, it seems a little strange, but why not? We’re not brainless, you know. Not all of us, anyway. Who managed the estates when the men were off on campaign? You know as well as I do that not all of the wives and companions had guardians … if they could manage their property as long as the men were alive, even when they were away for months, why couldn’t they do it after their men were killed?”

MacKinnie laughed and turned his attention to his pipe. “Management is one thing, ownership is another, freelady Mary. If you own something, you can sell it.” And there were city-states where women owned property. Often enough, given the casualties in war, the result was that most of the land was owned by heiresses, and the men sought good marriages as a route to wealth.

None of which was important. It was obvious that Dougal was sending Mary Graham for reasons of his own, so MacKinnie might as well make the best of it. She might even be useful. “How far along is the cargo?” he asked.

She reached into her pouch and shuffled through papers until she found a bulky sheaf. “Here is the list. The items checked off have already been moved to the Imperial landing dock.”

“And the armor?”

“Citizen Dougal has arranged for the Haven armory to prepare the chain mail. They seem to have found something which works, and one of their people will measure us this evening. The tanners will be along to measure us for the underpadding as well. And Duncan and Larue are forging swords to various patterns, and have sent over all the varieties they make. We’ve located crossbows, and they’re making bolts for them.”

“Duncan and Larue,” MacKinnie mused. “I can remember when I was younger, there were whole regiments of cavalry armed with sword and pistol. Battles decided by them” But then, he thought, everything changed. Suddenly there was a new military technology, new tactics based on self-loading rifles and quick-firing guns with multiple barrels, breech-loading field pieces light enough to be towed at a gallop. The whole manner of war changed, to become more impersonal and a great deal uglier.

I learned the new ways, he thought. Learned them well, when a lot of my brother officers wouldn’t. They couldn’t change. Insisted that elan and military spirit were more important than weapons and tactics, and they got their regiments butchered for their pains. I learned the new ways, but I never liked them. He looked up from his reverie. “That’s one company that will profit by this expedition. Assuming we find something worth importing.”

Dougal arrived an hour later. “You will meet the Imperial Traders shortly,” the policeman announced. “We have fresh clothing ready for you in your quarters. When you get changed, we’ll go to Empire House.” The policeman fell in beside MacKinnie, walking with him to his suite. “Be careful with these Imperial Traders. There are two of them, and they both look soft. Don’t believe it; they didn’t get rich by being stupid. Of the two, Trader Soliman is probably the actual leader although they claim to be equals. There is antagonism between the Imperial Traders and the Navy, but I wouldn’t count on it too much. We don’t know the real story, but the Traders seem to be with us against the Navy.”

“Yes,” MacKinnie said. “You told me that the Navy wouldn’t let us go on this trip if the Traders hadn’t pushed them into it.”

“Exactly. The Traders are eager for us to go. Quite generous in their terms. I’m not sure why.”

“When a businessman wants to do you a favor,” MacKinnie said, “I’ve found it a good policy to watch your pocketbook.” They arrived at the door to his suite, and Dougal waited outside.

MacKinnie found a dress kilt, doublet laced with gold and silver piping, and jewelry in the style of the great merchant princes of Haven. When he lifted the clothing, he found cartridges for his pistol had been laid discreetly on the bed. With something approaching relief, Nathan loaded the large-calibre revolver and buckled it on before he realized how out of keeping it was with the rest of his clothing. A quick search of the small leather case he found on the bed with the clothing revealed a smaller dress pistol, its dragonwood handles inlaid with pearl and jade and thin copper strands. He unloaded it and squeezed the trigger several times, pleased with the smoothness of its action. The proofmarks showed it to have been made by the Brothers of St. Andrew, reputedly the best gunsmiths on Samual and certainly the most expensive. Although he hesitated to carry a weapon he had never fired, MacKinnie buckled it outside his doublet, sadly leaving the big service pistol hanging in the closet.

Two sets of guards were on watch at Empire House. Outside the large, walled courtyard, soldiers of King David’s personal guard stood rigidly at attention. A junior officer in a tiny office inside the gates examined their passes, collected their weapons apologetically, and directed them across the lava stone courtyard to the building itself.

Two huge doors swung open as they arrived. The Imperial Marines inside the entryway wore full dress, scarlet and blue uniforms with gold trim, a blaze of color; but the weapons the sentries carried were incomprehensible to MacKinnie. Their rifles looked very functional, but the knobs and dials along the stocks were meaningless — and there were no visible openings in the barrel ends.

MacKinnie expected to be searched again, but instead the Marine noncom looked at a panel of lights and meters and a screen that showed shadowy figures; MacKinnie got only a glance at it, but he thought he saw the outline of his cigar lighter on the screen. In some way the Marines could see through the leather of his pouch …

They waited in silence while the noncom spoke into a handset.

Very efficient, MacKinnie thought. It would be difficult to penetrate this place. Not that it would do any good to take Empire House. The fortress would still remain, and so would that ship in orbit above Prince Samual’s World. No. Dougal’s way was best — except that Dougal’s way doomed Orleans to rule by Haven …

An inner door opened and a young naval officer came in. He had small badges made of a curious substance, not metal but not anything else MacKinnie had ever seen. He gave one to MacKinnie.

“You are to wear these at all times inside Empire House, “the officer said. “My name is Lieutenant Akelian, and I will take you to your appointment.”

“This has my picture,” MacKinnie said.

Lieutenant Akelian looked up in surprise. “Of course. We take photographs of everyone who visits Empire House. This way, please.”

MacKinnie glanced at Dougal. The policeman’s lips were set in a tight line. And no wonder, MacKinnie thought. Akelian was one of the three who had been at the party in the Blue Bottle. But he doesn’t seem to recognize us. Given the amount he drank that night, it’s no wonder …

Akelian led them through brightly lit hallways. MacKinnie had never seen an inside room so well lighted. Electricity, someone had told him. Electric lights. But not from a carbon arc like a military searchlight. The professors at Prince Samual University were experimenting with a new kind of light, as they had experimented with long-distance communications using electricity, but electrical equipment took miles of wire, too expensive to be very practical on copper-poor Samual. They were ushered onto a moving stairway, then at the top led to another door. Akelian opened it to show them a large room.

Two fat men in plain clothing, wearing trousers rather than kilts, undecorated coats, and only a few jewels, their almost drab appearance contrasting strongly with MacKinnie and Dougal, rose languidly as they entered a large, plainly decorated room. Akelian waved MacKinnie and Dougal in, looked sternly at the civilians for a moment, and left without speaking.

As soon as he had left the room, one of the Imperials laughed. “God bless the Navy,” he chuckled. “But may He grant that their lieutenants come of age soon. Good evening, gentlemen.”

Dougal returned the greeting, then said formally, “Imperial Trader Soliman, I have the honor to present Trader Magnate MacKinnie, His Majesty’s servant and manager for this expedition. Trader MacKinnie, Imperial Trader Soliman of the Imperial Capital, and as I understand it an officer of the Imperial Traders Association.”

MacKinnie watched them narrowly and noted that the fat man made no movement to offer his hand. MacKinnie bowed slightly, was rewarded with an even smaller bow, and turned to the next man.

“Imperial Trader Renaldi, I present Trader Magnate MacKinnie,” Dougal purred.

“My honor,” Renaldi said. When Nathan began his bow, Renaldi matched him, bending to within a degree of MacKinnie but not quite as deep. The difference might have been measured with calipers.

“Gentlemen,” Soliman said, “this room is at our disposal for the time. Let us sit and enjoy ourselves like civilized beings.” He indicated couches drawn up in front of an open fire. As they sat, he continued, “Remarkable how peaceful it is to have a fire in the room with you. We haven’t used them in the capital for a long time now. There are very few houses with fireplaces, and I can’t remember when I last saw one lighted. I will have to have one installed on my return, a great aid to contemplation. Right, Chasar?”

“It would be pleasant,” Renaldi said.

“They are not quite so pleasant when they are your only source of heat,” Dougal said.

“No, I suppose not,” Soliman said. He looked thoughtful. “When the Navy permits trade in such things, Imperial Autonetics will bring factories to make better heating systems. I expect we could sell many of them. “He sighed. “But the military departments never act quickly. It will probably be some time yet.”

MacKinnie noted that both men spoke the language of North Continent almost perfectly, but with the careful pronunciations that indicated that it was a recently learned foreign tongue. Having never heard the Imperial language, he was not sure how close it would be to that used on Samual, although it would obviously be similar if Dougal were able to read the book his agents had stolen. Still, it must require some study, he thought, and therefore it followed that the Imperials either had some method of learning languages quickly, or that the Traders thought it important enough to spend the time and effort learning the local tongue. Either alternative seemed interesting.

Soliman hovered around them, offering refreshments which he poured himself at a small stand at one side of the room before finally joining them before the fire. They sipped chilled wine from one of the islands of the Archipelago, and Soliman praised it highly. “I hope it travels well,” he told them. “This will be worth a fortune on the capital. It is as good as real Earth wines, or nearly so, and they command a price you would never believe. This is a very fortunate world, gentlemen, your wines and brandies can make you rich. And your grua — do you think the peach plant would grow elsewhere? Ah, but it would never thrive as it does here. If only Earth had not been so devastated in the Secession Wars.”

He lowered his voice confidentially. “That is why the Navy is so stern, you know. Their academy is there, and they grow up with the results of the wars. They are determined that it will never happen again, even if they must enslave the entire galaxy to see to it. And now that it is traditional for the Emperor to send the heir apparent to New Annapolis, the whole government is infected with their dedication.” He sighed deeply.

“Have you visited Makassar yourself, Traders?” MacKinnie asked.

“Briefly, briefly,” Soliman replied. “A desolate place, with little of value to us. Yet I am certain you will find many things useful there,” he added quickly. “Not so desolate as all that, and of course we are accustomed to more comforts than you. Copper abounds there, but perhaps the costs of shipping will prevent you from importing it on any really large scale. There may be little for us, but we believe you will find the voyage profitable. And of course we did not venture far from the city where the Navy has its base.”

“Has the Navy decided on the details of the voyage?” Dougal asked. “Will Your Excellencies accompany us? A naval officer, perhaps? Who will command the ship?”

“I have business beyond Makassar, but I will go with you there,” Renaldi told them. “I am looking forward to the voyage, and Trader Soliman will guard my interests here.” Renaldi’s tone indicated that he and Soliman had tossed coins for the privilege, and Renaldi had lost, although he was attempting to act in good humor. “As Soliman and I own the ship, it will be commanded by our own merchant captain and crew. One of the Imperial Navy officers will be aboard as observer, to insure that none of their silly regulations are violated. We must caution you, Trader,” he said, turning to MacKinnie, “they are very stern about their rules. Do not attempt to violate them, or you will never see your charming planet again. The Imperial prison world is not a pleasant place.”

“No need to speak of such depressing matters,” Soliman interrupted. “Better to think of the profits that can be earned. And, of course, this will be the first time any of your people have been off this planet since the days of the Old Empire, will it not?” His offhanded manner could not conceal his interest in the question.

Before MacKinnie could answer, Dougal asked, “And the language of Makassar? Will Trader MacKinnie find it difficult to deal with the natives?”

“The language is much like your own, or ours,” Soliman answered. “Degenerate forms of Old Empire, with some local words. It requires study, but there will be no great difficulties. Tell me, Trader Magnate MacKinnie, are you looking forward to going off-planet?”

“With some anticipation,” MacKinnie answered. “It will be a new experience for me.” He emphasized the last word slightly, receiving an approving nod from Dougal. “But what are the conditions on Makassar? Are they likely to be friendly? Will we be allowed to wander about their cities, or must we remain in one place and let them come to us?”

“The Navy has no objection to your traveling about,” Renaldi replied, “provided you take nothing more advanced than they already have on Makassar. Journeys on the planet with primitive equipment can be dangerous, you understand. The planet has no political system as even you on Samual might know it. Here, you have a few strong governments and many city-states in a complex of alliances — at least on North Continent. On Makassar, there are dozens of kingdoms, free cities, small republics, leagues, and such, none very large by your standards. The kingdoms themselves are more fiction than fact, with independent baronies scattered about them. No doubt this is the result of their lack of technology, coupled with their primitive military organizations. All of this is huddled together on the coast of the one large continent. But it all comes to an end on a great grassland plain that stretches east for over three thousand kilometers. You will find none but barbarians there. No one knows how many of them there are; they move around at will and raid the edges of the civilized lands. There are also island kingdoms of barbarians off the coasts of the civilized regions, and these stage raids on even the largest cities. You are welcome to wander the countryside, Trader MacKinnie, but do not be surprised if you are killed. The only safe place is in one of their large cities, and they are not entirely safe. The Imperial Navy maintains a fortified observation post, but no warships, so that even if you were able to signal the Navy, there would be little they could do to rescue you.

Makassar is not altogether a healthy place.”

“Ah, but there are never profits without danger,” Soliman purred. “And who knows what you may find out among the kingdoms of the east? The Navy post is on the western coastline, and we know so little about the planet.”

MacKinnie nodded. “We will be very careful if we leave the Imperial fortress. Gentlemen, what I do not understand is why Makassar is so primitive. Why did they not retain any basic technology at all?”

“Ah,” Soliman answered, “that is something we have speculated about without final answer. From our records, it was relatively unpopulated when the Secession Wars began. The planet seems to have served mostly as a rest area for the Old Empire Navy and Civil Service … a park world, kept uninhabited and unspoiled. Little machinery. Few power installations. Then, as the wars continued, for some reasons of strategy we do not know, parts of the planet were fortified. The fortifications were destroyed, and with them, much of the only city, although the old palace seems to have survived. Then the wars boiled on past Makassar. Perhaps there were not many people left on it. Many of them would be civil servants. Few artisans, and of the native inhabitants most would have been dedicated to service professions. Pleasure-house operators. Prostitutes. What kind of civilization would you expect them to build, given the destruction of most of the machinery?” He paused thoughtfully, sipping his wine.

“And then, too, much of the vegetation on the planet is native to Makassar. Not edible by us. Hardy stuff. A form of our wheat grows across the plains, but it is straggly and more fit for horses and cattle than men. Most of the crops of Makassar are Earth Stock; they have a very wide variety of such foodstuffs but getting an edible crop takes constant attention. How natural for some of the population to become raiders, living off the cultivators! And so the cultivators divert part of their efforts into maintaining a warrior class. The warriors become an aristocracy. The warriors must have something to do in times of peace, and they will not toil in the fields … Indeed, they can’t, because the barbarians may sweep over them at any time, and the warriors must know their business if they are to do their job. The planet has known constant warfare, between the civilized people and the barbarians, among the warriors within the civilized area, between civilized cities and baronies. At least, we think this is what happens. Certainly they are fighting all the time.”

“There was a period much like that on old Earth,” Renaldi observed. “It would seem to have been ended by the development of scientific farming, which was a discovery of the Church. But Makassar has developed its own ideas of a church, not altogether to the satisfaction of New Rome.”

“Ah, yes,” Soliman added. “In addition to yourselves and the Imperial Navy observers, you will find one other group on Makassar. His Holiness has sent a bishop and a small group of missionaries to win these people back to the state religion. They are not having notable success.”

Dougal finished his wine and set the glass down. In an instant, Soliman hauled his great stomach off the couch and gathered the other glasses on a copper tray, taking them to the cabinet to fill them. As he did, Dougal observed, “I am sure that Trader MacKinnie will be careful not to fall afoul of His Reverence the Bishop. May we here on Samual expect a similar visit soon?”

“Doubtless,” Renaldi answered. “Of course, you seem to have developed along more orthodox lines than the people of Makassar, although the Church will find the multiplication of sects distressing. Still, you will find New Rome tolerant and willing to compromise. Do you anticipate much resistance to unification of the churches?”

