Normally, at overdrive cruising speed, it would be a week's journey from
Walden to the planet Krim. Hoddan made it in five days. There was
reason. He wanted to beat the news of his piracy to Krim. He could
endure suspicion, and he wouldn't mind doubt, but he did not want
certainty of his nefarious behavior to interfere with the purposes of
his call.
The space yacht, sealed tightly, floated in an orbit far out in
emptiness. The big ship went down alone by landing grid. It glittered
brightly as it descended. When it touched ground and the grid's force
fields cut off, it looked very modern and very crisp and strictly
businesslike. Actually, the capture of this particular liner was a bit
of luck, for Hoddan. It was not one of the giant inter-cluster ships
which make runs of thousands of light-years and deign to stop only at
very major planets. It was a medium ship of five thousand tons burden,
designed for service in the Horsehead Nebula region. It was brand-new
and on the way from its builders to its owners when Hoddan interfered.
Naturally, though, it carried cargo on its maiden voyage.
Hoddan spoke curtly to the control room of the grid.
"I'm non-sked," he explained. "New ship. I got a freak charter party
over on Walden and I have to get rid of my cargo. How about shifting me
to a delay space until I can talk to some brokers?"
The force fields came on again and the liner moved very delicately to a
position at the side of the grid's central space. There it would be out
of the way.
Hoddan dressed himself carefully in garments found in the liner's
skipper's cabin. He found Thal wearing an apron and an embittered
expression. He ceased to wield a mop as Hoddan halted before him.
"I'm going ashore," said Hoddan crisply. "You're in charge until I get
back."
"In charge of what?" demanded Thal bitterly. "Of a bunch of male
housemaids! I run a mop! And me a Darthian gentleman! I thought I was
being a pirate! What do I do? I scrub floors! I wash paint! I stencil
cases in cargo holds! I paint over names and put others in their places!
Me, a Darthian gentleman!"
"No," said Hoddan. "A pirate. If I don't get back, you and the others
can't work this ship, and presently the police of Krim will ask why.
They'll recheck my careful forgeries, and you'll all be hung for piracy.
So don't let anybody in. Don't talk to anybody. If you do--_pfft!_"
He drew his finger across his throat, and nodded, and went cheerfully
out the crew's landing-door in the very base of the ship. He went across
the tarmac and out between two of the gigantic steel arches of the grid.
He hired a ground vehicle.
"Where?" asked the driver.
"Hm-m-m," said Hoddan. "There's a firm of lawyers.... I can't remember
the name--"
"There's millions of 'em," said the driver.
"This is a special one," explained Hoddan. "It's so dignified they won't
talk to you unless you're a great-grandson of a client. They're so
ethical they won't touch a case of under a million credits. They've got
about nineteen names in the firm title and--"
"Oh!" said the ground-car driver. "That'll be-- Hell! I can't remember
the name either. But I'll take you there."
He drove out into traffic. Hoddan relaxed. Then he tensed again. He had
not been in a city since he stopped briefly in this on the way to Darth.
The traffic was abominable. And he, who'd been in various pitched
battles on Darth and had only lately captured a ship in space-- Hoddan
grew apprehensive as his ground-car charged into the thick of hooting,
rushing, squealing vehicles. When the car came to a stop he was
relieved.
"It's yonder," said the driver. "You'll find the name on the directory."
Hoddan paid and went inside the gigantic building. He looked at the
directory and shrugged. He went to the downstairs guard. He explained
that he was looking for a firm of lawyers whose name was not on the
directory list. They were extremely conservative and of the highest
possible reputation. They didn't seek clients--
"Forty-two and forty-three," said the guard, frowning. "I ain't supposed
to give it out, but--floors forty-two and-three."
* * * * *
Hoddan went up. He was unknown. A receptionist looked at him with
surprised aversion.
"I have a case of space piracy," said Hoddan polite. "A member of the
firm, please."
Ten minutes later he eased himself into the easiest of easy-chairs. A
gray-haired man of infinite dignity said:
"Well?"
"I am," said Hoddan modestly, "a pirate. I have a ship in the spaceport
with very convincing papers and a cargo of Rigellian furs, jewelry from
the Cetis planets, and a rather large quantity of bulk melacynth. I want
to dispose of the cargo and invest a considerable part of the proceeds
in conservative stocks on Krim."
The lawyer frowned. He looked shocked. Then he said carefully:
"You made two statements. One was that you are a pirate. Taken by
itself, that is not my concern. The other is that you wish to dispose of
certain cargo and invest in reputable businesses on Krim. I assume that
there is no connection between the two observations."
He paused. Hoddan said nothing. The lawyer went on, with dignity:
"Of course our firm is not in the brokerage business. However, we can
represent you in your dealing with local brokers. And obviously we can
advise you--"
"I also wish to buy," said Hoddan, "a complete shipload of agricultural
machinery, a microfilm technical library, machine tools, vision-tape
technical instructors and libraries of tape for them, generators, and
such things."
"Hm-m-m," said the lawyer. "I will send one of our clerks to examine
your cargo so he can deal properly with the brokers. You will tell him
in detail what you wish to buy."
Hoddan stood up.
"I'll take him to the ship now."
He was mildly surprised at the smoothness with which matters proceeded.
He took a young clerk to the ship. He showed him the ship's papers as
edited by himself. He took him through the cargo holds. He discussed in
some detail what he wished to buy.
When the clerk left, Thal came to complain again.
"Look here!" he said bitterly, "we've scrubbed this ship from one end
to the other! There's not a speck or a fingermark on it. And we're still
scrubbing! We captured this ship! Is this pirate revels?"
