Poul Anderson - The Star Fox

And supper was a meal with more cheer, more sense of being home, than any he could remember since Connie died. Afterward he could not recall what was said—banter, mostly—it had not been real talk but a kind of embracement.

Lisa put the dishes in the service cubicle and retired demurely to bed; she even kissed her father. Heim and Vadász went downramp to the study. He closed the door, took Scotch from a cabinet, ice and soda from a coldbox, poured, and raised his own glass.

Vadász’s clinked against it. “And a voice valedictory…” the minstrel toasted. “Who is for Victory? Who is for Liberty? Who goes home?”

“I’ll drink to that,” said Heim, and did, deeply. “Where’s it from?”

“One G. K. Chesterton, a couple of centuries ago. You have not heard of him? Ah, well, they no longer care for such unsophisticated things on Earth. Only in the colonies are men so naive as to think victories are possible.”

“Maybe we can make ’em change their minds here, too.” Heim sat down and reached for a pipe.

“Well,” Vadász said, in a cool tone but with a kind of shiver through his slim form, “now we come to business. What has happened, these last several days while I fretted about idle?”

“I’ll begin from the beginning,” Heim said. He felt no compunction about revealing what Twyman had admitted, since this Listener could be trusted. His acquaintance with Vadász, though brief, had been somewhat intense.

The Magyar wasn’t surprised anyway. “I knew they had no intention to get New Europe back when none would hear me.”

“I found a buck who would,” Heim said, and went on with his account. As he finished, Vadász’s jaw fell with a nearly audible clank.

“A privateer, Gunnar? Are you serious?”

“Absodamnlutely. So’s Coquelin, and several more we talked with.” Heim’s mirth had dissolved. He drew hard on his pipe, streamed the smoke out through dilated nostrils, and said:

“Here’s the situation. One commerce raider in the Phoenix can make trouble out of all proportion to its capabilities. Besides disrupting schedules and plans, it ties up any number of warships, which either have to go hunt for it or else run convoy. As a result, the Aleriona force confronting ours in the Marches will be reduced below parity. So if then Earth gets tough, both in space and at the negotiations table—we shouldn’t have to get very tough, you see, nothing so drastic that the peacemongers can scream too loud—one big naval push, while that raider is out there gobbling Aleriona ships—We can make them disgorge New Europe. Also give us some concessions for a change.”

“It may be. It may be.” Vadasz remained sober. “But how can you get a fighting craft?”

“Buy one and refit it. As for weapons, I’m going to dispatch a couple of trusty men soon, in a company speedster, to Staurn—you know the place?”

“I know of it. Ah-ha!” Vadasz snapped his fingers. His eyes began to glitter.

“Yep. That’s where our ship will finish refitting. Then off for the Auroran System.”

“But… will you not make yourself a pirate in the view of the law?”

“That’s something which Coquelin is still working on. He says he thinks there may be a way to make everything legal and, at the same time, ram a spike right up the exhaust of Twyman and his giveaway gang. But it’s a complicated problem. If the ship does have to fly the Jolly Roger, then Coquelin feels reasonably sure France has the right to try the crew, convict them, and pardon them. Of course, the boys might then have to stay in French territory, or leave Earth altogether for a colony—but they’ll be millionaires, and New Europe would certainly give them a glorious reception.”

Heim blew a smoke ring. “I haven’t time to worry about that,” he continued. “I’ll simply have to bull ahead and take my chances on getting arrested. Because you’ll understand how Coquelin and his allies in the French government—or in any government, because not every nation on Earth has gone hollowbelly—well, under the Constitution, no country can make warlike preparations. If we did get help from some official, that’d end every possibility of legalizing the operation. We’d better not even recruit our men from a single country, or from France at all.

“So it depends on me. I’ve got to find the ship, buy her, outfit her, supply her, sign on crew, and get her off into space—all inside of two months, because that’s when the formal talks between Parliament and the Aleriona delegation are scheduled to begin.” He made a rueful face. “I’m going to forget what sleep’s like.”

“The crew—” Vadász frowned. “A pretty problem, that. How many?”

“About a hundred, I’d say. Far more than needful, but the only way we can finance this venture is to take prizes, which means we’ll need prize crews. Also… there may be casualties.”

“I see. Wanted, a hundred skilled, reliable spacemen, Navy experience preferred, for the wildest gamble since Argilus went courting of Witch Helena. Where do you find them?… Hm, hm, I may know a place or two to look.”

“I do myself. We can’t recruit openly for a raider, you realize. If our true purpose isn’t kept secret to the last millisecond, we’ll be in the calaboose so fast that Einstein’s ghost will return to haunt us. But I think, in the course of what look like ordinary psych tests, I think we can probe attitudes and find out who can be trusted with the truth. Those are the ones we’ll hire.”

“First catch your rabbit,” Vadász said. “I mean find a psychologist who can be trusted!”

“Uh-huh. I’ll get Wingate, my father-in-law, to co-opt one. He’s a shrewd old rascal with tentacles everywhere, and if you think you and I are staticked about Alerion, you should listen to him for a while.” Heim squinted at the model of Star Fox, shining across the room. “I don’t believe ordinary crewmen will be too hard to find. When the Navy appropriation was cut, three years ago, a good many fellows found themselves thumb-twiddling on planet duty and resigned in disgust. We can locate those who came to Earth. But we may have trouble about a captain and a chief engineer. People with such qualifications don’t drift free.”

“Captain? What do you mean, Gunnar? You’ll be captain.”

“No.” Heim’s head wove heavily back and forth. A good deal of his bounce left him. “I’m afraid not. I want to—God, how I want to!—but, well, I’ve got to be sensible. Spaceships aren’t cheap. Neither are supplies, and especially not weapons. My estimates tell me I’ll have to liquidate all my available assets and probably hock everything else, to get that warship. Without me to tend the store, under those conditions, Heimdal might well fail. Lord knows there are enough competitors who’ll do everything they can to make it fail. And Heimdal, well, that’s something Connie and I built—her father staked us, but she worked the office end herself while I bossed the shop, those first few tough years. Heimdal’s the only thing I’ve got to leave my daughter.”

“I see.” Vadász spoke with compassion. “Also, she has no mother. You should not risk she lose her father too.”

Heim nodded.

“You will forgive me, though, if I go?” Vadász said.

“Oh, ja, ja, Endre, I’d be a swine to hold you back. You’ll even have officer rank: chief steward, which means mainly that you oversee the cooking. And you’ll bring me back some songs, won’t you?”

Vadász could not speak. He looked at his friend, chained to possessions and power, and there ran through his head: