Free The Inheritors by A. Bertram Chandler

distance."

    "From landmark to landmark," said Grimes. "We may as well enjoy the scenery."

    "You look as though you're doing that right now," commented Maggie.

    "Would you mind getting back to your seat, Maya?" asked Grimes. "We shall be accelerating soon, and you may lose your balance . . . ."

    "Make sure you don't lose yours . . ." Maggie murmured.

    The irregular beat of the inertial drive was louder now, and its vibration noticeable. The pinnace turned in a wide arc, and then the landing site was astern of them, and the two, tall ships were dwindling to the size of toys. Ahead of them, and a little to starboard, was a snowcapped mountain, Ben Nevis. Below them was a wide prairie over which surged a great herd of duncolored beasts. "Bison," said Maya, adding that these animals constituted the main meat supply of her people. She offered strips of dried flesh from her basket to Grimes and Maggie, much as a Terran woman would offer chocolates. Grimes took one and chewed it dubiously. It wasn't bad, but it would not worry him much if he never tasted any more of it.

    He took a pair of binoculars from their rack and stared down at the so-called bison. From almost directly above them he could not get much of an idea of their general appearance—but he knew that the Terran animals of that name had never run to six legs, whereas these brutes did.

    The gleaming peak of Ben Nevis hung in their starboard viewports for long seconds, then dropped slowly astern. The pinnace, now, was following the course of another river, the Mersey, and Maya was pointing out the towns along its meandering length. "Yes, that must be Lancaster . . . . I visited there two years ago, and I remember that thickly wooded hill just by it . . . . Most of the people living along the Mersey banks are Cordwainers . . . ."

    "Cordwainers?" asked Grimes, thinking that she must be referring to some odd trade.

    "It is their name, just as Smith is the name of most of us along the Thames . . . ."

    "And what names, how many names, do you have on this world?" asked Maggie.

    "There's Smith, of course. And Wells. And Morrow. And Cordwainer. That's all."

    "Probably only four male survivors when Lode Cougar got here," said Grimes. "And polygamous marriages . . . ."

    "Chester," announced Maya, pointing to another town. "Brighton, and the shipbuilding yards . . . . That schooner looks almost finished . . . Manchester, I think . . . . Oh, this is the way to travel! It took me weeks, many weeks, when I did it by foot and by wherry!"

    "And why do you travel?" asked Maggie.

    "Why do you travel?" the other woman countered. "To . . . to see new things, new people."

    "And what new things have you seen?"

    "Oh, the workshops at Manchester. You must have noticed the smoke as we flew over them. They smelt metal there, after they've dug the ore from the ground. They say that for years and years, before the process was discovered, we had to use scraps of metal from the ship to tip our spears and arrows."

    "And so your weapons are made from this iron—I suppose it's iron—from Manchester?" asked Maggie.

    "Yes."

    "And what do you buy it with? What do you barter for it?"

    "The salmon are caught only in the Thames. Their pickled flesh is a great delicacy."

    "And tell me," Maggie went on, "don't some of you Smiths and Morrows and Wellses and Cordwainers get the idea, sometimes, that there are other ways of getting goods besides barter?"

    "There are no other ways, Commander Maggie."

    "On some worlds there are. Just suppose, Maya . . . just suppose that it's been a bad year for salmon. Just suppose that you need a stock of new weapons and have nothing to give in exchange for them. Just suppose that you lead a party of spearmen and archers to, say, Oxford, to take the people by surprise and to take their bows and spears by force . . . "

    "Are you mad?" demanded Maya. "That would be impossible. It is not . . . human to