kans were just as
surprised, and inclined to be resentful, that the Space Vikings all
acted and talked like officers. Hearing of it, Prince Bentrik was
also puzzled. Fo'c'sle hands on a Mardukan ship belonged definitely
to the lower orders.

"There's still too much free land and free opportunity on the
Sword-Worlds," Trask explained. "Nobody does much bowing and
scraping to the class above him; he's too busy trying to shove
himself up into it. And the men who ship out as Space Vikings are
the least class-conscious of the lot. Think my men may have trouble
on Marduk about that? They'll all insist on doing their drinking in
the swankiest places in town."

[Illustration]

"No. I don't think so. Everybody will be so amazed that Space Vikings
aren't twelve feet tall, with three horns like a Zarathustra damnthing
and a spiked tail like a Fafnir mantichore that they won't even notice
anything less. Might do some good, in the long run. Crown Prince Edvard
will like your Space Vikings. He's much opposed to class distinctions
and caste prejudices. Says they have to be eliminated before we can
make democracy really work."

The Mardukans talked a lot about democracy. They thought well of it;
their government was a representative democracy. It was also a
hereditary monarchy, if that made any kind of sense. Trask's efforts
to explain the political and social structure of the Sword-Worlds
met the same incomprehension from Bentrik.

"Why, it sounds like feudalism to me!"

"That's right; that's what it is. A king owes his position to the
support of his great nobles; they owe theirs to their barons and
landholding knights; they owe theirs to their people. There are
limits beyond which none of them can go; after that, their vassals
turn on them."

"Well, suppose the people of some barony rebel? Won't the king send
troops to support the baron?"

"What troops? Outside a personal guard and enough men to police the
royal city and hold the crown lands, the king has no troops. If he
wants troops, he has to get them from his great nobles; they have to
get them from their vassal barons, who raise them by calling out
their people." That was another source of dissatisfaction with King
Angus of Gram; he had been augmenting his forces by hiring
off-planet mercenaries. "And the people won't help some other baron
oppress his people; it might be their turn next."

* * * * *

"You mean, the people are armed?"