't think our Sword-World feudalism doesn't have
bugs." He gave examples, and then quoted Otto Harkaman about barbarism
spreading downward from the top instead of upward from the bottom.

"It may just be," he added, "that there is something fundamentally
unworkable about government itself. As long as _Homo sapiens terra_
is a wild animal, which he has always been and always will be until
he evolves into something different in a million or so years, maybe
a workable system of government is a political science impossibility,
just as transmutation of elements was a physical-science impossibility
as long as they tried to do it by chemical means."

[Illustration]

"Then we'll just have to make it work the best way we can, and when
it breaks down, hope the next try will work a little better, for a
little longer," Bentrik said.

* * * * *

Malverton grew in the telescopic screens as they came down. The Navy
Spaceport, where Trask had landed almost two years before, was in
wreckage, sprinkled with damaged ships that had been blasted on the
ground, and slagged by thermonuclear fires. There was fighting in
the air all over the city proper, on building-tops, on the ground,
and in the air. That would be the _Damnthing_-_Harpy_-_Curse of
Cagn_ Space Vikings. The Royal Palace was the center of one of
half a dozen swirls of battle that had condensed out of the
general skirmishing.

Paytrik Morland started for it with the first wave of
ground-fighters from the _Nemesis_. The Gilgamesh freighter, like
most of her ilk, had huge cargo ports all around; these began
opening and disgorging a swarm of everything from landing-craft
and hundred-foot airboats to one man air-cavalry single-mounts.
The top landing-stages and terraces of the palace were almost
obscured by the flashes of auto-cannon shells and the smoke and
dust of projectiles. Then the first vehicles landed, the firing
from the air stopped, and men fanned out as skirmishers,
occasionally firing with small arms.

Trask and Bentrik were in the armory off the vehicle-bay, putting on
combat equipment, when the twelve-year-old Count of Ravary joined
them and began rummaging for weapons and a helmet.

"You're not going," his father told him. "I'll have enough to worry
about taking care of myself...."

That was the wrong approach. Trask interrupted:

"You're to stay aboard, Count," he said. "As soon as things
stabilize, Princess Myrna will have