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tough while they're happening. I know what'll happen to Spasso and Valkanhayn,
though. They'll start decivilizing, themselves. They'll stay here for a while,
and when they need something they can't take from' the locals they'll go
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chicken-stealing after it, but most of the time they'll stay here lording it
over their slaves, and finally their ships will wear out and they won't be
able to fix them. Then some time, the locals'll jump them when they aren't
watching and wipe them out. But in the -meantime, the locals 11 learn a lot
from them."
They turned the aircar west again along the river. They looked at a few
villages. One or two dated from the Federation period; they had been
plantations before whatever it was had happened. More had been built within
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the past five centuries. A couple had recently been destroyed, in punishment
for the crime of self-defense.
"You know," he said, at length, "I'm going to do every
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body a favor. I'm going to let Spasso and Valkanhayn persuade me to take this
planet away from them."
Harkaman, who was piloting, turned sharply. "You crazy or something?"
" `When somebody makes a statement you don't understand, don't tell hire he's
crazy. Ask him what he means.' Who said that?"
"On target" Harkaman grinned. " `What do you mean, Lord Trask?'"
"I can't catch Dunnan by pursuit; I'll have to get him by interception. You
know the source of that quotation, too. ' This looks to me like a ,good place
to intercept him. When he learns I have a base here, he'll hit it, sooner or s
later. And even if he doesn't, we can pick up more informational on him, when
ships start coming in here, than we would batting around all over the Old
Federation."
Harkaman considered for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, if I we could set up a
base like Nergal or Xochitl," he agreed. "There'll be four or five ships,
Space Vikings, traders, Gilgameshers and so on, on either of those planets all
the time. If we had the cargo Dunnan took to space in the Enterprise, we could
start a base like that. But we haven't anything near what we need, and you
know what Spasso and Valkanhayn have."
"We can get it from Gram. As it stands, the investors in the Tanith Adventure,
from Duke Angus down, lost every thing they put into it. If they're willing to
throw some good money after bad, they can get it back, and a handsome k profit
to boot. And there ought to be planets above the row boat and ox-cart level
not too far away that could be raided for a lot of things we'd need." -
"That's right; I know of half a dozen within five hundred light-years.
They won't be the kind Spasso and Valkanhayn are in the habit of raiding,
though. And beside machinery, we can get gold, and valuable merchandise that
could be sold on Gram. And if we could make a go of it, you'd go a farther
hunting Dunnan by sitting here on Tanith than by going looking for him. That
was the way we used to hunt 1 marsh-pigs on Colada when I was a kid; just find
a good place and sit down and wait."
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They had Valkanhayn and Spasso aboard the Nemesis for dinner; it didn't take
much guiding to keep the conversation on the subject of Tanith and its
resources, ad- , vantages and possibilities. Finally, when they had reached
brandy and coffee, Trask said idly:
"I believe, together, we could really make something out of this planet."
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"That's what we've been telling you, all along," Spasso broke in eagerly.
"This is a wonderful planet . . ."
"It could be. All it has now is possibilities. We'd need a spaceport, for one
thing."
"Well, what's this, here?" Valkanhayn wanted to know.
"It was a spaceport," Harkaman told him. "It could be one again. And we'd need
a shipyard, capable of any kind of heavy repair work. Capable of building a
complete ship, in fact. I never saw a ship come into a Viking base planet with
any kind of a cargo worth dickering over that hadn't taken some damage getting
it. Prince Viktor of Xochitl makes a good half of his money on ship-repairs,
and so do Nicky Gratham on Jaganath and the Everrards on Hoth.", "And
engine-works hyperdrive, normal-space and pseudograv," Trask added. "And a
steel mill, and a collapsedmatter plant. And robotic-equipment works, and .
. ."
"Oh, that's out of all reason!" Valkanhayn cried. "It would take twenty trips
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with a ship the size of this one to get all that stuff here, and how'd we ever
be able to pay for it?"
"That's the sort of base Duke Angus of Wardshaven planned. The Enterprise,
practically a duplicate of the Nemesis, carried everything that would be
needed to get it started, when she was pirated."
"When she was. . ?" "Now you're going to have to tell the gentlemen the
truth," Harkaman chuckled.
"I intend to." He laid his cigar down, sipped some of his brandy, and
explained about Duke Angus' Tanith Adventure. "It was part of a larger plan;
Angus wanted to gain economic supremacy for Wardshaven to forward his
political ambitions. It was, however, an entirely practical business
proposition. I was opposed to it, because I thought it would
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be too good a proposition for Tanith and work to the disadvantage of the home
planet in the end." He told them about the Enterprise, and the cargo of
industrial and construction equipment she carried, and then told them how
Andray Dunnan had pirated her.
"That wouldn't have annoyed me at all; I had no money invested in the project.
What did annoy me, to put it mildly, was that just before he took the ship
out, Dunnan shot up my wedding, wounded me and my father-in-law, and killed [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]