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Updated: June 29, 2025
The Space Scourge bore the device of a mailed fist clutching a comet by the head; it looked more like a whisk broom than a scourge. The Lamia bore a coiled snake with the head, arms and bust of a woman. Valkanhayn and Spasso were taking their time about screening back, and he began to wonder if they weren't maneuvering the Nemesis into a cross-fire position.
Two years and six months after the Nemesis had come out of hyperspace to find Boake Valkanhayn and Garvan Spasso on Tanith, the first independent Space Viking came in, to sell a cargo and get repairs. They bought his loot he had been raiding some planet rather above the level of Khepera and below that of Amaterasu and healed the wounds his ship had taken getting it.
"I am inviting you gentlemen to join me as partners." "Well, you still haven't told us how we're going to get the money to finance it," Spasso insisted. "The Duke of Wardshaven, and the others who invested in the original Tanith adventure will put it up. It's the only way they can recover what they lost on the Enterprise."
"I call it chicken-stealing, and so'll you before we get back to Tanith. If you live that long." For a moment, Spasso was still affronted. Then, temporarily, his vulpine face showed avaricious hope, and then apprehension. Evidently he knew Otto Harkaman's reputation, and some of the things Harkaman had done weren't his idea of an easy way to make money.
"Is his Majesty making it worth while to accept his sovereignty?" Trask asked. "That is, beside vellum scrolls?" Valkanhayn was still grinning. "Wait till we start sending cargo down. And wait till you see what's crammed into the other ship." "Did Spasso come back with you?" Harkaman asked. "Oh, no. Sir Garvan Spasso entered the service of his Majesty, King Angus.
We do hope, though, that you won't make any difficulty about our letting down and giving our men a couple of hundred hours' liberty. They've been in hyperspace for three thousand hours." "See!" Spasso clamored. "He wants to trick us into letting him land " "Captain Spasso," Trask cut in. "Will you please stop insulting everybody's intelligence, your own included."
If they're willing to throw some good money after bad, they can get it back, and a handsome profit to boot. And there ought to be planets above the rowboat and ox-cart level not too far away that could be raided for a lot of things we'd need." "That's right; I know of half a dozen within five hundred light-years. They won't be the kind Spasso and Valkanhayn are in the habit of raiding, though.
You'll just have to teach them that." It took Valkanhayn and Spasso more time and argument to convince their crews than Trask thought necessary. Harkaman seemed satisfied, and so was Baron Rathmore, the Wardshaven politician. "It's like talking a lot of uncommitted small landholders into taking somebody's livery-and-maintenance," the latter said.
We can shuffle things around and leave some of Valkanhayn's men in place of some of Spasso's. We might even talk Spasso into going along. That'll mean having to endure him at our table, but it would be wise." "Have you picked a place to raid?" "Three of them. First, Khepera. That's only thirty light-years from here. That won't amount to much; just chicken-stealing.
Spasso glared at him, belligerently but hopefully. "I understand what you thought you were going to do here. You expected Captain Harkaman here to establish a base for the Duke of Wardshaven, and you thought, if you were here ahead of him and in a posture of defense, that he'd take you into the Duke's service rather than waste ammunition and risk damage and casualties wiping you out.
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