Hoddan said:
"There's money coming. I'll let you boys ashore with some cash in your
pockets presently."
Brokers came, escorted by the lawyer's clerk. They squabbled furiously
with him. But the dignity of the firm he represented was extreme. There
was no suspicion--no overt suspicion anyhow--and the furs went. The
clerk painstakingly informed Hoddan that he could draw so much. More
brokers came. The jewelry went. The lawyer's clerk jotted down figures
and told Hoddan the net. The bulk melacynth was taken over by a group of
brokers, none of whom could handle it alone.
Hoddan drew cash and sent his Darthians ashore with a thousand credits
apiece. With bright and shining faces, they headed for the nearest bars.
"As soon as my ship's loaded," Hoddan told the clerk, "I'll want to get
them out of jail."
The clerk nodded. He brought salesmen of agricultural machinery.
Representatives of microfilm libraries. Manufacturers of generators,
vision-tape instructors and allied lines. Hoddan bought, painstakingly.
Delivery was promised for the next day.
"Now," said the clerk, "about the investments you wish to make with the
balance?"
"I'll want a reasonable sum in cash," said Hoddan reflectively. "But....
well ... I've been told that insurance is a fine, conservative business.
As I understand it, most insurance organizations are divided into
divisions which are separately incorporated. There will be a
life-insurance division, a casualty division, and so on. Is that right?
And one may invest in any of them separately?"
The clerk said impassively:
"I was given to understand, sir, that you are interested in
risk-insurance. Perhaps especially risk-insurance covering piracy. I was
given quotations on the risk-insurance divisions of all Krim companies.
Of course those are not very active stocks, but if there were a rumor of
a pirate ship acting in this part of the galaxy, one might anticipate--"
"I do," said Hoddan. "Let's see. ... My cargo brought so much....
Hm-m-m.... My purchases will come to so much. Hm-m-m.... My legal fees,
of course.... I mentioned a sum in cash. Yes. This will be the balance,
more or less, which you will put in the stocks you've named, but since I
anticipate activity in them. I'll want to leave some special
instructions."
He gave a detailed, thoughtful account of what he anticipated might be
found in news reports of later dates. The clerk noted it all down,
impassively. Hoddan added instructions.
"Yes, sir," said the clerk without intonation when he was through. "If
you will come to the office in the morning, sir, the papers will be
drawn up and matters can be concluded. Your new cargo can hardly be
delivered before then, and if I may say so, sir, your crew won't be
ready. I'd estimate two hours of festivity for each man, and fourteen
hours for recovery."
"Thank you," said Hoddan. "I'll see you in the morning."
* * * * *
He sealed up the ship when the lawyer's clerk departed. Then he felt
lonely. He was the only living thing in the ship. His footsteps echoed
hollowly. There was nobody to speak to. Not even anybody to threaten.
He'd done a lot of threatening lately.
He went forlornly to the cabin once occupied by the liner's former
skipper. His loneliness increased. He began to feel those daunting
self-doubts such as plague the most unselfish and conscientious people.
His actions to date, of course, did not trouble him. Today's actions
were the ones which bothered his conscience. He felt that they were not
quite adequate. The balance left in the lawyer's hands would not be
nearly enough to cover a certain deficit which in justice he felt
himself bound to make up. It had been his thought to make this
enterprise self-liquidating--everybody concerned making a profit,
including the owners of the ship and cargo he had pirated. But he wasn't
sure.
He reflected that his grandfather would not have been disturbed about
such a matter. That elderly pirate would have felt wholly at ease. It
was his conviction that piracy was an essential part of the working of
the galaxy's economic system. Hoddan, indeed, could remember him saying
precisely, snipping off the ends of his words as he spoke:
"I tell y', piracy's what keeps the galaxy's business thriving!
Everybody knows business suffers when retail trade slacks down. It backs
up the movement of inventories. They get too big. That backs up orders
to the factories. They lay off men. And when men are laid off they don't
have money to spend, so retail trade slacks off some more, and that
backs up inventories some more, and that backs up orders to factories
and makes unemployment and hurts retail trade again. It's a feed-back.
See?" It was Hoddan's grandfather's custom, at this point, to stare
shrewdly at each of his listeners in turn.
"But suppose somebody pirates a ship? The owners don't lose. It's
insured. They order another ship built right away. Men get hired to
build it and they're paid money to spend in retail trade and that moves
inventories and industry picks up. More'n that, more people insure
against piracy. Insurance companies hire more clerks and bookkeepers.
They get more money for retail trade and to move inventories and keep
factories going and get more people hired.... Y'see? It's piracy that
keeps business in this galaxy goin'!"
Hoddan had known doubts about this, but it could not be entirely wrong.
He'd put a good part of the proceeds of his piracy in risk-insurance
stocks, and he counted on them to make all his actions as benevolent to
everybody concerned as his intentions had been, and were. But it might
not be true enough. It might be less than ... well ... sufficiently true
in a particular instance. And therefore--
Then he saw how things could be worked out so that there could be no
doubt. He began to work out the details. He drifted off to sleep in the
act of composing a letter in his head to his grandfather on the pirate
planet Zan.
When morning came on Krim, catawheel trucks came bringing gigantic
agricultural machines of a sort that would normally never be shipped by
space freight. There came generators and turbines and tanks of plastic,
and vision-tape instructors and great boxes full of tape for them. There
were machine tools and cutting tips--these last in vast quantity--and
very many items that the emigrants of Colin probably would not expect,
and might not even recognize. The cargo holds of the liner filled.
