No World of Their Own by Poul Anderson Read Free Book Online Page B

years or more, recruited from all planets, even nonhuman races: it carried on most of the interstellar trade there was, dealing in goods which were often from worlds unknown to this little section of the galaxy. For Society personnel, the great spaceships were home, men and women and children living their lives on them. They had their own laws, customs, language; they owed allegiance to no one else.
    â€œHaven’t you a capital, a government?”
    â€œDetails, my friend, details we can discuss later. Do come see me. I am a lonely old man. Perhaps I can offer you some small entertainment. Did you by any chance stop in the Tau Ceti system? No? That’s a shame. It would have interested you: the double ring system of Osiris and the natives of Horus and the beautiful, beautiful valleys of Ammon, yes, yes.” The names originally given to the planets had changed, but not so much that Langley could not recognize what mythical figures the discoverers had had in mind. Valti went on to reminisce about worlds he had seen in the lost lamented days of his youth, and Langley found it an enjoyable conversation.
    â€œHo, there!”
    Valti jumped up and bowed wheezily. “My lord! You honor me beyond my worth. It has been overly long since I saw you.”
    â€œAll of two weeks,” grinned the blond giant in the screaming crimson jacket and blue trousers. He had a wine goblet in one brawny hand, the other held the ankles of a tiny, exquisite dancing girl who perched on his shoulder and squealed with laughter. “And then you diddled me out of a thousand solars, you and your loaded dice.”
    â€œMost excellent lord, fortune must now and then smile even on my ugly face; the probability-distribution curve demands it.” Valti made washing motions with his hands. “Perhaps my lord would care for revenge some evening next week?”
    â€œCould be. Whoops!” The giant slid the girl to earth and dismissed her with a playful thwack. “Run along, Thura, Kolin, whatever your name is. I’ll see you later.” His eyes were very bright and blue on Langley. “Is this the dawn man I’ve been hearing about?”
    â€œYes. My lord, may I present Captain Edward Langley? Lord Brannoch dhu Crombar, the Centaurian ambassador.”
    So this was one of the hated and feared men from Thor. He and Valti were the first recognizably Caucasoid types the American had seen in this age: presumably their ancestors had left Earth before the races had melted into an almost uniform stock here, and possibly environmental factors had had something to do with fixing their distinctive features.
    Brannoch grinned jovially, sat down and told an uproariously improper story. Langley countered with the tale of the cowboy who got three wishes, and Brannoch’s guffaw made glasses tremble.
    â€œSo you still used horses?” he asked afterward.
    â€œYes, my lord. I was raised in horse country. We used them in conjunction with trucks. I was … going to raise them myself.”
    Brannoch seemed to note the pain in the spaceman’s voice, and with a surprising tact went on to describe his stable at home. “I think you’d like Thor, Captain,” he finished. “We still have elbow room. How they can breathe with twenty billion hunks of fat meat in the Solar System, I’ll never know. Why not come see us sometime?”
    â€œI’d like to, my lord,” said Langley, and maybe he wasn’t being entirely a liar.
    Brannoch sprawled back, letting his long legs stretch across the polished floor. “I’ve kicked around a bit too,” he said. “Had to get out of the system a while back, when my family got the short end of a feud. Spent a hundred years external time knocking around, till I got a chance to make a comeback. Planetography’s a sort of hobby with me, which is the only reason I come to your parties, Valti, you kettle-bellied old fraud. Tell me, Captain, did you