"The Space Barbarians" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reynolds Mack)

Chapter Six

He found some release in closing his eyes and pretending to be in his own quarters. There was a cot, much too short for him, but at least he was able to recline. And finally sleep came.

He was awakened by a noise at the door and at first didn’t comprehend where he was, but then it came flooding back to him.

It was DeRudder, and the other carried his weapon in hand. He said, “Come along, John, the skipper wants to talk to you.”

John came to his feet and followed the other out into the corridor. DeRudder gestured again with the gun. “That way.”

They proceeded down the metal hall again, to emerge at last into a fairly large compartment, large enough, at least, so that the awful feeling of confined space was not quite so bad. There were various chairs, tables and other furnishings, and the four spacemen John had originally met were augmented by two others, Wylie and another. John noted with satisfaction that the man with Wylie was also wounded. Evidently, the Clann Bruce was doing fairly well—for the Clann Bruce. John slightly altered his opinion of their fighting abilities.

The skipper, who was seated at a table, a glass of some darkish liquid before him, said gruffly, “Sit down, John. We want to talk to you.”

“I will stand, Skipper of the Fowlers.”

DeRudder said, “Would you like a drink?” He added sarcastically, “Our nip isn’t quite up to that uisgebeatha of yours, but it’ll take the lining off your throat.”

John of the Hawks was somewhat taken aback by the offer, but he said, “I will take no hospitality from you.”

“You must realize that there is now vendetta between the Hawks and the Clann DeRudder, and my kynsmen will take revengement of my honor.”

The skipper said, “Don’t be empty.”

John looked at him. “And you also, Skipper of the Fowlers.” His eyes went to Harmon and Perez. “And you two also. My kyn will take their revengement on your clanns.”

Harmon snorted amusement.

DeRudder said, “Among other things, we don’t have clanns to fight feuds, even if we were primitive enough to have such an institution. We don’t use the same type of relationship as you do, boy. You still evidently have a gens system. We of the League have been beyond that for a few thousand years.”

“You mean you are clannless? You are without kyn?” John’s lips were going white. “And you laid hands on me, a Hawk? Dishonored me by taking me prisoner and stripping me of my weapons, rather than letting me face black death in honorable combat? How can my kynsmen take revengement if you are clannless men?”

The one named Perez shook his head. “The words are Earth Basic, but half of what he says doesn’t come through. At least, not to me.”

Harmon leaned forward. “Why should your relatives, your kinsmen, want to revenge you?

“What else could they do, after my blood has been shed?”

DeRudder wiped the back of his hand over his mouth in frustration. “Look. Nobody is going to shed your blood.”

John of the Hawks stared at him in utter disbelief. Finally he said, “Then what will you do with me?”

“Well turn you loose, of course.”

“To return to Aberdeen, weaponless to the Hawks?”

“Why weaponless? You can have your damn weapons. All we want to do is ask you a few more questions about how this dully of a planet works.”

John shook his head. “Why would you do this to me? What have I done to you that you should desire to make a woman of me? Why not count honorable coup of me, or at least kill me?”

The skipper, who had remained silent during all this, stirred. “We don’t want to kill you, son. We want a little more information, so that when we go up against the next town we’ll know more of the customs. You’re free to go, sword and all, as soon as we’re through.”

His voice shaken, John said, “I will follow you. Somehow I will follow you. The word spreads throughout the countryside, and somehow I will learn where you are, and somehow I will follow you until I have killed you all or you have killed me.”

DeRudder rolled his eyes upward in appeal to higher powers. “Great. So why don’t we just kill you “here and now, eh? And then we won’t have the damned threat of you coming charging around a corner someday whirling that overgrown cheese knife.”

“This is to be expected,” John said evenly. “And then my kyn will come to find revengement, and you will be killed as clannless ones are killed. And there will be no one to take revengement or pay the bloodright for you.”

“It’s still going past me,” Perez muttered.

The skipper was interested. He leaned forward. “Look, son, how many of you Hawks are there?”

John said, “We number some 1,500 full clannsmen.”

“All right. Now, suppose they all come charging after us. You have seen some of our weapons. Believe me, we have more powerful ones. If we were interested in wiping out those dullies outside, we could do it. Maybe we will, later. But if your Clann Hawk came charging up, we’d polish them off in short order.”

“Then,” John said, “our two sister clanns, the Clarks and the Fieldings, would take up the vendetta.”

“The skipper grunted. Finally, he shrugged and said heavily, “All right. And what happens when we have polished them off as well?”

John of the Hawks was obviously taken aback by the ignorance of honorable useage these clannless ones showed. He said, “Each clann has two sister clanns. We have the Clarks and the Fieldings as our sister clanns. The Clarks also have two sister clanns, the Hawks and the Davidsons. The Fieldings have two sister clanns, the Hawks and the Deweys.”

DeRudder was staring now, as well as the skipper. “What you mean is, before you’re through, the whole phylum of Aberdeen would be In on the feud, or vendetta, or whatever you call it.”

John looked at him blankly. “But, of course.”

The skipper sighed his distrust. “All right. Now, what happens if we wipe out the whole village of Aberdeen? Say we dropped a scrambler on it?”

John said reasonably, “Then our sister towns, Elgin and Gleneagles, would take their revengement for us. And their sister towns, in turn.”

Harmon closed his eyes in pain. He said in complaint, “Carrying this on, I suppose ultimately your whole confederation would be involved. Okay. Do you realize that this ship could destroy every town in your confederation, without bothering to come down to the ground?”

“And then, Mister of the Harmons, our sister confederations would take up the vendetta.”

Unbelievingly, the six of them gaped at him.

