Space Viking · Chapter 9 (2/2)

“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.”

“But then, this Duke of Wardshaven will be running it, not us,” Valkanhayn objected.

“The Duke of Wardshaven,” Harkaman reminded him, “is on Gram. We are here on Tanith. There are three thousand light-years between.”

That seemed a satisfactory answer. Spasso, however, wanted to know who would run things here on Tanith.

“We’ll have to hold a meeting of all three crews,” he began.

“We will do nothing of the kind,” Trask told him. “I will be running things here on Tanith. You people may allow your orders to be debated and voted on, but I don’t. You will inform your respective crews to that effect. Any orders you give them in my name will be obeyed without argument.”

“I don’t know how the men’ll take that,” Valkanhayn said.

“I know how they’ll take it if they’re smart,” Harkaman told him. “And I know what’ll happen if they aren’t. I know how you’ve been running your ships, or how your ships’ crews have been running you. Well, we don’t do it that way. Lucas Trask is owner, and I’m captain. I obey his orders on what’s to be done, and everybody else obeys mine on how to do it.”

Spasso looked at Valkanhayn, then shrugged. “That’s how the man wants it, Boake. You want to give him an argument? I don’t.”

“The first order,” Trask said, “is that these people you have working here are to be paid. They are not to be beaten by these plug-uglies you have guarding them. If any of them want to leave, they may do so; they will be given presents and furnished transportation home. Those who wish to stay will be issued rations, furnished with clothing and bedding and so on as they need it, and paid wages. We’ll work out some kind of a pay-token system and set up a commissary where they can buy things.”

Disks of plastic or titanium or something, stamped and uncounterfeitable. Get Alvyn Karffard to see about that. Organize work-gangs, and promote the best and most intelligent to foremen. And those guards could be taken in hand by some ground-fighter sergeant and given Sword-World weapons and tactical training; use them to train others; they’d need a sepoy army of some sort. Even the best of good will is no substitute for armed force, conspicuously displayed and unhesitatingly used when necessary.

“And there’ll be no more of this raiding villages for food or anything else. We will pay for anything we get from any of the locals.”

“We’ll have trouble about that,” Valkanhayn predicted. “Our men think anything a local has belongs to anybody who can take it.”

“So do I,” Harkaman said. “On a planet I’m raiding. This is our planet, and our locals. We don’t raid our own planet or our own people. You’ll just have to teach them that.”