Mack Reynolds: The Space Barbarians

DeRudder silently unbuckled his belt and handed it over.

John of the Hawks slipped the gun into the holster.

The clannsmen in the vicinity were staring at him.

The one who had brought him his shoes and sword belt offered him a carbine.

John of the Hawks shook his head dourly. “Keep it, if you wish.”

The other stared at him. “But it is your carbine, issued to you when you came to first manhood.”

“No longer.” John patted the handgun he had appropriated from DeRudder. “Not with weapons like this available.” He brought the gun forth again. “See that tree, up the slope?”

He pointed the gun and squeezed the trigger. A beam of light penciled forth and reached for the tree. It missed by a yard or more. He moved the gun infinitesimally, and the beam cut through the tree, toppling it. He released the trigger and looked about at the dozen or so clannsmen who were watching him.

John said, “A man with a carbine would hit the tree, surely enough, but a hundred rounds of cartridges would never cut it down.”

There was a hush.

John looked at the young clannsman who had had custody of his things. “What is that in your belt?”

“Why, my coup stick.”

“Break it. Throw it away.”

“But suppose I have an opportunity to count honorable coup on one of the strangers from Beyond.”

“Kill him instead.”

If possible, the hush deepened. Even Don, Raid Cacique of the Clarks, blinked.

“But… it is not against the bann, but it is unseemly to shed the blood when it is possible to count coup instead.”

“Not with Sidonians. These are not clannsmen, they are clannless ones, and they come from the planet Sidon not in honorable raid, but to strip our world. They know no banns and never count coup. They only kill and kill and kill, and they will do so until there are no clannsmen left on all Caledonia, save only slinks and slaves.”

John returned the gun to its holster and said to Don of the Clarks, “There is another such weapon on the body of the dead sublieutenant over there. I suggest you arm yourself with it.”

His blood companion hesitated. “I’ll… I’ll think about it,” he said. “As you know, such weapons are against the bann.”

John snorted and turned to one of the other clannsmen who had pulled off his leather shoes and was busily donning a pair he had brought from the longhouse.

“What do you have there?” John said coldly.

“Shoes from Beyond. Boots of the soldiers from Sidon.”

“What is wrong with your own shoes, made of good leather?”

The young clannsman grinned. “It is well-known that the material from Sidon wears forever, or nearly so.”

“Do you realize that if you become used to these articles from Beyond, your desire for them will continue to grow? Soon you will wish your kilts to be of the textile from Beyond, soon you will develop taste for the delicate food from Beyond, for the drink, rather than our own uisgebeatha of our fathers.”

One of the sagamores laughed. “That last, at least, I can understand. The drink of the otherworldlings is the drink of the Holy!”

John turned his cold eye on him. “Develop such tastes and ultimately you will seek this method of barter they have, money. To get money you must needs work for the Sidonians, in their mines, in their cities, as a clannless one works. In time, given such tastes and desires, you will become as though clannless yourselves.”

The one who had liberated the boots grinned again and said, “Not so long as I can take these things in raid.”

The looting of the longhouse converted into barracks had been completed, and the laughing, shouting clannsmen were tying the foreign weapons, books and tapes to the horses they had comandeered from the twenty unhappy raiders. The litters for the two laser rifles gave them some trouble but didn’t present an insurmountable problem, although the clumsy rig slowed the animals down considerably.

John of the Hawks said to DeRudder, “You can ride?”

DeRudder said, “On the planet of my birth, it is a sport. I can ride.” He swung into the saddle of the horse the other had indicated.

John of the Hawks shouted, “Quickly, now! We ride hard, or we will be overtaken by the Sidonians before we reach the shelter of the hills.”

With John, Don of the Clarks and the prisoner in the lead, the column galloped off, the pack animals between the advance elements and the rear guard.

DeRudder said, “How did you know how to operate the laser rifles?”

John, whose eyes were most often on the sky, in the direction of New Sidon City, said, “Clannsmen of the Highland Confederation, some months ago, seized some of your weapons in a raid. They also took prisoners some of your soldiers and, ah, convinced them it would be well to give instructions in the use of your weapons from Beyond.”

“But you are of the Loch Confederation.”

John looked at him. “We are beginning to learn, Samuel of the DeRudders. A delegation of the Highland Confederation came to us and showed us the workings of your laser guns.”

DeRudder looked unhappy. He was a small man, by Caledonian standards, but even in his middle years, well proportioned, and even as a prisoner of these barbarians, possessive of a cool dignity. Cornet Samuel DeRudder was no coward, whatever else he might be.

Don of the Clarks grinned at him mockingly. “It does not sit well, that in the future you will perhaps be faced with your own weapons that break the bann, eh, man from Beyond?”

DeRudder growled, “If you dullies weren’t so empty, you’d voluntarily come to our cities or mining towns and get with it. This planet is one of the richest in the system. Once under full exploitation and you’d have a paradise on your hands. This world could be a garden.”

John’s eyebrows went up cynically. “A garden for whom, Samuel of the DeRudders? Those who work in the mines are almost all, save for a few of your technicians, as you call them, Caledonians. I have never been in a mine, but from what I hear they are not gardens, Samuel of the DeRudders.”

“Just Samuel DeRudder,” the other said. “You’ve got to work before you enjoy all the things we’ve introduced from Sidon; better food, better medical care, better education, better entertainment, better clothes, better houses—better everything.”

Don laughed at him mockingly. “Perhaps you think these things from Beyond are better, Samuel, Cornet of the DeRudders, but for us, perhaps we prefer our own food and clothing and the longhouses in which we were born. Perhaps we prefer to spend our days in honorable raid upon our enemies, rather than the blackness of the mines.”

DeRudder looked at him scornfully. “And do you prefer the mumbo jumbo medicine of your bedels, when you’ve been wounded in one of those endless skirmishes of yours? I understand, you yourself were once’ cured in one of our autohospitals.”

Don was silent to that.

John said, “Some things, admittedly, that you have brought from Beyond are desirable. One of these is your medicine. But these things we can learn to use, without becoming slaves and spending our years toiling for your United Interplanetary Mining.”

DeRudder was still scornful. “And you’d prefer to get it by stealing, rather than decent work.”

John of the Hawks was irritated. He let his eyes sweep the far sky again, before answering. Then he said, “This work that you are so keen that we Caledonians take up—if it is so decent, so desirable, why do you not do it yourself? I do not note, Samuel of the DeRudders, that you spend time in the mines personally.”

“I’ve worked in my time, John. For long years I was a ship’s officer in the Exploratory Service.”