A disconcerted shadow was crossing the face of the officer as Alen improvised: “You will, of course, kill us all. But before this happens I shall have messaged back to the College and Order of Heralds the facts in the case, with a particular
request that your family be informed. Your name, I think, will be remembered as long as Gaarek’s—though not in the same way, of course; the Algolian whose hundred-man battle cruiser wiped out a virtually unarmed freighter with a crew of eight.”
The officer’s face was dark with rage. “You devil!” he snarled. “Leave my family out of this! I’ll come aboard and fight you man-to-man if you have the stomach for it!”
Alen shook his head regretfully. “The Rule of my Order forbids recourse to violence,” he said. “Our only permissible weapon is the truth.”
“We’re coming aboard,”.said the officer grimly. “I’ll order my men not to harm your people. We’ll just be collecting customs. If your people shoot first, my men will be under orders to do nothing more than disable them.”
Alen smiled and uttered a sentence or two in Algolian.
The officer’s jaw dropped and he croaked, after a pause: “I’ll cut you to ribbons. You can’t say that about my mother, you—” and he spewed back some of the words Alen had spoken.
“Calm yourself,” said the Herald gravely. “I apologize for my disgusting and unheraldic remarks. But I wished to prove a point. You would have killed me if you could; I touched off a reaction which had been planted in you by your culture. I will be able to do the same with the men of yours who come aboard. For every race of man there is the intolerable insult that must be avenged in blood.
“Send your men aboard under orders not to kill if you wish; I shall goad them into a killing rage. We shall be massacred, yours will be the blame and you will be disgraced and disowned by your entire planet.” Alen hoped desperately that the naval crews of the Realm were, as reputed, a barbarous and undisciplined lot—
Evidently they were, and the proud Algolian dared not risk it. In his native language he spat again: “You devil!” and switched back into Vegan. “Freighter Starsong,” he said bleakly, “I find that my space fix was in error and that you are not in Realm territory. You may proceed.”
The astrogator said from the detector board, incredulously: “He’s disengaging. He’s off us. He’s accelerating. Herald what did you say to him?”
But the reaction from blackboard was more gratifying.
Speechless, the trader took off his cap. Alen acknowledged the salute with a grave nod before he started back to his cubicle. It was just as well, he reflected, that the trader didn’t know his life and his ship had been unconditionally pledged in a finish fight against a hundred-man battle cruiser.
Lyra’s principal spaceport was pocked and broken, but they made a fair-enough landing. Alen, in full heraldic robes, descended from Starsong to greet a handful of port officials.
“Any metals aboard?” demanded one of them.
“None for sale,” said the Herald.
“We have Vegan gems, chiefly triple-fire.” He knew that the dull little planet was short of metals and, having made a virtue of necessity was somehow prejudiced against their import.
“Have your crew transfer the cargo to the Customs shed,” said the port official studying Starsong’s papers. “And all of you wait there.”
All of them—except Alen—lugged numbered sacks and boxes of gems to the low brick building designated. The trader was allowed to pocket a handful for samples before the shed was sealed—a complicated business. A brick was mortared over the simple ironwood latch that closed the iron-wood door, a pat of clay was slapped over the brick and the port seal stamped in it. A mechanic with what looked like a pottery blowtorch fed by powdered coal played a flame on the clay seal until it glowed orange-red and that, was that.
“Herald,” said the port official, “tell the merchant to sign here and make his fingerprints.”
Alen studied the document; it was a simple identification form. Blackbeard signed with the reed pen provided and fingerprinted the documented. After two weeks in space he scarcely needed to ink his fingers first.