King David's Spaceship (codominion)

by Jerry Pournelle

  Across the next table, a couple rose and staggered toward the door, leaving him a clear view of Lieutenant Jefferson. The young naval officer was telling ad admiring peasant about a strange planet, a place where they had no guns, only swords, and they worshiped Christ in a temple which once was an Old-Empire library. Both of us drunks, MacKinnie thought. But the boy’s one up. He’s going somewhere, and what he does won’t be undone by something you couldn’t fight, couldn’t understand. Stark was right. The young man did resemble the old Nat MacKinnie, but not this one. The old one was going somewhere, and what he accomplished would be his. And so the same would be true for that boy. Cursing bitterly, Nathan MacKinnie realized that he felt envy for the young men who had conquered his world.

  CHAPTER TWO

  GENTLEMEN ROBBERS

  The evening wore on. The first round of entertainers finished their acts. It was too early for the late performers, and for many of the customers it was several drinks too late for anything else. The room became less noisy as the early festive crowd departed, leaving the Blue Bottle to serious drinkers and tavern girls. Only the voice of Lieutenant Jefferson, punctuated by the giggles of the girls at the Navy table, was heard above the low buzz of conversation. MacKinnie decided that it was time to go.

  He stood in sudden decision, but when he swept his hand behind him for the cloak he had left on a nearby chair he lost his balance and lurched heavily into a small, round-faced man with a tiny mustache. The little man jumped backward with rabbit agility and began to mumble apologies.

  “Not at all, sir,” MacKinnie told him. “My fault entirely. No offense intended,” he added unnecessarily. The little man was unarmed, and the thought of his issuing a challenge to Colonel MacKinnie was humorous. With an effort Nathan suppressed the laugh that the image generated.

  “None taken, of course,” the man said. “Would you join me in a drink?” He extended his hand. “Malcolm Dougal,” he said apologetically.

  The grip was firmer than MacKinnie would have expected. He took a long look at the chap. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. A kilt of some family plaid, a muted version of a much bolder tartan no longer worn in public, well suited for business. Expensive jacket, minor jewelry in excellent taste, a heavy signet ring on his left hand, probably Prince Samual University although there were other places that copied the design. Except for his small stature you could see a hundred like him in businessmen’s dining clubs anytime you cared to.

  On closer inspection, though, Dougal wasn’t really so small. He just appeared to be such a rabbit that you took him a for a small man, and of course anyone standing next to Stark would seem tiny. There was something else about Dougal, an air that was faintly threatening when you looked at him closely, but that was ridiculous. MacKinnie shook his head to clear it of whiskey.

  “Thank you, I’ve had more than enough,” Nathan said. “Nathan MacKinnie. I’m sorry, I’m forgetting my manners. Too much whiskey. No offense intended.”

  “And none taken. Perhaps we’ll meet again. Good night.”

  “And a good night to you, Citizen Dougal.” MacKinnie bowed and faced the exit, leaving Stark to collect their cloaks and pay the bill. Outside, they turned toward the harbor, walking slowly to the waterfront hostel where they had rooms more compatible to MacKinnie’s meager pension than the brick and stone district around the Blue Bottle. MacKinnie had no objection to staying in cheap lodgings, but he was still sufficiently a colonel to want to drink in a gentleman’s tavern.

  A light rain began to fall, causing the few citizens out on the street to scurry for cabs. An alcohol steam car whirred quietly by, slowing momentarily as the driver gazed at their faces before deciding they would not be customers. Then a horse-drawn two-wheeler clopped alongside.

  The coachman shouted at them. “Good rates, sirs. Anywhere you want to go. Anything you could want to find in Haven, I know where it is. Good rates. You’ll get wet out there, sirs, you will.”

