A man in peacock livery came running out of the gate. “Hey, there!” he called. “Stop!”

  We halted. The man bowed to me. “Are you Professor Lewisohn, sir?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Then please come with me.” I couldn’t resist a smug grin at the Secret Service boys.

  We went up a landscaped driveway and through a door. There were sentries on the porch, but inside, it was all butlers and luxury. At the end of a paneled corridor was a long room with a broad picture window overlooking a glass-roofed garden, tropical in midwinter.

  The man who stood there turned around as I entered. “Prof!” he said delightedly. “Come in, for heaven’s sake. Have a drink.”

  It was Achtmann, colorful in lounging pajamas but still the same chain-smoking, unrestful Achtmann. He took my coat and handed it to a servant. Another servant materialized with Scotch on the rocks. I found myself in an armchair, with Achtmann pacing up and down before me.

  “Good Lord,” he said. “I had no idea you were in town, old fellow. If I hadn’t happened to see you from my car…Why didn’t you let me know? My secretaries have a list of Committee members, and any letter from one of them goes directly to me.”

  “I…out of touch—” I sipped carefully, seeking balance. “Busy and, well, under present conditions I’ve sort of lost contact and—”

  “What conditions?” His eyes stabbed at me. “Anything wrong?”

  “Oh, no, no. Tight housing, tight schedule, the usual.”

  “Like hell it’s usual. Not for anybody who did what you did.” Achtmann whirled on a dictograph. “I can guess your troubles—lousy little room, lousy commoner’s ration, lousy pay…eh? Okay, we’ll fix it.” He rattled an order into the tube: effective immediately, Professor Lewisohn was to have a house at his disposal, funds equivalent to, etc., ration-free ID, etc., etc. “Why didn’t you let me know?” he finished. “I’ve set up all the other boys from the old Hideout gang, or most of them.”

  “But I don’t want—” I stammered. “I don’t deserve—don’t throw somebody out of their house just to—”

  “Shut up,” he laughed. It was a boy’s laugh, but there was a metal note behind it. “Quite apart from gratitude and solidarity and all that sort of thing, it’s sound policy, and I won’t hear no from you. The populace at large need the carrot as well as the stick. They’ve not only got to realize that the disloyal are punished, but see how the loyal get rewarded. Savvy?”

  “What the hell kind of office do you have?” I whispered.

  “Office? Position? None whatsoever. That’s the beauty of it. I’m just an unofficial adviser to the President.” Achtmann shrugged, wryly. “Primus inter pares. Somebody has to be, you realize, and I have a large following of trained men personally loyal to me, which is a big help, and this job…oh, call it leadership…is all I was ever trained for. It works out pretty well, don’t you think?”

  “For you it does,” I said thinly.

  “Hell! You think I want a hundred nosy servants under my roof? It’s just part of the show I have to put on. It was Hare’s mistake, being so drably correct, he never gave anyone a vicarious thrill. You can’t steer an entire world out of ruin without giving it a Leader in great big capital letters.”

  “I thought that was what you fought against,” I whispered.

  “It was. It still is. Of course! Only there’s so much to do. We can’t turn over the reins in a week to people who for a generation haven’t been allowed to do their own thinking. We can’t reinstate search warrants, and habeas corpus, and due process in political trials, when several million men are plotting and jockeying to restore the dictatorship. There are still a lot of devout Hareists, you know, not to mention a hundred little lunatic groups with their own exclusive schemes for saving mankind.” Achtmann lit another cigarette from the stub in his mouth.

  Words, cold as ice, rattled out of him. “We can’t dissolve the Protectorate and turn the foreign provinces loose, not till they’ve been educated and civilized, or there’ll soon be another atomic war to fight. And here at home, there’s so much poverty and hunger…how interested do you think a man is in democratic government when his children don’t have bread? If we allowed it, he’d follow the first tinpot, crackpot Führer who promised to feed him. We’ve got to restore the economy, the—”

  I surprised myself by interrupting him. “For your information,” I said, “I’m in the Libertarian Party.”