“Not much,” MacKinnie answered. “We had religious wars, over a hundred standard years ago. Not much zeal left on Prince Samual’s World. The orthodox churches have been proclaiming their obedience to New Rome since the Imperial Navy landed, and the others don’t know quite what to make of it all. How much will the Empire interfere with local matters like religion anyway?”

“Oh, hardly at all, hardly at all,” Soliman assured them. He served the wine carefully, and MacKinnie caught a stern look which Soliman passed to Renaldi. The latter quickly changed the subject, and the next half hour was passed discussing trade goods and the proposed cargo. They were interrupted by a knock at the door and, when Renaldi answered it, two Imperial Navy officers entered the room and walked stiffly over to stand in front of MacKinnie. Their manner was anything but friendly.

CHAPTER SIX REGULATIONS

The contrast between the two officers could not have been greater. One was young, tall, of slight build, his hair an indescribable brown something like damp straw. The other was much older, with lines of care etched around his expressionless eyes, his hair gray where there was hair at all. He was heavy and short, but he had in common with the younger man a look of hardness and dedication; yet, again in contrast to his junior brother in service, there was none of the air of expectancy and anticipation the boy displayed.

“Trader MacKinnie.” The older man said it factually. “I am Captain Greenaugh of His Imperial Majesty’s Navy. I command the garrison here and Tombaugh up there in orbit. This is Midshipman Landry, who will be my observer on this stupid voyage of yours.”

MacKinnie stood and bowed slightly to Captain Greenaugh, even less to Landry, making no move to extend his hand when the others did not.

“Won’t you sit down, Captain?” Soliman asked softly. “Some wine, perhaps? Grua?”

“No. Mr. Landry and I are on duty.”

The midshipman’s face was impassive; or had there been a hint of a smile? It was hard to tell.

“Then please be seated,” Soliman insisted.

“I prefer to stand.” He turned his attention to MacKinnie. “As you are to be the local in charge of this expedition, sir, it is my duty to caution you that any infringement of Imperial regulations on the part of any member of this expedition will result in trial and punishment of both the crew member and you personally. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Captain,” MacKinnie said. He elaborately inspected the large ring on his left hand, then looked up. “I understand perfectly. Tell me why you are so unhappy with me, if you would, please.”

“I am not unhappy with you, sir. It is understandable that you would wish to travel in space. I am unhappy with Mr. Soliman for browbeating me into letting you do it.”

“Browbeating, Captain?” Soliman said in an amused tone. “Why, I merely indicated—”

“You merely indicated the relevant passages in the Imperial regulations and reminded me of your influence. I don’t give a damn about your influence, but I can’t ignore the regulations. However, I warn you, MacKinnie, if Mr. Soliman can be sticky about regulations, so can I. You’ll get a copy of the pertinent sections before you go, but I decided to see you personally to try to talk you out of this venture.”

“If you please, Captain,” Dougal asked, “why are you so opposed to our simple trading expedition? I thought it was Imperial policy to encourage trade among the worlds of the Empire. Your ambassador promises that Prince Samual’s World will profit highly through joining the Empire.”

“Sir—” The captain paused and snapped his fingers.

“Citizen Dougal, sir,” the midshipman answered. “In the service of King David.”

“Citizen Dougal, I have all too few officers on this station. I am responsible for the protection of this world from all interference with its development and assimilation into the Empire. There’s a nest of outies not twenty parsecs away; your King David is in one hell of a hurry to unify this planet against stiff opposition; the survey team keeps borrowing my people; and thanks to this expedition I have to send a junior officer off for the Saints alone know how long. There’ll be reports to file, inspections to conduct. And for what? So Mr. Soliman here can add another mega-crown to his bank account, and you people can bring some kind of gimcrack new luxuries to absorb what little capital there is on Prince Samual’s World. I don’t like it and I don’t have to like it.”

“Sorry you feel that way, Captain,” MacKinnie said. Inwardly he knew all too well the plight of a military man caught up in the details of government. He would have felt sympathy for Greenaugh, but the memory of Lechfeld was too strong. The Imperials were the enemy. “But you have admitted that you understand our motives for wanting to go. I hope we can get our work accomplished without causing you any trouble.”

“You’re damn right you will,” Greenaugh snapped. “But before you make your final decision, let me acquaint you with the regulations. Item: you will be supplied with a basic naval study of the planetary languages found in the chief city of Makassar. You will at no time teach any native your own language or Imperial speech. All negotiations will be conducted in one of the planetary languages. Is that understood?”

MacKinnie nodded, suddenly realizing why all the Imperials he had met spoke a variant of the language of Haven. If you used a man’s own language, you weren’t likely to tell him anything he didn’t know about. He wouldn’t even have the words for most advanced concepts.

“Item: as Imperial subjects,” Greenaugh continued, “you would ordinarily be entitled to protection from barbarians and arbitrary imprisonment. In your case we can’t extend it. The garrison on Makassar is too small and there’s no ship. If you get in trouble, you’re on your own.”

The captain took a small notebook-sized object from his pocket, touched a stud on the side of it and glanced at its face before returning it to his scarlet tunic. MacKinnie recognized it as one of the tiny Imperial computers, supposedly equivalent to hundreds of the best mechanical calculators in use in Haven’s banks; equivalent and more. The Imperials used them for everything, as notebooks and pocket clocks, for communications and diaries.

“Another thing, MacKinnie. Any technical innovation traced to you directly or indirectly can result in a charge of interference. If it results in any severe disruption of the development of that planet, you can get life imprisonment. Assessment of the effects of innovations and your responsibilities for them are up to the Emperor’s Lord Judges.”

“Why are the regulations so severe, Captain?” Dougal asked. “It is our understanding that the Empire intends only peace and friendship for its member worlds.”

“Damn right. And sudden technical changes destroy both. I’ve seen worlds where some smart guy used a little technology and a lot of guts to set himself up as a planetary king. Half the population out of work, the other half in turmoil. Took the better part of a fleet and a division of Marines to keep order on the place. Mister, it’s not going to happen in my sector.”

“The regulations are severe for a purpose,” Renaldi added. “There is no telling what the effects of even the most innocent technical revelations can be. Even something as inherently benign as medicines can change the whole pattern of life. There is a famous case, from the early days of the New Empire. The Church went in and with the best of motives taught practical medicine to primitives. The missionaries were particularly concerned with saving children from infant diseases. They intended to give them some new agricultural and industrial techniques, but the people were not ready for them. They rejected the agriculture and industry, but they adopted the medicine. Within fifty standard years, there was famine all over the world. The results were horrible.”

Greenaugh nodded. “Still were when I was young Landry’s age. I served a hitch on an escort vessel convoying a provisions fleet. Silliest thing you ever saw. You ever think of how futile it is to try to ship food to a whole world that’s starving? If you took every ship in the Navy and merchant service and put them on it, even if the food was free and waiting in the same star system, it wouldn’t do any good. But the Emperor’s sister got interested in the place and they had to have a try at ‘helping’. Did no good at all. Population’s thinned out a bit now on Placentia, but the planet’ll never be the same.”

“So you see,” Soliman said softly, “it is important not to interfere. No matter what the reason. You can always say that things would have been worse if you did not interfere, but you can’t know.” He sipped his wine. “Besides, people will have adjusted to the evils they are accustomed to. Your attempts to help may introduce evils they don’t know, which are always worse to bear and will probably retard their natural development.”

“Thank you,” MacKinnie said. “We will be very careful. What else must I know?”

“Still determined,” Greenaugh said. “Thought you would be. Well, if I can’t persuade you to give it up, I can’t. Bring your crew here tomorrow for inspection. Midshipman Landry will tell you the rest of the details.” He strode to the door, then paused and turned back. “Just remember, MacKinnie, you were warned. The hell with it.” He went briskly out, followed by his midshipman.

MacKinnie started to speak to Dougal once they were in the cab and drawing away from Empire House, but Dougal motioned him to silence. They returned to the Royal Guest House, where Dougal invited MacKinnie to shower, insisting that he do so in a manner that told MacKinnie it was an order. When he finished, he found fresh clothing, the elaborate Trader’s kilt and doublet gone. Dougal joined him as he finished dressing, and MacKinnie noted that the policeman had changed as well.

“Sorry, Trader,” Dougal said, “but we have found by bitter experience that the Imperials have devices, so small you would hardly notice them, which in some manner allow them to hear over long distances. Our engineers did not believe it at first, but I tested the hypothesis by feeding them false information when we had reason to suspect. I proved it, and now my people have found one of the things. Not as big as the end of your thumb.”

MacKinnie whistled. “Was there one attached to our clothing?” he asked.

“No, not this time. But the cab stood outside Empire House while we were there. They had ample time to do as they liked.”

“Any idea of the range of those things?” MacKinnie asked.

“None. And as we do not know how they work, there is no guess. Some of our best physicists insist they have a theory how one might be built, now that they know it is possible, but they say any such device would have to be very large and use much power. Still, it is a start.” Deprived of a place to sit, the policeman locked his hands behind his back and paced the room nervously.

“By the way,” MacKinnie asked, “what will our churches really do if their New Roman Church decides to take over here? I notice King David’s bishops are thick as flies in Orleans.”

“Better ours than the outlanders’,” Dougal snapped. “And all the more reason for the success of your mission, MacKinnie. Perhaps they are not as severe on the Classified worlds.”

“Yeah.” Nathan stood against one wall, patiently watching Dougal stride back and forth. “But after that interview I don’t know any more about how to get those books — but they aren’t books, are they? That Navy kid, the night he babbled about it all, said they were spools, whatever that might be. That they could be made to print books, if we knew how to do it. Only we don’t know how, do we? We don’t really know much of anything.”

“Giving up?” Dougal asked.

“No, by God!” MacKinnie grinned. “And the sooner we start, the better chance we’ll have. It’s still a fool’s errand, but at least I can feel useful again, win or lose!”

CHAPTER SEVEN THE BURDEN OF EMPIRE

Lieutenant Alphonse Pavlovnicek Jefferson was in love. It had happened very suddenly, but he had no doubts about it; he had all the signs he’d been led to expect from romantic novels. His previous affairs seemed laughable or disgusting in recollection; he had no desire at all to go tavern-crawling with his classmates; he wanted only to get back to Elaine. It had to be love.

He’d met her on the street when he’d lost his way and asked for directions. Of course he’d been glad for an opportunity to speak to a local girl; getting acquainted on Prince Samual’s World wasn’t as easy as it was on more civilized worlds. Since he was more lost than he’d thought, she had to draw a map, and it seemed natural to offer to buy her a coffee at a sidewalk restaurant that seemed so conveniently located that it made Jefferson believe the fates approved of his meeting Elaine. She said later she’d accepted because she had never talked with an Imperial before. Her parents didn’t encourage that.

Hours went by. He couldn’t remember anything significant they’d said. It was just talk, at the coffee house and then walking in the park and along the waterfront, a pleasant stroll on a pleasant afternoon, with nothing important said, but there it was: he wanted nothing more than to see her again, and she’d agreed. Of course he would have to call for her at her home, and meet her father, and ask his permission to see her. He’d been warned that local customs were very strict, and Captain Greenaugh had made it clear that any officer causing problems would be handed his head.

Jeff wasn’t exactly looking forward to the interview with Elaine’s father, but surely all would be well. Fate couldn’t play him such a trick as to let him find Elaine and then be forbidden to see her. Her father was a Haven civil servant, and the Empire was allied with Haven. He couldn’t openly dislike Imperial officers, and he might even welcome the opportunity to get to know one. Jeff told himself that several times.

For the moment, though, he had another appointment. High Commissioner Sir Alexei Dmitrivitch Ackoff was holding his weekly seminar on colonial government, and it was strongly suggested that all junior officers attend. Presumably there was a difference between a strong suggestion and an order; if Elaine hadn’t already been late getting home for dinner, this might have been the day Lieutenant Jefferson found out. However, she had insisted on going home, and even in his euphoric mood Jeff knew it wouldn’t be a good idea to test Ackoff’s patience.

He was very nearly late. The others had already gone into Ackoff’s spartan conference room. Jeff hurried inside and as he did the opposite door leading into the Commissioner’s office opened and the others stood respectfully.

Sir Alexei nodded and waved them to their seats around the big conference table as he took his place at its head. He was not a tall man, nor was he large; from his looks no one would have guessed that he was the most powerful man on Prince Samual’s World, the only man there who could give orders to the Navy and make them stick. He did have an air of importance, of speaking in a tone that indicated he expected to be obeyed, but even that wasn’t permanent; he was, after all, a diplomat, skilled in persuasion. This was his first assignment as top authority on a planet, but he’d been deputy commissioner twice before, and was said to be highly competent.

Jeff’s father knew Ackoff slightly, and in his last letter to Jeff had mentioned the Commissioner as an excellent example of the best — and worst — of the Imperial Civil

Service. “Give him a policy, and he’ll enforce it. Even have sense enough to grant exceptions. But you have to give him a policy. He’s not likely to come up with one on his own.” The dry voice went on to suggest that Jeff erase that portion of the letter, lest Sir Alexei find it. “Your brother will inherit the family title, my lad,” his father’s image had said with a wink. “And you’ll need friends like Sir Alexei if you intend to found your own branch of the family. You might even think about staying on Prince Samual’s World. Not a bad place from what I hear, and they’ll want colonists. Shouldn’t be surprised if you managed a barony out of it. So it’s worth keeping Sir Alexei happy. Besides, he’s not a bad sort if you deal with him on his own terms.”

“Gentlemen,” Ackoff began. “I find myself falling further behind in necessary work, so we will have to cut this short today.”

Midshipman Landry was seated across the table from Jeff. Landry looked relieved. Jeff hoped that his own face wasn’t quite as obvious, but it probably was, because Ackoff looked directly at him.

“You are amused, Mr. Jefferson?”

“No, sir.”

“You shouldn’t be. As of tomorrow you will be assisting the survey team. So will most of the rest of you. And you needn’t groan, gentlemen. The work is important.”

I suppose it is, Jeff thought. But … “Sir?” he asked.

“Yes?”

“I — do you know where I will be assigned?”

“Near Haven for the moment,” Ackoff said. “At the University.” His lips curled slightly, perhaps in a smile, perhaps something else. “We must fully understand the capabilities of the industrial base here. Get a total picture of their energy budget. Assess their ability to maintain complex technologies. Without that information we can’t know what to license for import.”

Midshipman Landry raised his hand.

“Yes?” Ackoff said.

“Trader Soliman says he already knows what he wants to import, and if he’s wrong the market place will show him up soon enough.”

“Yes. He would say that,” Ackoff said. “I don’t suppose he gave you the benefit of his thoughts on what he would import?”

“No, sir.”

“You may be certain that Mr. Soliman’s ideas will be considerably different from mine,” Ackoff said. “Luxury and convenience items, no doubt. And imbecile acts like this expedition to Makassar. It’s quite natural that Mr. Soliman wants profits for Imperial Autonetics, and it doesn’t take genius to imagine ways to accomplish that. Our task is to bring this planet smoothly into the Empire, and that may be a bit more difficult. Consider our situation, how very few we are, how expensive it will be to bring anything here. We cannot afford mistakes. The market may show up Trader Soliman, but the worst disaster he faces merely costs money. Our mistakes will cost lives — and do not deceive yourselves, we will make mistakes.”

The officers around the table looked at each other significantly. This was Ackoff’s favorite lecture, and once started it was unlikely that he’d change the subject. More importantly, he wasn’t likely to ask many questions. You could safely relax and daydream when Ackoff took that tone and spoke of the burdens of Imperial office …

“For example,” Ackoff said, “any fool knows that energy systems are the key to industrialization. Make energy cheap and plentiful, and people will figure ways to use it. But what energy systems? Satellites? This planet hasn’t the industrial base for that, and we haven’t the personnel to build either the orbital or the ground components. We’re unlikely to get enough skilled people. Scratch power satellites for a generation or more.

