The Space Barbarians Page 4

“Come on, lass, the proof is there before us. You are armed. You are on a raid of the Clann Thompson against Aberdeen.”

  She had taken her hands from her face and was now I owning at him. She said slowly, “But you are the young Hawk clannsman who stole our horses at the riverbank.”

  He grunted. “And counted coup on three of the Clann Thompson who had been astealing of Hawk cattle.”

  She said wonderingly, “But you are such a young clannsman to have done so much.”

  There was no answer to that, though he wished he looked older. She was as pretty a lass as he had ever seen, he realized. And it came to him that it would not be too many years before he would be faced with stealing a bride from some clann other than the Hawks.

  She said, “What will you do with me?” But there was only the faintest of fear of the unknown, far in the background. The girl was no slink, but then, she had already proved that.

  John said, “First, I will demand you tell me how you are here, under these circumstances.”

  Her mouth tightened stubbornly, but he held his peace, waiting, and finally she spoke. “I am Alice of the Thompsons.”

  He nodded to that. “I am John of the Hawks.”

  “I was but one lass, in a family of five sons.” He couldn’t see what that had to do with it. Most families of Caledonia had at least as many children as that, and a large percentage of males was certainly preferable, considering the number of casualties taken by the clanns-men in raids and in defense of the flocks.

  But she was going on. “It was not a family for a lass. My mother had been captured in a raid from the Edin Phylum, and I was raised by my kyn and my brothers. I was more prone to play with the toy claidheammors than with dolls and the other nonsense of girl children. Until I was all but a woman, this was true.”

  “Go on,” John said.

  “So it was that when my five brothers were killed in a raid of clannsmen from Aberdeen, attempting to protect our herds—”

  “Five!” John said blankly. “All five in one raid?”

  “All five. Two came home that night with but wounds; however, they died before the week was out, when the fleshrot set in.”

  “Aüi, lass!” John murmured.

  She took a deep breath. “I was still a child, but I took an oath that I would have my revengement on Aberdeen. I took it before my clann elders, and in their pity, none laughed. But as the years went by, over and over I told all that one day I would have my revengement. And I set aside childhood and practiced as best I could and as best my kyn would allow me with claidheammor and skean and carbine, though it was seldom indeed I could cozen a clannsman into allowing me to use his firearm.” John of the Hawks was staring at her.

  She took another breath. “And always, after I had grown to womanhood, I pleaded with them to take me on their raids. And sent praise to the Holy, that it would be so. “Until finally, perhaps worried of my health, the sachem and caciques discussed the matter, and one was appointed a spokesman to remonstrate with me, since it had become a scandal in the Caithness Phylum and I made all uncomfortable. When I held to my oath, then he demanded if I would be satisfied with but one raid against Aberdeen and would then subside, let my hair grow long, and participate in the activities of women.”

  “Go on,” John said, his eyes still wide in disbelief. He had never heard such a tale. Surely it could never happen in Aberdeen amongst his own kyn.

  She said bitterly, “I was not to find out until later that the raid was a minor one, deliberately planned for my sake. We rode to the outskirts of the heath of Aberdeen—”

  “And the preserves of the Clann Hawk,” John muttered.

  “Yes. And there we proceeded to do no more than round up and butcher the cattle. Far from danger of meeting the clannsmen of Aberdeen.”

  “But that was when I, on a long scout, found you.”

  “Yes. And counted coup on Will, Raid Cacique of the Clann Thompson, and two of his sagamores.”

  “Aüi!” John blurted. This would be something to relate to the muster when he was raised up to full clannsman.

  “So then,” she said, “all was forgotten about the original purpose of the raid. The whole party was gathered together, and we rode at full pace for Aberdeen, Will, the Raid Cacique, riding ahead in a furious rage.”

  She shrugged. “You know the rest. Your herds were practically unguarded. We rounded up the horses, and each member of the party was given a few head to herd back to Caithness. Will was revenged, at least in part. If mine, alone, of the horses have been recaptured, then it is the biggest raid known in the memory of living clannsmen.”