  “No matter,” answered Achtmann cheerfully. “It won’t be held against you. When the political parties are dissolved, it’ll simply be a question of—”

  “Dissolved!” I choked. “But there was to be an election—”

  “I’m afraid it’ll have to wait a few years. Honestly, old fellow, how do you think we could hold an election with conditions what they are? I thought we could, that’s why it was announced, but since then I’ve picked up enough facts to show me I was wrong.” Achtmann chuckled. “Don’t look so horrified. I’m not another Hare. He never admitted he could be mistaken.”

  “You don’t have to,” I mumbled. “You have no title …the President and Congress front for you, take the blame for your errors and excesses, and you get all the credit for whatever goes right. Oh, yes.”

  “Ridiculous!” For a moment he was angry. Then he turned his back on me and stared out the window.

  As if on some hidden signal, the butler catfooted in and held my coat for me. I stood up, shakily, and began putting it on.

  “Don’t worry, Professor,” said Achtmann in a mild voice. “All right, if you insist, this is a dictatorship. But it’s a benevolent one—hell, you know me and what I stand for, don’t you? We may have to kill a few here and there, and people in this town are beginning to call me the Cinc, but—” He still didn’t face me:

  “It’s only for the duration of the emergency.”

  Sargasso of Lost Starships

  -1-

  Basil Donovan was drunk again.

  He sat near the open door of the Golden Planet, boots on the table, chair tilted back, one arm resting on the broad shoulder of Wocha, who sprawled on the floor beside him, the other hand clutching a tankard of ale. The tunic was open above his stained gray shirt, the battered cap was askew on his close-cropped blond hair, and his insignia—the stars of a captain and the silver leaves of an earl on Ansa—were tarnished. There was a deepening flush over his pale gaunt cheeks, and his eyes smoldered with an old rage.

  Looking out across the cobbled street, he could see one of the tall, half-timbered houses of Lanstead. It had somehow survived the space bombardment, though its neighbors were rubble, but the tile roof was clumsily patched and there was oiled paper across the broken plastic of the windows. An anachronism, looming over the great bulldozer which was clearing the wreckage next door. The workmen there were mostly Ansans, big men in ragged clothes, but a well-dressed Terran was bossing the job. Donovan cursed wearily and lifted his tankard again.

  The long, smoky-raftered taproom was full—stolid burghers and peasants of Lanstead, discharged spacemen still in their worn uniforms, a couple of tailed greenies from the neighbor planet Shalmu. Talk was low and spiritless, and the smoke which drifted from pipes and cigarettes was bitter, cheap tobacco and dried bark. The smell of defeat was thick in the tavern.

  “May I sit here, sir? The other places are full.”

  Donovan glanced up. It was a young fellow, peasant written over his sunburned face in spite of the gray uniform and the empty sleeve. Olman—yes, Sam Olman, whose family had been under Donovan fief these two hundred years, “Sure, make yourself at home.”

  “Thank you, sir. I came in to get some supplies, thought I’d have a beer too. But you can’t get anything these days. Not to be had.”

  Sam’s face looked vaguely hopeful as he eyed the noble. “We do need a gas engine bad, sir, for the tractor. Now that the central powercaster is gone, we got to have our own engines. I don’t want to presume, sir, but—”

  Donovan lifted one corner of his mouth in a tired smile. “I’m sorry,” he said. “If I could get one machine for the whole community I’d be satisfied. Can’t be done. We’re trying to start a small factory of our own up at the manor, but it’s slow work.”

  “I’m sure if anyone can do anything it’s you, sir.”

  Donovan looked quizzically at the open countenance across the table, “Sam,” he asked, “why do you people keep turning to the Family? We led you, and it was to defeat. Why do you want anything more to do with nobles? We’re not even that, any longer. We’ve been stripped of our titles. We’re just plain citizens of the Empire now, like you, and the new rulers are Terran. Why do you still think of us as your leaders?”

  “But you are, sir! You’ve always been. It wasn’t the king’s fault, or his men’s, that Terra had so much more’n we did. We gave ’em a fight they won’t forget in a hurry!”

  “You were in my squadron, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. CPO on the Ansa Lancer, I was with you at the Battle of Luga.” The deep-set eyes glowed. “We hit ’em there, didn’t we, sir?”