“Small fusion plants? Who will operate them? Who will maintain them? How many engineers do we bring in, and who will train others here? And how is the power to be distributed on a world where metals are dear and copper so scarce it’s used as jewelry? We’ll have to use organic conductors. That’s a very sophisticated technology, far too complex for a world this primitive, but I suppose we’ll have to do it even so.

“And once we begin, when we’ve made electricity cheap and plentiful — how do we control industrial developments? No matter what we do, we’re going to change the class structure of this planet. Power relationships will shift and flow in unpredictable ways. Mister Jefferson. What is our primary mission?”

“Sir?” Jeff looked up with a start and tried to recall the question. “To keep the peace.”

“Precisely. Which means that when this planet does develop an industrial base, it must be governed — well governed — by people loyal to the Empire. Governors both able and popular, at least popular enough to retain their offices without constant revolt. Yet consider this. If we are to bring them industry, we must bring in the personnel to build and operate the primary systems. How do we induce them to come here? What can we offer highly skilled people so that they will colonize a primitive world?”

“Wealth,” Landry said.

“Precisely,” Ackoff agreed. “Wealth. Opportunity. The chance to found an aristocratic family. Power indeed. But whenever you bring in an alien governing class you will inevitably breed resentment among the population. Breed enough and you can’t govern. You lose control. Whether we like it or not, Prince Samual’s World will within a few generations have the capability of building modern weapons. When that time comes, the planet must be loyalist. The alternative is almost unthinkable. Remember Istvan and Kutuzov’s choice…”

Jeff shuddered. Admiral Kutuzov had bombed an entire planet into the stone age. The alternative was the revolt of a whole sector; the alternative would have been another Secession War, Imperial planets destroyed, all of the horrors of the war years. Kutuzov had made the right choice, but it was one no sane officer wanted to face.

And, he thought, it could happen here, too. To me. Or, the other side of the coin, if I decide to become a colonist. Perhaps not to me. But to my children. Mine and Elaine’s—

The thought startled him. Was he really thinking of marriage? He barely knew her. But he didn’t want to be away from her, not for an hour, and—

It wasn’t unthinkable. She came of a good family. Imperial policy encouraged colonists to marry locals, and send down roots into the world they chose to live on.

“Hard choices, gentlemen,” Ackoff was saying. “And the decisions we make will change the history of the world. For the moment the local government cooperates with us. Even welcomes our help. We have encouraged them to believe that once they have established a planetary government, the local dynasty will remain in control. You ladies and gentlemen will naturally continue that deception as long as possible.”

“What happens when they find out we’ve been lying to them?” a consular officer asked. Her tone made it obvious that she did not approve.

“It is not precisely a lie, Miss Neville,” Ackoff said. “More a diplomatic truth—”

“Whatever we call it, they’ll find us out, and what then?” she asked.

“ ‘Find us out,’ ” Ackoff repeated. “You young people can afford phrases like that. I can’t. What will they find out? That no matter what our intentions, the experts we bring in will be more important than even the most influential locals? That the Traders and technicians and diplomatic personnel and civil servants will have the knowledge and skills to rise high during the inevitable turmoil of change to a modern society — and their traditional leaders will not? That is the real truth, far more influential than any legalities we may impose. Try as we will — and we do try — there will be no way to avoid a change of ruling elites here. For obvious reasons we mustsee that the new ruling class is loyalist. Sometimes that requires shoring up traditional leaders long after they have lost the ability to govern. Sometimes it requires replacing then. Sometimes—”

“Why can’t we just leave them alone?” Sirica Neville asked.

Ackoff shrugged. “Would that be kindness?” he asked. “Suppose we do as you suggest. Leave them alone, let them develop as they see fit. Quite aside from the fact that the inevitable revolution here could as easily cast up monsters as saints for their leaders, what are we to do if they move away from the Empire, make alliance with outies, become a threat to this sector?”

Kutuzov’s choice again, Jeff thought. There’s got to be a better way than that …

“So I leave you to contemplate our burden,” Ackoff said. “We must not fail.” He glanced at his pocket computer. “And now, as it is getting late, I’ll let you go. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance …”

They all turned to face the portrait of Leonidas IX, Emperor of Humanity.

CHAPTER EIGHT THE VIEW FROM SPACE

Despite Dougal’s frantic desire for haste, getting the cargo inspected and loaded took three more days. Eventually it was accomplished, and MacKinnie met Dougal for the last time before departing.

“We must thank Trader Renaldi for his help,” Dougal said. “Without his assistance we’d still be dealing with Imperial clerks.”

MacKinnie chuckled. “He wants to get back to civilization.”

Dougal snorted contempt. “He would say that—”

“He didn’t say it.”

“No, but it was obvious.” Dougal shrugged. “Well, we can be thankful for his impatience. Also that Imperial bureaucrats are no different from our own.”

“It should be fairly obvious to them that we’re far too primitive to be a threat to the Empire—”

“Or more to the point, to their files. And their careers,” Dougal said. “It’s fortunate that they didn’t assign this task to that young blabbermouth from the tavern.”

“Yes. This Midshipman Landry is competent enough, but he’s never been on Makassar. I’d have thought they’d put one of the chaps who’s been there on this—”

“They can’t spare anyone higher-ranking than a midshipman,” Dougal said. “That boy, Lieutenant Jefferson, is supposed to be quite competent.”

“We must have seen him on an off night,” MacKinnie said.

“Possibly. At any event, they have him working at the

University, reading our engineering textbooks, and looking at the research laboratories.”

MacKinnie frowned. “Are they suspicious? And of what?”

“I do not know. He says he is part of a survey to determine what Prince Samual’s World needs. Certainly there are enough of them looking in odd places, but we know more about Jefferson than the others. He has become friendly with the daughter of one of King David’s officials, and they report his activities to me. So far he has not again mentioned Makassar, but I’ll be happier with you away.”

“Yes. And speaking of that, I’d best be leaving for the harbor,” MacKinnie said.

“Nervous?”

“A bit.”

“You’ve done all you can.”

“Sure,” MacKinnie said. “And that’s little enough. God knows how I’m going to bring home those books.”

“Or whatever they are.”

“Yes. Or whatever they are.” He shrugged. “One thing at a time. Take what comes and do what you can.” And that, Nathan thought, was what I was told by my tac officer back in the Academy. An Academy that doesn’t exist…

“You won’t fail us.” Dougal hesitated a moment, then put out his hand. “Good luck.”

“Thanks. I expect I’ll need it.”

The merchant landing boat was ugly, a squat, winged cylinder nothing like the slim Navy landing ship that floated next to the main pier of the Imperial docks. The boat’s gangway was a slice out of one side which lowered to match the height of the dock. The compartment inside was bare steel.

“Built to lift mass,” Landry explained as they boarded.

“There’s no need to maneuver in atmosphere. Not like a Navy boat.”

The others didn’t answer, although MacLean listened with evident interest to every word Landry said. They went down a short corridor to a compartment filled with padded seats. “Find a place,” Landry said. “I’ll help you strap in.”

“Why the straps?” Longway asked. “If this falls, they won’t help much, will they?”

“Not a lot,” Landry admitted. “But these boats are quite serviceable. Not much happens to them.”

“I hope not,” Mary Graham said. “I — where are the Traders?”

“They lifted off hours ago,” Landry said. “With their own cargo. Not as big a load as we’re carrying—”

MacKinnie could draw his own conclusions from that, and he didn’t much like them. There didn’t seem to be much to do about the situation, though. And at least Landry was aboard …

There were warning tones from somewhere, three repeated notes, then a series of shorter tones that blended with a sudden roar from behind them. The landing boat lurched and began to move across the water.

“What pushes this?” Kleinst asked.

“Steam,” Landry said. “Distilled water flows through a nuclear heat source—”

“Nuclear?” MacLean asked.

“Sorry,” Landry mumbled. “It would take too long to explain. I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you anyway-”

“The Empire is our ally,” Mary Graham said. “Why can’t you tell us?”

“A good question, freelady,” Landry said. “I don’t really know the answer. But I have my orders … lean back, here we go.”

The acceleration increased suddenly, and they were pressed back into their couches until they weighed far too much. MacKinnie gritted his teeth and fought to stay calm. He couldn’t see out but he was certain they were flying now, the first natives of Prince Samual’s World to fly in a heavier-than-air machine for centuries. Nathan glanced across the aisle toward Mary Graham. She gripped the chair arms unconsciously, but there was a set smile on her lips. MacKinnie couldn’t see any of the others.

The feeling of too much weight went on for a long time. MacKinnie estimated it at about twice normal; uncomfortable but not painful. He had carried companions on his back for much longer. But he wished it would stop.

When the engines quit, the silence was terrifying. Worse yet was the sensation of falling.

Mary Graham was the first to speak. Her voice was quite calm. “The engines have quit. Are we going to crash?”

There was a confused babble from behind, and one of the guards shouted “Goddam, we are falling!”

MacKinnie grimly faced death, reviewing the silly prayers the chaplains said over the dying. Somehow they did not seem silly at all.

“No, no,” Landry protested. “I’m sorry, I should have warned you. We are in orbit. The sensation of falling is natural, but it’s false. In fact, we can’t fall. Without power we’d never leave this orbit, because we’re falling around the planet — oh, hell, I don’t expect you to understand. But we’re quite safe.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Longway said grimly. “But you might have told us—”

The incident served to reassure MacKinnie about Kleinst. The young scholar had evidently known they were safe, but made no move to assure the others and thus break his cover as social historian. MacKinnie did not care for weaklings, but the young man seemed to have common sense as well as educated intelligence.

The landing boat’s engines started again, this time far more gently than before. For nearly an hour they experienced accelerations, now forward, now sideways, then finally there was a resounding clang, followed by other sounds. Midshipman Landry glanced at his pocket computer. “Good time,” he said. “Couldn’t have matched up quicker myself.”

“Do you pilot these craft?” MacLean asked. “Your pardon, but you seem young for such a task. It must be very demanding.”

MacKinnie listened with amusement. From his interviews with MacLean he knew what an effort MacLean must have made to be polite to a mere midshipman.

“I have been a qualified landing-craft pilot for nearly a standard year,” Landry answered proudly. He glanced at Mary Graham as if seeking approval. She smiled. “It’s not that difficult,” Landry continued. “The computers do most of the work. The fact is, we couldn’t fly these ships without them.”

The compartment door opened and two men in coveralls came inside. One wore gold piping on his sleeves, and both were dark men, with eyes that seemed to slant. There were no orientals on Prince Samual’s World, and MacKinnie and the others stared at the crewmen.

“My name is Taka,” one of the crewmen said. He floated through the compartment, not touching the decks, and began loosening the straps holding MacKinnie in his seat. When they had everyone loose they gestured toward the opening.

Mary Graham stared openly at the newcomers, but MacKinnie couldn’t tell if it were their strange eyes or the way they levitated through the compartment that interested her. Kleinst had a bored look, but under it MacKinnie thought he detected keen interest. The pale young scholar seemed relaxed, but whenever the crewmen spoke he tensed slightly.

“Come aboard,” Landry said. “We should not waste time…”

They floated gently through the connecting passageways between the landing craft and the main ship, gingerly following the towlines the ship’s officers had strung for them, everyone quiet and awed by the experience. We’ve left our world, MacKinnie thought. And I’m supposed to bring back the knowledge so we can build one of these. He shook his head grimly. The more he saw of the ships, the more he was convinced that they had taken on an impossible task.

Their staterooms proved to be minuscule cubicles, sparsely furnished at first sight, but when buttons were touched, various utilities such as beds and tables unfolded from the walls. MacKinnie sat in a chair and held himself in it while he looked at the various gadgets, but learned nothing.

Weight slowly returned.

A ship’s officer led him into the lounge, where some of the others were already assembled. The room was completely alien to MacKinnie. It was splendidly furnished, but in addition to couches, chairs, and tables on the deck beneath him, one large, circular wall was also covered with carpeting and furniture, all bolted into place. The wall was not a complete disc, for a large central tube ran through it well over Nathan’s head. More strange than the double furniture was the deck, which curved up both in front of him and behind him, yet, when he walked around it, always felt as if it were down. After a few strides, he looked back to see that where he had been was now well above him. A few more steps brought him around the central column “overhead” to reveal Renaldi apparently hanging from the ceiling, relaxing in a large chair, a drink in his hand.

“Ah, Trader MacKinnie, please be seated. The others will be here shortly.” Renaldi sipped his drink. “Pleasant to have weight again, is it not?”

“Yes.” MacKinnie sat, again noting the eerie sensations in his inner ears whenever he made a sudden movement. “How have you accomplished this, uh, giving us weight?”

Renaldi looked startled for a moment, then smiled. “You truly don’t know, do you? I’ll wait until the others arrive and explain. Have a drink, Trader. We can only enjoy this for another hour before the captain gets under way, and we will all have to be in our staterooms for the transition.”

MacLean, Longway, Kleinst, and Mary Graham joined them within moments. Midshipman Landry arrived a few minutes later, and explained that the guards and their leader were quartered on another deck with a lounge of their own. When all were seated, Renaldi told Landry, “The Trader is curious about our weight, Midshipman. Surely the Empire will not fall if we explain it to our guests?”

“No, of course not, Trader,” Landry said. “You see, gentlemen and freelady, the captain has caused the ship to rotate about its long axis. Thus, you are thrown toward the outside of the ship. When we begin our voyage, however, the ship will accelerate for long periods of time, and the rotation will cease. While we accelerate, you will feel weight, but ‘down’ will be that deck in front of you, and this deck will become a wall.” The boy paused for a moment, then said suddenly, “If you have never been off-world, you have never seen your own planet. There are ports at that bulkhead there; allow me to open them for you.”

Before any of the others could rise, Kleinst had charged across the deck, eagerly waiting until the port was uncovered. With a shrug, Landry uncovered several more, and the others took turns looking out. No one had the heart to remove Kleinst from his post.

They saw Prince Samual’s World, although it did not appear to them as a sphere, as the orbit was not that high. Although it was partly obscured by clouds, they could see much of the great mass of North Continent, a portion of the Major Sea, and several of the larger islands of the Archipelago. Except for the fleecy clouds, it looked exactly like globes and maps they had studied in school. The world below them appeared to be moving across their field of vision, however, and after it passed they would see the black of space, stars shining more brightly than they had ever believed possible.

For long moments there was no conversation. Finally, slowly, one by one they filed back to their seats, except for Kleinst, who stayed at the port until they were ushered to their staterooms for the beginning of the voyage.

MacKinnie was not allowed off the lounge deck except to go down a ladder to the deck below where Stark and the guards were quartered. His troops had far less luxurious quarters than his own, but somewhat more open space, and Hal was using the time to best advantage, training the men in unarmed combat, and experimenting with swords and shields- from their personal baggage. The men seemed cheerful enough, and MacKinnie ordered a small daily ration of brandy for each man to relieve the monotony. He returned to his own quarters for the same prescription.

The days flowed by with a monotonous quality, relieved by their constant efforts to master the language of Makassar. MacKinnie and MacLean sent for wooden swords and put in an hour of practice daily, resulting both in bruises on their persons, and considerable respect for each other. They also trained with their men.

Longway and Mary Graham seemed to have a knack for languages, particularly the Academician, who passed from the main dialects to lesser ones he found in supplementary sections of the loose-leaved books the Imperial Navy had supplied. They were informed that the books would be collected before they made planetfall, and MacKinnie held his breath at the mention, but nothing else was said about them.

Eleven days out from Samual, they were again strapped into their chairs in their staterooms, experiencing another hour of weightlessness before normal weight returned. By constant pestering of Landry whenever the boy joined them, MacKinnie induced him to tell them that during the first part of the journey they had accelerated, and were now decelerating in order to enter faster-than-light travel. When he received only quizzical looks from the others. Landry explained further.

