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That would be the first time in history that a Sword-World was raided by Space Vikings." Harkaman looked at his half-empty glass, then filled it to the top. It was the same drink he had started with, just as a regiment that has been decimated and recruited up to strength a few times is still the same regiment.
Harkaman and Valkanhayn agreed; Valkanhayn thought the Viking's Gift of Beowulf would go along, and Harkaman was almost sure of the Black Star and Queen Flavia. He turned to Bentrik. "Start that pinnace off for Gimli at once; within the hour if possible. We don't know how many ships will be gathered there, but we don't want them wasted in detail-attacks.
"Well, here; we don't know anything about this Zaspar Makann," the confidential secretary and spokesman of the Duke of Bigglersport began. "No, you don't," Otto Harkaman told him. "I suggest you keep quiet and listen, till you find out a little about him." "Why, I wouldn't be surprised if Dunnan was on Marduk all the time we were hunting for him," Valkanhayn said. Trask began to wonder.
I was old Duke Fergus' esquire; I carried Angus on my shoulder when Andray Dunnan's mother was presented to the lords and barons the day after she was born." "Of course he's crazy," Alex Gorram agreed. "I don't know why the Duke doesn't have him put under psychiatric treatment." "I'd put him under treatment," Harkaman said, drawing a finger across under his beard.
Seven hundred and fifty hours after the return of the Nemesis, the Corisande II emerged from her last microjump, and immediately Harkaman began hearing of the Battle of Audhumla and the destruction of the Yo-Yo and the Enterprise. At first, he merely reported a successful raiding voyage, from which he was bringing rich booty. Oddly varigated booty, it was remarked, when he began itemizing it.
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.
Nikky Gratham's father only had two when he started on Jagannath, and look what the Grathams got there now." "Are we interested?" Harkaman asked. "Not very, I'm afraid. Of course, we've just landed; Tanith may have great possibilities. Suppose we reserve decision for a while and look around a little." There were stars in the sky, and, for good measure, a sliver of moon on the western horizon.
When he asked the moonbase who she was, he was told that she was the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu. That was, by almost a year, better than he had expected of them. Otto Harkaman was out in the Corisande, raiding and visiting the trade-planets. He found his cousin, Nikkolay Trask, at Rivington; when he inquired about Traskon, Nikkolay cursed.
When they do, we burn the village and machine-gun everybody we see." "That's the stuff," Harkaman approved. "If the cow doesn't want to be milked, just shoot her. Of course, you don't get much milk out of her again, but " The room to which their hosts guided them was at the far end of the hall.
After that was done, her officers and crew took a holiday which lasted a month, until the Nemesis returned. Harkaman must have made quick raids on half a dozen planets. None of the cargo he brought back was spectacularly valuable, and he dismissed the whole thing as chicken-stealing, but he had lost some men and the ship showed a few fresh scars.
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