  “So we did.” Donovan couldn’t suppress the sudden fierce memory. Outnumbered, outgunned, half its ships shot to pieces and half the crews down with Sirius fever, the Royal Lansteaders had still made naval history and sent the Imperial Fleet kiyoodling back to Sol. Naval historians would be scratching their heads over that battle for the next five centuries. Before God, they’d fought!

  He began to sing the old war-song, softly at first, louder as Sam joined him—

  Comrades, hear the battle tiding,

  hear the ships that rise and yell

  faring outward, standard riding—

  Kick the Terrans back to hell!

  The others were listening, men raised weary heads, an old light burned in their eyes and tankards clashed together. They stood up to roar out the chorus till the walls shook.

  Lift your glasses high,

  kiss the girls good-bye,

  (Live well; my friend, live well, live you well)

  for we’re riding,

  for we’re riding,

  for we’re riding out to Terran sky!

  Terran sky! Terran sky!

  We have shaken loose our thunder

  where the planets have their way,

  and the starry deeps of wonder

  saw the Impies in dismay.

  Lift your glasses high,

  kiss the girls good-bye—

  The workmen in the street heard it and stopped where they were. Some began to sing. The Imperial superintendent yelled, and an Ansan turned to flash him a wolfish grin. A squad of blue-uniformed Solarian marines coming toward the inn went on the double.

  Oh, the Emp’ror sent his battle

  ships against us in a mass,

  but we shook them like a rattle

  and we crammed them—

  “Hi, there! Stop that!”

  The song died, slowly and stubbornly, the men stood where they were and hands clenched into hard-knuckled lists. Someone shouted an obscenity.

  The Terran sergeant was very young and he felt very unsure before those steady hating eyes. He lifted his voice all the louder: “That will be enough of that. Any more and I’ll run you all in for lèse majesté. Haven’t you drunken bums anything better to do than sit around swilling beer?”

  A big Ansan smith laughed with calculated raucousness.

  The sergeant looked around, trying to ignore him. “I’m here for Captain Donovan—Earl Basil, if you prefer. They said he’d be here. I’ve got an Imperial summons for him.”

  The noble stretched out a hand. “This is he. Let’s have that paper.”

  “It’s just the formal order,” said the sergeant. “You’re to come at once.”

  “Commoners,” said Donovan mildly, “address me as ‘sir’.”

  “You’re a commoner with the rest of ’em now.” The sergeant’s voice wavered just a little.

  “I really must demand a little respect.” said Donovan with drunken precision. There was an unholy gleam in his eyes. “It’s a mere formality, I know, but after all my family can trace itself farther back than the Empire, whereas you couldn’t name your father.”

  Sam Olman snickered.

  “Well, sir—” The sergeant tried elaborate sarcasm. “If you, sir, will please be so good as to pick your high-bred tail off that chair, sir, I’m sure the Imperium would be mostly deeply grateful to you, sir.”

  “I’ll have to do without its gratitude, I’m afraid.” Donovan folded the summons without looking at it and put it in his tunic pocket. “But thanks for the paper. I’ll keep it in my bathroom.”

  “You’re under arrest!”

  Donovan stood slowly up, unfolding his sheer two meters of slender, wiry height. “All right, Wocha,” he said. “Let’s show them that Ansa hasn’t surrendered yet.

  He threw the tankard into the sergeant’s face, followed it with the table against the two marines beside him, and vaulted over the sudden ruckus to drive a fist into the jaw of the man beyond.

  Wocha rose and his booming cry trembled in the walls. He’d been a slave of Donovan’s since he was a cub and the man a child, and if someone had liberated him he wouldn’t have known what to do. As batman and irregular groundtrooper he’d followed his master to the wars, and the prospect of new skullbreaking lit his eyes with glee.

  For an instant there was tableau, Terrans and Ansans rigid, staring at the monster which suddenly stood behind the earl. The natives of Donarr have the not uncommon centauroid form, but their bodies are more like that of a rhino­ceros than of a horse, hairless and slaty blue and enormously massive. The gorilla-armed torso ended in a round, muzzled, ape-like face, long-eared, heavy-jawed, with canine tusks hanging over the great gash of a mouth. A chair splintered under his feet, and he grinned.

