XI

There was a disturbing air which was shared by all the members of

Hoddan's crew, on the way to Walden. It was not exactly reluctance,

because there was self-evident enthusiasm over the idea of making a

pirate voyage under him. So far as past enterprises were concerned,

Hoddan as a leader was the answer to a Darthian gentleman's prayer. The

partial looting of Ghek's castle, alone, would have made him a desirable

leader. But a crew of seven, returned from space, had displayed currency

which amounted to the wealth of fabled Ind. Nobody knew what Ind was,

any longer, but it was a synonym for fabulous and uncountable riches.

When men went off with Hoddan, they came back rich.

But nevertheless there was an uncomfortable sort of atmosphere in the

renovated yacht. They'd transshipped from the spaceboat to the yacht

through lifeboat tubes, and they were quite docile about it because none

of them knew how to get back to ground. Hoddan left the spaceboat with a

triggerable timing-signal set for use on his return. He'd done a similar

thing off Krim. He drove the little yacht well out, until Darth was only

a spotted ball with visible clouds and ice caps. Then he lined up for

Walden, direct, and went into overdrive.

Within hours he noted the disturbing feel of things. His followers were

not happy. They moped. They sat in corners and submerged themselves in

misery. Large, massive men with drooping blond mustaches--ideal

characters for the roles of pirates--tended to squeeze tears out of

their eyes at odd moments. When the ship was twelve hours on its way,

the atmosphere inside it was funereal. The spearmen did not even gorge

themselves on the food with which the yacht was stocked. And when a

Darthian gentleman lost his appetite, something had to be wrong.

He called Thal into the control room.

"What's the matter with the gang?" he demanded vexedly. "They look at me

as if I'd broken all their hearts! Do they want to go back?"

Thal heaved a sigh, indicating depression beside which suicidal mania

would be hilarity. He said pathetically:

"We cannot go back. We cannot ever return to Darth. We are lost men,

doomed to wander forever among strangers, or to float as corpses between

the stars."

"What happened?" demanded Hoddan. "I'm taking you on a pirate cruise

where the loot should be a lot better than last time!"

Thal wept. Hoddan astonishedly regarded his whiskery countenance,

contorted with grief and dampened with tears.

"It happened at the castle," said Thal miserably. "The man Derec, from

Walden, had thrown a bomb at you. You seemed to be dead. But Don Loris

was not sure. He fretted, as he does. He wished to send someone to make

sure. The Lady Fani said; 'I will make sure!' She called me to her and

said, 'Thal, will you fight for me?' And there was Don Loris suddenly

nodding beside her. So I said, 'Yes, my Lady Fani.' Then she said;

'Thank you. I am troubled by Bron Hoddan.' So what could I do? She said

the same thing to each of us, and each of us had to say that he would

fight for her. To each she said that she was troubled by you. Then Don

Loris sent us out to look at your body. And now we are disgraced!"

* * * * *

Hoddan's mouth opened and closed and opened again. He remembered this

item of Darthian etiquette. If a girl asked a man if he would fight for

her, and he agreed, then within a day and a night he had to fight the

man she sent him to fight, or else he was disgraced. And disgrace on

Darth meant that the shamed man could be plundered or killed by anybody

who chose to do so, but he would be hanged by indignant authority if he

resisted. It was a great deal worse than outlawry. It included scorn and

contempt and opprobrium. It meant dishonor and humiliation and admitted

degradation. A disgraced man was despicable in his own eyes. And Hoddan

had kidnaped these men who'd been forced to engage themselves to fight

him, and if they killed him they would obviously die in space, and if

they didn't they'd be ashamed to stay alive. The moral tone on Darth was

probably not elevated, but etiquette was a force.

Hoddan thought it over. He looked up suddenly.

"Some of them," he said wryly, "probably figure there's nothing to do

but go through with it, eh?"

"Yes," said Thal dismally. "Then we will all die."

"Hm-m-m," said Hoddan. "The obligation is to fight. If you fail to kill

me, that's not your fault, is it? If you're conquered, you're in the

clear?"

Thal said miserably:

"True. Too true! When a man is conquered he is conquered. His conqueror

may plunder him, when the matter is finished, or he can spare him, when

he may never fight his conqueror again."

"Draw your knife," said Hoddan. "Come at me."