  MacKinnie nodded, and the coachman jumped from his bench to hold the canvas doors open for them. “Where will it be, sirs? Blackfriar? Hellfire? Want to meet some ladies? Not like the ones in the Blue Bottle, though there’s plenty that likes them, too, but I mean real ladies, maybe not welcome back home no more but well brought up, you know.” Examining Stark with an expert eye, he added, “And my ladies got real handsome young maids live right there in the house with them for your man there, sir.”

  MacKinnie snapped his fingers, ending the chatter, and the coachman climbed back to his seat. He started the team and leaned down to the window. “Where to, sirs?”

  “Waterfront,” Stark answered. “Imperial Landing Wharf.” He was damned if he’d give this garrulous old coachman the name of the cheap hotel they were forced to live in and let him someday say he’d taken Iron MacKinnie to a flyblown flophouse.

  The rain came down harder, forcing the old man to raise the dodger on its elaborately carved wooden braces. “Wonder if he gets many customers in this rig?” Stark mused.

  The old man leaned down and cackled. “More than you might think, chum. Lots of gentlemen want to visit my ladies. And lots of real ladies still think cabs are better than steam buggies. We aren’t as fast as those things, but plenty of people remember the good old days when there weren’t nothing but us and they don’t forget old Benjamin, no, they don’t.”

  MacKinnie snapped his fingers again, and the coachman turned back to the road, muttering to himself, but after a few moments he again leaned down to his passengers. “Even those Imperial Navy lads, they like the cabs. You hardly see nothing else around Empire House but cabs. Oh, they keep a few steam cars waiting by just in case they’re in a hurry, but you watch, them young officer kids, they never rode in a cab with real horses before. Get the biggest thrill out of it, so they tell me.”

  “I expect so,” MacKinnie said absently.

  “Been a big lift for the cabbies, the Imperials,” the coachman said. “Just them being here, that’s better than taking over Orleans, not that the Kingdom’s not going to do right by itself out of the Duchy, no, sir.” The old man whistled to himself and looked to the road again, guiding the team through the twisting, narrow streets of the old waterfront town until they emerged on the broad Dock Street, deserted except for a few drunken sailors reeling perilously close to the water’s edge.

  Across the narrow protected bay which had given Haven its name, brilliant lights, brighter than anything seen on Prince Samual’s World for three centuries, played on Empire House and the hundred-meter-long landing boat the Imperials used to ferry their people from the destroyer in its orbit. Another city block housed a complex of strange machinery the Imperials used to support their base. Pipelines extended into the harbor. Their power plant had warmed Haven’s waters, making fishermen happy with their catches, but outraged at the rapid growth of shipworms and other vermin.

  The brilliant lights also played across the hemisphere that was Marine Barracks, but none was reflected from that sheer black surface. Imperial Marine Barracks was protected by what the Navy people called a Langston Field.

  MacKinnie knew little about the Field. Artillery shells fired at it were slowed to a halt, and the explosion was absorbed by the black shield, or perhaps by the metal walls beneath; certainly they did no apparent damage. The Navy proclaimed that resistance was useless: nothing short of an Imperial cruiser would be able to penetrate Marine Barracks. MacKinnie had reason to know that whatever weapons a cruiser might carry, nothing MacKinnie’s Wolves had been able to fire would harm the fortress. It was one reason the Wolves surrendered.

  The landing boats were vulnerable, though. In the short fight around Lechfeld he had damaged one badly and killed several of the Marines aboard — then fire came from the skies, a flaming death that scorched the village and baked half a battalion of Wolves in an instant.

  But the Imperials could be hurt. They were only men. If they hadn’t had Marine Barracks …

  Wishful thinking, MacKinnie told himself. Even if
he captured the barracks and destroyed the last of the landing ships the destroyer up there in the sky was safe from anything the entire population of Prince Samual’s World could do. Some of the professors at Prince Samual University were experimenting with rockets which might, built large enough, go so fast they would never come back to ground. They might get to the destroyer. The professors had built one great war rocket which used liquid fuels and went more than two hundred kilometers, but there had only been the one — and even if they had another, how could they make it hit the destroyer?