At long last, the skipper shook his head. He said, “This is fantastic. What you’re saying is that ultimately a blood feud, what starts with our killing you—in self-defense, by the way—would involve every person on this planet.”

John nodded. “You might slay as many as you say. You might slay by the thousands with your weapons that know no bann. But if you plan to land anywhere on Caledonia, sooner or later the clannsmen would take their revengement. They would charge you on their horses on the heath. They would rush you in the narrowness of the streets of their towns. They would snipe at you from a distance with their carbines. Sooner or later, men from Beyond, they would take their revengement.”

The skipper was disgusted all over again. He said, “If what you say is true, then there wouldn’t be a soul left alive on this whole world. Obviously, it’s ridiculous. How do you end one of these damned vendettas, once it starts? It seems easy enough to start. There has to be some way of stopping them.”

John said reasonably, “Of course. At the first meeting of the Dail, the sachems of the respective clanns involved meet honorably and arrange for there to be made payment of the bloodright to the kyn of the slain. Accounts are balanced. Then all are cleared of the need for vendetta.”

“All right!” DeRudder said. “We plan to remain on this planet. We’ve got some business projects in mind. So well confer with your sachem and pay up for making the mistake of, uh, dishonoring you by taking you as a hostage.

Well apologize. We’ll end the damn vendetta before it starts.”

John scowled at him. “You jest, of course. How can you approach Robert, Sachem of the Hawks? You have admitted that you have no kyn. You have no sachem to represent you. It is against the bann for such payment of bloodright to be arranged by other than the sachem of your clann.”

The skipper ran his palm over his forehead. “Mari, mother of Krishna!” he muttered. He looked at DeRudder. “Throw this dully out! Give him his sword and dagger and throw him out!”

John said levelly, “If you free me, I shall seek you out. I shall inform my clannsmen of my dishonor, and they will take their revengement. At the next Dail, I will announce my shame, and the word will go out. And at the Dails of the other confederations the word will go out to the Hawks that their bloodline has been shamed. And from one Dail to the other, the word will go out. Until nowhere on all Caledonia will you be safe from the revengement of the Hawks.”

Harmon said urgently, “Look, this is completely empty. There must be some way to turn this off. So we’re clannless men. Okay. In your towns you have clannless ones. Servants and so forth, evidently. What happens if one of them attacks a clannsman? How is the whole thing settled?”

John turned his haughty stare to the youngest of the otherworldlings. “Why, all honorable men unite and kill the shameless clannless one.”

Harmon winced. “I should’ve known better than to ask,” he muttered bitterly.

For a long time, again, the six otherworldlings contemplated him.

DeRudder said, “That warder at the gate saw him go out with us.”

No one said anything to that. The implication was obvious.

The skipper’s face was working in frustration. Finally he snapped, “Gentlemen, we have just stopped being entrepreneurs and have become explorers again.” He looked at his first officer. “Mr. DeRudder, throw this barbarian out, then prepare the ship for space.”

DeRudder looked at him. “We’re leaving?”

“Can you think of any goddamned alternative?”

Harmon snarled. “It’s one big nugget of platinum.”

“That will be all, Mr. Harmon.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come along,” DeRudder growled at John of the Hawks.

His lips white again, John said, “You mean you are not going to honorably kill me?” He snatched his coup stick frorn his belt and slashed the first officer across the cheek. “I count coup!” he snapped. “Though, indeed, it is a worthless coup, since you are clannless.”

DeRudder’s face went livid. The gun came up.

“Mister DeRudder, that will be all,” the skipper’s voice bit out.

DeRudder conducted him down another corridor and finally to the compartment they had entered in the groundcar. The first officer of the Golden Hind activated the sliding door, which opened in the hull. The ramp snaked out.

He handed John of the Hawks his belt and scabbard, keeping the handgun trained on him always.

John said flatly, “The Hawks will seek you out. The Clann Hawk of every confederation on all Caledonia will hear of the shame done their bloodline and will be watching for you…

“Shut up!” DeRudder snapped. “Shut up, or I’ll bum you down right here. Then your damned Clann Hawk will have to figure out some way of crossing all space to get at me!”

John turned in dignity and walked down the ramp. He didn’t turn to look until he was over the nearest hillock. He was moderately jittery about running into some of the Bruces that had been besieging the Golden Hind, armed as he was only with claidheammor and skean and having no horse.

However, his nervousness was unnecessary. On the far side of the hill were Don of the Clarks and Dewey of the Hawks, along with a dozen more of the younger men of the phylum. All were flat on their bellies on the crest of the lull staring their amazement at the gigantic ship from space.

Don blurted, “We knew they had you, and were planning the rescue.”

“What happened to the Bruces?”

“They made off when we approached. I believe they thought us the full power of Aberdeen.”

John squatted down and watched also. “They return whence they came,” he said.

“Why did they take you?” Dewey of the Hawks demanded.

“They wanted more information about the ways of Caledonia, so that they could rob us,” John said. He continued to watch the spaceship.

“And what did you tell them?”

John shrugged. “I cozened them. I told them a good deal of nonsense, to make them feel it impossible to remain on Caledonia.”

Dewey said, “You mean you lied?”

John looked at him coldly. “They are not Hawks. It is not against the bann.”

He turned his eyes back to the Golden Hind. The spaceship shivered, then slowly, with great dignity, rose into the air.

A sigh went through the ranks of the Aberdeen youths.

When it had reached an altitude of some two hundred feet, the great craft tilted slightly upward and began to progress straight ahead and up. It gained speed in a geometric progression.

Don of the Clarks stood and, watching still with a considerable awe, as were they all, said, “They have gone.”

John, too, was looking off into the sky at the disappearing dot. “But they will return,” he said, with a wisdom beyond his years. “They, or others like them. For now we have been found, and the old days are gone forever.”