“There’s two kinds of drive, normal space and hyperspace. In normal space, the fusion drive works into a Langston Field releasing photons which propel the ship. Never mind, I’m not allowed to explain it to you anyway. But this pushes the ship right along, and we experience acceleration from it. The hyperspace drive works on a different principle. It works along the pseudo-nuclear force path between two stars. I don’t suppose that means anything to you. There are force paths between the stars similar to the forces that hold atomic particles together. Unlike the atomic forces which fade off rapidly in an exponential relation to distance — oh, hell, that doesn’t tell you anything either. What’s important is that the drive won’t work if you’re near a sun or a planetary body. You have to get to the precise Alderson point to get into hyperspace. Otherwise nothing happens when you turn on the drive. Navy ships have better equipment for locating Alderson points, so they don’t decelerate as much as a merchant ship. Eventually we’ll arrive at the right place and we can get into the hyperspace path between stars. In there we can go faster than light.”

Landry glanced about him, and Kleinst quickly assumed the blank stare typical of the others. The midshipman scratched his head, muttered that that was all he was allowed to say anyway, and asked for another drink. MacKinnie noted that the boy would usually have exactly three drinks, and would always leave their company as soon as he had consumed the third one. He also noticed that the midshipman seemed to be a great deal more talkative when Mary Graham was present.

Days were measured by the ship’s clocks, which were geared to a standard day somewhat shorter than that of

Prince Samual’s World, as Samual’s years were slightly shorter than those of Earth. MacKinnie noted that the Imperials tended to use many expressions and physical devices traditional from Earth.

On the twenty-second day, they were once again warned to go to their cabins, and later each was personally inspected by Landry. “Don’t panic, no matter what you think you see or hear,” he warned each. “The Alderson drive affects different people different ways. It’s very usual to feel disoriented. Just be calm and everything’ll be all right.”

An hour after the boy left them, MacKinnie was in a cold sweat, waiting with nothing to do. He hoped that the others would remember their instructions. As he inspected his mechanical watch for the twentieth time, there was a strong thrumming sound which seemed to permeate the ship. This went on for several minutes, then there was an imperceptible lurch, as if intolerable acceleration had been applied for a time so short that it had no chance to affect them.

At once, Nathan was aware of a sensation of intolerable wrongness. He looked at the walls and other now-familiar objects, and they seemed the same in every detail, yet somehow different. Strange sensations crawled across his scalp. The thrumming sound was gone, but something of it lingered, and it did not sound like anything he had ever heard before.

Then there was a moment of silence. It was too brief to be completely perceived, but it seemed to be a silence which had a tangible quality, a deadening effect that sucked up sound, and perhaps heat and light and everything else. Then there was the sound again, which rose and died away, and after that weight returned, oriented toward the circular section which MacKinnie had come to think of as the walls of his cabin. With weight, his universe returned almost to normal, although somewhere inside his brain there was a tiny terrified awareness that everything was wrong.

CHAPTER NINE MAKASSAR

They were in a new star system. MacKinnie tried to comprehend that, but it was impossible to believe. Yet it must be true. The stars outside the ship were subtly different, some constellations remaining as before, but others altered.

The journey to Makassar took another twenty-four days, with the transition from acceleration to deceleration taking place in the middle of the night. They were gathered in the main lounge, with Stark acting as a serving man, on the “afternoon” of the last day, when the hatch opened and they were joined by Landry and Renaldi.

“We have nearly arrived, gentlemen,” Renaldi announced importantly. “I have requested Midshipman Landry to allow you to see the object of all your attention, and he has graciously consented. It will be visible through the ports over there.” As Renaldi spoke, Landry removed the locks from the observation ports and opened them.

Makassar was a tiny ball, hanging in the dark of space. The most prominent feature, easily visible even from this distance, was a pair of enormous ice caps. Much of the world between them was water, with a single continent, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, swimming westward like an enormous whale. Two large islands, almost continental in size, hung above it in the Northern Hemisphere, and the shallow seas were dotted with smaller islands. There were two distinct colors to the seas where the sun shone upon them, and Kleinst remarked that it must be due to a dramatic difference in depth. Deep water was mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, with the continent surrounded by the pale blue marking much shallower depths.

“It’s a lovely world,” Landry remarked, standing next to MacKinnie and pointing out some of the more visible features. “Smaller than Earth. Gravity is about eighty-seven percent of that of Earth, which makes it about, oh, let’s see.” He withdrew his small computer and wrote directly on one face of it with an attached stylus. “I make it seventy-nine percent of the gravity you’re used to, Trader. Your men are going to be very strong compared to the locals down there. That might be useful.”

“It might be indeed,” MacKinnie muttered. “Are those ice caps normal in size? I seem to recall our maps of Samual show much smaller ones.”

“Makassar is a bit colder than Samual. Orbit’s more eccentric, enough to make some climatic differences. The inclination of the planet is also greater. Turns out it’s summer — by planet inclination — in the Southern Hemisphere when the planet’s farthest from the sun. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the two big islands in the north were uninhabitable, or nearly so. It would be pretty cold there. You’re arriving in the middle of spring on the main continent.”

MacKinnie recalled the maps they had been given. Except for a few sea trader towns, the entire population of Makassar was concentrated on the main continent, at least as far as the Imperials knew. The maps weren’t very accurate, but at that they’d be the best obtainable.

They watched the planet grow larger and larger as the ship approached. Each member of the expedition stood in silence, lost in his particular fantasy, dreaming of other worlds. Then the alarm sounded, and they scrambled for the landing boat.

The Imperial base was located in a small trading town by a great bay at the western end of the planet’s single continent. A scattered chain of islands led across the shallow seas to a series of large islands from which trading ships and sometimes pirate raiders came. Because of their depredations, the area around Jikar was largely uninhabited, which suited the Imperials well. Their presence in the town was disturbance enough; they had no desire to be seen by any large number of the people of Makassar.

A light rain was falling as they left the landing boat. They stood on the stone dock and stared about them in silence.

“Another world,” Mary Graham said. “It’s hard to believe.”

“It is that,” MacKinnie said. He sniffed the air, but could smell nothing. The rain had washed away any alien odors, and kept them from seeing very far. He turned back to Graham. “This is the first chance we’ve had to talk alone,” he said. “What was the long heated conversation you had with Renaldi yesterday?”

“It was nothing-”

“Your pardon, but I do not believe that.”

“He wanted — I tell you, it was nothing.”

“The Trader invited her to dinner,” Longway said.

“Alone?”

“Yes. Of course I refused,” Graham said.

MacKinnie looked at her grimly. “You should have told me. I am—”

“My guardian,” Graham finished for him. “Yes, and what good would that have done? You would have challenged him. He would have been horrified and thought us barbaric. Nothing would have been accomplished-”

“But-”

“She’s right,” Longway said. “By his standards there was nothing improper about the invitation.” He put his hand on MacKinnie’s sleeve. “I know,” he said. “The invitation implied that she might accept it. Since free-born ladies would never visit a man in his quarters, he implies that she is no more than a tavern girl. But he does not know that, Trader MacKinnie.”

“And who will explain this to her father?” MacKinnie asked.

“He is not here,” Longway said carefully. “Nor is there any reason to explain to him. Trader, Imperial ladies are, I think, no more immoral than our own, but they are their own mistresses. Not under guardianship. The Empire is as shocked by our customs as we are by theirs. More, I think. And remember where we are. You can hope there will be nothing worse than this to endure.”

MacKinnie turned away without answering. Longway was right, of course. Even on Prince Samual’s World there were cultures which did not so thoroughly protect their women as did the North Continent civilizations. There were even places where men did not go constantly armed. He had adjusted to those, and he could to Makassar.

Navy House was crude, a stone building constructed by the locals, and there was no Marine fortress. Whatever defenses the Imperials had installed were not obvious to MacKinnie as his group approached the Imperial headquarters.

Many of the locals were small men, brown and dark, reminding MacKinnie of the officers aboard the trading starship. Their clothing was crude, some of the men wearing trousers, others dressed in long, gownlike robes which hung to their knees. In sharp contrast to the passengers of the starship, everyone seemed to have a beard of some kind, although many of them were not well developed. Their hair was long, and it was obvious at a distance that they did not often practice bathing.

In the hundred yards from the docks to Navy House MacKinnie’s party was approached by at least ten beggars, some of them proudly displaying truly horrible disfigurations. They shouted and pleaded, and

MacKinnie was pleased to see that he was able to understand them reasonably well. The practice aboard the ship had been useful for learning the language, even if he did not care much for his first encounter with it. Stark tossed out a few copper coins, allowing them to escape as the beggars cursed and fought for the money.

They were permitted to stay in Navy House for a few days only, and MacKinnie’s officers eagerly explored the small town, talking to the inhabitants and investigating the possible marketable goods for sale. At the end of the third day on the planet, they assembled in the one large room of the headquarters building. Renaldi, as usual, sat by the fire, a glass in his hand.

“Your Excellency, we have been unable to find a single thing worth transportation to Prince Samual’s World. We are beginning to think there is nothing here,” MacKinnie began. “Where are the spices, and exotic cloth, and the rest that you and your partner described?”

Renaldi laughed. “For all I know,” he said thickly, “there may not be another valuable thing on the planet. Soliman cleans a place out pretty good when he gets the chance.”

“But — but,” stammered MacKinnie, “if there’s nothing here, we’re ruined. You’ve charged us an enormous price for transportation to this place. Surely there’s something worth buying. How are we going to recover our expenses?”

“You probably won’t. We never promised you a profit, Trader.” Renaldi pronounced the title as if it were an insult. “In our business, you have to take chances. Perhaps you took an unwise chance.”

“But we took it on your advice!” MacKinnie snapped, then changed to a pleading tone. “Surely you know of some way we can make this profitable for King David. Surely with your experience you can help us.”

“Unlikely.” Renaldi drank deeply. “But whatever it is you are to do, be quick about it. The ship leaves in three days.”

“Three days! Why, that’s impossible. You promised us sufficient time to arrange for trade, even to organize a permanent company here. We can’t begin to arrange for trade in three days. You knew that before we started.” MacKinnie looked down at the impassive face and had an urge to tear our the small mustache by the roots. He restrained himself and said, “I’m going to complain to the Navy. They’ll make you honor your contract.”

“Our contract, Trader, says that you will be brought here, and returned at a time mutually convenient. The ship leaves in three days. That’s convenient to us. And you’ve nothing to complain about; we’re going to two other star systems before we go back to your miserable planet. You won’t be permitted out of your quarters while we’re there, but think of the broadening travel you’ll experience.”

“It is not mutually convenient if one party does not agree,” Longway said softly. “We may have few rights, Imperial Trader Renaldi, but I suspect Captain Greenaugh will enforce those we have. He did not seem to be overly fond of Imperial Traders, Your Excellency. We will not leave in three days.”

Renaldi shrugged. “Suit yourselves. The next ship we could schedule through this miserable system will arrive at this port in something over a standard year. If you wish to wait for it, I will have the Navy compute the exact number of local days before it arrives. You can wander this poverty-stricken ball until you tire of it.” He got up with an effort and filled his glass from an open bottle on the great table which dominated the room. MacKinnie noted that the bottle was handblown, and crudely at that, but of an interesting color. Renaldi seemed to be fond of the local liquor.

“Three days or over a year,” Nathan observed. “Neither is very convenient.”

“Those are the times convenient to us. Which do you choose?” Renaldi backed away from MacKinnie nervously as the soldier approached him, fingering his belt as if grasping for a weapon which was not there. He managed to get back to his seat, where he regained his composure. “Come, now, we never promised you more. And think of the adventures you can have, wandering about on a planet of swineherds.” He laughed for a moment, saw MacKinnie’s face, and stopped short.

Nathan turned to MacLean and said, “Go get the lieutenant in command of this post. We may as well find out just what else this man can do to us.” The group waited in a strained silence for several minutes before MacLean returned with Midshipman Landry and another officer.

Lieutenant Farr was a short, dark man who resembled the planetary locals. MacKinnie wondered idly if he had been chosen for the post for his ability to blend in with the rest of the population. Nathan explained the situation, and Farr and Renaldi conversed in the Imperial language for several minutes, speaking too rapidly for even Longway to understand. Renaldi became more and more excited, but the lieutenant spoke with a deadly calm. Although he did not have the intense, dedicated look which MacKinnie had noted was common of the Navy men, he never seemed to smile either. Instead, his manner was coldly official with perhaps the merest trace of relief from the boredom of being commanding officer to a post without a mission.

When the conversation was finished, Farr turned to MacKinnie, speaking very slowly. “If he is correct about the details of the contract your king signed, then he can legally do this. We could examine it for you if you’d like, but it might take some time. There are no legal officers on this post.”

MacKinnie canted his head to one side, realized the gesture was meaningless to the lieutenant, and said, “Thank you, no. I’m sure they drafted it carefully enough.” He seized a glass, filled it, and drained it off. “Is there any chance of our finding a decent trading community on this planet, Lieutenant? And will we be allowed to go and search for one?”

“The only place I can suggest is the main city, Batav. It’s said to be wealthy, although what the locals mean by wealth is not likely to impress you. It is all you will find.”

MacKinnie nodded. “Then I suppose we must go there. I can’t return to King David without something to show for his investment.”

“There are difficulties,” Lieutenant Farr said slowly. “The Empire cannot transport you there. The entire countryside is in a state of war, and it is not likely you will survive to reach Batav. We can give you no protection …” The officer paused. “But if you must go, perhaps you will find another party of Imperial citizens who set out for Batav. A group of churchmen defied our advice and departed months ago. We have not heard from them, and His Holiness will insist on knowing what became of his missionaries. If you find what became of them, it will make the job easier.”

MacKinnie looked at the officer, realizing that if the Navy could not send troops to search for missionaries, it would never attempt to protect a group of colonial Traders. Prince Samual’s World seemed far away, lost in the swirl of stars above them, and he knew he would never see it again. One thing, he thought; at least they would have no way of knowing what he intended doing at the old library, if he ever reached it.

“We’ll look for them, Lieutenant,” Nathan said. “Now, I suppose we must find quarters in the town, so that we can organize our expedition. I dare not return to my own world without a profit until I have done everything I can do.” He turned to Renaldi. “As for you, I understand that the Empire preserves local customs insofar as this is possible. I will live for the day when you return to Prince Samual’s World and I meet you on a field of honor. Presuming, of course, that you have any.” When Renaldi made no reply, MacKinnie stalked away.

CHAPTER TEN JIKAR

The tavern reminded MacKinnie of the Blue Bottle. Even the name was translatable into something close to Blue Wineglass, and it reminded MacKinnie of home. Although it was only an hour past noon, the place was full.

Blatt, Master Tanner, and Hoorn, Master of Drapers, were glad enough to enjoy MacKinnie’s hospitality. They finished the first bottle of wine in silence, savoring the richly flavored concoction the tavern keeper made from the sour local product. It sold at a price almost no one in the village could afford, making MacKinnie a popular man. Nathan watched the two men, once pleasantly stout but now disfigured with the folds of flesh which marked malnutrition. Other townsmen sat in brooding silence, many of them at tables empty of bottles. The tavern keeper had served his tithe, and they had no more credit; but there was no place else to go.

“Is Jikar often like this?” Nathan asked when the bottle was done at last. “Your pardon, Masters, but it would seem that no village could survive long in this state, even one blessed with harbor and fields.”

Hoorn cleared his throat and glanced suggestively at the bottle, too proud to ask for more. MacKinnie signaled with a careless wave and was rewarded with a burst of activity from the tavern keeper. Except for a small boy of no more than eight years, MacKinnie had seen no one in service to the tavern, yet it was a large place, obviously once a prosperous one. As the new bottle was poured, Hoorn sighed deeply.

