"Yet you fought two other Space Vikings to cover my cousin's crippled Victrix. Why?"
So he must tell his tale, so worn and smooth, again. King Mikhyl's cigar went out while he listened.
"And you have been hunting him ever since? And now, you can't be sure whether you killed him or not?"
"I'm afraid I didn't. The man in the screen is the only man Dunnan can really trust. One or the other would stay wherever he has his base all the time."
"And when you do kill him; what then?"
"I'll go on trying to make a civilized planet of Tanith. Sooner or later, I'll have one quarrel too many with King Angus, and then we will be our Majesty Lucas the First of Tanith, and we will sit on a throne and receive our subjects. And I'll be glad when I can get my crown off and talk to a few men who call me 'shipmate,' instead of 'Your Majesty.'"
"Well, it would violate professional ethics for me to advise a subject to renounce his sovereign, of course, but that might be an excellent thing. You met the ambassador from Ithavoll at dinner, did you not? Three centuries ago, Ithavoll was a colony of Marduk—it seems we can't afford colonies, any more—and it seceded from us. Ithavoll was then a planet like your Tanith seems to be. Today, it is a civilized world, and one of Marduk's best friends. You know, sometimes I think a few lights are coming on again, here and there in the Old Federation. If so, you Space Vikings are helping to light them."
"You mean the planets we use as bases, and the things we teach the locals?"
"That, too, of course. Civilization needs civilized technologies. But they have to be used for civilized ends. Do you know anything about a Space Viking raid on Aton, over a century ago?"