  “Yours will not be alone,” John said sourly. “But I will admit, it was a gigantic raid—and well executed.” The last was hard to bring out.

  “And now,” she said, her voice again bitter, “I suppose von will return me to Aberdeen to become a clannless one in your household.”

  For a long time he stared at her. Finally, he shook his head. “No, lass. You were never meant to be a kitchen drudge. Before the week was out, you would be stolen from our longhouse by a Clark or a Fielding or one from the other clanns of Aberdeen.”

  “What difference that to you? They would have to pay the brideright, and a few horses or cattle—I would surely bring a few horses—must be welcome to a clannsman as young as yourself. I see that you are already wed. Or is it that you do not find pleasure in my appearance yourself?” There was a wistful quality in her voice as she touched a feminine hand to her hair.

  “I am not wed,” he said gruffly.

  “Aüi,” she said, her voice bitter still. “I am not so sure that the clannsmen of your phylum will find me desirable either, John of the Hawks. Undoubtedly, the younger men will think of me as you do. If I am honorably stolen by one of your Aberdeen clannsmen, it will be by one of the older clannsmen, perhaps incapacitated by wounds, who desires youth in bed and a strong lass who can be driven to hard work at his hearth and in his quarters.”

  John of the Hawks had come to his feet again. He stared down at her for a moment, then walked over to where he had tethered the horses and returned with the one upon which she had been riding when he had leaped from his ambush.

  He held the reins to her.

  She looked up at him blankly.

  “Return to Caithness,” he said. “I am not as yet raised up to full clannsman, Alice of the Thompsons, and will not be until the next muster. Thus, I am not eligible to steal a bride. And if I returned with you to Aberdeen, someone else would take you before it was meet that I could. So return to your kyn, Alice of the Thompsons.”

  She stood and looked at him, bewildered.

  He added, “And I will come for you another day.”

  She blushed then, as a good lass must “If you come, my kyn will defend me.”

  He twisted his mouth in amusement.

  “And if they fail,” she insisted, her head high, “I will take my own life with my skean.”

  “I have heard of the tradition,” he said with amused skepticism, “but I have never heard of its happening. Besides, at the next meeting of the Dail I will ask the Sachem of the Hawks to confer with the Sachem of the Thompsons and honorably arrange for the stealing of Alice of the Thompsons, arranging in advance with her claim for suitable payment of the brideright.”

  In a sudden, seemingly uncalled for fury, she raised her hand to slap him.

  But he was having none of that. He grabbed her strongly and kissed her full on the mouth. She held tense for a long moment, then her mouth went soft, as though unwillingly. Through her jerkin, he could feel the softness of her breasts. Finally, he released her and stood back, smiling.

  She rubbed her hand across her mouth. “But… but I am not your bride,” she said in horror. “And it is against the bann.”

  He grinned at her. “It surely is,” he said.

  She turned and jumped astride the horse and glared down at him in feminine rage. “I have been shamed,” she snapped.

  “I doubt it,�
�� he told her. “For none know save you and me.”

  She dug furious heels into the steed and was gone. And John of the Hawks stood and watched after the woman he loved until she was long out of sight.

  Largely, as he rode back to Aberdeen, herding the recaptured three animals, his mind was on Alice of the Thompsons, as was to be expected of a young man yet to be wed. But he dwelt also on the men from Beyond, and because the distance was passing far for one who rode and herded animals, he had ample time to consider ramifications.

  The weapon the one named DeRudder had demonstrated was cause for thought. On the face of it, the man from other worlds was not averse to using the frightful thing. And what had he said? “I can wipe them all out with one sweep of this.”

  John suppressed a shudder as, unworthy of a clannsman though the thought might be, he couldn’t help considering what a handful of such weapons could accomplish on a raid. The men from Beyond named themselves explorers, and if John understood the word correctly, they were on a peaceful mission. But suppose they had come in raid? Who could resist them, with such weapons?

