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There were plenty of volunteers to help her fill in the time, but Rank Hath Its Privileges; Trask undertook to see to it that she did not suffer excessively from shipboard ennui. Sharll Renner and Captain Rainer approached him, during the cocktail hour before dinner, some hundred hours short of emergence. "We think we've figured out where Dunnan's base is," Renner said. "Oh, good!"
They would be beaten off, he was confident of that; but the damage Tanith would take, in the defense, would set back his work for years. He knew all too well what Space Viking ships could do to a planet. He'd have to find Dunnan's base, smash it, destroy his ships, kill the man himself, first.
"They'd never under any circumstances be able to put in a base on Tanith. Unless Dunnan's completely crazy, which I doubt, he's gone to some regular Viking base planet, like Hoth or Nergal or Dagon or Xochitl, to recruit officers and engineers and able spacemen." "All that machinery and robotic equipment and so on that was going to Tanith was that aboard when he took the ship?"
Even under the circumstances, Alex Gorram was glad to see the last of them. As for Dunnan's own mercenary company, there were about a score of former spacemen among them; the rest graded down from bandits through thugs and sneak-thieves to barroom bums. Dunnan himself was an astrogator, not an engineer. "That gang aren't even good enough for routine raiding," Harkaman said.
He poured wine for himself. "Of course, Dunnan's crazy. A crazy man has an advantage, sometimes, like a left-handed knife-fighter. He does unexpected things." "That wasn't such a crazy move," Rovard Grauffis said. "We have very little direct trade with Curtana. It's only an accident we heard about this when we did." The freighter captain's beaker was half empty.
"You think we don't have plenty of Neobarbarian material here on Gram?" Trask demanded. "If you do, take a look around." Glaspyth, somebody said. "That collection of over-ripe gallows-fruit Andray Dunnan's recruited," Rathmore mentioned. Alex Gorram was grumbling that his shipyard was full of them; agitators stirring up trouble, trying to organize a strike to get rid of the robots.
"They have a couple of ships a year there." "That's right," Trask agreed. "Marduk." "You mean, you think Dunnan's trying to terrorize Marduk?" Valkanhayn demanded. "Great Satan, even he isn't crazy enough for that!" Baron Rathmore started to say something about what Andray Dunnan was crazy enough to do, and what his uncle was crazy enough to do.
Even King Angus isn't crazy enough to do anything to start a war. Not yet, anyhow." "Not yet?" The captain of the Blue Comet, who was one of Count Lionel's vassal barons, was silent for a moment. "You ought to know, Prince Trask," he said. "Andray Dunnan's grandmother was the King's mother. Her father was old Baron Zarvas of Blackcliffe.
He named them. "And we got one of the Dunnan ships, the Fortuna. We blew out the Malverton Navy Yard. They're still using the Antarctic Naval Base, but we've knocked out a good deal of that. We got the Honest Horris. They made two attempts to land on us and lost a couple of ships. Eight hundred hours ago, they were joined by the rest of Dunnan's fleet, five ships.
If you're a good friend to him, you'll get him out of here before Duke Angus arrives." Ormm leaned forward and spoke urgently in Dunnan's ear. Dunnan pushed him angrily away. "Great Satan, are you against me, too?" he demanded. Ormm caught his arm. "You fool, do you want to ruin everything, now " He lowered his voice; the rest was inaudible.
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