Thal bewilderedly made the gesture. Hoddan leveled a stun-pistol and

said:

"_Bzzz._ You're conquered. You came at me with your knife, and I shot

you with my stun-pistol. It's all over. Right?"

Thal gaped at him. Then he beamed. He expanded. He gloated. He frisked.

He practically wagged a nonexistent tail in his exuberance. He'd been

shown an out when he could see none.

"Send in the others one by one," said Hoddan. "I'll take care of them.

But Thal--why did the Lady Fani want me killed?"

Thal had no idea, but he did not care. Hoddan did care. He was

bewildered and inclined to be indignant. A noble friendship like

theirs-- A spearman, came in and saluted. Hoddan went through a symbolic

duel, which was plainly the way the thing would have happened in

reality. Others came in and went through the same process. Two of them

did not quite grasp that it was a ritual, and he had to shoot them in

the knife arm. Then he hunted in the ship's supplies for ointment for

the blisters that would appear from stun-pistol bolts at such short

range. As he bandaged the places, he again tried to find out why the

Lady Fani had tried to get him carved up by the large-bladed knives all

Darthian gentlemen wore. Nobody could enlighten him.

But the atmosphere improved remarkably. Since each theoretic fight had

taken place in private, nobody was obliged to admit a compromise with

etiquette. Hoddan's followers ceased to brood. They developed huge

appetites. Those who had been aground on Krim told zestfully of the

monstrous hangovers they'd acquired there. It appeared that Hoddan was

revered for the size of the benders he enabled his followers to hang on.

But there remained the fact that the Lady Fani had tried to get him

massacred. He puzzled over it. The little yacht sped through space

toward Walden. He tried to think how he'd offended Fani. He could think

of nothing. He set to work on a new electronic setup which would make

still another modification of the Lawlor space-drive possible. In the

others, groups of electronic components were cut out and others

substituted in rather tricky fashion from the control board. This was

trickiest of all. It required the home-made vacuum tube to burn steadily

when in use. But it was a very simple idea. Lawlor drive and landing

grid force fields were formed by not dissimilar generators, and ball

lightning force fields were in the same general family of phenomena.

Suppose one made the field generator that had to be on a ship if it was

to drive at all, capable of all those allied, associated, similar force

fields? If a ship could make the fields that landing grids did, it

should be useful to pirates.

Hoddan's present errand was neither pure nor simple piracy, but piracy

it would be. The more he considered the obligation he'd taken on himself

when he helped the emigrant-fleet, the more he doubted that he could

lift it without long struggle. He was preparing to carry on that

struggle for a long time. He'd more or less resigned himself to the

postponement of his personal desires. Nedda, for example. He wasn't

quite sure-- Perhaps, after all--

* * * * *

But time passed, and he finished his electronic job. He came out of

overdrive and made his observations and corrected his course. Finally,

there came a moment when the fiery ball which was Walden's sun shone

brightly in the vision plates. It writhed and spun in the vast silence

of emptiness.

[Illustration]

Hoddan drove to a point still above the five-diameter limit of Walden.

He interestedly switched on the control which made his drive-unit

manufacture landing-grid-type force fields. He groped for Walden, and

felt the peculiar rigidity of the ship when the field took hold

somewhere underground. He made an adjustment, and felt the ship respond.

Instead of pulling a ship to ground, in the setup he'd made, the new

fields pulled the ground toward the ship. When he reversed the

adjustment, instead of pushing the ship away to empty space, the new

field pushed the planet.

There was no practical difference, of course. The effect was simply that

the space yacht now carried its own landing grid. It could descend

anywhere and ascend from anywhere without using rockets. Moreover, it

could hover without using power.

Hoddan was pleased. He took the yacht down to a bare four-hundred-mile

altitude. He stopped it there. It was highly satisfactory. He made quite

certain that everything worked as it should. Then he made a call on the

space communicator.

"Calling ground," said Hoddan. "Calling ground. Pirate ship calling

ground!"

He waited for an answer. Now he'd find out the result of very much

effort and planning. He was apprehensive, of course. There was much

responsibility on his shoulders. There was the liner he'd captured and

looted and given to the emigrants. There were his followers on the

yacht, now enthusiastically sharpening their two-foot knife blades in

expectation of loot. He owed these people something. For an instant he

thought of the Lady Fani and wondered how he could make reparation to

her for whatever had hurt her feelings so she'd try to get his throat

cut.

