Or was it? For the flagstaff over the spaceport carried an alien banner, white, with a shamrock and harp in green. The two men striding over the concrete toward the ship wore clover-colored tunics and trousers, military boots and side-arms. Similarly uniformed men paced along the wire fence or waited by machine gun nests. Not far away was berthed a space freighter, almost as old and battered as the Girl but considerably larger. And—and—
"Pest og jorbandelse!" exclaimed Herr Syrup.
"What?" Captain Radhakrishnan swiveled worried eyes toward him. "Plague and damnation," translated the engineer courteously.
"Eh? Where?"
"Over dere." Herr Syrup pointed. "Dat odder ship. Don't you see? Dere is a gun turret coupled onto her!"
"Well—I'll be—goodness gracious," murmured the captain.
Steps clanging on metal and a hearty roar drifted up to the bridge, together with a whiff of cool country air. In a few moments the large redhead entered the bridge. Behind him trailed a very tall, very thin, and very grim-looking middle-aged man.
"The top of the mornin' to yez," boomed the young one. He attempted a salute. "Major Rory McConnell of the Shamrock League Irredentist Expeditionary Force, at your ser-r-r-vice!"
"What?" exclaimed Radharkrishnan. He gaped and lifted his hands. "I mean—I mean to say, don't y'know, what? Has a war broken out? Or has it? Mean to say, y'know," he babbled, "we've had no such information, but then we've been en route for some weeks and—"
"Well, no." Major Rory McConnell shoved back his disreputable cap with a faint air of embarrassment. "No, your honor, 'tis not exactly a war we're havin'. More an act of justice."
The thin, razor-creased man shoved his long nose forward. "Perhaps I should explain," he clipped, "bein' as I am in command here. "Tis indeed an act of necessary an' righteous justice we are performin', after what the spalpeens did to us forty years agone come St. Matthew's Day." His dark eyes glowed fanatically. "The fact is, in order to assert the rightful claims of the Erse nation ag'inst the unprovoked an' shameless aggression of the—pardon me language—English of the Anglian Kingdom. The fact is, this asteroid is now under military occupation." He clicked his heels and bowed. "Permit me to introduce meself. General Scourge of the Sassenach O'Toole, of the Shamrock League Irredentist—"
"Ja, Ja ," said Herr Syrup. He still carried a cargo of anger to unload on someone. "I heard all dat. I also heard dat de Shamrock League is only a political party in de Erse Cluster." Scourge-of-the-Sassenach O'Toole winced. "Please, Saorstat Erseann."
"So vat you ban doin' vit' a private filibustering expedition, ha? And vat has it got to do vit' us?"
"Well," said Major Rory McConnell, not quite at ease, "the fact is, your honors, I'm sorry to be sayin' it, but ye can't leave here just the now."
"What?" cried Captain Radhakrishnan. "Can't leave? What do you mean, sir?" He drew himself up to his full 1.6 meters. "This is a Venusian ship, may I remind you, of Terrestrial registry, and engaged on its - er, ahem - its lawful occasions. Yes, that's it, its lawful occasions. You can't detain us!"
McConnell slapped his sidearm with a meaty hand. "Can't we?"he asked, brightening.
"But - look here - see here, my dear chap, we're on schedule. We're expected at Alamo, don't y" know, and if we don't report in—"
"Yes. There is that. "Tis been anticipated." General O'Toole squinted at them. Suddenly he pointed a bony finger at the engineer. "Yez! What might your name be?"
"I ban Knud Axel Syrup of Simmerboelle, Langeland," said the engineer indignantly, "and I am going to get in touch vit' de Danish consul at—"
"Mister who?" interrupted McConnell.
"Syrup!" It is a perfectly good Danish name, though like Middlefart it is liable to misinterpretation by foreigners. "I vill call my consulate on New Vinshester, ja, by Yudas, I vill even call de vun on Tara in Erse—"
"Teamhair," corrected O'Toole, wincing again.
"You see," said Radhakrishnan, anxiously fingering his monocle, "our cargo to Alamo carries a stiff penalty clause, and if we're held up here any length of time, then—"
"Quiet!" barked O'Toole. His finger stabbed toward the Earthmen. "So 'twas Venus ye were on last, eh? Well, as military commandant of this occupied asteroid, I hereby appoints meself medical officer an' I suspect ye of carryin' Polka Dot Plague."
"Polka Dot!" bellowed Herr Syrup. A red flush went up from his hairy chest till his scalp gleamed like a landing light. "Vy, you spoutnosed son of a Svedish politician, dere hasn't been a case of Polka Dot in all de Imperium for tventy-five Eart' years!"
"Possibly," snapped O'Toole. "However, under international law the medical officer of any port has a right an' duty to hold any vessel in quarantine when he suspects a dangerous disease aboard. I suspects of Polka Dot Plague, an' this whole asteroid is hereby officially quarantined."
"But!" wailed Radhakrishnan.
"I think six weeks will be long enough," said O'Toole more gently. "Meanwhile ye'll be free to move about an'—"
"Six weeks here will ruin us!"
"Sorry, sir," answered McConnell. He beamed. "But take heart, ye're bein' ruined in a good cause:
redressin' the wrongs of the Gaelic race!"
CHAPTER TWO
Fuming away on a pipe which would have been banned under any smog-control ordinance, Knud Axel Syrup bicycled into Grendel Town. He ignored the charm of thatch and tile roofs, half-timbered Tudor facades, and swinging signboards. Those were for tourists, anyway; Grendel lived mostly off the vacation trade. But it did not escape him how quiet the place was, its usual cheerful pre-season bustle dwindled to a tight-lipped housewife at the greengrocer's and a bitterly silent dart game in the Crown Castle.
Occasionally a party of armed Erse, or a truck bearing the shamrock sign, went down the street. The occupying force seemed composed largely of very young men, and it was not professional. The uniforms were homemade, the arms a wild assortment from grouse guns up through stolen rocket launchers, the officers were saluted when a man happened to feel like saluting, and the idea that it might be a nice gesture to march in step had never occurred to anyone.
Nevertheless, there were something like a thousand invaders on Grendel, and their noisy, grinning, well-meaning sloppiness did not hide the fact that they could be tough to fight.
Herr Syrup stopped at the official bulletin board in the market square. Brushing aside ivy leaves, the announcement of a garden party at the vicarage three months ago, and a yellowing placard wherein the Lord Mayor of Grendel invited bids for the construction of a fen country near the Heorot Hills, he found the notice he was looking for. It was gaudily hand-lettered in blue and green poster paints and said:
Know all men by these presents, that forty Earth-years ago, when the planetoid clusters of Saorstat Erseann and the Anglian Kingdom were last approaching conjunction, the asteroid called Lois by the Anglians but rightfully known to its Erse discoverer Michael Boyne as Laoighise (pronounced Lois) chanced to drift between the two nations on its own skewed orbit. An Anglian prospecting expedition landed, discovered rich beds of praseodymium, and claimed the asteroid in the name of King James IV. The Erse Republic protested this illegal seizure and sent a warship to remove the Anglian squatters, only to find that King James IV had caused two warships to be sent; accordingly, despite this severe provocation, the peace-loving Erse Republic withdrew its vessel. The aforesaid squatters installed a powerful gyrogravitic unit on Laoighise and diverted its orbit into union with the other planetoids of the Anglian Cluster. Since then Anglia has remained in occupation and exploitation.