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He met Prince Bentrik, a little in advance of the others, and managed to whisper to him hastily: "While you're talking to anybody here, always remember that Andray Dunnan is working with Zaspar Makann, and as soon as Makann consolidates his position he's sending an expedition against Tanith." "How in blazes did you find that out, here?" Bentrik demanded. "From the Gilgameshers?"
When he had wanted to know where the money would come from, he had been told that there would be a sales tax, and that the pensions must all be spent within thirty days, which would stimulate business, and the increased business would provide tax money to pay the pensions. "We have a joke about three Gilgameshers space-wrecked on an uninhabited planet," he said.
The Gilgameshers had settled there and one of their ships had brought that story in. And he recruited two ships at once on Melkarth, and there was a good deal of mirth about that among the Tanith Space Vikings. Melkarth was strictly a poultry planet. Its people had sunk to the village-peasant level; they had no wealth worth taking or carrying away.
"Ignore the whole bloody thing; we get something like that before every general election. On this planet, you can always kick the Gilgameshers and the Armed Forces with impunity, neither have votes and neither can kick back. The whole thing'll be forgotten the day after the election. It always is." "That's if Makann doesn't win the election," Trask qualified.
He had first heard of Gilgameshers the word was used indiscriminately for a native of or a ship from Gilgamesh on Gram, from Harkaman and Karffard and Vann Larch and the others. Since coming to Tanith, he had heard about them from every Space Viking, never in complimentary and rarely in printable terms.
Her captain, Horris Sasstroff, called himself "Honest Horris," a misnomer which he had also bestowed on his ship. He was a trader of sorts. Even the Gilgameshers despised him, and not even a Gilgamesher would have taken a wretched craft like the Honest Horris to space. "He had been to Melkarth before," the Gilgamesher said. "He and Burrik are friends."
"Just about the way you would have. Viktor said his people were Space Vikings, not Gilgameshers. I told him we weren't Gilgameshers, either, as he'd find out on Xochitl the next time one of his ships raided one of our planets. Are you going to back me up? Of course, you can always send Prince Viktor my head, and an apology "
You have a few on Tanith, haven't you? Well, anything one Gilgamesher knows, they all find out, and ours are co-operative with Naval intelligence." That would be why Andray Dunnan was having no dealings with Gilgameshers. It would also be what Zaspar Makann meant when he ranted about the Gilgamesh Interstellar Conspiracy. "I can see where an arrangement like that would be mutually advantageous.
And even if he doesn't, we can pick up more information on him, when ships start coming in here, than we would batting around all over the Old Federation." Harkaman considered for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, if we could set up a base like Nergal or Xochitl," he agreed. "There'll be four or five ships, Space Vikings, traders, Gilgameshers and so on, on either of those planets all the time.
You're both nuts; he was backed by the mercantile interests; they were hoping he'd run the Gilgameshers off the planet. Well, that was one thing you had to give him credit for. He wanted to run out the Gilgameshers. Everybody was in favor of that. Now, Trask could remember something he'd gotten from Harkaman.
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