Free Captive of the Centaurianess by Poul Anderson Page A

to the rigors of his journey, and Dyann's demands kep him chronically sleepy. This evening, a lot of the potent local wine had been added. He could barely focus on the crowd. Beside him, Urushkidan snored, Martian style, which sounds like firecrackers in an echo chamber.
    Dyann ended her harangue at last. Both cheers and jeers lifted deafeningly. Long-winded arguments followed, which tended to degenerate into fist fights, until Ray himself dozed off.
    He was shaken awake when sunset turned heaven sulfurous above the roofs, and gaped blearily around. The assembly was dispersing, most people headed for the taverns which comprised a large part of Mayta. Stiff and sore, he lurched to his feet. Dyann was more fresh and rosy than he felt he should be asked to tolerate.
    "It has been decided," she rejoiced. "Ve have agreement. Now ve must call other meetins throughout the realm, but there is no doubt they vill follow this lead. Already ve can send envoys to Almarro and Kurin, for negotiatin alliance. How soon can a fleet leave, Ray?"
    "Leave?" he bleated. "For where?"
    "Vy, for Yupiter. To attack the Yovians. Veren't you listenin?"
    "Huh?"
    "No, I forgot, you don't know our language. Vell, don't trouble your pretty little head about such things. Come on back to the castle, and ve vill make love before dinner."
    "But," stammered Ray, "but, but, but."
     
    How do you equip a host of barbarians, still in the early Iron Age, to cross four and a third light-years of space for purposes of waging war on a nation armed to its nuclear-powered teeth?
    A preliminary question, perhaps, is: Do you want to?
    Ray did not, but found that he had scant choice in the matter. Affectionately but firmly, Dyann made him understand that men kept in their place and behaved as they were bidden.
    She did go so far as to explain her reasoning. Centaurians were not stupid, or even crazy. What they were—on this continent of Varann, at least—was warlike. While in the Solar System she had almost automatically, but shrewdly, paid close heed to the military-political situation. Afterward she had plugged the capabilities of the cosmic drive into her assessment. Most of the Jovian naval strength was deployed widely through space. If the escape from Ganymede had, indeed, made the Confederation decide to lean hard on the Union while the balance of power remained in its favor, that ought to leave the giant planet quite thinly guarded, sufficient to intercept conventional attackers but not any who came in faster than light. A raid in force should, if nothing else, result in the capture of Wotanopolis. No matter how austere by Terrestrial standards, that city was incredibly rich in Varannian terms. The raiders could complete their business and get home free, loaded with loot, covered with glory, and well supplied with captives. (As for the latter, there was hope of ransom, or possibly more hope of keeping them permanently as harem inmates. The polyandrous customs of this country worked hardship on many women.) While Earth might disown the action as piracy, it would doubtless not take punitive measures; everybody on the planet would be too relieved when an alarmed Confederation pulled its forces back to the Jovian moons.
    Thus the calculation. Numerous ladies, Dyann foremost, recognized that it might prove disastrously wrong and the expedition end up as a cloud of incandescent gas or something like that. The idea didn't worry them much. If they fell audaciously, they would revel forever among the gods; and their names would ring in epic poetry while the world endured.
    Failing, to convince her otherwise, Ray sought out Urushkidan. The Martian, after an abortive attempt to steal the spaceboat and sneak off by himself, had been given a room high in a tower. Having adjusted a bit to the gravity, he sat amidst trophies of the hunt and covered a sheet of parchment with equations. This place , thought Ray, has squids in the belfry.
    He poured forth his tale of woe. The Martian