[Illustration]
He went to the office of his attorneys. He read and signed papers, in an
atmosphere of great dignity and ethical purpose. The lawyer's clerk
attended him to the police office, where seven dreary Darthians with
oversized hangovers tried dismally to cheer themselves by memories of
how they got that way. He got them out and to the ship. The lawyer's
clerk produced a rather weighty if small box with an air of extreme
solemnity.
"The currency you wanted, sir."
"Thank you," said Hoddan. "That's the last of our business?"
"Yes, sir," said the clerk. He hesitated, and for the first time showed
a trace of human curiosity. "Could I ask a question, sir, about piracy?"
"Why not?" asked Hoddan. "Go ahead."
"When you ... ah ... captured this ship, sir," said the clerk hopefully,
"did you ... ah ... shoot the men and keep the women?"
Hoddan sighed.
"Much," he said regretfully, "as I hate to spoil an enlivening
theory--no. These are modern days. Efficiency has invaded even the
pirate business. I used my crew for floor-scrubbing and cookery."
He closed the ship port gently and went up to the control room to call
the landing grid operators. In minutes the captured liner, loaded down
again, lifted toward the stars.
* * * * *
And all the journey back to Darth was as anticlimactic as that. There
was no trouble finding the space yacht in its remote orbit. Hoddan sent
out an unlocking signal, and a keyed transmitter began to send a signal
on which to home. When the liner nudged alongside it, Hoddan's last
contrivance operated and the yacht clung fast to the larger ship's hull.
There were four days in overdrive. There were three or four pauses for
position-finding. The stop-over on Krim had cost some delay, but Hoddan
arrived back at a positive sight of Darth's sun within a day or so of
standard space drive direct from Walden. Then there was little or no
time lost in getting into orbit with the junk yard space fleet of the
emigrants. Shortly thereafter he called the leader's ship with only mild
worries about possible disasters that might have happened while he was
away.
"Calling the leader's ship," he said crisply. "Calling the leader's
ship! This is Bron Hoddan, reporting back from Walden with a ship and
machinery contributed for your use!"
The harsh voice of the bearded old leader of the emigrants seemed
somehow broken when he replied. He called down blessings on Hoddan, who
could use them. Then there was the matter of getting emigrants on board
the new ship. They didn't know how to use the boat-blister lifeboat
tubes. Hoddan had to demonstrate. But shortly after there were twenty,
thirty, fifty of the folk from Colin, feverishly searching the ship and
incredulously reporting what they found.
"It's impossible!" said the old man. "It's impossible!"
"I wouldn't say that," said Hoddan. "It's unlikely, but it's happened.
I'm only afraid it's not enough."
"It is ... many times what we hoped," said the old man humbly. "Only--"
He stopped. "We are more grateful than we can say."
Hoddan took a deep breath.
"I'd like to take my crew back home," he explained. "And come back
and ... well ... perhaps I can be useful explaining things. And I'd like
to ask a great favor of you ... for my own work."
"But naturally," said the old man. "Of course. We will await your
return. Naturally! And ... perhaps we can ... we can arrange
something--"
Hoddan was relieved. There did seem a slightly strange limitation to the
happiness of the emigrants. They were passionately rejoiceful over the
agricultural machinery. But they seemed rather dutifully than truly
happy over the microfilm library. The vision-tape instructors were the
objects of polite comment only. Hoddan felt a vague discomfort. There
seemed to be a sort of secret desperation in the atmosphere, which they
would not admit or mention. But he was coming back. Of course.
He brought the spaceboat over to the new liner. He hooked onto a
lifeboat blister and his seven Darthians crawled through the lifeboat
tube. Hoddan pulled away quickly before somebody thought to ask why
there were no lifeboats in the places so plainly made for them.
He headed downward when the landmarks on Darth's surface told him that
Don Loris' castle would shortly come over the horizon. He was just
touching atmosphere when it did. The boat's rocket-tanks had been
refilled, and he burned fuel recklessly to make a dramatic landing
within a hundred yards of the battlements where Fani had once
thoughtfully had a coil of rope ready for him.
Heads peered at the lifeboat over those same battlements now, but the
gate was closed. It stayed closed. There was somehow an atmosphere of
suspicion amounting to enmity. Hoddan felt unwelcome.
"All right, boys," he said resignedly. "Out with you and to the castle.
You've got your loot from the voyage"--he'd counted out for each of them
rather more actual cash than any of them really believed in--"and I want
you to take this box to Don Loris. It's a gift from me. And I want
to--consult with him about co-operation between the two of us
in ... ah ... some plans I have. Ask if I may come and talk to him."
His seven former spearmen tumbled out. They marched gleefully to the
castle gate. Hoddan saw them tantalizingly displaying large sums in cash
to the watchers above them. Thal held up the box for Don Loris. It was
the box the lawyer's clerk had turned over to him, with a tidy sum in
cash in it. The sum was partly depleted, now. Hoddan had paid off his
involuntary crew with it--had paid them, in fact, as if they'd done the
fighting they'd expected and he'd thought would be necessary. But there
was still more in it than Don Loris would have gotten from Walden for
selling him out.
The castle gate opened, as if grudgingly. The seven went in. With the
box.
Time passed. Much time. Hoddan went over the arguments he meant to use
on Don Loris. He needed to make up a very great sum, and it could be
done thus-and-so, but thus-and-so required occasional piratical raids,
which called for pirate crews, and if Don Loris would encourage his
retainers-- He could have gone to another Darthian chieftain, of course,
but he knew what kind of scoundrel Don Loris was. He'd have to find out
about another man.
