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He told young Count Steven to switch him over. "We just lost one of our Mardukans," Gompertz told him, in his staccato Beowulf accent. "I think she was the Challenger. The ship that got her looks like the Banshee; I'm turning to engage her." "Which way; west around the planet? Be right with you, captain." It was like finishing a word puzzle.
So did all the other Mardukans in the command room. "Your Majesty! I am most deeply honored!" "Are you all right, Simon?" the old gentleman asked solicitously. "They haven't done anything to you, have they?" "Saved my life, and my men's, and treated me like a friend and a comrade, Your Majesty. Have I your permission to present, informally, their commander, Prince Trask of Tanith?"
Even after we get through arguing about it. Argument," he told Bentrik, "is not exclusively a feature of democracies." Actually, there was very little argument, and most of that among the Mardukans.
Three independent Space Viking ships were still in orbit on Tanith; they joined the expedition. There would be trouble with them on Marduk; they'd want to loot. Let the Mardukans worry about that. They could charge it off as part of the price for letting Zaspar Makann get into power in the first place.
Trask made a mental note of the name of Zaspar Makann, and took occasion to bring it up in conversation with his shipboard guests. Every time he talked about Makann to two or more Mardukans, he heard at least three or more opinions about the man. He was a political demagogue; on that everybody agreed. After that, opinions diverged.
One of the four Mardukans was the Captain Garravay who had smuggled Bentrik's wife and son off Marduk, and the other three were just as pro-Bentrik, pro-Tanith, and anti-Makann. They were, on general principles, also anti-Bargham. There must be something wrong with any fleet admiral who remained in his command after Zaspar Makann came to power. So, as soon as they spaced out, there was a party.
Everybody, locals, Mardukans and Space Vikings, had been busy with the work of relief and reconstruction; this was the first meal the two commanders had been able to share in any leisure at all. Prince Bentrik's enjoyment of it was somewhat impaired by the fact that from where he sat he could see, in the distance, the sphere of his disabled ship.
Crown Prince Edvard will like your Space Vikings. He's much opposed to class distinctions and caste prejudices. Says they have to be eliminated before we can make democracy really work." The Mardukans talked a lot about democracy. They thought well of it; their government was a representative democracy. It was also a hereditary monarchy, if that made any kind of sense.
Most of the Mardukans were laughing, now. Some of them were accusing him of being just too utterly ridiculous. "Why, the people are the Government. The people would not legislate themselves into slavery." He wished Otto Harkaman were there.
If there were big cities somewhere else on the planet, it would figure. But there aren't. They blew out the two biggest cities, and all the loot in them." "Then they wanted to terrorize somebody off the planet." "But nobody'd hear about it off-planet," somebody protested. "The Mardukans would; they trade with Tetragrammaton," the acknowledged bastard of somebody named Morvill said.
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