“The engineer’s dead,” the one named Wylie said excitedly. “Where’ve you been, Skipper? All hell’s busted loose since you left. We were afraid they’d got you. T. Z. Chu’s dead too. If you hadn’t come back, we couldn’t even’ve lifted off.”
“Dead?” Perez said in shock.
Darting a glance at John, but then coming back to his fellows, Wylie said, “The raids started right after you left. It was the first one got us. They came charging in on horses, shooting and with these big swords, and they caught the engineer and Chu outside. I tried to come out to help, and they nicked me. Jerry and I managed to run them off with flamers, but it was too late for the chief engineer and T. Z.”
The skipper turned coldly to John. “I thought there were three days of hospitality for traveling strangers.”
John said, “The kilts on those clannsmen outside are those of Bruces. They are not of our phylum. You are on Aberdeen lands. We have granted you the three days of hospitality, in spite of your actions. But the Clann Bruce is not affected by the bann in this case. Do you know nothing at all of honorable usage?”
The skipper turned from him in disgust and back to the wounded man from Beyond. “What else happened?”
“Jerry and I have been fighting them off ever since,” the man called Wylie said. “At first we bowled them over like nothing. But they’re smarting up now. They don’t come within range of small arms or at least, not so we can see them. They just lay off and ping away at us.”
Harmon said. “What harm can they do?”
Wylie said to him, “Nothing, against the hull of the ship. But we can’t go out. They tried to build a big fire up against us last night. I tell you, they’re tricky.”
John was taking all this in, without overmuch surprise. The men from Beyond were fair game for any clannsman save those from Aberdeen, and now that the three days were up, they were game for Aberdeen, too.
The skipper grimaced. He thought about it. In irritation he snapped at DeRudder, “Put this dully in confinement somewhere, and everybody come on into the lounge.”
DeRudder upped his weapon and motioned to John with it. “This way.”
John preceded him down a long corridor of metal. John of the Hawks had never seen so much metal in his life. It gave him a strange feeling of being shut in, a disturbing feeling. The halls were more narrow than those of the long-houses. The ceilings were lower, and he felt as though they were squeezing him down. He wondered how long it must take to come from the Beyond to Caledonia and how the otherworldlings could bear to be confined, whatever the time involved. Did they not feel the demand to dash outside and see the sky above, the distances stretching away? It would have been a horror to him. Indeed, it was a horror even in so little a time.
He was conducted to a small compartment—smaller even than his young man’s quarters in the longhouse—and ushered inside. The door was closed behind him, and he heard a noise that was a lock, though this he didn’t know, the institution of locked doors being unknown on Caledonia;
And then came the most trying ordeal in the seventeen years of John of the Hawks. For confined though the corridor of the Golden Hind might have seemed to him, it was like all space compared to this small hold which measured little more than his height in length, breadth and depth.
His soul screamed against his imprisonment, as that of the eagle or hawk must when encased in a space so small that it cannot spread its wings, as that of the timber wolf must when brought to the zoo from its woodland range.
All his tendency was to beat with his fists against the metal door and scream to be released, but the pride of a score of generations of clannsmen came to his aid and preserved sanity. He refused to play the slink before these foe.
Chapter Six
He found some release in closing his eyes and pretending to be in his own quarters. There was a cot, much too short for him, but at least he was able to recline. And finally sleep came.
He was awakened by a noise at the door and at first didn’t comprehend where he was, but then it came flooding back to him.
It was DeRudder, and the other carried his weapon in hand. He said, “Come along, John, the skipper wants to talk to you.”
John came to his feet and followed the other out into the corridor. DeRudder gestured again with the gun. “That way.”
They proceeded down the metal hall again, to emerge at last into a fairly large compartment, large enough, at least, so that the awful feeling of confined space was not quite so bad. There were various chairs, tables and other furnishings, and the four spacemen John had originally met were augmented by two others, Wylie and another. John noted with satisfaction that the man with Wylie was also wounded. Evidently, the Clann Bruce was doing fairly well—for the Clann Bruce. John slightly altered his opinion of their fighting abilities.
The skipper, who was seated at a table, a glass of some darkish liquid before him, said gruffly, “Sit down, John. We want to talk to you.”
“I will stand, Skipper of the Fowlers.”
DeRudder said, “Would you like a drink?” He added sarcastically, “Our nip isn’t quite up to that uisgebeatha of yours, but it’ll take the lining off your throat.”
John of the Hawks was somewhat taken aback by the offer, but he said, “I will take no hospitality from you.”
“You must realize that there is now vendetta between the Hawks and the Clann DeRudder, and my kynsmen will take revengement of my honor.”
The skipper said, “Don’t be empty.”
John looked at him. “And you also, Skipper of the Fowlers.” His eyes went to Harmon and Perez. “And you two also. My kyn will take their revengement on your clanns.”
Harmon snorted amusement.
DeRudder said, “Among other things, we don’t have clanns to fight feuds, even if we were primitive enough to have such an institution. We don’t use the same type of relationship as you do, boy. You still evidently have a gens system. We of the League have been beyond that for a few thousand years.”
“You mean you are clannless? You are without kyn?” John’s lips were going white. “And you laid hands on me, a Hawk? Dishonored me by taking me prisoner and stripping me of my weapons, rather than letting me face black death in honorable combat? How can my kynsmen take revengement if you are clannless men?”
The one named Perez shook his head. “The words are Earth Basic, but half of what he says doesn’t come through. At least, not to me.”
Harmon leaned forward. “Why should your relatives, your kinsmen, want to revenge you?
“What else could they do, after my blood has been shed?”
DeRudder wiped the back of his hand over his mouth in frustration. “Look. Nobody is going to shed your blood.”
John of the Hawks stared at him in utter disbelief. Finally he said, “Then what will you do with me?”
“Well turn you loose, of course.”
“To return to Aberdeen, weaponless to the Hawks?”
“Why weaponless? You can have your damn weapons. All we want to do is ask you a few more questions about how this dully of a planet works.”
John shook his head. “Why would you do this to me? What have I done to you that you should desire to make a woman of me? Why not count honorable coup of me, or at least kill me?”
The skipper, who had remained silent during all this, stirred. “We don’t want to kill you, son. We want a little more information, so that when we go up against the next town we’ll know more of the customs. You’re free to go, sword and all, as soon as we’re through.”