  There were other aspects. On the face of it, the other-worldlings were far and beyond the Caledonians, whose most advanced vehicle was a simple two wheeled cart. Even John could envision the span between a horse drawn cart and a craft that could cross space.

  The light was fading rapidly now, and his exhaustion came upon him, and he could make it no further. He drove his animals to a hidden gully, hobbled them, and threw himself to the heather.

  When he awakened, it was well toward noon and he was well refreshed, though he had slept upon the ground with not even a cloak. Thus is youth, especially on Caledonia, where, long since, man and nature had eliminated the unfit.

  He retrieved his horses, who had not wandered far in their search for graze, in view of the hobbles, and took up again his ride to Aberdeen.

  As he drew nearer to the town, he occasionally spotted others, undoubtedly fellow clannsmen, heading in the same direction. A few herded horses, but most rode dejectedly without.

  Alice of the Thompsons had been correct. It had been a raid of raids, and so far as the clannsmen of Aberdeen were concerned they had counted few, if any, coups, killed few of the raiders indeed, and recovered but a fraction of their stolen animals. It was a black day, a day Aberdeen bards would never sing, though most certainly those of Caithness would. He winced to think of the coming Dail, in spite of his own glory.

  Closer to the town, he met his friend Don of the Clarks, who, besides the mount he rode, herded another animal before him. It was not a battle steed but an older draft animal, and there was an air of dispirit on the face of the other.

  John hailed him, keeping any elation from his voice, for John of the Hawks was maturing rapidly. His own three recaptured steeds were sleek, in their prime, and well trained. Above all, they were not property of related clannsmen, and hence, it was not necessary to return them to former owners. They were enemy horse and hence John’s own, save, of course, the one he rode.

  Don asked, “Where did you find them?” He was of John’s own age, and they had grown up together, shared many an experience in common. However, somehow he appeared strangely young now to John. Callow, perhaps.

  The other was not a Hawk, so had he willed, John could have lied to him. However, he made a half truth, realizing only now that he hadn’t the slightest idea of what story he would tell the sachem and the war cacique of the Hawks.

  He said, “I took them from one of the raiders. All except one fast steed upon which the Thompson hurried off toward Caithness, slightly wounded.”

  “Aüi!” Don of the Clarks said in disgust. “If only I had such a story. I spotted not even one. I found this ugly nag straying. The Holy only knows to whom she belongs.”

  John nodded. “There will be shame in Aberdeen this day.”

  From there on they rode in glum silence.

  At the gate, the warder and his men greeted them with compliments, by which John assumed that few indeed were the clannsmen who had done even as well as he.

  They turned their mounts and recaptured animals over to youths to be led back to the pastures. Then, after brief farewells, they headed toward their respective longhouses, carrying their horses’ harness and their weapons and coup sticks.

  Bemused with both thoughts of the action of the day before and his experience with Alice of the Thompsons, John made the same mistake he had on the previous afternoon. He automatically headed for his own family quarters and the room in which he had been quartered for the greater part of his life, forgetful, for the moment, that the apartment had been turned over to the strangers from Beyond.

  He caught himself almost immediately after he entered, though evidently the otherworldlings were not using his chamber, the rest of the apartment being ample for their needs. He turned to leave the room by the door that led to the long hall, but once again he heard voices.

  He hesitated. Eavesdropping was beneath the dignity of a clannsman, though there was no definite bann, or even established custom.

  However, he told himself in excuse, they were not members of the Clann Hawk, or even of the Aberdeen Phylum. And for that matter, their strangeness was such that they bore looking into.

  He pressed his ear to the door that led to the living quarters. As before, the others were obviously alone and once again in full debate. It would seem that these men from the League, as they called it, were as mystified by the institutions of Caledonia as John and his fellow phyletics were by the ways of the men from Beyond.