A whining, bitterly unhappy voice came to him.

"_Pirate ship!_" said the voice plaintively, "_we received the fleet's

warning. Please state where you intend to descend, and we will take

measures to prevent disorder. Repeat, please state where you intend to

descend and we will take measures to prevent disorder--_"

Hoddan drew a sharp breath of relief. He named a spot--a high-income

residential small city some forty miles from the planetary capital. He

set his controls for a very gradual descent. He went out to where his

followers made grisly zinging noises where they honed their knives.

"We'll land," said Hoddan sternly, "in about three-quarters of an hour.

You will go ashore and loot in parties of not less than three! Thal, you

will be ship guard and receive the plunder and make sure that nobody

from Walden gets on board. You will not waste time committing atrocities

on the population!"

He went back to the control room. He turned to general-communication

bands and listened to the broadcasts down below.

"_Special Emergency Bulletin!_" boomed a voice. "_Pirates are landing in

the city of Ensfield, forty miles from Walden City. The population is

instructed to evacuate immediately, leaving all action to the police.

Repeat! The population will evacuate Ensfield, leaving all action to the

police. Take nothing with you. Take nothing with you. Leave at once._"

Hoddan nodded approvingly. The voice boomed again:

"_Special Emergency Bulletin! Pirates are landing ... evacuate ... take

nothing with you.... Leave at once...._"

He turned to another channel. An excited voice barked:

"_... Seems to be only the one pirate ship, which has been located

hovering in an unknown manner over Ensfield. We are rushing camera crews

to the spot and will try to give on-the-spot as-it-happens coverage of

the landing of pirates on Walden, their looting of the city of Ensfield,

and the traffic jams inevitable in the departure of the citizens before

the pirate ship touches ground. For background information on this the

most exciting event in planetary history, I take you to our editorial

rooms._" Another voice took over instantly. "_It will be remembered that

some days since the gigantic pirate fleet then overhead sent down a

communication to the planetary government, warning that single ships

would appear to loot and giving notice that any resistance--_"

* * * * *

Hoddan felt a contented, heart-warming glow. The emigrant fleet had most

faithfully carried out its leader's promise to let down a letter from

space while in orbit around Walden. The emigrants, of course, did not

know the contents of the letter. They would not send anybody down to

ground, because of the temptations to sin in societies other than their

own. Blithely, and cheerfully, and dutifully, they would give the

appearance of monstrous piratical strength. They would awe Walden

thoroughly. And then they'd go on, faithfully leaving similar letters

and similar impressions on Krim, and Lohala, and Tralee, and Famagusta,

and throughout the Coalsack stars until the stock of addressed missives

ran out. They would perform this kindly act out of gratitude to Hoddan.

And every planet they visited would be left with the impression that the

fleet overhead was that of bloodthirsty space-marauders who would

presently send single ships to collect loot--which must be yielded

without resistance. Such looting expeditions were to be looked for

regularly and must be submitted to under penalty of unthinkable

retribution from the monster fleet of space.

Now, as the yacht descended on Walden, it represented that mythical but

impressive piratical empire of Hoddan's contrivance. He listened with

genuine pleasure to the broadcasts. When low enough, he even picked up

the pictures of highways thronged with fugitives from the to-be-looted

town. He saw Waldenian police directing the traffic of flight. He saw

other traffic heading toward the city. Walden was the most highly

civilized planet in the Nurmi Cluster, and its citizens had had no

worries at all except about tranquilizers to enable them to stand it.

When something genuinely exciting turned up, they wanted to be there to

see it.

The yacht descended below the clouds. Hoddan turned on an emergency

flare to make a landing by. Sitting in the control room he saw his own

ship as the broadcast cameras picked it up and relayed it to millions of

homes. He was impressed. It was a glaring eye of fierce light,

descending deliberately with a dark and mysterious spacecraft behind it.

He heard the chattered on-the-spot news accounts of the happening. He

saw the people who had not left Ensfield joined by avid visitors. He saw

all of them held back by police, who frantically shepherded them away

from the area in which the pirates should begin their horrid work.

Hoddan even watched pleasurably from his control room as the broadcast

cameras daringly showed the actual touch-down of the ship; the dramatic

slow opening of its entrance port: the appearance of authentic pirates

in the opening, armed to the teeth, bristling ferociously, glaring about

them at the here-silent, here-deserted streets of the city left to their

mercy.

