time, we'd have had a horrible panic—"
"Admit nothing of the kind! Jethro, you were there, you'll bear me out. About a dozen of us were at Executive Palace for hours, bullying him into that. Why, we almost had to twist one of his arms while he was signing the order with the other. And now he has the gall to run for re-election on the strength of his heroic actions at the time of the Travis Hoax!"
"I know who we want for President!" another Storisende man exclaimed. "He's right here in this room!"
"Yes!" Rodney Maxwell almost bellowed, before the other man could say anything else. "Here he is!" He grabbed Kurt Fawzi by the arm and yanked him to his feet. "Here's the man most responsible for finding Merlin; the man who first suggested sending my son Conn to Terra to school, the man who, more than anyone else, devoted his life to the search for Merlin, the man whose inextinguishable faith and indomitable courage kept that search alive through its darkest hours. Everybody, get a drink; a toast to our next President, Kurt Fawzi!"
Conn was sure he heard his father add: "Ghu, what a narrow escape!"
Then he and Sylvie began chanting, in unison, "We want Fawzi! We want Fawzi!"
Space Viking
Vengeance is a strange human motivation—
it can drive a man to do things
which he neither would nor could achieve without it ...
and because of that it lies behind some of the
greatest sagas of human literature!
I
They stood together at the parapet, their arms about each other's waists, her head against his cheek. Behind, the broad leaved shrubbery gossiped softly with the wind, and from the lower main terrace came music and laughing voices. The city of Wardshaven spread in front of them, white buildings rising from the wide spaces of green treetops, under a shimmer of sun-reflecting aircars above. Far away, the mountains were violet in the afternoon haze, and the huge red sun hung in a sky as yellow as a ripe peach.
His eye caught a twinkle ten miles to the southwest, and for an instant he was puzzled. Then he frowned. The sunlight on the two thousand-foot globe of Duke Angus' new ship, the Enterprise, back at the Gorram shipyards after her final trial cruise. He didn't want to think about that, now.
Instead, he pressed the girl closer and whispered her name, "Elaine," and then, caressing every syllable, "Lady Elaine Trask of Traskon."
"Oh, no, Lucas!" Her protest was half joking and half apprehensive. "It's bad luck to be called by your married name before the wedding."
"I've been calling you that in my mind since the night of the Duke's ball, when you were just home from school on Excalibur."
She looked up from the corner of her eye.
"That was when I started calling me that, too," she confessed.
"There's a terrace to the west at Traskon New House," he told her. "Tomorrow, we'll have our dinner there, and watch the sunset together."
"I know. I thought that was to be our sunset-watching place."
"You have been peeking," he accused. "Traskon New House was to be your surprise."
"I always was a present-peeker, New Year's and my birthdays. But I only saw it from the air. I'll be very surprised at everything inside," she promised. "And very delighted."
And when she'd seen everything and Traskon New House wasn't a surprise any more, they'd take a long space trip. He hadn't mentioned that to her, yet. To some of the other Sword-Worlds—Excalibur, of course, and Morglay and Flamberge and Durendal. No, not Durendal; the war had started there again. But they'd have so much fun. And she would see clear blue skies again, and stars at night. The cloud-veil hid the stars from Gram, and Elaine had missed them, since coming home from Excalibur.
The shadow of an aircar fell briefly upon them and they looked up and turned their heads, in time to see it sink with graceful dignity toward the landing-stage of Karval House, and he glimpsed its blazonry—sword and atom-symbol, the badge of the ducal house of Ward. He wondered if it were Duke Angus himself, or just some of his people come ahead