* * * * *
Nearly an hour elapsed before the castle gate opened again. Two files of
spearmen marched out. There were eight men with a sergeant in command.
Hoddan did not recognize any of them. They came to the spaceboat. The
sergeant formally presented an official message. Don Loris would admit
Bron Hoddan to his presence, to hear what he had to say.
Hoddan felt excessively uncomfortable. Waiting, he'd thought about that
secret despair in the emigrant fleet. He worried about it. He was
concerned because Don Loris had not welcomed him with cordiality, now
that he'd brought back his retainers in good working order. In a sudden
gloomy premonition, he checked his stun-pistols. They needed charging.
He managed it from the lifeboat unit.
He went forebodingly toward the castle with the eight spearmen
surrounding him as cops had once surrounded him on Walden. He did not
like to be reminded of it. He frowned to himself as he went in the
castle gate, and along a long stone passage, and up stone stairs into
the great hall of state. Don Loris, as once before, sat peevishly by the
huge fireplace. This time he was almost inside it, with its hood and
mantel actually over his head. The Lady Fani sat there with him.
Don Loris seemed to put aside his peevishness only a little to greet
Hoddan.
"My dear fellow," he said complainingly, "I don't like to welcome you
with reproaches, but do you know that when you absconded with that
spaceboat, you made a mortal enemy for me? It's a fact! My neighbor, on
whose land the boat descended, was deeply hurt. He considered it his
property. He had summoned his retainers for a fight over it when I heard
of his resentment and partly soothed him with apologies and presents.
But he still considers that I should return it to him, whenever you
appear here with it!"
"Oh," said Hoddan. "That's too bad."
Things looked ominous. The Lady Fani looked at him strangely. As if she
tried to tell him something without speaking it. She looked as if she
had wept lately.
"To be sure," said Don Loris fretfully, "you gave me a very pretty
present just now. But my retainers tell me that you came back with a
ship. A very fine ship. What became of it? The landing grid has been
repaired at last and you could have landed it. What happened to it?"
"I gave it away," said Hoddan. He saw what Fani was trying to tell him.
One corridor ... no, two ... leading toward the great hall was filled
with spearmen. His tone turned sardonic. "I gave it to a poor old man."
Don Loris shook his head.
"That's not right, Hoddan! That fleet overhead, now. If they are pirates
and want some of my men for crews, they should come to me! I don't take
kindly to the idea of your kidnaping my men and carrying them off on
piratical excursions! They must be profitable! But if you can afford to
give me presents like that, and be so lavish with my retainers ... why I
don't see why--"
Hoddan grimaced.
"I came to arrange a deal on that order," he observed.
"I don't think I like it," said Don Loris peevishly. "I prefer to deal
with people direct. I'll arrange about the landing grid, and for a
regular recruiting service which I will conduct, of course. But you ...
you are irresponsible! I wish you well, but when you carry my men off
for pirates, and make my neighbors into my enemies, and infect my
daughter with strange notions and the government of a friendly planet
asks me in so many words not to shelter you any longer ... why that's
the end, Hoddan. So with great regret--"
"The regret is mine," said Hoddan. Thoughtfully, he aimed a stun-pistol
at a slowly opening door. He pulled the trigger. Yells followed its
humming, because not everybody it hit was knocked out. Nor did it hit
everybody in the corridor. Men came surging out of one door, and then
two, to require the attention of his weapons.
Then a spear went past Hoddan's face and missed him only by inches. It
buried its point in the floor. A whirling knife spun past his nose. He
glanced up. There were balconies all around the great hall, and men
popped up from behind the railings and threw things at him. They popped
down out of sight instantly. There was no rhythm involved. He could not
anticipate their rising, nor shoot them through the balcony front. And
more men infiltrated the hall, getting behind heavy chairs and tables,
to push toward him behind them as shovable shields. More spears and
knives flew.
* * * * *
"Bron!" cried the Lady Fani, throatily.
He thought she had an exit for him. He sprang to her side.
"I ... I didn't want you to come," she wept.
There was a singular pause in the clangings and clashings of weapons on
the floor. For a second the noises continued. Then they stopped. Then
one man popped up and hurled a knife. The clang of its fall was a very
lonely one. Don Loris fairly howled at him.
"Idiot! Think of the Lady Fani!"
The Lady Fani suddenly smiled tremulously.
"Wonderful!" she said. "They don't dare do anything while you're as
close to me as this!"
"Do you suppose," asked Hoddan, "I could count on that?"
"I'm certain of it!" said Fani. "And I think you'd better."
"Then, excuse me," said Hoddan with great politeness.
He swung her up and over his shoulder. With a stun-pistol in his free
hand he headed down the hall.
"Outside," she said zestfully. "Get out the side door and turn left, and
nobody can jump down on your neck. Then left again to the gate."
He obeyed. Now and again he got in a pot-shot with his pistol. Don Loris
had turned the castle into a very pretty trap. The Lady Fani said
plaintively:
"This is terribly undignified, and I can't see where we're going. Where
are we now?"
"Almost at the gate," panted Hoddan. "At it, now." He swung out of the
massive entrance to Don Loris' stronghold. "I can put you down now."
"I wouldn't," said the Lady Fani. "In spite of the end of me that's
uppermost, I think you'd better make for the spaceboat exactly as we
are."
Again Hoddan obeyed, racing across the open ground. Howls of fury
followed him. It was evidently the opinion of the castle that the Lady
Fani was to be abducted in the place of the seven returned spearmen.
Hoddan, breathing hard, reached the spaceboat. He put Fani down and said
anxiously:
"You're all right? I'm very much in your debt! I was in a spot!" Then he
nodded toward the castle. "They are upset, aren't they? They must think
I mean to kidnap you."
