Space Viking | Page 4

and safety-firsters stayed on Terra and tried to
govern the galaxy."
"Well, maybe this is all new to you, captain," Rovard Grauffis said
sourly, "but Lucas Trask's dirge for the Decline and Fall of the
Sword-Worlds is an old song to the rest of us. I have too much to do to
stay here and argue."
Lothar Ffayle evidently did intend to stay and argue.
"All you're saying, Lucas, is that we're expanding. You want us to sit
here and build up population pressure like Terra in the First Century?"
"With three and a half billion people spread out on twelve planets?
They had that many on Terra alone. And it took us eight centuries to
reach that."
That had been since the Ninth Century, Atomic Era, at the end of the
Big War. Ten thousand men and women on Abigor, refusing to
surrender, had taken the remnant of the System States Alliance navy to
space, seeking a world the Federation had never heard of and wouldn't
find for a long time. That had been the world they had called Excalibur.
From it, their grandchildren had colonized Joyeuse and Durendal and
Flamberge; Haulteclere had been colonized in the next generation from
Joyeuse, and Gram from Haulteclere.
"We're not expanding, Lothar; we're contracting. We stopped
expanding three hundred and fifty years ago, when that ship came back
to Morglay from the Old Federation and reported what had been
happening out there since the Big War. Before that, we were
discovering new planets and colonizing them. Since then, we've been
picking the bones of the dead Terran Federation."
* * * * *

Something was going on by the escalators to the landing stage. People
were moving excitedly in that direction, and the news cars were
circling like vultures over a sick cow. Harkaman wondered, hopefully,
if it mightn't be a fight.
"Some drunk being bounced." Nikkolay, Lucas' cousin, commented.
"Sesar's let all Wardshaven in here, today. But, Lucas, this Tanith
adventure; we're not making any hit-and-run raid. We're taking over a
whole planet; it'll be another Sword-World in forty or fifty years."
[Illustration]
"Inside another century, we'll conquer the whole Federation," Baron
Rathmore declared. He was a politician and never let exaggeration
worry him.
"What I don't understand," Harkaman said, "is why you support Duke
Angus, Lord Trask, if you think the Tanith adventure is doing Gram so
much harm."
[Illustration]
"If Angus didn't do it, somebody else would. But Angus is going to
make himself King of Gram, and I don't think anybody else could do
that. This planet needs a single sovereignty. I don't know how much
you've seen of it outside this duchy, but don't take Wardshaven as
typical. Some of these duchies, like Glaspyth or Didreksburg, are literal
snake pits. All the major barons are at each other's throats, and they
can't even keep their own knights and petty-barons in order. Why,
there's a miserable little war down in Southmain Continent that's been
going on for over two centuries."
"That's probably where Dunnan's going to take that army of his," a
robot-manufacturing baron said. "I hope it gets wiped out, and Dunnan
with it."
"You don't have to go to Southmain; just go to Glaspyth," somebody
else said.

"Well, if we don't get a planetary monarchy to keep order, this planet
will decivilize like anything in the Old Federation."
"Oh, come, Lucas!" Alex Gorram protested. "That's pulling it out too
far."
"Yes, for one thing, we don't have the Neobarbarians," somebody said.
"And if they ever came out here, we'd blow them to Em-See-Square in
nothing flat. Might be a good thing if they did, too; it would stop us
squabbling among ourselves."
Harkaman looked at him in surprise. "Just who do you think the
Neobarbarians are, anyhow?" he asked. "Some race of invading
nomads; Attila's Huns in spaceships?"
"Well, isn't that who they are?" Gorram asked.
"Nifflheim, no! There aren't a dozen and a half planets in the Old
Federation that still have hyperdrive, and they're all civilized. That's if
'civilized' is what Gilgamesh is," he added. "These are homemade
barbarians. Workers and peasants who revolted to seize and divide the
wealth and then found they'd smashed the means of production and
killed off all the technical brains. Survivors on planets hit during the
Interstellar Wars, from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Centuries, who
lost the machinery of civilization. Followers of political leaders on
local-dictatorship planets. Companies of mercenaries thrown out of
employment and living by pillage. Religious fanatics following
self-anointed prophets."
"You think we don't have plenty of Neobarbarian material here on
Gram?" Trask demanded. "If you do, take a look around."
Glaspyth, somebody said.
"That collection of over-ripe gallows-fruit Andray Dunnan's recruited,"
Rathmore mentioned.
Alex Gorram was grumbling that his shipyard was full of them;

agitators stirring