  The Imperial Navy said the destroyer was also protected by a Langston Field. Even if the rocket hit, there would be no more effect than MacKinnie’s howitzers had had on Marine Barracks. The Imperials were right. Resistance was useless. A feeling of helplessness settled over Nathan MacKinnie. He closed his eyes and felt the whiskey reel his head around and around.

  He was awakened by shouts. He had no idea how long he had dozed miserably, hoping to get to a rest room and then to bed before the full effects of all that whiskey did their worst. It could not have been long, he knew, because they were not yet around the bay to Empire House.

  It took MacKinnie precious moments to rouse himself from the stupor of half-drunken sleep and realize that the coach had been stopped by several men. Robbers? Here in Haven, near Empire House? Bold robbers, then, desperate men indeed.

  He snatched open the door and tumbled out in a fighting stance, his pistol in his hands for a moment before a heavy cane struck his wrist and sent the big service pistol spinning into the dark. On the other side of the coach he heard Stark growl deep in his throat, the enraged sound of a deadly fighting man, and he heard the sharp chunk! As his big sergeant’s hand, arched into a blade that could easily crack baked clay, snapped into flesh. Someone over there would not get up for a long time.

  He hoped Stark was giving a good account of himself. Whatever Hal could do, MacKinnie was helpless. A pistol pointed at him from the shadows, and on either side were men with shortswords. With a shrug, MacKinnie raised his hands. There was nothing else to do.

  He heard Stark strike again, then a dull sound which he could not recognize. Moments later three men carried his sergeant around the coach. One dangled a sandbag from his fingers and looked to the dim figure of the man with the pistol. “He’s only out for a little while as you ordered, sir. I wish I could say the same for two of my men. They may never get up again.”

  “That will do,” the voice from the shadows said. It seemed strangely familiar to MacKinnie, but he could not recall it. “Bring Colonel MacKinnie and the others with us, if you please.” The figure vanished into a side street.

  MacKinnie felt the point of a sword at his back. The weapon was similar to those carried by the Haven police, and as he thought about it, MacKinnie remembered that shortswords had been standard equipment for Haven soldiers until the present king had increased the length of the bayonets his troops carried and relegated swords to dress uniforms. The men at either side of him seemed quite familiar with their weapons. Very useful skill, MacKinnie thought. Very useful indeed if you wanted quiet work.

  They walked on in silence for the better part of a kilometer, twisting through deserted streets and getting soaked by the rain until they entered a multi-storied building no different from the others they had passed. They descended two flights of stairs in utter darkness before one of the men struck a light and another produced an electric torch, and MacKinnie could see three more men carrying Stark.

  They had to be military, MacKinnie thought. Their discipline, silent and efficient, was excellent, and it was obvious that this was no simple robbery. There had been ample opportunities to cut their throats and take what little remained of his monthly pension. Besides, the leader had known MacKinnie’s name and rank, and had even insisted on personally examining Stark before they started off. Thieves did not take such good care of their victims.

  At the bottom of the stairs they entered a dank stone tunnel which seemed to stretch nearly a hundred meters before it turned, twisted, and ended at the bottom of another flight of stairs. MacKinnie was now genuinely interested in where he was being taken, and needed no prodding from behind to climb vigorously, each step working off more of the whiskey until he was better able to handle himself. Without the fog of drunkenness he felt more in control of the situation, ready to take any opportunity to free himself.

  He was halted in a wood-paneled hallway. The only light was from the small electric torch of the guard behind him. They stood for several minutes before a door was opened from the inside and bright light spilled out to blind him. Then he was ushered into a large office. Around the walls hung red drapes of rich material, and over the desk was a large painting of King David Second.

  Sergeant Stark was draped on a woolsh-hide couch along one wall of the office, his shoulders so broad that nearly half of him was spilled over, one arm dangling to the elaborately patterned carpet. MacKinnie saw that his companion was breathing steadily, although he was not yet conscious.

