DeRudder said to John, “Take off that belt, boy. I think we’d better relieve you of that set of toad stickers.”
John kept his shame to himself as he turned over his claidheammor and skean.
The skipper motioned him inside, and he entered the vehicle from Beyond and took a seat in the rear. There was seating for ten persons and ample room for luggage or whatever to the rear.
The others got in, the officer named Harmon behind a set of bewildering dials and switches and a small wheel.
In spite of the position he was in, John of the Hawks was fascinated.
The others settled themselves, and Harmon dropped a lever. There was a faint hum, and John’s stomach turned over in surprised rebellion as the heavy craft lifted slightly from the ground. Harmon trod upon another gadget, and they began moving forward.
The vehicle from Beyond progressed slowly to the entry of the paddock and then, as they entered the broad street before the longhouse of the Hawks, sped up. They headed for the Aberdeen main gate, going faster still.
The gate was open, and as they passed through it, John could see the warder, wide eyed, staring at them. Only at the List minute did he see that John was in the craft, along with the otherworldlings.
Once in the countryside, Harmon flicked another lever, and the craft rose another foot or two and increased speed considerably. They were now progressing as fast as any horse upon which John had ever ridden. He set his facial muscles, hating to show these others that he was amazed. And faster still, and faster. The countryside sped past in bewildering rapidity. In a matter of moments, they had covered ground that would have taken a horseman hours.
DeRudder, who still carried his weapon in his hand, albeit loosely and nonchalantly, grinned at John. “Now if that sachem mucky-muck of yours hadn’t been so empty, we might have made a deal to turn over a few of these Goundcars in return for platinum rights,” he said. “Can you imagine the advantage of taking one of these on one of your raids?”
John said, “Undoubtedly, the Keepers of the Faith would have decided it was against the bann.”
The skipper said to him dourly. “Everything seems to be taboo on this damned planet. Why should repeating rifles be against the bann?”
“That, like all banns, is in the hands of the Holy,” John said without inflection.
“Great,” DeRudder grunted. “But somehow the Holy, by whatever name you want to call him, usually makes with his words of wisdom and his threats through the lips of some intermediary or other. Such as your Keepers of the Faith, or bedels, or whatever you call them.”
John had never thought of that aspect, but he kept his peace.
DeRudder said in irritation, “So what do your Keepers of the Faith teach you was the reason for a bann against rifles that shoot more than once?”
John of the Hawks had never been particularly reverent; however, he had done the usual amount of reading of the Holy books when he was taking such schooling as Aberdeen saw fit for its youth to assimilate.
He said, “It is written that in the misty days, shortly after the Inverness Ark came from Beyond—”
“The what?” the skipper said sharply. “What was the name of that ship?”
“Ship?” John said.
“The name of the, well, whatever it was you came in from, uh, Beyond?”
“The Ark,” John said. “All of the people of Caledonia came in the Holy Inverness Ark.”
“Krishna!” the skipper said. “I remember now. Possibly the first pioneer craft ever to be lost in space. Crewed largely by colonists from northern Great Britain.”
John didn’t know what the skipper was talking about. DeRudder said, “Go on. Why the bann against gun that shoots more than once?”
John continued. “In the misty days, there were few people in all the land, and only slowly did the first phylum multiply. And at that time it is written that there was strong bann against man raising his hand to man, even though honor was involved. All lived in peace, as all will live in peace when the Land of the Leal is achieved.”
DeRudder said, “Great. But about the bann against repeating rifles?”
John said, “But when the people grew so numerous that there was no longer space for all the herds or sufficient game for the hunters, then there was a meeting of the sachem fathers of each clann, and it was decided that half the people, half from each clann, would gather together and move far off to a new land. And so it was. So that now there were two phyla, rather than one. And time passed, and still the people grew in number. So both the new phyla split, and half their number moved away to new lands.”
DeRudder was staring at him. “I’ll be damned. So finally, you spread over the whole planet, tribe by tribe, splitting as soon as there got to be so many that your primitive economies were fouled up by overpopulation.”
John didn’t understand that. For that matter, he was largely reciting what he had always considered legend or myth, and much of it wasn’t clear to him.
He went on, “But then, as the number of the phyla grew throughout the land, man began to ignore the original bann against raising hand against his fellowman, and the raids began. So it was that the Keepers of the Faith and the bedels gathered, and it was revealed to them by the Holy that there must be banns to control the relationship between the phyla. So it was that it was ruled that it is more glorious to count coup on man than to kill. So it was that the weapons of all were decided upon, and a carbine must fire but one shot at a time, so as to minimize the number that might be killed in a raid. All this so that the population would not be decimated.”
Harmon said, “There’s the ship. Krishna! What’s going on?”
They were coming in fast, and John’s eyes bugged. The craft was double the length of a longhouse and all obviously of metal. Could any clannsman swallow the nonsense that such an object could fly between the stars?
But while he goggled at the vehicle from Beyond, the others were taking in the clannsmen who, concealed by hillocks or any other cover they could find, were firing their carbines at the huge spaceship.
When the groundcraft approached from the rear, the startled clannsmen were up and away, scurrying for new cover, or possibly even for their horses.
“Bruces,” John said contemptuously.
“’What?” the skipper said.
“Clannsmen of the Clann Bruce,” John said. “A whole clann of slinks.”
“If that means coward,” Perez said, “I’d hate to see a hero on this damned planet. Here they are, attacking a ship with nothing but single shot rifles.”
The skipper said, “Take her into the port, Harmon. We don’t want to get out here—there might be some of those sharpshooters still around.”
As they got nearer to the Golden Hind they passed over several kilt clad bodies, Bruces who must have fallen in a charge on the ship.
To John’s amazement, as they approached the rearing otherworld spaceship it seemed to grow even larger than his first estimates. In volume it was at least the size of three or four longhouses. And as they drew near, slowing now, one of the metal walls slid open, and where earlier he could have seen no indication of an entry port, now there was one and a ramp of metal to ascend to it.
Harmon expertly jockeyed the groundcraft up the ramp, and they slid into the interior. He flicked his lift lever, and the vehicle sank to the metal flooring. Harmon stretched and yawned. “Home again,” he said sourly.
Perez opened a door manually and stepped out. Another otherworldling came hurrying up. He was dressed as were the four who had come to Aberdeen, but there was a bandage around his head, and his arm was worn in a sling. When all, including John of the Hawks, had disembarked, the skipper scowled at the newcomer. “Where is the chief?” he growled. “What in the name of Krishna’s going on a-round here, Wylie?”