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"The Grendelsbane went back to Beowulf; she'll stop at Amaterasu to do a little trading on the way. The Black Star went to Xochitl. Just a friendly visit, to say hello to Prince Viktor for you. Ravallo has a lot of audiovisuals we made during the Dagon Operation. Then she's going to Jagannath to visit Nikky Gratham." Harkaman approved his attitude and actions with regard to King Angus.
"Tell him to wait a moment; we have troubles," he said. Nemesis and Starhopper sledge-hammered each other and parried with counter-missiles, and then, quite unexpectedly, the Starhopper went to Em-See-Square. There was an awful lot of Em being converted to Ee off Marduk, today. Including Manfred Ravallo; that grieved him. Manfred was a good man, and a good friend.
Some of my people went there from Temecula; but it is a poor little village, Majella. Majella would not like to live in it. Neither do I believe it will long be any safer than San Pasquale. There was a kind, good old man who owned all that valley, Senor Ravallo; he found the village of Saboba there when he came to the country.
I found out about it from Captain Ravallo of the Black Star, on Indra; he'd just been from Ganpat. Beowulf wasn't too far out of the way, so we put in there, and found the Grendelsbane just ready to space out." The Grendelsbane was the second of Beowulf's ships, sister to the Viking's Gift. "So she joined us, and the three of us went to Dagon.
They had news for you, and a couple of passengers." "Passengers?" "Yes. You'll see who they are when they come down. And don't let anybody with side-whiskers and buttoned-up coats see them," Ravallo said. "What those people know gets all over the place before long." The visitors were Lucile, Princess Bentrik, and her son, the young Count of Ravary.
He had his worries, too, and all of them bore the same name: Prince Viktor of Xochitl. He went over with Manfred Ravallo everything the captain of the Black Star could tell him. He had talked once with Viktor; the lord of Xochitl had been coldly polite and noncommittal. His subordinates had been frankly hostile.
It was but a poverty-stricken little handful, to be sure; still, they were unmolested; the valley was large; their stock ran free; the few white settlers, one at the upper end and two or three on the south side, had manifested no disposition to crowd the Indians; the Ravallo brothers were living on the estate still, and there was protection in that, Alessandro thought. And Majella was content.
There were others at Rivington to whom it was not immediately evident. The professional Space Vikings, men like Valkanhayn and Ravallo and Alvyn Karffard, were disgusted. Here they'd been sitting, on combat alert, all these months, and, if they'd only known, they could have gone to Xochitl and looted it clean long ago. The Gram party were outraged.
So he sent Harkaman in the Corisande and Ravallo in the Black Star to visit the planets Marduk traded with, looking for Dunnan ships and exchanging information and assistance with the Royal Mardukan Navy. Almost at once, he regretted it; the next Gilgamesher into orbit on Tanith brought a story that Prince Viktor was collecting a fleet on Xochitl.
Even with the threat from Xochitl, some of the former Wardshaven nobles began talking about sending ships to Gram. Less than a thousand hours after he had left, Ravallo was back in the Black Star. "I went to Gimli, and I wasn't there fifty hours before a Mardukan Navy ship came in. They were glad to see me; it saved them sending off a pinnace for Tanith.
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