“Since they came,” he whispered. Then in more normal tones, although still keeping his deep voice low, he added, “Our war fleet was destroyed when they landed. The pirates will not accept tribute from Jikar; we have killed too many of them in battle. Our city is small, Trader, but we were once proud. Now what is there for us? The harbor is closed by the pirates, and the barbarians ravage our fields. Yet they will do nothing. They cannot interfere, they tell us.” The Draper’s voice rose to a shout tinged with tears. “In the name of the Immortal God, have they not interfered already? They have been the ruin of Jikar!”

“Aye,” Blatt muttered. “Our fleet and our army were the same. Both lost. The pastures are burned off, the fields trampled. Oh, we are safe enough within the walls. They will not allow the town to be sacked. We could wish that they would. Then our young men might take courage and be ready to fight again instead of huddled at the steps of the church to receive alms they once gave, or drinking the tavern keeper’s tithe before it can reach the priest. A curse on outlanders.” He lifted his glass to toast damnation before he realized who his host was. “Pardon, Trader. You do not seem like one of them.”

MacKinnie nodded absently and considered his predicament. On the next day, the landing ship would rise, leaving his crew stranded on the planet, but he had yet found no way to leave Jikar. Just outside the city walls barbarian hordes prowled, ready to plunder anyone foolhardy enough to take either road, north or south. Outside the harbor, patrols of pirates based on the islands across the great shallow bay called the Sulawa Sea enforced the blockade of the port, demanding not only tribute but the head of the Master of each Guild in Jikar. It was to the credit of the people of the town that no one had ever been heard to speak in favor of dealing with the pirates, except two ancient Guildmasters who claimed they had few years left anyway. Their own councils refused to consider the proposal.

The barbarian incursion into what had once been civilized territory had created chaos in lands which had never been well governed in the best of times. Many of the warrior families which had maintained at least the illusion of peace and order were no more; others had fled. No one could answer for the safety of a small party setting out to the Old Empire city nearly three thousand kilometers away.

The Imperials had very little information about Batav. In hopes of finding a local who had journeyed there, Nathan approached the Guildmasters who ruled Jikar, only to find that few townsmen had ever traveled farther than a few hundred kilometers at best, and most of those had died in the brief, futile resistance to the Navy. To the Navy, the loss of three hundred and ninety locals was a regrettable incident. To Jikar, it was ruin.

“God is angry with you, Trader,” Hoorn said. “A few years ago, Jikar was the busiest port on the coast of the west. Out here we don’t have large cities as they do in the east, but there were over five thousand souls in our town, and as many more on the lands around. Trading was good. We had no need of lordlings to fight our battles for us. We were free men, bound to no one, our own protection. The Guilds rule here, not some bonehead warrior capable of nothing but mounting with sword and lance.”

“You speak too hard of the men of iron,” Blatt said. The wine was warming him to the conversation, recalling pleasanter times he had been in the tavern. He lifted a blue-tinted blown goblet, the kind which gave the place its name, and drank deeply. “They do nothing but fight, true, yet I think Jikar would never have been free if there were not the marshlands to our east. It was our curse that the iron men died in plague, their strongholds fell, and hordes swept past. Before that we had only to fight the few raiders who passed the great houses like thieves in the night. When their full force fell on us we knew it.”

“Knew it and won!” Hoorn shouted. “Ah, Trader, had you seen it. Our young men, the sailors from our fleet and the boys of the Guilds, standing with pikes leveled, never giving ground, while the barbarians dashed themselves against us. Glory to the Lord, the field was red with their blood. We took a hundred horses and many ayuks for our own.” Evidently horses and cattle had been brought to Makassar by the Old Empire. Now both ran wild across the plains, hunted by local predators unless protected by men, but managing to survive.

Some of the barbarians also rode the ayuk, a native beast which resembled a moose with long, semi-prehensile claws and an elongated prehensile snout. It lived on the hive-rat, warmblooded egglayers about seven inches long which lived in great colonies with only a few retaining active sexual powers. The hive-rat was one of the most dangerous creatures on Makassar, although it was not carnivorous. It ate the stone-hard local woods with ease, burrowed in the ground, and found any plant life edible by humans quite nourishing. It would fight when trapped, and when one was wounded, hundreds of them came to its aid in blind fury. More than one man had died through being caught by them in the open.

“A great victory.” Blatt nodded. “One which Master Hoorn could tell you more of, for he commanded for the Guilds that day. Aye, we broke them, but we could not pursue them. Most escaped. Had we forty of the mounted iron men to give chase, the victory would have kept the barbarians from our gates for a hundred years.”

“Ah.” Hoorn drank again. Then he smiled and shrugged. “We can agree the warriors know how to fight. Yet I have in my day seen them turned back from the gates of a city like ours. In open battle. The young men stood to their pikes, and the iron men Master Blatt is so fond of split about them on both sides, afraid to attack. They took no tribute from that city.” As Hoorn finished, a young man, dark of hair and tall for Makassar, once quite muscular but now thin like the others, strode arrogantly across the room, his head high in contrast to the locals MacKinnie had seen. He could have been twenty-five

Earth years, but he looked younger, and his clothes were subtly different. His trousers were of the rough-texture cloth worn by the villagers, but the jacket and cloak were of finer stuff, and Nathan noted that there were discolored lines at the collar, as if it had once been trimmed with something now lost. He recalled that cloth-of-gold collars and bands were the marks of the Guildmasters.

The tavern keeper gave the newcomer the glass of cheap wine and thick slice of bread which he served to all daily in lieu of his tithe to the church. The man began to eat without speaking to anyone.

“That’s who you should talk to,” Hoorn told MacKinnie. “We should send for him. If there is a man in Jikar who can tell you what you’ll find beyond the river and forest, Brett can. Or that warrior friend of his.”

“Who is he?” MacKinnie asked.

“His name is Brett,” Hoorn said. He lowered his voice. “He is said to have come from far away, some say the eastern coast. He comes carrying tales and songs, and will not discuss his ancestry. As for me, I believe he was born a barbarian.”

“Yet he speaks many civilized tongues,” Master Blatt said.

“Aye.” Hoorn pursed his lips in thought. “The barbarians do not come here often, so it is a thing not done here. But I am told that in parts where the plains riders are more common, the townsfolk often capture young plainsmen and keep them as slaves.”

“And you think Brett was one of those?” MacKinnie asked.

“It is possible,” Blatt said. “Although I do not envy anyone who would be master to the singer. I would rather have him as a friend.”

“Aye,” Hoorn agreed. “There have been other singers in Jikar, but none came as Brett. Most are on foot, but Brett rides a great war-horse, and has for companion one of the iron men with armor and lance and sword. Vanjynk his name is. He was driven from his lands to the south and now wanders as Brett to sell his abilities to any purchaser.”

A wandering mercenary, MacKinnie thought. As I once was.

MacKinnie studied the dark features of the man in question and approved. He might be down on his luck, Nathan thought, but he wasn’t defeated. Despite his youth he was more akin to the Guildmasters than the tavern loafers. “Call him over,” he said in a moment of decision.

“Singer,” Hoorn called. “At your pleasure, join us. Our noble friend is a willing host.”

The singer came to the table and bowed as Hoorn performed introductions.

“I am told you know of faraway lands,” MacKinnie said. He poured a glass of wine and pushed it toward Brett. “If you have the time, perhaps you can tell me of your travels.”

Brett made a wry face. “I have little but time.” He drained his wineglass at a gulp.

“You do not travel alone, singer?” MacKinnie asked, pouring more wine.

“Not for a yir. I teach Vanjynk poetry, he teaches me to fight. Now we are both good at both trades and the living is better.” He stared ruefully about the tavern. “Or was. But we will not leave our bones here for Master Blatt to put to earth.”

“You would like to leave Jikar, then?” MacKinnie asked.

“Trader, we would pay the man who allowed us to fight for him, be it only that he had sufficient men to cut through the maris. But the maris will stay until they have eaten and burned everything they can find, and as they are not so stupid as the Guilds hope, that will not be before the snows. Then they will leave. At that they will bring you a blessing, Guildmasters.”

“What blessing could a horde of barbarians — maris, you called them? — what blessing can they bring?” Blatt stood, his wide shoulders almost blotting out the youngerman, his great hands, hardened with brine and tanners’ liquor, on his hips.

“Calmly, calmly, you will alarm our host and the wine will stop,” Brett said softly. There was a hint of threat to the voice, a tone one did not take with Guildmasters. “I call them maris because that is what they call themselves. And the blessing is the destruction of the hive-rats. There will be few enough of them when they move on — in fact, that is why they will move on. The ayuks must eat many of them, which keeps the maris moving about the great plains. When the ayuks don’t eat, the maris don’t eat. Even here they’ll finish off all your Earth crops before the ayuks are done with the hive-rats.”

MacKinnie listened with interest. “The maris live off their ayuks?”

Brett looked at him in puzzlement. “Your speech is unlike any that I have heard in any land,” he commented. “Yet you are not native here, where the maris have not been. Where have you lived that you don’t know about them? Ah, the cities of the mountains of the north. Well, know, northman, that the plantain of the great flatland is as poisonous to us as most of the other plants on Makassar. It must be true, as the priests say, we came here from another star long ago, else why would God have put us where we cannot eat? But the ayuk can eat the plants, and men can eat the ayuk, and drink her milk, and, even as the maris do, drink the blood of their steeds. Their horses fare better, eating grasses which grow among the plantain, and some maris live from their horses alone, but the ayuk is better. It is not enough, though. Fed nothing else, they waste and die, even as these men here. In your north, you can eat the tallgrass, which they say came from Earth, and you eat the grotka. But did you eat nothing but grotka, and the swimmers from the sea, you would die also.”

MacKinnie nodded. The Imperials had told him of the dietary problems of Makassar. Most of the animal life was edible, but not all of it, and little of the plant life except that which came originally from another planet. The local plants stored up various metals, which gave them their hardness, but also made them deadly. The local animals separated out the metal, although some, like the hive-rat which ate not only fruits and grains but woody stems, were deadly. All lacked essential vitamins. Listening to the singer, he had an idea.

“I wish to return to the mountains of the north,” Nathan said. His maps showed that Batav was nestled on the side — the wrong side from Jikar, of course — of the mountain range which ran down the great peninsula jutting from the north edge of the continent. The mountains then curled east before they dwindled away to hills, still high enough to form a natural barrier to the great plains.

“North?” Brett asked incredulously. “How long has it been since you came from there? But you must have come by ship. The land route has been closed for two years, Trader. The High King of the Passes is dead, and the others fight for his place. No life is safe, no judges sit, and the people make do as best they can. With your wealth, you might hire enough men to take you south. With me to show the way you could fight through the maris and come to the city-states and kingdoms of the Kepul. But not to the north, Trader. We could never pass the Sangi.” Brett tossed off the glass of wine, then waved at a smaller man, fair-haired and contrasting with the singer in every dimension, yet bearing the same manner of confidence. The newcomer came forward slowly.

“Trader,” Brett said, “this is Vanjynk, the best friend a wanderer ever had, tragedy as it is that he must roam the lands.” Brett poured his friend wine without asking.

Vanjynk nodded to MacKinnie and sat in silence. MacKinnie noted that he was younger than Brett, possibly by as much as two of the local years. Yet he was born of the nobility, while whatever Brett’s origin it had not been in an iron and stonewood fortress. The relationship between the men must have been complex.

The others explained to the young warrior what MacKinnie had in mind. “But there is no way through the Sangi,” Brett finished. “Or none that I can see.”

“Nor I.’’ Vanjynk drank slowly and deliberately, as he seemed to do everything else. “You will not find enough men to take the trail through the forest. The coast is closed. I do not know the sea.”

“The sea,” Blatt snorted. “Were there a way by sea half the town of Jikar would be off trading. All your gold will not pay the pirates, Trader, and there is but one warship left in Jikar.”

“There is a ship here?” MacKinnie asked. “Is it for sale?”

“For sale?” Hoorn thought slowly. “It belongs to the Ironsmiths. There is little in Jikar that is not for sale, including our daughters’ virtue. I could save you money in the purchase, for a fee to my Guild.”

“Not allowed.” Blatt spoke positively. “To sell a man that which sends him to his death is not allowed. Go back to your clothing, Hoorn; the Guilds cannot plunder this man from the stars.”

Nathan noted the sudden look of interest Brett tried to hide, then turned to Blatt. “I buy it willingly, Master Tanner.” Although he said nothing to show it, the man’s honesty affected him more than MacKinnie wanted to admit to himself. “To return to our homes with nothing would be not only our ruin, but that of many others. Go with Guildmaster Hoorn and buy that ship for me, and we will do well by both your Guilds. Freemen Brett, Vanjynk, I will pay you for your advice, whether you come with me or not; but we are taking that ship out of the harbor of Jikar if every pirate on Makassar is lying in wait out there.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN SHIPFITTER

MacKinnie and his party were inspecting their ship when the landing boat rose from the harbor and vanished from sight in the low clouds above. Nathan was not sorry to see it go. He had far too much work to waste time playing a role, pleading with Renaldi or demanding rights from the Navy. The ship was not in condition to be launched.

There was an additional blessing. Midshipman Landry had left with Renaldi. When Lieutenant Farr was told of MacKinnie’s plans he decided that the Navy could ill spare one of its young officers for a year, especially since it was more than likely that MacKinnie’s party would never be heard from again. Landry was ordered to go to the next port and report to headquarters for further instructions.

Before Renaldi left, the lieutenant had made it clear that the Navy was displeased with his treatment of MacKinnie, and would insist that no matter how remote Nathan’s chance of survival was, Renaldi was obligated to provide transportation back to Prince Samual’s World. MacKinnie was privately convinced that the lieutenant was more upset about Landry’s wasted time than the injustice of the situation, as Greenaugh had been led to believe that the boy would be gone only a few months. However, he was now guaranteed passage home if he could return to Jikar.

Mary Graham remained on Makassar. She pointedly refused to be on the same ship with Renaldi without MacKinnie’s protection, and she was legally correct by Haven law and custom. This was upsetting enough, but

Nathan found she also insisted on accompanying the party on its expedition to Batav, and nothing MacKinnie could say would convince her that she could not go.

“What did you expect me to do here?” she insisted. “I knew there would be danger.”

“Freelady,” MacKinnie replied coldly, “Citizen Dougal sent you without my request. We had thought to establish trading offices in the Imperial port, where you would remain as our agent.”

“But there is no need for offices here,” Graham protested.

“True. But you cannot come with us. You will be a great inconvenience aboard ship. How can we provide you proper quarters? To be blunt, what of sanitary arrangements? This is madness.”

“Madness, Trader? Is it less mad to leave me here, in a city besieged? I may yet be of use to you.”

“No.”

“You say no. You had better reconsider. If I am not reliable enough to go with you, how can you trust me to remain silent for a year? You leave me here with the Imperial officers—”

“I did not say that I do not trust you.”

“Would Dougal leave me behind? Think on that. Dougal would have me killed rather than risk it.”

He would, MacKinnie thought. Yet — what does she know of our real mission? I haven’t told her or any of them. Kleinst knows. Perhaps Longway. Does Mary Graham? One of them may well have told her.

“Please,” she said. “Trader, I was told this mission is important, to Haven and to Prince Samual’s World. Will you deny me the chance to show that I — that the women of Haven — are no less bound to duty and honor than you? Do you think only men can be patriotic?”

I hadn’t considered it, MacKinnie thought. More importantly, though, dare I leave her here? She’s right, Dougal wouldn’t. I can’t think how she can help, but — “Very well.”

“Thank you. You won’t regret it.”

I regret it already, MacKinnie thought, but he said nothing.

And now she was busily clambering about the dockyard, following MacLean and hastily scribbling notes as the seaman happily inspected the craft. A gang of young locals, glad of employment, stood by under the supervision of the Shipwright Guildsmen. The Shipwrights had lost heavily in the brief and pointless battle with the Imperial Navy, and were willing to allow anyone in the town to work on MacKinnie’s outfitting provided that they paid dues to the Guild and worked under its Masters. From the crowd inside and outside the dockyard, MacKinnie thought half the able-bodied men of Jikar were hoping for employment.

