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People were moving excitedly in that direction, and the news cars were circling like vultures over a sick cow. Harkaman wondered, hopefully, if it mightn't be a fight. "Some drunk being bounced." Nikkolay, Lucas' cousin, commented. "Sesar's let all Wardshaven in here, today. But, Lucas, this Tanith adventure; we're not making any hit-and-run raid.
If I'd stayed on Gram, I'd have helped put Angus on the throne, and it would have been about the same in the end." "It could be a lot different," Nikkolay said. "You could bring your ships and men back to Gram and put yourself on the throne." "No; I'll never go back to Gram. Tanith's my planet, now. But I will renounce my allegiance to Angus.
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.
"You were hit twice," Nikkolay was telling him. "One in the leg; smashed the femur. And one in the chest. That one missed your heart by an inch." "Pity it did." He was beginning to remember clearly, now. "I threw her down, and tried to cover her. I must have thrown her straight into the burst and only caught the last of it myself." There was something else; oh, yes. "Dunnan. Did they get him?"
He had a thin, pointed face, almost femininely sensitive, and a small pointed beard. He was bareheaded except for the narrow golden circlet which he spent most of his waking time scheming to convert into a royal crown. The guard-captain repeated the question. "I am Sir Nikkolay Trask; I bring my cousin and liege-lord, Lucas, Lord Trask, Baron of Traskon.
At first, his cousin Nikkolay raged at him for alienating the barony from the family, and then he learned that Duke Angus was appointing him vicar-baron and giving him Traskon New House for his residence. Immediately he began acting like one at the death-bed of a rich grandmother.
Again, he could feel the mellow sun of Gram on his back, and hear the laughing voices on the lower terrace, and he was talking to Lothar Ffayle and Rovard Grauffis and Alex Gorram and Cousin Nikkolay and Otto Harkaman. He said: "And finally, nobody bothers fixing anything up. And the power-reactors stop, and nobody seems to be able to get them started again.
"I don't know anything about Traskon; I haven't anything to do with Traskon, any more. Traskon is now the personal property of our well loved very well loved Queen Evita. The Trasks don't own enough land on Gram now for a family cemetery. You see what you did?" he added bitterly. "You needn't rub it in, Nikkolay.
Nikkolay winced, as though something he had expected to hurt had hurt worse than he had expected. "Lucas." He swallowed. "Elaine ... Elaine is dead." Elaine is dead. That didn't make sense. "She was killed instantly, Lucas. Hit six times; I don't think she even felt the first one. She didn't suffer at all." Somebody moaned, and then he realized that it had been himself.
Nikkolay shook his head. "He got away. Stole the Enterprise and took her off-planet." "I want to get him myself." He started to rise again; Nikkolay nodded to someone out of sight. A cool hand touched his chin, and he smelled a woman's perfume, nothing at all like Elaine's. Something like a small insect bit him on the neck. The room grew dark. Elaine was dead.
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