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A study of the time between the destruction of the Enterprise and Yo-Yo and
the appearance of the Bolide could give them a limiting radius around
Audhumla. It did; seven hundred light-years, which also included Tanith.
So he sent Harkaman in the Corisande and Ravallo in the Black Star to visit
the planets Marduk traded with, looking for Dunnan ships and exchanging
information and assistance with the Royal Mardukan Navy. Almost at once, he
regretted it; the next Gilgamesher into orbit on Tanith brought a story that
Prince Viktor was collecting a fleet on Xochitl. He sent warnings off to
Amaterasu and Beowulf and Khepera.
A ship came in from Bigglersport, a heavily armed chartered freighter. There
was sporadic fighting in a dozen places on Gram, now-resistance to efforts on
the part of King Angus to collect taxes, and raids by unidentified persons on
estates confiscated from alleged traitors and given to Garvan Spasso, who had
now been promoted from Baron to Count. And Rovard Grauffis was dead;
poisoned, everybody said, either by Spasso or Queen Evita or both. Even with
the threat from Xochitl, some of the former Wardshaven nobles began talking
about sending ships to Gram.
Less than a thousand hours after he had left, Ravallo was back in the Black
Star.
"I went to Gimli, and I wasn't there fifty hours before a Mardukan Navy ship
came in. They were glad to see me; it saved them sending off a pinnace for
Tanith. They had news for you, and a couple of passengers."
"Passengers?"
"Yes. You'll see who it is when they come clown. And don't let anybody with
side-whiskers and buttoned up coats
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see them," Ravallo said. "What any of those people know gets all over the
place before long."
The visitors were Lucile, Princess Bentrik, and her son, the young Count of
Ravary. They dined with Trask; only Captain Ravallo was also present.
"I didn't want to leave my husband, and I didn't want to come here and impose
myself and Steven on you, Prince Trask," she began, "but he insisted. We spent
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the whole voyage to Gimli concealed in the captain's quarters; only a few of
the officers knew we were aboard."
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"Makann won the election. Is that it?" he asked. "And Prince Bentrik doesn't
want to risk you and Steven being used as hostages?"
"That's it," she said. "He didn't really win the election, but he might as
well have. Nobody has a majority of seats in the Chamber of Representatives
but he's formed a coalition with several of the splinter parties, and I'm
ashamed to say that a number of Crown Loyalist members-Crowd of Disloyalists,
I call them-are voting with him, now. They've coined some ridiculous phrase
about the `wave of the future,' whatever that means."
"If you can't lick them, join them," Trask said.
"If you can't lick them, lick their boots," the Count of Ravary put in.
"My son is a trifle bitter," Princess Bentrik said. "I Faust confess to a
trace of bitterness, too."
"Well, that's the Representatives," Trask said. "What about the rest of the
government?"
"With the splinter-party and Disloyalist support, they got a majority of seats
in the Delegates. Most of them would have indignantly denied, a month before,
having any connection with Makann, but a hundred out of a hundred and twenty
are his supporters. Makann, of course, is Chancellor."
"And who is Prime Minister?" he asked. "Andray Dunnan?"
She looked slightly baffled for an instant then said, "Oh. No. The Prime
Minister is Crown Prince Edvard. No; Baron Cragdale. That isn't a royal title,
so by some kind of a fiction I can't pretend to understand he is not Prime
Minister as a member of the Royal Family. "
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"If you can't . . ." the boy started.
"Steven! I forbid you to say that about . . . Baron Cragdale. He believes,
very sincerely, that the election was an expression of the will of the people,
and that it is his duty to bow to it."
He wished Otto Harkaman were there. He could probably name, without stopping
for breath, a hundred great nations that went down into rubble because their
rulers believed that they should bow instead of rule, and couldn't bring
themselves to shed the blood of their people. Edvard would have been a fine
and admirable man, as a little country baron. Where he was, he was a disaster.
He asked if the People's Watchmen had dragged their guns out from under the
bed and started carrying them in public yet. "
"Oh, yes. You were quite right; they were armed, all the time. Not just
smallarms; combat vehicles and heavy weapons. As soon as the new government
was formed, they were given status as a part of the Planetary Armed Forces.
They have taken over every police station on the planet."
"And the King?"
"Oh, he carries on, and shrugs and says, `I just reign here.' What else can he
do? We've been whittling down and filching away the powers of the Throne for
the last three centuries."
"What is Prince Bentrik doing, and why did he think there was danger that you
two would be used as hostages?"
"He's going to fight," she said. "Don't ask me how, or what with. Maybe as a
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guerrilla in the mountains, I don't know. But even if he can't lick them, he
won't join them. I wanted to stay with him and help him; he told me I could
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help him best by placing myself and Steven where he wouldn't be continually
afraid for us."
"I wanted to stay," the boy said. "I could have fought with him. But he said
that I must take care of Mother. And if he were killed, I must be able to
avenge him."
"You talk like a Sword-Worlder; I told you that once before." He hesitated, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]