His voice shaken, John said, “I will follow you. Somehow I will follow you. The word spreads throughout the countryside, and somehow I will learn where you are, and somehow I will follow you until I have killed you all or you have killed me.”
DeRudder rolled his eyes upward in appeal to higher powers. “Great. So why don’t we just kill you “here and now, eh? And then we won’t have the damned threat of you coming charging around a corner someday whirling that overgrown cheese knife.”
“This is to be expected,” John said evenly. “And then my kyn will come to find revengement, and you will be killed as clannless ones are killed. And there will be no one to take revengement or pay the bloodright for you.”
“It’s still going past me,” Perez muttered.
The skipper was interested. He leaned forward. “Look, son, how many of you Hawks are there?”
John said, “We number some 1,500 full clannsmen.”
“All right. Now, suppose they all come charging after us. You have seen some of our weapons. Believe me, we have more powerful ones. If we were interested in wiping out those dullies outside, we could do it. Maybe we will, later. But if your Clann Hawk came charging up, we’d polish them off in short order.”
“Then,” John said, “our two sister clanns, the Clarks and the Fieldings, would take up the vendetta.”
“The skipper grunted. Finally, he shrugged and said heavily, “All right. And what happens when we have polished them off as well?”
John of the Hawks was obviously taken aback by the ignorance of honorable useage these clannless ones showed. He said, “Each clann has two sister clanns. We have the Clarks and the Fieldings as our sister clanns. The Clarks also have two sister clanns, the Hawks and the Davidsons. The Fieldings have two sister clanns, the Hawks and the Deweys.”
DeRudder was staring now, as well as the skipper. “What you mean is, before you’re through, the whole phylum of Aberdeen would be In on the feud, or vendetta, or whatever you call it.”
John looked at him blankly. “But, of course.”
The skipper sighed his distrust. “All right. Now, what happens if we wipe out the whole village of Aberdeen? Say we dropped a scrambler on it?”
John said reasonably, “Then our sister towns, Elgin and Gleneagles, would take their revengement for us. And their sister towns, in turn.”
Harmon closed his eyes in pain. He said in complaint, “Carrying this on, I suppose ultimately your whole confederation would be involved. Okay. Do you realize that this ship could destroy every town in your confederation, without bothering to come down to the ground?”
“And then, Mister of the Harmons, our sister confederations would take up the vendetta.”
Unbelievingly, the six of them gaped at him.
At long last, the skipper shook his head. He said, “This is fantastic. What you’re saying is that ultimately a blood feud, what starts with our killing you—in self-defense, by the way—would involve every person on this planet.”
John nodded. “You might slay as many as you say. You might slay by the thousands with your weapons that know no bann. But if you plan to land anywhere on Caledonia, sooner or later the clannsmen would take their revengement. They would charge you on their horses on the heath. They would rush you in the narrowness of the streets of their towns. They would snipe at you from a distance with their carbines. Sooner or later, men from Beyond, they would take their revengement.”
The skipper was disgusted all over again. He said, “If what you say is true, then there wouldn’t be a soul left alive on this whole world. Obviously, it’s ridiculous. How do you end one of these damned vendettas, once it starts? It seems easy enough to start. There has to be some way of stopping them.”
John said reasonably, “Of course. At the first meeting of the Dail, the sachems of the respective clanns involved meet honorably and arrange for there to be made payment of the bloodright to the kyn of the slain. Accounts are balanced. Then all are cleared of the need for vendetta.”
“All right!” DeRudder said. “We plan to remain on this planet. We’ve got some business projects in mind. So well confer with your sachem and pay up for making the mistake of, uh, dishonoring you by taking you as a hostage.
Well apologize. We’ll end the damn vendetta before it starts.”
John scowled at him. “You jest, of course. How can you approach Robert, Sachem of the Hawks? You have admitted that you have no kyn. You have no sachem to represent you. It is against the bann for such payment of bloodright to be arranged by other than the sachem of your clann.”
The skipper ran his palm over his forehead. “Mari, mother of Krishna!” he muttered. He looked at DeRudder. “Throw this dully out! Give him his sword and dagger and throw him out!”
John said levelly, “If you free me, I shall seek you out. I shall inform my clannsmen of my dishonor, and they will take their revengement. At the next Dail, I will announce my shame, and the word will go out. And at the Dails of the other confederations the word will go out to the Hawks that their bloodline has been shamed. And from one Dail to the other, the word will go out. Until nowhere on all Caledonia will you be safe from the revengement of the Hawks.”
Harmon said urgently, “Look, this is completely empty. There must be some way to turn this off. So we’re clannless men. Okay. In your towns you have clannless ones. Servants and so forth, evidently. What happens if one of them attacks a clannsman? How is the whole thing settled?”
John turned his haughty stare to the youngest of the otherworldlings. “Why, all honorable men unite and kill the shameless clannless one.”
Harmon winced. “I should’ve known better than to ask,” he muttered bitterly.
For a long time, again, the six otherworldlings contemplated him.
DeRudder said, “That warder at the gate saw him go out with us.”
No one said anything to that. The implication was obvious.
The skipper’s face was working in frustration. Finally he snapped, “Gentlemen, we have just stopped being entrepreneurs and have become explorers again.” He looked at his first officer. “Mr. DeRudder, throw this barbarian out, then prepare the ship for space.”
DeRudder looked at him. “We’re leaving?”
“Can you think of any goddamned alternative?”
Harmon snarled. “It’s one big nugget of platinum.”
“That will be all, Mr. Harmon.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Come along,” DeRudder growled at John of the Hawks.
His lips white again, John said, “You mean you are not going to honorably kill me?” He snatched his coup stick frorn his belt and slashed the first officer across the cheek. “I count coup!” he snapped. “Though, indeed, it is a worthless coup, since you are clannless.”
DeRudder’s face went livid. The gun came up.
“Mister DeRudder, that will be all,” the skipper’s voice bit out.
DeRudder conducted him down another corridor and finally to the compartment they had entered in the groundcar. The first officer of the Golden Hind activated the sliding door, which opened in the hull. The ramp snaked out.
He handed John of the Hawks his belt and scabbard, keeping the handgun trained on him always.
John said flatly, “The Hawks will seek you out. The Clann Hawk of every confederation on all Caledonia will hear of the shame done their bloodline and will be watching for you…
“Shut up!” DeRudder snapped. “Shut up, or I’ll bum you down right here. Then your damned Clann Hawk will have to figure out some way of crossing all space to get at me!”
John turned in dignity and walked down the ramp. He didn’t turn to look until he was over the nearest hillock. He was moderately jittery about running into some of the Bruces that had been besieging the Golden Hind, armed as he was only with claidheammor and skean and having no horse.