The Lady Fani beamed.
"It would be terrible if you did," she said hopefully. "I couldn't do a
thing to stop you! And a successful public abduction's a legal marriage,
on Darth! Wouldn't it be terrible?"
Hoddan mopped his face and patted her reassuringly on the shoulder.
"Don't worry!" he said warmly. "You just got me out of an awful fix!
You're my friend! And anyhow I'm going to marry a girl on Walden, named
Nedda. Good-by, Fani! Keep clear of the rocket blast."
He went into the boatport, turned to beam paternally back at her, and
shut the port behind him. Seconds later the spaceboat took off. It left
behind clouds of rocket smoke.
And, though Hoddan hadn't the faintest idea of it, it left behind the
maddest girl in several solar systems.
X
It is the custom of all men, everywhere, to be obtuse where women are
concerned. Hoddan went skyward in the spaceboat with feelings of warm
gratitude toward the Lady Fani. He had not the slightest inkling that
she, who had twice spoiled her father's skulduggery so far as it
affected him, felt any but the friendliest of feelings toward him. He
remembered that he had kept her from the necessity of adjusting to
matrimony with the Lord Ghek. It did not occur to him that most girls
intend to adjust to marriage with somebody, anyhow, and he did not even
suspect that it is a feminine instinct to make a highly dramatic and
romantic production of their marriage so they'll have something to be
sentimental about in later years.
As Hoddan drove on up and up, the sky became deep purple and then black
velvet set with flecks of fire. He was relieved by the welcome he'd
received earlier today from the emigrants, but he remained slightly
puzzled by a very faint impression of desperation remaining. He felt
very virtuous on the whole, however, and his plans for the future were
specific. He'd already composed a letter to his grandfather, which he'd
ask the emigrant fleet to deliver. He had another letter in his mind--a
form letter, practically a public-relations circular--which he hoped to
whip into shape before the emigrants got too anxious to be on their way.
He considered that he needed to earn a little more of their gratitude so
he could make everything come out even; self-liquidated; everybody
satisfied and happy but himself.
For himself he anticipated only the deep satisfaction of accomplishment.
He'd wanted to do great things since he was a small boy, and in
electronics since his adolescence, when he'd found textbooks in the
libraries of looted spaceships. He'd gone to Walden in the hope of
achievement. There, of course, he failed because in a free economy
industrialists consider that freedom is the privilege to be stupid
without penalty. In other than free economies, of course, stupidity is
held to be the duty of administrators. But Hoddan now believed himself
in the fascinating situation of having knowledge and abilities which
were needed by people who knew their need.
It was only when he'd made contact with the fleet, and was in the act of
maneuvering toward a boat-blister on the liner he'd brought back, that
doubts again assailed him. He had done a few things--accomplished a
little. He'd devised a broadcast-power receptor and a microwave
projector and he'd turned a Lawlor drive into a ball lightning projector
and worked out a few little things like that. But the first had been
invented before by somebody in the Cetis cluster, and the second could
have been made by anybody and the third was standard practice on Zan. He
still had to do something significant.
When he made fast to the liner and crawled through the boat-tube to its
hull, he was in a state of doubt which passed very well for modesty.
* * * * *
The bearded old man received him in the skipper's quarters, which Hoddan
himself had occupied for a few days. He looked very weary. He seemed to
have aged, in hours.
"We grow more astounded by the minute," he told Hoddan heavily, "by what
you have brought us. Ten shiploads like this and we would be better
equipped than we believed ourselves in the beginning. It looks as if
some thousands of us will now be able to survive our colonization of the
planet Thetis."
Hoddan gaped at him. The old man put his hand on Hoddan's shoulder.
"We are grateful," he said with a pathetic attempt at warmth. "Please do
not doubt that! It is only that ... that-- You had to accept what was
given for our use. But I cannot help wishing very desperately that ...
that instead of unfamiliar tools for metal-working and machines with
tapes which show pictures.... I wish that even one more jungle-plow had
been included!"
Hoddan's jaw dropped. The people of Colin wanted planet-subduing
machinery. They wanted it so badly that they did not want anything else.
They could not even see that anything else had any value at all. Most of
them could only look forward to starvation when the ship supplies were
exhausted, because not enough ground could be broken and cultivated
early enough to grow food enough in time.
"Would it," asked the old man desperately, "be possible to exchange
these useless machines for others that will be useful?"
"L--let me talk to your mechanics, sir," said Hoddan unhappily. "Maybe
something can be done."
* * * * *
He restrained himself from tearing his hair as he went to where
mechanics of the fleet looked over their treasure-trove. He'd come up to
the fleet again to gloat and do great things for people who needed him
and knew it. But he faced the hopelessness of people to whom his utmost
effort seemed mockery because it was so far from being enough.
He gathered together the men who'd tried to keep the fleet's ships in
working order during their flight. They were competent men, of course.
They were resolute. But now they had given up hope. Hoddan began to
lecture them. They needed machines. He hadn't brought the machines they
wanted, perhaps, but he'd brought the machines to make them with. Here
were automatic shapers, turret lathes, dicers. Here were cutting-points
for machines these machines could make, to make the machines the colony
on Thetis would require. He'd brought these because they had the raw
material. They had their ships themselves! Even some of the junk they
carried in crates was good metal, merely worn out in its present form.
They could make anything they needed with what he'd brought them. For
example, he'd show them how to make ... say ... a lumber saw.
