Читать книгу Fantastic Stories Presents the Poul Anderson Super Pack - Poul Anderson - Страница 9

Basil Donovan was drunk again.

He sat near the open door of the Golden Planet, boots on the table, chair tilted back, one arm resting on the broad shoulder of Wocha, who sprawled on the floor beside him, the other hand clutching a tankard of ale. The tunic was open above his stained gray shirt, the battered cap was askew on his close-cropped blond hair, and his insignia—the stars of a captain and the silver leaves of an earl on Ansa—were tarnished. There was a deepening flush over his pale gaunt cheeks, and his eyes smoldered with an old rage.

Looking out across the cobbled street, he could see one of the tall, half-timbered houses of Lanstead. It had somehow survived the space bombardment, though its neighbors were rubble, but the tile roof was clumsily patched and there was oiled paper across the broken plastic of the windows. An anachronism, looming over the great bulldozer which was clearing the wreckage next door. The workmen there were mostly Ansans, big men in ragged clothes, but a well-dressed Terran was bossing the job. Donovan cursed wearily and lifted his tankard again.

The long, smoky-raftered taproom was full—stolid burghers and peasants of Lanstead, discharged spacemen still in their worn uniforms, a couple of tailed greenies from the neighbor planet Shalmu. Talk was low and spiritless, and the smoke which drifted from pipes and cigarettes was bitter, cheap tobacco and dried bark. The smell of defeat was thick in the tavern.

“May I sit here, sir? The other places are full.”

Donovan glanced up. It was a young fellow, peasant written over his sunburned face in spite of the gray uniform and the empty sleeve. Olman—yes, Sam Olman, whose family had been under Donovan fief these two hundred years, “Sure, make yourself at home.”

“Thank you, sir. I came in to get some supplies, thought I’d have a beer too. But you can’t get anything these days. Not to be had.”

Sam’s face looked vaguely hopeful as he eyed the noble. “We do need a gas engine bad, sir, for the tractor. Now that the central powercaster is gone, we got to have our own engines. I don’t want to presume, sir, but—”

Donovan lifted one corner of his mouth la a tired smile. “I’m sorry,” he said. “If I could get one machine for the whole community I’d be satisfied. Can’t be done. We’re trying to start a small factory of our own up at the manor, but it’s slow work.”

“I’m sure if anyone can do anything it’s you, sir.”

Donovan looked quizzically at the open countenance across the table, “Sam,” he asked, “why do you people keep turning to the Family? We led you, and it was to defeat. Why do you want anything more to do with nobles? We’re not even that, any longer. We’ve been stripped of our titles. We’re just plain citizens of the Empire now like you, and the new rulers are Terran. Why do you still think of us as your leaders?”

“But you are, sir! You’ve always been. It wasn’t the king’s fault, or his men’s, that Terra had so much more’n we did. We gave ’em a fight they won’t forget in a hurry!”

“You were in my squadron, weren’t you?”

“Yes, sir. CPO on the Ansa Lancer, I was with you at the Battle of Luga.” The deep-set eyes glowed. “We hit ’em there, didn’t we, sir?”

“So we did.” Donovan couldn’t suppress the sudden fierce memory. Outnumbered, outgunned, half its ships shot to pieces and half the crews down with Sirius fever, the Royal Lansteaders had still made naval history and sent the Imperial Fleet kiyoodling back to Sol. Naval historians would be scratching their heads over that battle for the next five centuries. Before God, they’d fought!

He began to sing the old war-song, softly at first, louder as Sam joined him—

*

Comrades, hear the battle tiding,

hear the ships that rise and yell

faring outward, standard riding—

Kick the Terrans back to hell!

*

The others were listening, men raised weary heads, an old light burned in their eyes and tankards clashed together. They stood up to roar out the chorus till the walls shook.

*

Lift your glasses high,

kiss the girls good-bye,

(Live well; my friend, live well, live you well)

for we’re riding,

for we’re riding,

for we’re riding out to Terran sky! Terran sky! Terran sky!

We have shaken loose our thunder

where the planets have their way,

and the starry deeps of wonder

saw the Impies in dismay.