It was a splendid broadcast. Hoddan would have liked to stay and watch

all of it. But he had work to do. He had to supervise the pirate raid.

* * * * *

It was, as it turned out, simple enough. Looting parties of three

pirates each moved skulking about, seeking plunder. Quaking cameramen

dared to ask them, in shaking voices, to pose for the news cameras. It

was a request no Darthian gentleman, even in an act of piracy, could

possibly refuse. They posed, making pictures of malignant ruffianism.

Commentators, adding informed comment to delectably thrilling pictures,

observed that the pirates wore Darthian costume, but observed crisply

that this did not mean that Darth as an entity had turned pirate, but

only that some of her citizens had joined the pirate fleet.

The camera crews then asked apologetically if they would permit

themselves to be broadcast in the act of looting. Growling savagely for

their public, and occasionally adding even a fiendish "Ha!" they

obliged. The camera crews helped pick out good places to loot for the

sake of good pictures. The pirates co-operated in fine dramatic style.

Millions watching vision sets all over the planet shivered in delicious

horror as the pirates went about their nefarious enterprise.

Presently the press of onlookers could not be held back by the police.

They surrounded the pirates. Some, greatly daring, asked for autographs.

Girls watched them with round, frightened, fascinated eyes. Younger men

found it vastly thrilling to carry burdens of loot back to the pirate

ship for them. Thal complained hoarsely that the ship was getting

overloaded. Hoddan ordered greater discrimination, but his pirates by

this time were in the position of directors rather than looters

themselves. Romantic Waldenian admirers smashed windows and brought them

treasure, for the reward of a scowling acceptance.

Hoddan had to call it off. The pirate ship was loaded. It was then the

center of an agitated, excited, enthusiastic crowd. He called back his

men. One party of three did not return. He took two others and fought

his way through the mob. He found the trio backed against a wall while

hysterically adoring girls struggled to seize scraps of their garments

for mementos of real, live pirates looting a Waldenian town!

But Hoddan got them back to the ship, in confusion tending toward the

blushful. Their clothes were shreds. He fought a way clear for them to

get into the ship. He fought his way in. Cheers rose from the onlookers.

He got the landing port shut only by the help of police who kept pirate

fans from having their fingers caught in its closing.

Then the piratical space yacht rose swiftly toward the stars.

An hour later there was barely any diminution of the excitement inside

the ship. Darthian gentlemen all, Hoddan's followers still gazed and

floated over the plunder tucked everywhere. It crowded the living

quarters. It threatened to interfere with the astrogation of the ship.

Hoddan came out of the control room and was annoyed.

"Break it up!" he snapped. "Pack that stuff away somewhere! What do you

think this is?"

Thal gazed at him abstractedly, not quite able to tear his mind and

thoughts from this completely unimaginable mass of plunder. Then

intelligence came into his eyes--as much as could appear there. He

grinned suddenly. He slapped his thigh.

"Boys!" he gurgled. "He don't know what we got for him!"

One man looked up. Two. They beamed. They got to their feet, dripping

jewelry. Thal went ponderously to one of the two owners' staterooms the

yacht contained. At the door he turned, expansively.

"She came to the port," he said exuberantly, "and said we were wearin'

clothes like they wore on Darth. Did we come from there? I said we did.

Then she said did we know somebody named Bron Hoddan on Darth? And I

said we did and if she'd step inside the ship she'd meet you. And here

she is!"

He unfastened the stateroom door, which had been barred from without. He

opened it. He looked in, and grabbed, and pulled at something. Hoddan

went sick with apprehension. He groaned as the something inside the

stateroom sobbed and yielded.

Thal brought Nedda out into the saloon of the yacht. Her nose and eyes

were red from terrified weeping. She gazed about her in purest

despairing horror. She did not see Hoddan for a moment. Her eyes were

filled with the brawny, mustachioed piratical figures who were Darthian

gentlemen and who grinned at her in what she took for evil gloating.

She wailed.

Hoddan swallowed, with much difficulty, and said sickly:

"It's all right, Nedda. It was a mistake. Nothing will happen to you.

You're quite"--and he knew with desperate certainty that it was

true--"safe with me!"

And she was.