He showed them how to make a lumber saw--slender, rapierlike revolving
tool with which a man stabbed a tree and cut outward with the speed of a
knife cutting hot butter. And one could mount it so--and cut out planks
and beams for temporary bridges and such constructions.
They watched, baffled. They gave no sign of hope. They did not want
lumber saws. They wanted jungle-breaking machinery.
"I've brought you everything!" he insisted. "You've got a civilization,
compact, on this ship! You've got life instead of starvation! Look at
this. I make a water pump to irrigate your fields!"
* * * * *
Before their eyes he turned out an irrigation pump on an automatic
shaper. He showed them that the shaper went on, by itself, making other
pumps without further instructions than the by-hand control of the tools
that formed the first.
The mechanics stirred uneasily. They had watched without comprehension.
Now they listened without enthusiasm. Their eyes were like those of
children who watch marvels without comprehension.
He made a sledge whose runners slid on air between themselves and
whatever object would otherwise have touched them. It was practically
frictionless. He made a machine to make nails--utterly simple. He made a
power hammer which hummed and pushed nails into any object that needed
to be nailed. He made--
He stopped abruptly, and sat down with his head in his hands. The people
of the fleet faced so overwhelming a catastrophe that they could not see
into it. They could only experience it. As their leader would have been
unable to answer questions about the fleet's predicament before he'd
poured out the tale in the form it had taken in his mind, now these
mechanics were unable to see ahead. They were paralyzed by the
completeness of the disaster before them. They could live until the
supplies of the fleet gave out. They could not grow fresh supplies
without jungle-breaking machinery. They had to have jungle-breaking
machinery. They could not imagine wanting anything less than
jungle-breaking machinery--
Hoddan raised his head. The mechanics looked dully at him.
"You men do maintenance?" he asked. "You repair things when they wear
out on the ships? Have you run out of some materials you need for
repairs?"
After a long time a tired-looking man said slowly:
"On the ship I come from, we're having trouble. Our hydroponic garden
keeps the air fresh, o'course. But the water-circulation pipes are gone.
Rusted through. We haven't got any pipe to fix them with. We have to
keep the water moving with buckets."
Hoddan got up. He looked about him. He hadn't brought hydroponic-garden
pipe supplies! And there was no raw material. He took a pair of power
snips and cut away a section of cargo space wall-lining. He cut it into
strips. He asked the diameter of the pipe. Before their eyes he made
pipe--spirally wound around a mandril and line-welded to solidity.
"I need some of that on my ship," said another man.
The bearded man said heavily:
"We'll make some and send it to the ships that need it."
"No," said Hoddan. "We'll send the tools to make it. We can make the
tools here. There must be other kinds of repairs that can't be made.
With the machines I've brought, we'll make the tools to make the
repairs. Picture-tape machines have reels that show exactly how to do
it."
[Illustration]
It was a new idea. The mechanics had other and immediate problems beside
the overall disaster of the fleet. Pumps that did not work. Motors that
heated up. They could envision the meeting of those problems, and they
could envision the obtaining of jungle-plows. But they could not imagine
anything in between. They were capable of learning how to make tools for
repairs.
* * * * *
Hoddan taught them. In one day there were five ships being brought into
better operating condition--for ultimate futility--because of what he'd
brought. Two days. Three. Mechanics began to come to the liner. Those
who'd learned first pompously passed on what they knew. On the fourth
day somebody began to use a vision-tape machine to get information on a
fine point in welding. On the fifth day there were lines of men waiting
to use them.
On the sixth day a mechanic on what had been a luxury passenger liner on
the other side of the galaxy--but it was scores of years ago--asked to
talk to Hoddan by spacephone. He'd been working feverishly at the minor
repairs he'd been unable to make for so long. To get material he pulled
a crate off one of the junk machines supplied the fleet. He looked it
over. He believed that if this piece were made new, and that replaced
with sound metal, the machine might be usable!
Hoddan had him come to the liner which was now the flagship of the
fleet. Discussion began. Shaping such large pieces of metal which could
be taken from here or there--shaping such large pieces of metal....
Hoddan began to draw diagrams. They were not clear. He drew more.
Abruptly, he stared at what he'd outlined. Electronics.... He saw
something remarkable. If one applied a perfectly well-known bit of
pure-science information that nobody bothered with-- He finished the
diagram and a vast, soothing satisfaction came over him.
"We've got to get out of here!" he said. "Not enough room!"
He looked about him. Insensibly, as he talked to the first man on the
fleet to show imagination, other men had gathered around. They were now
absorbed.
"I think," said Hoddan, "that we can make an electronic field that'll
soften the cementite between the crystals of steel, without heating up
anything else. If it works, we can make die-forgings and die-stampings
with plastic dies! And then that useless junk you've got can be
rebuilt--"
They listened gravely, nodding as he talked. They did not quite
understand everything, but they had the habit of believing him now. He
needed this and that in the huge cargo spaces of the ship the leader had
formerly used.
"Hm-m-m," said Hoddan. "How about duplicating these machines and sending
them over?"
They looked estimatingly at the tool-shop equipment. It could be made to
duplicate itself--
The new machine shop, in the ancient ark of space, made another machine
shop for another ship. In the other ship that tool shop would make
another for another ship, which in turn....
By then Hoddan had a cold-metal die-stamper in operation. It was very
large. It drew on the big ship's drive unit for power. One put a rough
mass of steel in place between plastic dies. One turned on the power.
For the tenth of a second--no longer--the steel was soft as putty. Then
it stiffened and was warm. But in that tenth of a second it had been
shaped with precision.