Lift your glasses high,

kiss the girls good-bye—

*

The workmen in the street heard it and stopped where they were. Some began to sing. The Imperial superintendent yelled, and an Ansan turned to flash him a wolfish grin. A squad of blue-uniformed Solarian marines coming toward the inn went on the double.

*

Oh, the Emp’ror sent his battle

ships against us in a mass,

but we shook them like a rattle

and we crammed them—

*

“Hi, there! Stop that!”

The song died, slowly and stubbornly, the men stood where they were and hands clenched into hard-knuckled fists. Someone shouted an obscenity.

The Terran sergeant was very young, and he felt unsure before those steady, hating eyes. He lifted his voice all the louder: “That will be enough of that. Any more and I’ll run you all in for lèse majesté. Haven’t you drunken bums anything better to do than sit around swilling beer?”

A big Ansan smith laughed with calculated raucousness.

The sergeant looked around, trying to ignore him. “I’m here for Captain Donovan—Earl Basil, if you prefer. They said he’d be here. I’ve got an Imperial summons for him.”

The noble stretched out a hand. “This is he. Let’s have that paper.”

“It’s just the formal order,” said the sergeant. “You’re to come at once.”

“Commoners,” said Donovan mildly, “address me as ’sir.’”

“You’re a commoner with the rest of ’em now.” The sergeant’s voice wavered just a little.

“I really must demand a little respect,” said Donovan with drunken precision. There was an unholy gleam in his eyes. “It’s a mere formality, I know, but after all my family can trace itself farther back than the Empire, whereas you couldn’t name your father.”

Sam Olman snickered.

“Well, sir—” The sergeant tried elaborate sarcasm. “If you, sir, will please be so good as to pick your high-bred tail off that chair, sir, I’m sure the Imperium would be mostly deeply grateful to you, sir.”

“I’ll have to do without its gratitude, I’m afraid.” Donovan folded the summons without looking at it and put it in his tunic pocket. “But thanks for the paper. I’ll keep it in my bathroom.”

“You’re under arrest!”

Donovan stood slowly up, unfolding his sheer two meters of slender, wiry height. “All right, Wocha,” he said. “Let’s show them that Ansa hasn’t surrendered yet.”

He threw the tankard into the sergeant’s face, followed it with the table against the two marines beside him, and vaulted over the sudden ruckus to drive a fist into the jaw of the man beyond.

Wocha rose and his booming cry trembled in the walls. He’d been a slave of Donovan’s since he was a cub and the man a child, and if someone had liberated him he wouldn’t have known what to do. As batman and irregular groundtrooper he’d followed his master to the wars, and the prospect of new skull-breaking lit his eyes with glee.

For an instant there was tableau, Terrans and Ansans rigid, staring at the monster which suddenly stood behind the earl. The natives of Donarr have the not uncommon centauroid form, but their bodies are more like that of a rhinoceros than of a horse, hairless and slaty blue and enormously massive. The gorilla-armed torso ended in a round, muzzled, ape-like face, long-eared, heavy-jawed, with canine tusks hanging over the great gash of a mouth. A chair splintered under his feet, and he grinned.

“Paraguns—” cried the sergeant.

All hell let out for noon. Some of the customers huddled back into the corners, but the rest smashed the ends off bottles and threw themselves against the Terrans. Sam Olman’s remaining arm yanked a marine to him and bashed his face against the wall. Donovan’s fist traveled a jolting arc to the nearest belly and he snatched a rifle loose and crunched it against the man’s jaw. A marine seized him from behind, he twisted in the grip and kicked savagely, whirled around and drove the rifle butt into the larynx.

“Kill the bluebellies! Kill the Impies! Hail, Ansa!”

Wocha charged into the squad, grabbed a hapless Terran in his four-fingered hands, and swung the man like a club. Someone drew his bayonet to stab the slave, it glanced off the thick skin and Wocha roared and sent him reeling. The riot blazed around the room, trampling men underfoot, shouting and cursing and swinging.

“Donovan, Donovan!” shouted Sam Olman. He charged the nearest Impy and got a bayonet in the stomach. He fell down, holding his hand to his wound, screaming.