  “Paraguns—” cried the sergeant.

  All hell let out for noon. Some of the customers huddled back into the corners, but the rest smashed the ends off bottles and threw themselves against the Terrans. Sam Olman’s remaining arm yanked a marine to him and bashed his face against the wall. Donovan’s fist traveled a jolting arc to the nearest belly and he snatched a rifle loose and crunched it against the man’s jaw. A marine seized him from behind, he twisted in the grip and kicked savagely, whirled around and drove the rifle butt into the larynx.

  “Kill the bluebellies! Kill the Impies! Hail, Ansa!”

  Wocha charged into the squad, grabbed a hapless Terran in his four-fingered hands, and swung the man like a club. Someone drew his bayonet to stab the slave, it glanced off the thick skin and Wocha roared and sent him reeling. The riot blazed around the room, trampling men underfoot, shouting and cursing and swinging.

  “Donovan, Donovan!” shouted Sam Olman. He charged the nearest Impy and got a bayonet in the stomach. He fell down, holding his hand to his wound, screaming.

  The door was suddenly full of Terrans, marines arriving to help their comrades. Paraguns began to sizzle, men fell stunned before the supersonic beams and the fight broke up. Wocha charged the rescuers and a barrage sent his giant form clashing to the floor.

  They herded the Ansans toward the city jail. Donovan, stirring on the ground as consciousness returned, felt handcuffs snap on his wrists.

  Imperial summonses being what they were, he was bundled into a grounder and taken under heavy guard toward the ordered place. He leaned wearily back, watching the streets blur past. Once a group of children threw stones at the vehicle, “How about a cigarette?” he said.

  “Shut up.”

  To his mild surprise, they did not halt at the military government headquarters—the old Hall of Justice; where the Donovans had presided before the war—but went on toward the suburbs, the spaceport being still radioactive. They must be going to the emergency field outside the city. Hm. He tried to relax. His head ached from the stun beam.

  A light cruiser had come in a couple of days before, H. M. Ganymede. It loomed enormous over the green rolling fields and the distance-blued hills and forests, a lance of bright metal and energy pointed into the clear sky of Ansa, blinding in the sun. A couple of spacemen on sentry at the gangway halted as the car stopped before them. “This man is going to Commander Jansky.”

  “Aye, aye. Proceed.”

  Through the massive airlock, down the mirror-polished companionway, into an elevator and up toward the bridge— Donovan looked about him with a professional eye. The Impies kept a clean, tight ship, he had to admit.

  He wondered if he would be shot or merely imprisoned. He doubted if he’d committed an enslaving offense. Well, it had been fun, and there hadn’t been a hell of a lot to live for anyway. Maybe his friends could spring him, if and when they got some kind of underground organized.

  He was ushered into the captain’s cabin. The ensign with him saluted. “Donovan as per orders, ma’am.”

  “Very good. But why is he in irons?”

  “Resisted orders, ma’am. Started a riot. Bloody business.”

  “I—see.” She nodded her dark head. “Losses?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am, but we had several wounded at least. A couple of Ansans were killed, I think.”

  “Well, leave him here. You may go.”

  “But—ma’am, he’s dangerous!”

  “I have a gun, and there’s a man just outside the door. You may go, ensign.”

  Donovan swayed a little on his feet, trying to pull himself erect, wishing he weren’t so dirty and bloody and generally messed up. You look like a tramp, man, he thought. Keep up appearances. Don’t let them outdo us, even in spit and polish.

  “Sit down, Captain Donovan,” said the woman.

  He lowered himself to a chair, raking her with deliberately insolent eyes. She was young to be wearing a commander’s twin planets—young and trim and nice looking. Tall body, sturdy but graceful, well filled out in the blue uniform and red cloak; raven-black hair falling to her shoulders; strong blunt-fingered hands, one of them resting close to her sidearm. Her face was interesting, broad and cleanly molded, high cheekbones, wide full mouth, stubborn chin, snub nose, storm-gray eyes set far apart under heavy dark brows. A superior peasant type, he decided, and felt more at ease in the armor of his inbred haughtiness. He leaned back and crossed his legs.