It took two days to duplicate the jungle-plow Hoddan had first been
shown, in new sound metal. But after the first one worked triumphantly,
they made forty of each part at a time and turned out jungle-plow
equipment enough for the subjugation of all Thetis' forests.
There were other enterprises on hand, of course. A mechanic who
stuttered horribly had an idea. He could not explain it or diagram it.
So he made it. It was an electric motor very far ahead of those in the
machines of Colin. Hoddan waked from a cat nap with a diagram in his
head. He drew it, half-asleep, and later looked and found that his
unconscious mind had designed a power-supply system which made Walden's
look rather primitive--
* * * * *
During the first six days Hoddan did not sleep to speak of, and after
that he merely cat-napped when he could. But he finally agreed with the
emigrants' leader--now no longer fierce, but fiercely triumphant--that
he thought they could go on. And he would ask a favor. He propped his
eyelids open with his fingers and wrote the letter to his grandfather
that he'd composed in his mind in the liner on Krim. He managed to make
one copy, unaddressed, of the public-relations letter that he'd worked
out at the same time. He put it through a facsimile machine and managed
to address each of fifty copies. Then he yawned uncontrollably.
He still yawned when he went to take leave of the leader of the people
of Colin. That person regarded him with warm eyes.
"I think everything's all right," said Hoddan exhaustedly. "You've got a
dozen machine shops and they are multiplying themselves, and you have
got some enthusiastic mechanics, now, who're drinking in the vision-tape
stuff and finding out more than they guessed there was. And they're
thinking, now and then, for themselves. I think you'll make out."
The bearded man said humbly:
"I have waited until you said all was well. Will you come with us?"
"No-o-o," said Hoddan. He yawned again. "I've got my work here. There's
an ... obligation I have to meet."
"It must be very admirable work," said the old man wistfully. "I wish we
had some young men like you among us."
"You have," said Hoddan. "They will be giving you trouble presently."
The old man shook his head, looking at Hoddan very affectionately
indeed.
"We will deliver your letters," he said warmly. "First to Krim, and then
to Walden. Then we will go on and let down your letter and gift to your
grandfather on Zan. Then we will go on toward Thetis. Our mechanics will
work at building machines while we are in overdrive. But also they will
build new tool shops and train new mechanics, so that every so often we
will need to come out of overdrive to transfer the tools and the men to
new ships."
Hoddan nodded exhaustedly. This was right.
"So," said the old man contentedly, "we will simply make those transfers
in orbit about the planets for which we have your letters. But you will
pardon us if we only let down your letters, and do not visit those
planets? We have prejudices--"
"Perfectly satisfactory," said Hoddan. "So I'll--"
"The mechanics you have trained," said the old man proudly, "have made a
little ship ready for you. It is not much larger than your spaceboat,
but it is fit for travel between suns, which will be convenient for your
work. I hope you will accept it. There is even a tiny tool shop on it!"
Hoddan would have been more touched if he hadn't known about it. But one
of the men entrusted with the job had harassedly asked him for advice.
He knew what he was getting. It was the space yacht he'd used before,
refurbished and fitted with everything the emigrants could provide.
He affected great surprise and expressed unfeigned appreciation. Barely
an hour later he transferred to it with the spaceboat in tow. He watched
the emigrant fleet swing out to emptiness and resume its valiant
journey. But it was not a hopeless journey, now. In fact, the colony on
Thetis ought to start out better-equipped than most settled planets.
And he went to sleep. He'd nothing urgent to do, except allow a certain
amount of time to pass before he did anything. He was exhausted. He
slept the clock around, and waked and ate sluggishly, and went back to
sleep again. On the whole, the cosmos did not notice the difference.
Stars flamed in emptiness, and planets rotated sedately on their axes.
Comets flung out gossamer veils or retracted them, and space liners went
about upon their lawful occasions. And lovers swore by stars and
moons--often quite different stars and moons--and various things
happened which had nothing to do with Hoddan.
But when he waked again he was rested, and he reviewed all his actions
and his situation. It appeared that matters promised fairly well on the
emigrant fleet now gone forever. They would remember Hoddan with
affection for a year or so, and dimly after that. But settling a new
world would be enthralling and important work. Nobody'd think of him at
all, after a certain length of time. But he had to think of an
obligation he'd assumed on their account.
He considered his own affairs. He'd told Fani he was going to marry
Nedda. The way things looked, that was no longer so probable. Of course,
in a year or two, or a few years, he might be out from under the
obligations he now considered due. In time even the Waldenian government
would realize that deathrays don't exist, and a lawyer might be able to
clear things for his return to Walden. But--Nedda was a nice girl.
He frowned. That was it. She was a remarkably nice girl. But Hoddan
suddenly doubted if she were a delightful one. He found himself
questioning that she was exactly and perfectly what his long-cherished
ambitions described. He tried to imagine spending his declining years
with Nedda. He couldn't quite picture it as exciting. She did tend to be
a little insipid--
* * * * *
Presently, gloomy and a trifle dogged about it, he brought the spaceboat
around to the modernized boatport of the yacht. He got into it, leaving
the yacht in orbit. He headed down toward Darth. Now that he'd rested,
he had work to do which could not be neglected. To carry out that work,
he needed a crew able and willing to pass for pirates for a pirate's
pay. And there were innumerable castles on Darth, with quite as many
shiftly noblemen, and certainly no fewer plunder-hungry Darthian
gentlemen hanging around them. But Don Loris' castle had one real
advantage and one which existed only in Hoddan's mind.
Don Loris' retainers did know that Hoddan had led their companions to
loot. Large loot. He'd have less trouble and more enthusiastic support
from Don Loris' retainers than any other. This was true.