  He decided it was DeRudder’s voice he was hearing. The second in command of the Golden Hind was saying, “And I claim we better get out. Did you hear what their big mucky-muck said at the muster? They’ve got a traditional three days of hospitality for the traveling stranger. All right. What happens after the three days are up? And that’s today, mind you.”

  One of the other voices—Harmon’s?—said sneeringly, “What could happen? We’ve awed them. They don’t know what to make of us.”

  The skipper’s voice said slowly, “No, we haven’t awed them. They don’t know what to make of us, but we haven’t awed them. You know what they’re busily up to now?” There was no answer to his question, and the skipper went on, “They’re rounding up a raiding party, to replenish their herds of horses.”

  DeRudder said, “You mean they’re going to go after this gang that hit them yesterday?”

  “No, not at all. One of the war caciques told me that wouldn’t do. The Thompsons, or whatever their name was, would be prepared and ready to defend themselves. So they’re going to attack another town. They’re going to raid somebody else that they haven’t had any trouble with recently.”

  “Krishna!” a nervous voice said. “What a people! I’m in favor of getting back to the ship. I wish we’d brought the skimmer with us instead of the groundcraft.”

  Harmon said, “I’d like to stick around and see if there isn’t some way of changing their minds on signing over exploitation rights to their mineral resources. We could offer them just about anything. On the face of it, they’re practically poverty stricken so far as commodities are concerned.” The nervous one—Perez, John decided—said, “What would we do with it, if we got it?”

  Harmon’s voice said, “Don’t be empty. We’d ditch this so-called exploratory cruise and head for some of the nearest frontier planets, those with early free enterprise type economies. Can you imagine being able to dump an almost limitless amount of platinum onto an open market? And do you realize the scale of living of the really rich on those planets? Why, the Caesars never had it so good.”

  The skipper said thoughtfully, “Harmon’s right. Given the concession, we could find means of profiting by it. The problem is getting the concession.”

  John of the Hawks was scowling. About half of this, He didn’t understand at all.

  It was DeRudder’s turn. He said, “I’m in favor of immediate return to the ship too. We’ve already fouled things u
p here, in trying to learn what makes them tick. We’ll have to go on to some other town. Some other phylum, as they call it. We’ve got a little background now and can do better. By the way, do you know what phylum means?”

  There was no answer, and his voice took over again. “It means tribe, in this connection, if I’m taking it from the Greek correctly. I would say that they’ve got a system of several clanns that make up each phylum. These phyla, in turn, are loosely made up into confederations. From what the old boy said yesterday, there are such confederations all over the planet. He mentioned knowing of twenty-three others.”

  “So?” the skipper said.

  “So we’ll set down in the territory of some other confederation and start all over again.”

  “Start what?”

  “Subverting institutions, to put it bluntly. Somewhere we’ll find a phylum that’s just taken such a licking from a neighbor that they’ll accept our offer of repeating rifles.”

  Harmon said, “By the way, where are we getting anything as primitive as repeating rifles and submachine guns? The only place I’ve ever seen such things was in historical fiction shows.”

  “Don’t be a dully. We could take half a ton of platinum to any of the frontier planets, and they’d tool up and whomp them up for us in a week’s time.”

  “Why not more sophisticated weapons?” the nervous voice said.

  “You’re being particularly dense today, Perez. We don’t want to give them the sort of firepower that’d enable them to work us over.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  The skipper’s voice said, “And what if we find the same thing elsewhere that we ran into here? That none of these phyla, or whatever you call them, will sign over their mineral rights?”

  DeRudder’s voice went suave. “Skipper, there are ways. Obviously, we must abide by the League Canons, but at this distance, that will be no problem. And we can take a page from early Earth history. There are ways for, ah, civilizing backward peoples whether they want to be civilized or not. Remember the European pilgrims and pioneers and the Amerinds? For instance, I note that they have a distilled spirit here they call uisgebeatha, and, believe me, it’s potent. Very well, where you have potent nip, you’ve got people who are hooked on it. All we have to do is find a sachem or so hooked on uisgebeatha, get him binged and have him sign over mineral rights to us.”