  Under the copper-edged painting of the king was a rich wood desk, fully two and a half meters by two, its gleaming top bare of papers or any other object, and behind the desk stood Malcolm Dougal, still resembling a rabbit, a nervous smile on his lips as he spoke.

  “Welcome, Colonel MacKinnie. Welcome to the headquarters of His Majesty’s Secret Police.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  CITIZEN DOUGAL

  MacKinnie looked slowly around the room. Two young men dressed in kilts as plain as Malcolm Dougal’s stood against the door behind him, their pistols held carefully across their chests in a guard position. Plain kilts or no, they were soldiers, and under their dispassionate expressions MacKinnie detected a slight twitch, nervousness perhaps, at the presence of the secret policemen, or, more likely, hatred for Nathan MacKinnie who had defeated their army three campaigns running.

  The room gave the general impression of opulence. The only furniture was the desk, two chairs, and the couch, but there might have been anything behind the red drapes which ran from floor to high ceiling along two walls. When Nathan said nothing, Dougal motioned toward one of the woolsh-hide chairs. “Please be seated, Colonel. Can we get you anything? A drink, perhaps? No, I suspected not. Something else? Earth Stock coffee, or chickeest?”

  There was a visible tightening to Dougal’s lips as he offered Earth coffee, something which told MacKinnie the offer was a test. Without hesitation Nathan said, “Chickeest, thank you. Black, and lots of it.”

  Dougal relaxed. He waited until MacKinnie was fully seated, then motioned to the guards. “That will be all, Corporal. Remain on call.” MacKinnie heard the door close quietly behind him. “They will bring the refreshments in a moment, Colonel,” Dougal said. “And now, you are wondering why you are here.”

  “I’m more interested in who you are. I’ve never seen or heard of you before, and I know of most of His Majesty’s officers.”

  “The two questions are not unrelated. Malcolm Dougal is actually my name. My position is rather vague in the budgets presented to Parliament, but as it happens, I am the Director of His Majesty’s Secret Police Service.”

  MacKinnie nodded. “I suspected that Lord Arindell was too stupid to operate as efficient a service as Haven’s. So Inspector Solon reports to you when he wants his real orders.”

  “Yes. You see, I am being honest with you, Colonel. I expect you to be so with me. Had you taken my offer of a drink at the Blue Bottle, I might have brought you here in a more pleasant manner, but I could not take the chance of your refusal. Or of the Imperial Navy noticing either of us. Everything depends on their not becoming suspicious. Everything.”

  He leaned forward and regarded MacKinnie intently. “I now ask your word of honor that nothing said here tonight will ever be repeated to anyone without my permission except as it may conform to duties I have assigned you and you have accepted. Please,” he said urgently.

  MacKinnie longed for a cigar, but thought better of display
ing the Earth tobacco he had in his pouch. The warning had been plain in the way Dougal had pronounced the words “Earth Stock” when offering the coffee. Dougal leaned back in his chair, but his manner was alert, expecting an answer. MacKinnie said the only thing he could under the circumstances. “You have my word, Citizen Dougal. My word of honor.”

  “Thank you.” There was a tap at the door, and one of the guards brought in a platinum tray with copper pots of chickeest, pewter mugs, and cigarettes of a popular Haven brand. MacKinnie noticed that everything he had seen since he entered the room was native to Samual.

  Behind the guard, the tall thin figure of Inspector Solon, dressed in the midnight-blue undress uniform of the Royal

  Haven Police, stood silently in the doorway. He made no move to enter, and Dougal did not speak to him. When the guard left, Solon went out behind him, closing the door.

  “You saw the inspector, of course,” Dougal said. “There are two reasons for his being here. First, I wanted you to see that he obeys me so that you know I am who I say I am. But more important, I trust no one else to guard that door until we are finished.” He smiled pleasantly. “I trust I have impressed you sufficiently. Enjoy your chickeest; you will be here for some time.”

  “What about my sergeant?”