The boat itself was hardly impressive. Only about thirty meters long, it was drawn up out of the water on a primitive ways. MacKinnie saw a round-bottomed boat with a small skeg running her length. The stem and sternpost were carried up high out of the water, and a great platform was constructed across the stern. On top of that was a cabin. The rest of the boat was undecked, with platforms for rowers along its sides. Over a hundred men could sit on the two sweeps halfdecks, but there was no chance of hiring that many for a long voyage, even if the pirates were not outside the harbor. At present, MacKinnie had no crew at all except his original expedition, although Brett and Vanjynk were on his payroll and would come even though they thought there was little chance of getting through.

After MacLean inspected the vessel, MacKinnie took him to a sheltered space to hold a conference. Hal Stark stood by to be sure they were not overheard, and MacKinnie wasted no time. “Can we make it? It’s vital that we get to Batav, if we have to swim.”

MacLean sucked on a pipe casually for a moment. Smoking did not seem to startle the villagers although they were never seen to smoke, but MacLean’s lighter was far in advance of anything on the planet. MacKinnie wondered how he had got it past the thorough inspection Mr. Landry conducted before they were allowed to unload their goods from the landing ship. The pipe gurgled for a few moments before MacLean said, “Need some modifications to get that far. From what I’ve heard, this is sheltered water around here, but after we’ve gone north a ways there’ll be nothing to the west for four thousand kilometers. Big waves will come across there in a normal westerly. Sure as hell be bad in a storm.”

“So we could make it?” When MacLean nodded, MacKinnie went on, “How big a crew will you need?”

“The way I intend to modify her, no more than twice the number we already have, but everyone will have to lend a hand. A few locals would be useful if you can hire them.

“I’m going to make her sail, Trader. She’s got that damned stubby mast on her; I’ll yank that and put in a taller one, then stay it properly, deck the boat over and put some iron ballast in her. Nothing the Imperials can object to. And I’ll mount leeboards.”

The term meant nothing to MacKinnie, but he’d find out soon enough. “Sail up high will tip it over, won’t it?” he asked.

MacLean shook his head. “Ballast will fix that, I hope. She’s beamy enough, should be good form stability. I like the hull sections. They’ve ridden out some mean storms in those things. That big iron ram on the prow goes back almost amidships; it’s the closest thing they’ve got to a ballast keel.” He sucked on his pipe. “You can tell there’s a lot of shallow water here, and with those weird tides from the two moons, they must run aground a lot. That’s why the boats have nearly flat bottoms. Beach them for the night usually, I expect. We can get there, Trader, but I don’t know about the pirates.”

MacKinnie nodded. “Suggestions?”

“Just fix the boat and hope we can outrun them. Sure as hell can’t outfight them. Oh, and this is a bigger boat than most of the pirate stuff. Faster. Warship, one of the best on the planet, I’m told. But there’s a hell of a lot of pirates. Without a full crew, if one of their ships boards us, we’re dead.”

“Yeah. Well, we cross that when it happens. How long to get the work done?” Now that Nathan was no longer watched by the Imperials every moment, he had control over his actions again, and the new sense of purpose drove him impatiently. He glanced about himself, took out his pipe, and borrowed MacLean’s lighter to fire it. “How’d you get this past?” he asked.

“This?” MacLean looked at the lighter as if he had never seen it before. It was an ordinary flint and steel device, not as elegant as the flameless units the Imperial Navy carried. “I just walked out with it. Landry saw it, but he didn’t say anything.”

MacKinnie nodded slowly. By Empire standards, the lighter was primitive enough to be classed with Makassar technology. He wondered how many more Samualite devices were strange to Makassar but would be overlooked by the Navy; it was a point to remember.

“How long until we can sail?”

MacLean scratched his chin. “With luck, a few days. Decking’s the hard part. There are a lot of hands to do the work, but they’ve never done this kind of thing before. Still, by the time you get the goods and provisions on board we should be just about ready to get under way.”

It took two of the local weeks. Although the Makassar day was somewhat longer than Samual’s and quite a bit longer than the standard Earth day, MacKinnie noticed that he and his crew soon became accustomed to living by local time, which was measured by sundials or not at all.

One reason the work went slowly was that the local church insisted on Sabbath-keeping, and in addition seemed to proclaim at least one Holy Day each week. These, and the inexperience of the locals with the construction methods MacLean insisted on, caused the first delays. Then when the ship was completed, another week was consumed in obtaining cloth suitable for sails and have the Drapers sew it.

MacLean was the only man available to design the equipment needed. He designed and cast anchors more advanced than anything seen on Makassar since the war; installed windlasses and winches, cast in bronze by the Ironsmiths; and had the Drapers lay up ropes and cables from local fibers. It all had to be done, and MacLean had to see to each detail personally. The days dragged on and on.

MacKinnie watched nervously one day when a party of Imperial sailors led by the junior lieutenant of the planet walked around the dockyards, but they evidently saw nothing to disapprove of. Anchors and winches were things for primitives, and the Navy men did not even understand the purpose of some of MacLean’s devices. As a precaution, MacKinnie had taught Brett the use of most of them, so that if asked he would appear familiar with the equipment. The Navy might think it in common use elsewhere on Makassar,

By the time the ship was ready for launching, the trade goods and weapons they would carry were piled on the docks. A light drizzle driven by the strong westerly winds thoroughly soaked the party as they stood watching the locals launch the ship. The primitive ways did not permit much sophistication — half the young men in the town simply lifted and strained until Subao was in the water, then fell to carrying aboard the iron ingots MacLean had selected for ballast. MacKinnie expected to get under way immediately, but found that there was more to do.

“What now?” he asked MacLean.

“Masts. Stays. Running the sails up to see how they fit. Securing the ballast. Trader, that ship may be on her ear in a storm one of these days, and you’ll hardly want the ballast shifting around down there. And we still have the leeboards to install. You can save time by getting your gear aboard today, but don’t plan on leaving for at least three days more.”

MacKinnie cursed, silently so that MacLean would not hear him. There was little else he could do.

That afternoon MacLean gave instruction on how to sail the boat. He discovered that young Todd had sailed small boats in the Haven harbor, and, under MacKinnie’s questioning, the boy admitted to being a military cadet for one of the wealthier families of the kingdom of Haven. MacLean immediately appointed him midshipman and quartermaster.

They learned the language the locals used aboard ships, although MacLean had to adapt several local words for terms they would not be familiar with. Then he had Todd drill everyone on the names of lines and gear on the ship. MacKinnie noted that Brett seemed very adaptable, learning faster than the outworlders, although his friend Vanjynk was almost uninterested. Stark, as usual, soon learned his tasks and drove the guardsmen to theirs, not a bit upset by Todd’s sudden promotion over him. That night Stark and MacKinnie sat in MacKinnie’s small room at the inn overlooking the water.

“Best we get the men some action, sir,” Hal said. “All that drill with sword and shield’s fine, but they get restless carrying stores and driving nails. Got some good pointers from that Vanjynk fellow, he’s gifted with this armor and stuff. Reckon he’s in the same business we are.”

MacKinnie nodded. “From what I can see, it was all he ever learned until he lost his lands and had to go wandering with the singer. What do you make of Brett?”

“Don’t know, sir. Takes my orders right enough, better than Vanjynk, but there’s no understanding him.”

MacKinnie nodded. “He’s a tough one. That’s a pretty strange partnership he’s got with Brett. Vanjynk seems to be one of the iron men Blatt forever tells us about.” He hoisted his glass and winked at his sergeant. “Iron MacKinnie’s new troops. Few enough of them. Had any success at recruiting?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, sir. There’s a shipmaster I’ve been drinking with, man named Loholo. He claims he can get us a crew for a price. Part of the price is he wants to go with us. Mr. MacLean wasn’t too interested in having a native shipmaster aboard, said there was enough command problems already what with nobody knowing who ranked who. He’s not happy with you being in charge, sir. But I can’t tell about Loholo; the Guild people seem to think a lot of him. Should I send for him? He’s in the Blueglass tonight waiting to hear.”

“No harm in talking to him. Sure, why not?”

Stark nodded and went to the door. He spoke briefly in low tones to one of the guardsmen outside. “Be here in a couple of minutes, Trader. Be best if I were on duty when he came in.” Stark took his glass to another table across the small room.

Captain Loholo was a short, dark-brown man, stocky and strong-looking, with a distinct slant to his eyes, reminding MacKinnie of the starship officers he had seen. He had seen many others of his type on Makassar, in sharp contrast to the tall, blonde men like Vanjynk. Loholo wore a golden skull ornament in his left ear, and carried a large curved knife in his belt. His clothing was of finer material than was usually seen on Jikar men, and everything he wore was freshly cleaned. He stood self-confidently in the doorway, coolly eyeing the star men.

“Trader,” Hal said, “I want you to meet Captain Loholo, shipmaster and merchant. I’m told he’s the only captain left in the port.”

“Please have a seat, Captain,” MacKinnie said, pouring a glass of wine. “My guard chief tells me you can raise a crew.”

“Aye.” Loholo fingered the glass, looked at MacKinnie for a moment, and drank. “Not a very good crew, Trader. The good men are at the bottom of the sea or run off to join the pirates. But there’s men here who can pull an oar. Not seamen. Apprentices from all the Guilds, boys on tithes who’d like to be men again.” He spoke so rapidly that MacKinnie had difficulty following him, and had to have Loholo repeat his words.

“I’ve seen them,” MacKinnie said. “But Captain MacLean has not been able to recruit anyone.”

“Nor will he.” Loholo touched the wine bottle and looked at MacKinnie, who nodded. The brown man filled his glass and drank before continuing. “Your Captain MacLean is a strange man, Trader. He puts decks over the ship so that oarsmen can’t breathe properly. He has taken out most of the rowing benches. What’s left is up too high for proper leverage. You couldn’t row that ship a hundred klamaters. And all the iron he put in the hull is no more than dead weight to be carried along. The men won’t sail with him because even though they aren’t seamen, they can see your man is no seaman. The ship will be too slow to escape the pirates, and it won’t sail properly if it does get past them.” He shrugged. “Your pardon if I speak bluntly.”

“But you’re willing to come? And bring a crew?”

“Aye.”

“Go on. Why?”

“You’re not a beached captain, Trader. If you had the seawater in your blood, you’d know. My ship went out to fight with me ashore laid out by plague. She never came back. Everything I had was in that ship, Trader. Nothing left to buy the Ironsmiths’ vessel. Even if a warship is no good for trading, I tried to buy Subao, for a ship’s still a ship. I figure you’ll all come to your senses about the ship when you see it won’t work. And you’ll need a man who knows how to sail these seas. I expect to be your shipmaster a week after you leave port. If you live that long. But the chance is worth it to me.”

One way or another, MacKinnie thought. The dagger at the man’s belt had once had a jeweled hilt, but it wasn’t meant for show purposes. With his own crew aboard, Loholo could make himself master of the ship if he were that kind of man. He looked over at Stark, who obviously had the same thoughts. Still, there was a way to make use of the man, and perhaps he was honest.

“Your own crew went down with your ship?”

“Aye. Every man. It won’t be real seamen I can get you, Trader, but they’ll be willing.”

“Why?”

Loholo grinned. “I’m well known as a captain who comes back. Rich. And I’m said to be lucky.”

“Still, how will you get them to join, with the pirates outside the harbor?”

“Tell them the star men will protect them. They know what happened out in the harbor the day they landed. They’ll believe.”

“And you don’t?”

“If the star men will help you, you don’t need to have the guard captain out giving free wine to find men, Trader. So they won’t.”

MacKinnie nodded. “What of the pirates?”

“There are ways. I know these waters, Trader. When the moons come together, there’s deep water over the reefs. It goes down fast. Get over them at the right time, ahead of anybody chasing you, they never catch you. I doubt the pirates know my waters as I do. We’ll have a chance. That is, if you can row the ship. Got to put the benches back in.”

“What if I told you,” MacKinnie asked, “that after we have returned to Jikar from where we are going, we will make you master of the ship and our trading agent, with gold every month and part of the trading as well?”

Loholo looked at MacKinnie closely. “Do not tempt a desperate man, Trader. Do you mean what you say?”

“If you serve me faithfully. The first service is to find a crew of twenty men who can fight. Say that we are insane, but that you, Loholo, will get the ship past the pirates. Get us a crew without talk, and have them ready to come aboard by dark tomorrow.”

“And you’ll give me the ship when you return? Mine to sail and command?”

“Yours to sail and command. And the chance at carrying trade from starships all over Makassar. You will become the owner of many vessels if you like.”

Loholo grunted. “One is all I need. You’ll have your crew, Trader. But this man of yours commands this voyage?”

“Yes. He commands. He has a young apprentice who will be a ship’s officer. And there is my guard captain But if MacLean wants you as an officer, he’ll tell you so. I expect he will.”

“I was a crew master once, Trader. I can be one again. Until you need me.”

CHAPTER TWELVE RIPTIDE

They sailed at dawn. Loholo, now crew master, had brought twenty young apprentices, all well armed. The stores were aboard, and MacLean had fitted the leeboards, huge, fan-shaped, wooden boards pivoted at the small end of the fan and fastened nearly amidships of the vessel. When raised they were like giant shields. MacKinnie got the crew and passengers aboard the night before they were to set out, and watched with interest as MacLean and Loholo helped the crew sling hammocks, cursing the men into place in the narrow space below decks.

MacLean had placed the quarters in a traditional manner, his own cabin right aft with smaller staterooms to each side for MacKinnie and Mary Graham. Just forward of them, Longway and Kleinst had even tinier compartments, really not much larger than bunks with doors to close them in; then Hal and his guards slung their hammocks in a compartment which stretched from one side of the ship to the other. MacLean insisted that two of Stark’s men be on duty and armed at all times, posted on the quarterdeck near the great tiller which steered the ship.

In the first light, mist still rising from the water, the crew was turned out from their hammocks to man the sweeps.

Loholo clucked his tongue at the arrangement. There were no rowing benches; instead the men walked the decks with great oars dipping down to the water, two men to an oar. The ship moved slowly away from the shore out into the bay.

“Wouldn’t it be better to go at night?” MacKinnie asked. They stood on the quarterdeck with the other Samualites, Hal and his guards in full armor. Armor for the rest of the crew was secured with rawhide lashings in convenient places about the deck. Just forward of the quarterdeck Brett and Vanjynk stood at the ready, also in armor. It was impossible to make Vanjynk man a sweep, and MacKinnie decided that it would be senseless to require Brett to do so, so the two were carried as guards. Their mounts were stabled in the hold with the cattle Subao carried as part of the food supply.

MacLean eyed the distance to the slowly vanishing shore, then peered through the mists ahead and astern before answering. “No, Trader. The night would not keep the pirates from seeing us, and the wind dies away then. By midday there should be a strong wind. The sea breeze and the prevailing westerlies lie together on this shore. It will take a strong wind to outrun the pirate ships.”

“If you say so,” MacKinnie said with a shrug. And if the wind doesn’t come up? He shrugged again. “It’s the only chance we have, anyway. Carry on, Captain MacLean.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” There was a note of the contempt seamen have for lubberly owners in MacLean’s voice, but Nathan saw no reason to make a point of it. He needed MacLean to reach Batav.