The illusion was that the Lady Fani was his firm personal friend with no
nonsense about her. This was a very great mistake.
He landed for the fourth time outside Don Loris' castle. This time he
had no booty-laden men to march to the castle and act as heralds of his
presence. The spaceboat's visionscreens showed Don Loris' stronghold as
immense, dark and menacing. Banners flew from its turrets, their colors
bright in the ruddy light of near-sunset. The gate remained closed. For
a long time there was no sign that his landing had been noted. Then
there was movement on the battlements, and a figure began to descend
outside the wall. It was lowered to the ground by a long rope.
It reached the ground and shook itself. It marched, toward the spaceboat
through the red and nearly level rays of the dying sun. Hoddan watched
with a frown on his face. This wasn't a retainer of Don Loris'. It
assuredly wasn't Fani. He couldn't even make out its gender until the
figure was very near.
Then he looked astonished. It was his old friend Derec, arrived on Darth
a long while since in the spaceboat Hoddan had been using ever since.
Derec had been his boon companion in the days when he expected to become
rich by splendid exploits in electronics. Derec was also the character
who'd conscientiously told the cops on Hoddan, when they found his
power-receptor sneaked into a Mid-Continent station and a stray corpse
coincidentally outside.
He opened the boatport and stood in the opening. Derec had been a
guest--anyhow an inhabitant--of Don Loris' castle for a good long while,
now. Hoddan wondered if he considered his quarters cozy.
"Evening, Derec," said Hoddan cordially. "You're looking well!"
"I don't feel it," said Derec dismally. "I feel like a fool in the
castle yonder. And the high police official I came here with has gotten
grumpy and snaps when I try to speak to him."
Hoddan said gravely:
"I'm sure the Lady Fani--"
"A tigress!" said Derec bitterly. "We don't get along."
Looking at Derec, Hoddan found himself able to understand why. Derec was
the sort of friend one might make on Walden for lack of something
better. He was well-meaning. He might be capable of splendid
things--even heroism. But he was horribly, terribly, appallingly
civilized!
"Well! Well!" said Hoddan kindly. "And what's on your mind, Derec?"
"I came," said Derec dismally, "to plead with you again, Bron. You must
surrender! There's nothing else to do! People can't have deathrays,
Bron! Above all, you mustn't tell the pirates how to make them!"
Hoddan was puzzled for a moment. Then he realized that Derec's
information about the fleet came from the spearmen he'd brought back,
loaded down with cash. Derec hadn't noticed the absence of the flashing
lights at sunset--or hadn't realized that they meant the fleet was gone
away.
"Hm-m-m," said Hoddan. "Why don't you think I've already done it?"
"Because they'd have killed you," said Derec. "Don Loris pointed that
out. He doesn't believe you know how to make deathrays. He says it's
not a secret anybody would be willing for anybody else to know. But ...
you know the truth, Bron! You killed that poor man back on Walden.
You've got to sacrifice yourself for humanity! You'll be treated
kindly!"
Hoddan shook his head. It seemed somehow very startling for Derec to be
harping on that same idea, after so many things had happened to Hoddan.
But he didn't think Derec would actually expect him to yield to
persuasion. There must be something else. Derec might even have nerved
himself up to something quite desperate.
"What did you really come here for, Derec?"
"To beg you to--"
Then, in one instant, Derec made an hysterical gesture and Hoddan's
stun-pistol hummed. A small object left Derec's hand as his muscles
convulsed from the stun-pistol bolt. It did not fly quite true. It fell
a foot or so to one side of the boatport instead of inside.
* * * * *
It exploded luridly as Derec crumpled from the pistol bolt. There was
thick, strangling smoke. Hoddan disappeared. When the thickest smoke
drifted away there was nothing to be seen but Derec, lying on the
ground, and thinner smoke drifting out of the still-open boatport.
Nearly half an hour later, figures came very cautiously toward the
spaceboat. Thal was their leader. His expression was mournful and
depressed. Other brawny retainers came uncertainly behind him. At a nod
from Thal, two of them picked up Derec and carted him off toward the
castle.
"I guess he got it," said Thal dismally.
He peered in. He shook his head.
"Wounded, maybe, and crawled off to die."
He peered in again and shook his head once more.
"No sign of 'im."
A spearman just behind Thal said:
"Dirty trick! I was with him to Walden, and he paid off good! A good
man! Shoulda been a chieftain! Good man!"
Thal entered the spaceboat. Gingerly. He wrinkled his nose at the faint
smell of explosive still inside. Another man came in. Another.
"Say!" said one of them in a conspiratorial voice. "We got our share of
that loot from Walden. But he hadda share, too! What'd he do with it? He
could've kept it in this boat here. We could take a quick look! What Don
Loris don't know don't hurt him!"
"I'm going to find Hoddan first," said Thal, with dignity. "We don't
have to carry him outside so's Don Loris knows we're looking for loot,
but I'm going to find him first."
There were other men in the spaceboat now. A full dozen of them. Their
spears were very much in the way.
The boat door closed quietly. Don Loris' retainers stared at each other.
The locking-dogs grumbled for half a second, sealing the door tightly.
Don Loris' retainers began to babble protestingly.
There was a roaring outside. The spaceboat stirred. The roaring rose to
thunder. The boat lurched. It flung the spearmen into a sprawling,
swearing, terrified heap at the rear end of the boat's interior.
The boat went on out to space again. In the control room Hoddan said
dourly to himself:
"I'm in a rut! I've got to figure out some way to ship a pirate crew
without having to kidnap them. This is getting monotonous!"