The door was suddenly full of Terrans, marines arriving to help their comrades. Paraguns began to sizzle, men fell stunned before the supersonic beams and the fight broke up. Wocha charged the rescuers and a barrage sent his giant form crashing to the floor.

They herded the Ansans toward the city jail. Donovan, stirring on the ground as consciousness returned, felt handcuffs snap on his wrists.

*

Imperial summonses being what they were, he was bundled into a grounder and taken under heavy guard toward the ordered place. He leaned wearily back, watching the streets blur past. Once a group of children threw stones at the vehicle. “How about a cigarette?” he said.

“Shut up.”

To his mild surprise, they did not halt at the military government headquarters—the old Hall of Justice where the Donovans had presided before the war—but went on toward the suburbs, the spaceport being still radioactive. They must be going to the emergency field outside the city. Hm. He tried to relax. His head ached from the stunbeam.

A light cruiser had come in a couple of days before, H.M. Ganymede. It loomed enormous over the green rolling fields and the distance-blued hills and forests, a lance of bright metal and energy pointed into the clear sky of Ansa, blinding in the sun. A couple of spacemen on sentry at the gangway halted as the car stopped before them. “This man is going to Commander Jansky.”

“Aye, aye. Proceed.”

Through the massive airlock, down the mirror-polished companionway, into an elevator and up toward the bridge—Donovan looked about him with a professional eye. The Impies kept a clean, tight ship, he had to admit.

He wondered if he would be shot or merely imprisoned. He doubted if he’d committed an enslaving offense. Well, it had been fun, and there hadn’t been a hell of a lot to live for anyway. Maybe his friends could spring him, if and when they got some kind of underground organized.

He was ushered into the captain’s cabin. The ensign with him saluted. “Donovan as per orders, ma’m.”

“Very good. But why is he in irons?”

“Resisted orders, ma’m. Started a riot. Bloody business.”

“I—see.” She nodded her dark head. “Losses?”

“I don’t know, ma’m, but we had several wounded at least. A couple of Ansans were killed, I think.”

“Well, leave him here. You may go.”

“But—ma’m, he’s dangerous!”

“I have a gun, and there’s a man just outside the door. You may go, ensign.”

Donovan swayed a little on his feet, trying to pull himself erect, wishing he weren’t so dirty and bloody and generally messed up. You look like a tramp, man, he thought. Keep up appearances. Don’t let them outdo us, even in spit and polish.

“Sit down, Captain Donovan,” said the woman.

He lowered himself to a chair, raking her with deliberately insolent eyes. She was young to be wearing a commander’s twin planets—young and trim and nice looking. Tall body, sturdy but graceful, well filled out in the blue uniform and red cloak; raven-black hair falling to her shoulders; strong blunt-fingered hands, one of them resting close to her sidearm. Her face was interesting, broad and cleanly molded, high cheekbones, wide full mouth, stubborn chin, snub nose, storm-gray eyes set far apart under heavy dark brows. A superior peasant type, he decided, and felt more at ease in the armor of his inbred haughtiness. He leaned back and crossed his legs.

“I am Helena Jansky, in command of this vessel,” she said. Her voice was low and resonant, the note of strength in it. “I need you for a certain purpose. Why did you resist the Imperial summons?”

Donovan shrugged. “Let’s say that I’m used to giving orders, not receiving them.”

“Ah—yes.” She ruffled the papers on her desk. “You were the Earl of Lanstead, weren’t you?”

“After my father and older brother were killed in the war, yes.” He lifted his head. “I am still the Earl.”

She studied him with a dispassionate gaze that he found strangely uncomfortable. “I must say that you are a curious sort of leader.” she murmured. “One who spends his time in a tavern getting drunk, and who on a whim provokes a disorder in which many of his innocent followers are hurt or killed, in which property difficult to replace is smashed—yes, I think it was about time that Ansa had a change of leadership.”

Donovan’s face was hot. Hell take it, what right had she to tell him what to do? What right had the whole damned Empire to come barging in where it wasn’t wanted? “The Families, under the king, have governed Ansa since it was colonized,” he said stiffly. “If it had been such a misrule as you seem to think, would the commons have fought for us as they did?”