He went to the rail and stared overboard. Around him the dawn was already turning the dark water clear. Small fish-like creatures swam lazily near the boat, looking at it before they darted away, easily outdistancing the men at the oars in spite of Loholo’s shouted oaths. The crew master counted strokes in a tireless voice, keeping a steady rhythm not interrupted when he fell to cursing one of the men: “Sweep, step, back, back, Fool, step, back, back, Pull, you, stinking, filth, Sweep …”

MacLean left MacKinnie to stand near the tiller, his eyes on the compass mounted on the small mast just forward of the helmsman. Another mast, well forward, towered above the ship, and on both the sails were laced around the booms, their covers removed and stowed below decks. The sails were ready for instant action. MacKinnie could already feel the morning breeze coming from the south before it shifted to the west in the afternoon.

Mary Graham and Longway made their way over the slowly rolling deck to stand at the starboard rail with MacKinnie. Loholo’s calls were clear and slightly musical. “Stroke … step … back … back … Stroke …”

“Point to starboard, Mr. Todd,” MacLean said softly.

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“We should see the land over there as soon as it gets light,” MacKinnie told his companions. “I understand Loholo thinks we should hug the shore. There are reefs and rocks only he knows, and he swears he can get us through them without the pirates being able to catch us.”

“Interesting,” Longway said pensively. “Then why did he not take some other ship through there? Why has the pirate blockade been so effective?”

“You’re not supposed to ask that,” Nathan replied. “But MacLean thinks it’s worth trying anyway. Add something to our chances, and the farther we get before the pirates intercept us, the better chance of coming ashore where there aren’t any barbarians.” It was getting light faster now, and the shoreline could be seen dimly ahead. Above the fog, fifty miles away, the peaks of mountains flashed whitely in the morning light.

“If we can get to those, the barbarians won’t matter,” MacKinnie said. “All we’ll have to worry about will be the pirates. We could even beach and run for it.”

“It would be a long walk,” Longway said.

“True. But what else can we do?”

Kleinst stood quietly at the rail, and MacKinnie thought he noted a slight tinge of green to the scholar’s complexion. If the young fellow couldn’t manage in the gentle swell they were experiencing, he was in for big trouble when the real wind came up. Kleinst had kept out of the way the whole time they were on Makassar, although he seemed to have developed a strange friendship with Brett. Nathan had more than once noted the scholar and the singer conversing over wine in the physicist’s quarters at the dockside inn.

“Where are these pirates, Trader?” Longway asked. “As a practical matter, should we be getting the oarsmen in their armor?”

“Not for hours,” MacKinnie replied. “They stay well out of the harbor itself, probably afraid of the Navy boys. But they’re out there, all right, just over the horizon. You’ll see them soon enough.”

“Sooner than I’d like,” Longway muttered.

It was fully light now. The Eye of the Needle had cleared the eastward land mass to send its rays slanting across the sea. The early morning mists vanished rapidly as the ship moved quietly along, and there was no sound but the commands of Loholo, who had lowered his voice until he could barely be understood on the quarterdeck. “Stroke…”

The harbor had dropped well out of sight when the sun burned off the last of the mists. The water was an incredible light blue, the bottom visible not more than three yards below the surface. Long, thin fish darted about, pursued by tentacled monsters nearly a meter in length, green eyes glaring after their prey. Larger creatures of the same general form swam into view to look intelligently at the humans on the boat before swimming lazily away. MacKinnie wondered idly what they were when MacLean shouted from his post at the mizzenmast.

“Hands make sail!” he ordered.

MacKinnie watched with interest as the Samualites gathered in the waist.

“Man the mizzen halyards,” MacLean called. He turned to the helmsman. “Turn her into the wind, Mr. Todd. Put the helm over.”

“Helm’s down, sir.”

“Stand by mizzen halyard. Get those gaskets off, there.”

Hal and one of the guards took the lacing from the sail, then seized the halyard. “Make sail,” MacLean ordered. The big gaff rose jerkily, the men on the throat halyards pulling too fast, but eventually the throat and peak rose together. “Take a turn around the winch. Haul, men. Tauten it, that’s it. Haul, you bastards! Now belay it all.” The gaff sail flapped in the wind, and the boat slowed noticeably.

“Now forward to the main,” MacLean ordered. “Get it up, smartly now.” The men ran forward, and the big main, almost twice the size of the mizzen, was hauled up almost as quickly as the smaller one had been. “Man the sheets,” MacLean ordered. “You fool, that line over there,” he added to a guard who stood looking blankly about. “Stand by to trim the sheets, Mr. Stark.”

“Yes, sir,” Hal answered. He gave MacKinnie a quizzical look and turned back to his soldiers now turned afterguard. The ship was barely moving through the water now, the men straining at the oars, and Loholo stood silent with his hands on his hips looking at MacKinnie as if to say he had told him so.

“Put the helm over, Mr. Todd. Bring her four points to starboard.”

“Aye aye, sir. Helm’s to weather.”

The boat turned, and the wind caught the big sails and pushed them off to the right. “Trim those sheets,” MacLean ordered. “More. Bring them in. Strain, you blackguards. Belay. Mr. Stark, I’ll have the starboard leeboard down.”

The boat was skidding sidewise now, moving to leeward as fast as it was going ahead. The oarsmen struggled to keep steerage way, Loholo back to counting the pace when he saw no response from his silent appeal to MacKinnie. Stark cast off the line holding up the great fan-shaped leeboard, and the heavy wood splashed into the water. An iron shoe along its lower edge sank it quickly.

“Mr. Loholo, get those oars in,” MacLean ordered. “Quickly, man, and get your crew set.” The boat heeled sharply to a gust of wind, almost tumbling the starboard crewmen over the side. “Any man can’t stay aboard gets to swim ashore,” MacLean said. “Stark, get those jibs up.”

The gust heeled the ship, and the leeboard bit into the water. The boat began pulling ahead, slowly gathering way, until it was apparent that it was rushing along, faster than the oarsmen had been able to pull it, and still it gathered speed. A white, creamy wake appeared at the bow, and two quarter waves angled off from the stern. It seemed to MacKinnie that the wind picked up noticeably, and the boat was headed into it. Subao rose gently over the waves, rushing along until Loholo stood looking over the side with amazement before making his way aft.

“Yes, Mr. Loholo?” MacLean asked.

The former captain stood looking at his new master in silence, then brought his hand to his forehead in an awkward salute. “She’s faster than oarsmen have ever been able to push her, Captain. This may be the fastest ship on Makassar.”

“Let’s hope so, Mr. Loholo. Faster than the pirates, anyway. Get your men to lookout stations, if you please.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Loholo turned to his crew. “Banta, up those shrouds. Move along there, lad, and keep your eyes open. Fast as we’re going, we’ll be in pirate waters soon.” He strolled along the deck, expertly keeping himself erect, as he placed crewmen in the bow and sent the rest to the waist.

“How does she sail, Captain?” MacKinnie asked quietly.

“Well enough, Trader,” MacLean answered. “A little better to windward than I’d thought she might. Doesn’t point as high as a proper keelboat would, but with a full keel we couldn’t beach. As it is, we can go closer to the wind than anything the pirates have got. That’s how I expect to outrun them. They’ll have to use sweeps, and I don’t think they can catch us going to windward. We’ll leave the bastards behind … uh, your pardon, freelady.”

“Don’t apologize on your own ship, Captain MacLean. I think it’s wonderful what you’ve managed to do with this primitive boat.” She looked up at him, then at MacKinnie. “Can I get you anything, Captain? Trader?”

“Chickeest,” MacKinnie said. “If you can cook in this.”

“If she can’t we’ll have cold food the whole voyage,” MacLean snapped. “This is perfect weather, Trader. By afternoon we’ll face some real waves. I’m not looking forward to the tide either. You may not have noticed, but we had the aid of a strong tidal current going out. It should be even worse when it turns. Best get some practice in the galley now, freelady. Take young Brett down to help you.”

“All right, Captain,” She stumbled across the deck, looking for handholds, then let Brett take her arm to guide her to the companionway. The ship was heeling sharply, the deck standing at perhaps forty degrees off the horizontal.

It took her nearly half an hour to heat last night’s chickeest, and she spilled part of it bringing the pot and cups up to the quarterdeck, but Mary Graham seemed proud of her achievement even so. Now she had the same slightly green cast as Kleinst, and MacKinnie looked around to see the scholar grimly holding the rail and staring at the distant shore to starboard.

“Sail ahead,"the lookout called. “Two sails.”

Loholo scampered up the shrouds like a monkey, shading his eyes and staring off where the lookout pointed. He bounded down to the deck and trotted panting to MacLean. “Pirates right enough, off the port bow, Captain. Under sail.”

MacLean nodded. The pirates were to windward, using square sails to run down toward Subao. “Steady as she goes, Mr. Todd. Mr. Loholo, it might be best if you stood with Todd at the tiller. Steering to windward’s trickier than just watching the compass, and we’ll need more experienced helmsmen. Have you any of your crew who might have some ability?”

“None, Captain. They’re all landsmen. Willing lads, but no sea legs.”

“You’ll have to do it, then. Take your post, mister.” MacLean cupped his hands to shade his eyes and stood easily on the pitching deck. True to his earlier promise, the sea was running higher now, and Subao heeled farther, making it impossible for anyone but the three sailors to stand without something to hold on to.

“Best tack now and get sea room,” MacLean said. “Stark, get your hands to the jibsheets. The gaffs will take care of themselves. Snap to it, man, we haven’t all year.” Hal and his guards ran to the foredeck, motioning to some of the oarsmen sitting idle in the waist to join them.

“Stand by to let those sheets go,” MacLean shouted. MacKinnie was surprised to note that the Navy man’s voice carried easily into the wind, although Brett repeated the order from his post at the mizzen.

“Put her helm down, Mr. Todd.” The ship swung into the wind, through it, the booms snapping across the deck. One of Loholo’s men scrambled to get out of the way, flinging himself to the deck to allow the main boom to pass over him, while the quarterdeck crew, copying MacLean’s example, ducked low. The jibs backwinded, pulling the bow around. “Let go the jibsheets,” MacLean shouted. “Now trim them in on the port side. Snap to it. Man the leeboards! Smartly, men!”

The port leeboard was pushed down, and tackles strained to raise the starboard one. MacLean stamped with impatience until the task was done, then turned to MacKinnie. “She’s lively enough. Bit slow, easy to get caught in stays. If I end up out of action, remember that. Leave the jibs cleated until the bow’s well around, or you’ll be in irons.”

Nathan fervently prayed he would never have to work the ship himself. At least there was young Todd if MacLean were killed.

Now they were approaching the pirate ships rapidly, and the lookout called down, “Five sails beyond the two ahead, sir.”

“That’ll be more of the pirate fleet,” Loholo said. “Beg your pardon, sir, but the reefs are over there.” He pointed off to starboard and ahead.

MacLean nodded coolly. “We can’t make that course yet, Loholo. When we’ve sea room, we’ll try your advice.” He gauged the distance to the rapidly closing pirate vessels. As they watched, the enemy ships extended their oars, the sweeps working rhythmically, rippling down each of the vessels. The pirate ships were much like Subao had been before MacLean’s modifications, with more beam to weather storms in the shallow sea but generally resembling her. On the bow of each was carved one of the large tentacled creatures MacKinnie had seen in the water, the stays to the stubby masts running into the nest of arms which jutted forward and upward.

“Idlers below,” MacLean ordered. “Freelady, Professor Longway, Mr. Kleinst — go below and stay until you’re called, if you please. Mr. Loholo, I can spare you from the tiller until you get your men under arms.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Loholo padded forward to the waist to arm his men.

MacKinnie watched Hal break out crossbows, handing one to each of his Samualite guards and posting them along the waist. The pirates had noted that Subao was going to windward without oars, and adjusted their courses to intercept well forward of their present position, so the ships were not closing as rapidly now, but slowly they drew up to three crossbow shots away to port and as many forward.

“I doubt there will be a battle,” MacLean said quietly. “Unless they are very much faster with those oars than I think, they cannot possibly catch us.”

As if to make his captain a liar, the lookout shouted, “Three sails off the starboard bow. Three sails ahead, sir.”

MacLean shook his head. “If they adjust to our strange antics as quickly as these did, we’ll have to fight after all.” He eyed the distance to the nearest pirate ship. “Mr. Stark, I’ll thank you to go forward and stand ready to bring the ship about again. Don’t cast off that jibsheet until I tell you. And give me five men on the leeboards.”

“Aye, sir.” Hal took his men forward, carefully seeing that each man stowed his crossbow along the rail on the low side. MacLean shook his head. “Put them on the starboard side, Stark. I don’t need loaded weapons clattering about my decks when we go about.

“Stand by, Todd. I want to cut this as close as possible without letting them ram us.” The pirate ships drew closer now, angling in toward Subao’s bows in a staggered line. “Fall away a point,” MacLean said softly. The ship gathered way, leaping through the water. “Stand by … Put the helm over!”

Subaobrought up into the wind sharply, hung for a moment, and fell off to the starboard tack. “Let go the jibsheets. Now get them sheeted in. Haul those leeboards, you sons!” MacLean was icy calm as he watched the armored prow of the nearest pirate approaching. The sweeps on the enemy vessel were moving faster and faster, and they could hear a drum amidship beating the count.

Zing!MacKinnie heard something snap over his head, and looked up to see a round hole in the mizzensail. Then there was a chorus of sounds, the bolts thudding into the bulwarks. “Get down!” MacKinnie called. Stark, crouching low, half ran the length of the ship to seize his crossbow. All they could see was the great bow of the enemy thirty yards away, white water curling from each side and the beak of the ram protruding slightly from the water in front of it.

The pirate ship bore ahead. MacKinnie stood in silence. There was nothing to do but wait. The iron ram grew larger and larger. Then it seemed to slip behind slightly.

Subaogathered more way, and the pirate ship was no longer aimed amidships. “Hold your course,” MacLean said quietly. As MacKinnie watched, the pirate ram fell further behind, tried to turn more toward Subao, and caught her sail aback. “Steady as she goes,” MacLean murmured.

The pirate ship passed astern so close they almost touched the oars. A cloud of arrows flew from it toward them, and Stark replied with his own volley of steel bolts. There was a shout from the pirate, then it was gone.

“He’ll have to get that sail down before he can row to windward,” MacLean remarked casually. “Never catch us now. Masthead! Where are those other ships?”

“Off the port bow ahead, sir!”

“They’re directly to windward,” MacLean said. “Let’s see if they have any sense. Mr. Loholo, you can come back to the quarterdeck now.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” As Loholo approached, they could see blood on his hands. “One crewman dead, sir. Arrow in his throat. Some holes in your sails, too.”

“Yes. Where are those reefs of yours, and when will the tide be out?”

Loholo pointed to a cleft in the hills along the shoreline. “Right off there, sir. Tide’s full now. Going out starting in an hour.”

“Excellent. Todd, steer for those reefs and get the picture of them from Loholo. We may make use of them yet. Mr. Loholo, how many men does one of those pirate vessels carry?”

“Seventy, maybe a few more, sir. Not all of them sailors.”

“How many of them can fight?”

“Most all, sir. That’s why they’re aboard.”

MacLean nodded. “As well they can’t board us. Mind your luff there, Mr. Todd, you’re too close.” MacLean looked along the coast, then thoughtfully tossed a light line over the stern and watched the angle it made with the centerline of Subao. “Making more leeway than I like,” he remarked to MacKinnie. “And that fellow out there seems to have some sense. The others are trying to close with us, but he’s standing well out to keep to windward of where we’ll be. This could be rather interesting.”

They sailed on. The afternoon sea breeze brought a shift in the wind, backing it around to nearly directly offshore, as the tide turned, running little trails of bubbles out to sea. The first group of pirate vessels was lost behind them, and they were easily outdistancing the second, which made the mistake of closing with Subao and ended up under her lee before trying to stroke back to her in the heightening seas. Although they gained at first, the effort was too great for them, and they soon fell farther and farther behind. Now only one enemy vessel remained between Subao and open water.

