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"The title won't make any difference in your authority here, and if you do lay claim to the throne of Gram, nobody can say you're a foreign king trying to annex the planet." He had no intention of doing anything of the kind, but Valpry was quite in earnest.
"This is your last voyage here. You bring that ship back under Angus of Wardshaven's charter and we'll fire on her." Then he had the regalia he had worn in his last audiovisual to Angus dusted off. At first, he had decided to proclaim himself King of Tanith. Lord Valpry, Baron Rathmore and his cousin all advised against it. "Just call yourself Prince of Tanith," Valpry said.
People like Nikky Gratham and Tobbin of Nergal and the Everrards of Hoth get nervous around unpredictable dangers, and when they get nervous they get trigger-happy." He puffed slowly on his pipe and then said: "Then you'll be going back to Gram." "That doesn't follow; just because Valkanhayn and Ravallo and that crowd are wrong doesn't make Valpry and Rathmore and Ffayle right.
He'll probably take it to Joyeuse or Excalibur and buy himself a lordship with it." "Oh, I doubt that, Garvan. A number of our people are going along Guatt Kirbey will be the astrogator; you'd trust him, wouldn't you? And Sir Paytrik Morland, and Baron Rathmore, and Lord Valpry, and Rolve Hemmerding...." He was silent for a moment, struck by an idea.
"Then what will you do?" "I came out here after Andray Dunnan, didn't I?" he asked. "I'm afraid Ravallo and Valpry, or even Valkanhayn and Morland, won't be as interested in Dunnan as you are." "Then I will interest them in him. Remember, I was reading up on Hitler, coming in from Marduk? I will tell them all a big lie. Such a big lie that nobody will dare to disbelieve it."
"When it comes to that, I don't think I do, either. But we can't trust Spasso here alone, can we?" "We'll leave enough of our people to make sure. We'll leave Alvyn that'll mean a lot of work for me that he'd otherwise do, on the ship. And Baron Rathmore, and young Valpry, and the men who've been training our sepoys.
It was a completely trivial and irrelevant claim, but the story was that it would be supported by King Konrad of Haulteclere. Immediately, Baron Rathmore, Lord Valpry, Lothar Ffayle and the other Gram people began clamoring that he should go back with a fleet and seize the throne for himself. Harkaman, Valkanhayn, Karffard and the other Space Vikings were as vehement against it.
"We can't send the Space Scourge back to Gram empty. When Baron Rathmore and Lord Valpry and the rest of them talk to Duke Angus and the Tanith investors, they'll have to have a lot more than some travel films of Tanith. They'll have to be able to show that Tanith is producing. We ought to have a little money of our own to invest, too." "But, Otto; both ships?" That worried Trask.
"I suppose the King knows I'm not out here for my health, or his profit?" he asked Lord Valpry, during one of the screen conversations as the Space Scourge was getting into orbit. "My business out here is Andray Dunnan." "Oh, yes," the Wardshaven noble replied. "In fact, he told me, in so many words, that he would be most happy if you sent him his nephew's head in a block of lucite.
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