As the chase went on, the shoreline fell away to northward, bringing the wind more directly off Subao’s beam, and increasing her heel. The animals in the hold below screamed their protest, a shrill, keening sound unnerving to anyone not familiar with it, causing Brett to rush below to comfort his horses. The pirate ship ran along the shoreline parallel to Subao, slowly drawing closer but taking no chances of losing her prey as the others had done. Her captain had trimmed the great lateen sails the boat carried, and kept only a few men at the oars. MacLean stood anxiously at his post, with Loholo now holding the tiller. The crew master learned the task far more easily than MacLean had thought he would, and now held the huge wooden bar easily, balancing himself against the rolling of the ship and watching the shoreline.

“Where are we now, Mr. Loholo?” MacLean asked.

“In shoal waters, Captain. With the tide running out, we’ll come to ground in a quarter hour.”

“Yes.” MacLean looked out at the pirate vessel. “Nothing for it but to work out some more, even if it lets him get closer. Hands forward to trim sheets,” he called. “Take her a point closer to the wind if you would, Mr. Loholo.”

“Aye.”

On the new course they closed more rapidly with the pirate ship, the tide helping to cancel their leeway. In minutes, the current was running so strongly that the line over the taffrail stood off to a sixty-degree angle from Subao’s stern.

“Going out fast, Captain,” Loholo remarked.

“Mr. Todd,” Mac Lean ordered, “get forward with a lead to call soundings.”

The cadet perched himself at the shrouds, leaning out to cast the lead line and calling back in a clear voice. “Three meters… and a half two … three meters…”

“He’s closing with us now, Trader.” MacLean looked at the pirate thoughtfully. “Guards in armor, please. He may be able to board.” Subao’s ability to point higher than the pirate vessel was almost negated by the strong tide of the lee bow, and the longer waterline of the enemy ship gave her an advantage in hull speed. MacKinnie looked around the horizon. There were no other ships in evidence.

“As good as we could expect, Trader,” MacLean said softly. “We expected to fight a dozen enemies, now there’s only one.”

“And a half two …"Todd called. “Mark two … and a half one…”

The tide was racing out now. MacKinnie had never seen anything like it, and asked MacLean how the current could be so strong.

“Those two close-in moons make for strong tides,” MacLean answered, “and this big shallow basin doesn’t really hold much water. Won’t take a lot of vertical rise and fall to empty it.” The captain looked carefully at the current. “We’re going aground in a few minutes, Trader. If we try to run with the tide to keep afloat, that pirate will have us. At least if we’re run aground, he can’t ram the ship. Might be quite a fight when he sees us high and dry. Or he might decide to run out with the current and get his friends. You’ll have to decide whether to go ashore in that case.”

MacKinnie nodded. It seemed to him the enemy ship was staying close to Subao. The pirate might be trapped as well. If they really didn’t know these waters all that well, the might think Subao’s crew intended to stay afloat.

The leeboard scraped bottom, heaving up ponderously before settling back to its position, then hit again.

“Hands to the halyards!” MacLean shouted. “Get those sails down. Move, damn you!” Then in a calmer voice, “Mr. Loholo, put your helm to weather if you will … ease her against the current … steady … Sergeant Stark, get your men’s backs into it!”

The sails were hauled down, the men pulling desperately. Heavy canvas billowed across the decks, and the Makassar crewmen leaped to subdue it. It was bulkily piled on the booms and lashed in place. The ship swayed, blown against the current by the strong wind, held in place until there was no way on her at all, then began ponderously to make sternway. Loholo balanced off the helm without orders, obviously accustomed to taking ground with ships in the shallow seas of Makassar. As the tide raced away, she settled bow first, straightened, and came to rest on the sandy bottom, angled toward the shore.

“We’re fast,” MacLean said. He looked out at the pirate ship three hundred yards away. “By the Saints, he’s caught! He can’t make it against the wind.”

The enemy crew was straining at the oars, while others gathered the lateen sail against the mast, but even as they watched, the stern touched bottom. The tide race was incredibly swift, and within seconds the pirate was stuck as fast as Subao.

Brett ran to the waist of the ship. He struggled with the hatch cover until Vanjynk rushed up to help him. MacLean shouted from the quarterdeck. “What in hell are you doing?”

“We must get our mounts up from the hold,” Brett called. “Master Vanjynk and I would fight on our horses, Captain.”

“Let them,” MacKinnie told MacLean. “We’re outnumbered, and having a cavalry force can help. Look there.” He pointed to the pirate vessel. Men were boiling off its decks, but instead of rushing toward Subao, they formed ranks on the hard sand alongside their ship.

“My turn,” MacKinnie said. “You men see to your armor. Hal, help Brett sway those animals up out of the hold.”

The hatch cover was already off, and using the main boom held at an angle by the peak halyard, the two chargers were lifted by bellybands, swayed over the side, and set in place on the sand. Brett and Vanjynk scrambled to saddle their beasts and cover them with chain mail skirts.

“What are they waiting for?” MacLean asked, pointing at the pirates.

“They don’t know how many we are, or if we have star weapons,” Loholo said softly. “They will listen to their leaders tell them of rich loot, and the insults they have endured from Jikar, and finally they will attack. It will be best if our men are already on the sands unless you intend to fight from the ship.”

“Not from here,” MacKinnie said. “They’ve got axes. Give one of them a few minutes unmolested and we won’t float off here with the tide. Hal, form the men on the sand behind the ship so the enemy can’t see what we’ve got!”

“Right, Colonel.” Pleading and shouting, Stark managed to get the native crew into a semblance of order while his Haven guardsmen took places in a group at one end of the line. Shields glinted in the sun as the men stood nervously.

“Serve out those pikes, Mr. Longway,” MacKinnie ordered as the Academician appeared at the companion-way. “Then you and the others stay below.”

“If you order us, Trader,” Longway said. “But I can fight.” He came fully out on the deck, and MacKinnie saw that the scholar’s portly figure was cased in mail over leather. Together they took the pikes from their racks along the bulwarks and handed them over the sides to the waiting troops. Each of the Makassar natives wore a breastplate and greaves, a metal cap, and a shortsword, and held a round shield on his arm. The Samualites had mail as well. With their pikes in hand, MacKinnie’s small force seemed more disciplined, ready to face an enemy.

“They can fight well if told what to do,” Loholo said. “They are young men, but the Guilds begin their training early.”

MacKinnie eased himself over the rail to join the small group, leaving MacLean and Loholo on the ship. He turned to face his men.

“The important thing is to preserve discipline,” he said. “If you stay in ranks, there’s not much they can do to you. Keep your shield wall up as long as they aren’t close, so they can’t bombard us with arrows, and advance when I tell you. I want to hit them with a solid force, not a ragged group of individuals. Hal, have your Haven men form a reserve group behind the main body, and keep their javelins and crossbows ready. I want a solid volley from the crossbows as soon as the pirates get in range, and keep that up until they’re too close to reload. Then hold those javelins until I give the order to cast.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then wait for my orders. Brett, you and Vanjynk stay with me until I give you the word.”

“It is not proper that we stay behind and allow these groundlings the honor of opening battle,” Vanjynk said slowly.

“Proper be damned. Vanjynk, if you or Brett start a charge without my orders I’ll have Hal shoot you out of the saddle. I ask nothing dishonorable, Master Vanjynk, nothing save winning this battle.”

“We have agreed to serve the star man,” Brett said. “It is proper that we take his instructions, my friend.” He clapped Vanjynk on the shoulder. “Besides, what honor have pirates? What is propriety to them?”

“Here they come!” Longway shouted from the quarterdeck.

MacKinnie strode to the bow of the ship and looked around. The pirate group, nearly a hundred strong, was moving slowly and in good order across the sand toward Subao. “Hal, get your crossbowmen out at the stern and stand by. Fire when you think they’re in range.”

“Yes, sir. Guardsmen, right face. March.” Stark took his tiny group to the stern and deployed them just beyond it. This put them closer to the enemy than MacKinnie’s detachment at the bow.

Nathan eyed the advancing ranks of pirates, now broken up by small tidal pools until there were definite gaps in the formation. There seemed to be no effort on the part of the pirate officer to reform his men. From what MacKinnie knew of similar groups on South Continent, it was a masterpiece of tactics for the pirates to have formed at all before starting a wild charge.

They came on, and Hal shouted to his men. “Ready! Fire!”

Several fell to the volley of crossbow bolts, but the rest came on. MacKinnie watched, but gave no signal. Behind him Brett and Vanjynk talked calmly to their animals, but their voices were rising in pitch. Their eagerness to join the battle sounded through the soothing words.

A second volley cut down more of the pirates, and the ragged army of brightly colored natives, armed only with swords except for a few with axes and shields, curled around toward their tormentors, presenting their flank to MacKinnie.

“Now, men. March out. Follow me and stay in good order. Brett, you and your companion remain behind the shield wall until I tell you.”

The pirates were now caught between the two small detachments. Their leader shouted orders, and they broke into smaller groups and hurled themselves toward Stark and his men.

“With me, troops!” MacKinnie shouted. “Keep your ranks. Watch the men to either side and stay next to them.” He trotted his group away from the bow, angling away from the ship but moving sternward, keeping the pirate group between the two parts of his army. Some of the enemy turned to face him now. Others continued their charge toward Stark.

Hal fired one more volley of crossbow bolts and his men dropped the weapons. They bent to seize their javelins. As MacKinnie’s group closed with the pirates, Nathan shouted, “Now, Hal.” Stark’s group ran forward, casting their slender weapons, tearing holes in the ranks of the pirates, and then MacKinnie was upon them, his pikemen thrusting their weapons forward, as Hal and the Samualites fell on them with sword and shield from the other side.

On either flank a group of pirates now fought MacKinnie’s troops, but the main body held back, unwilling to enter the dangerous area between. Then they suddenly broke directly toward MacKinnie’s force, charged forward, ducking under the spear points, closing rapidly with the unarmored men, slashing with shortswords. Two of the young Jikarian sailors fell, opening a gap in the line of pikes.

On the other side of the formation the pirates made no headway at all against Hal and his Wolves. Unarmored, with inadequate shields, they did well to hold Stark back, but by sheer numbers were able to do so. A third group darted forward to leap for handholds along the ship’s railing.

MacKinnie charged into the gap in the line of pikemen, his sword slashing, shouting to his men to hold firm. A shortsword thrust at him, and he parried, beat hard in quarte, following with a cut to the pirate’s neck. His enemy fell and Nathan brought his sword in a whistling moulinette to drive back a second attacker. The gap was too wide to hold with his saver alone, and another enemy tried to circle to his left, only to be impaled by the pikemen, his last stroke falling weakly on MacKinnie’s mail. Nathan frantically shouted orders to close the line.

The Jikarians awkwardly moved closer to each other.

“Shield to shield!” MacKinnie shouted. “Close it up!” When they had filled in the gap he was able to turn his attention to the group which had charged the ship.

The pirates were stopped at deck level by Longway, who stood sword in hand, thrusting at the face of a pirate who had managed to raise himself almost to the level of the thwarts. MacLean stood with him, whole Loholo, shouting in mad fury, jumped to the sands below with an enormous two-handed sword. The native captain sent the weapon whistling around his head and screamed oaths.

“Subaois mine!” he shouted. “Filth, slime of the sea, spawn of unwashed carrion eaters! …” He lopped off a pirate’s head at a blow, then stood with his back to the ship, holding the rest at bay with the fury of his attack.

The pirate chieftain, his rank marked by bright gold bands around his neck and ankles, shouted commands to his men, breaking them away from combat to re-form and make use of their superior numbers.

MacKinnie waited until they had broken off the battle. Then he signaled Brett. “Now!” he shouted.

Brett screamed strange curses. He and Vanjynk spurred their mounts forward and thundered toward the pirates, wielding their great swords to crash through feeble attempts to parry as the enemy tried to avoid being trampled by their mounts. The beasts themselves fought, rearing up to strike with sharp hooves, crashing down to crush men to the sand. A group of pirates broke and ran as Hal and his shieldsmen closed swiftly in a disciplined formation from the other side to hew down the outer ranks. MacKinnie held his own detachment in place, their spears held out toward the pirates, forming a wall of points, while Loholo continued his mad rush, his great sword singing. The last of the enemy turned to run toward their ship.

Brett and Vanjynk pursued the enemy across the sands, but when a group aboard fired on them with crossbows, MacKinnie shouted them back. He re-formed his little command behind Subao again and left them to rest easy in ranks while he surveyed the battlefield.

He had lost two native troopers, killed when the pirates broke ranks. Several others had deep cuts, and one had a throwing knife through his shoulder. In addition, MacLean had caught a wicked cut across the back of his hand from the dying efforts of a pirate Longway spitted. The others were unharmed. The Haven detachment had been always on the attack and the pirates had little chance of closing with them, nor were their weapons heavy enough to do much damage through chain mail unless given more time than Hal had allowed them.

There were thirty-four bodies on the sand between the two boats. Some wriggled feebly. Most lay well away from Subao, cut down in flight by Hal’s men or the cavalry in pursuit.

“It’s always like that,” he explained to Longway and MacLean as he climbed back on board. “I’ve never seen a battle where at the decisive moment the loser didn’t have enough strength to turn the table. Once they lose the will to fight, they’re finished. More men are killed in pursuit than battle every time.”

“But it seemed so easy!” Mary Graham said.

MacKinnie turned, surprised to see her on deck. “I told you to stay below,” he muttered. “As to easy, it wouldn’t have been if they’d caught us on our decks. If they’d swarmed aboard with our troops not in formation and no room to maneuver, they’d have won. They were fools to fight on our terms. What can you serve my men for lunch, freelady?”

She swallowed hard before she replied. “Will they come back?” she asked. “It will take time to prepare.”

“I doubt they’ve the stomach for it.” He turned to Loholo. “Will they try to attack again after we’re afloat?”

“Loholo shook his head. “We’ll both have enough trouble staying off that shore, Trader. There won’t be much time for fighting when the water wall comes.”

MacKinnie noted that while they had been fighting, the officers had broken out one of the ship’s anchors.

MacLean had it carried out and laid in the sand on the seaward side of Subao. “We’ll need that,” he explained. “Without it, the ship might be washed ashore when the tide returns. This ought to hold us until we can sail off.”

“Will the pirates have one out?” MacKinnie asked.

“If they have any sense.”

“I see. That gives me an idea. I’ll have to speak to Brett.”

There was no further action, but Nathan kept his crew in ranks on the sand. They ate in place. An hour before the tide was due in, Vanjynk’s horse was swayed aboard, and the rest of the crew then took their places behind the ship, leaving only Brett and his mount on the sand behind the ship. A few pirates approached to within a hundred yards, but the sight of Brett thundering around the side of the ship toward them put them to flight, and Brett returned to his post as Vanjynk fumed in the waist.

“We’ll have need of you, Vanjynk,” MacKinnie said. “You stand by to carry out your orders.” They waited.

“I see it!” Loholo shouted from the masthead. “The tide’s coming.”

MacKinnie waved to Brett. “Now.” he ordered.

The mounted rider galloped toward the enemy ship. He stayed well out of arrow range, going around until he found the anchor the pirates had laid out beyond their boat. He cut the anchor cable with a quick slash of his sword, then rode furiously back toward Subao. His armor and that of his mount had earlier been put aboard, and as Brett reached the ship, Vanjynk was ready with a belly sling. Rider and animal alike were swayed aboard, as the thunder of approaching water grew louder.

MacKinnie climbed partway up the shrouds and stared seaward. He saw a dark line not more than a kilometer away, and as he watched it advanced at incredible speed, a wall of water three meters in height boiling furiously toward them. The pirates screamed, one standing in the stern of his ship and shaking his fist at Subao. There was nothing they could do; by the time they could reach

Subao’scable, the wall of water would be on them, and it appeared that no pirate was willing to give his life to make trouble for MacKinnie. Their ship was carried relentlessly towards the rocks as MacLean gave the order to raise sail and prepare Subao for her long voyage.