He opened the boat-port and stood in the opening. Derec had been a guest in 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 even 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 death, rays, 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 had gone away.
"Hm," 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 death rays. 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 do something quite desperate.
"What did you really come here for, Derec?"
"To beg you to-"
Then, in one instant, Derec made a 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 boat-port instead of inside.
It exploded luridly as Derec crumpled. 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 boat-port.
Nearly half an hour later, figures came very cautiously toward the s.p.a.ceboat. 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 gingerly entered the s.p.a.ceboat. He wrinkled his nose at the faint smell of explosive still inside.
Another man came in. Another.
"Say!" one of them said 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 s.p.a.ceboat 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 s.p.a.ceboat stirred. The roaring rose to thunder. The boat lurched. It flung the spear-men into a sprawling, swearing, terrified heap at the rear end of the boat"s interior.
The boat went on out to s.p.a.ce 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!"
Chapter 11.
There was a disturbed air which enveloped 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. 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 s.p.a.ceboat 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 s.p.a.ceboat with a 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, ma.s.sive men with drooping blond moustaches-ideal characters for the roles of pirates-had tears rolling down from 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 appet.i.te, 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-and 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 kidnapped these men who"d been forced to engage themselves to fight him, and if they killed him they would obviously die in s.p.a.ce, 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."
"Hmm," 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?"
"True. Too true!" Thal said miserably. "When a man is conquered he is conquered. His conqueror may plunder him, when the matter is finished, or he can spare him, then he may never fight his conqueror again."
"Draw your knife," said Hoddan. "Come at me."
Thal made a bewildered 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 non-existent 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 n.o.ble 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.
n.o.body could enlighten him.
But the atmosphere improved remarkably. Since each theoretic fight had taken place in private, n.o.body was obliged to admit a compromise with etiquette. Hoddan"s followers ceased to brood. They developed huge appet.i.tes. 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 ma.s.sacred. He puzzled over it. The little yacht sped through s.p.a.ce toward Walden. He tried to think how he"d offended Fani. He could think of nothing. He set to work on a new electronic set-up which would make still another modification of the Lawlor s.p.a.ce-drive possible. In the others, groups of electronic components were cut out and others subst.i.tuted in rather tricky fashion from the control board. This was trickiest of all. It required the homemade vacuum tube to burn steadily when in use. But it was a very simple idea. Lawlor drive and landing-grid forcefields 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 were to drive at all capable of all those allied, a.s.sociated, similar forcefields? 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 emigrants, 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.
But time pa.s.sed, 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.
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-grip type forcefields. 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 set-up 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 s.p.a.ce, the new field pushed the planet.
There was no practical difference, of course. The effect was simply that the s.p.a.ceyacht now carried its own landing-grid. It could descend anywhere and ascend from any where without using rockets.
Moreover, it could hover without using power.
Hoddan was pleased. He took the yacht down to a bare four-hundred-mile alt.i.tude. 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 s.p.a.ce communicator.
"Calling ground," said Hoddan. "Calling ground. Pirate ship calling ground!"
He waited for an answer. Now he"d see the results of his efforts 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 knives 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.
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. 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 ash.o.r.e and loot in parties of not less than three! Thal, you will be ship-guard and receive the plunder and make sure that n.o.body 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 cameramen 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 s.p.a.ce while in orbit around Walden. The emigrants, of course, did not know the contents of the letter. Blithely, cheerfully, and dutifully, they gave the appearance of monstrous piratical strength. They had awed Walden thoroughly. And then they"d gone on, faithfully leaving similar letters and similar impressions on Krim, Lohala, Tralee, Famagusta, and all throughout the Coalsack stars until the stock of addressed missives ran out. They would perform this kindly act out of grat.i.tude to Hoddan.
And every planet they visited would be left with the impression that the fleet overhead was that of bloodthirsty s.p.a.ce-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 s.p.a.ce.
Now, as the yacht descended on Walden, it represented that mythical but impressive piratical empire.
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 Cl.u.s.ter, and its citizens had had no worries at all except about the 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 s.p.a.cecraft 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 cameras daringly showed the actual touch-down of the ship: the dramatic slow opening of its port: the appearance of authentic pirates in the opening, armed to the teeth, bristling ferociously, glaring about them at the silent, deserted streets of the city left to their mercy.
It was a splendid broadcast. Hoddan would liked to have stayed and watched 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 crisply that this did not mean that Darth as an ent.i.ty 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 cameramen helped pick out good places to loot for the sake of good pictures. The pirates cooperated in a 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 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 hoa.r.s.ely 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 hysterical, adoring girls struggled to sieze sc.r.a.ps of their garments for mementos of real, live pirates looting a Waldenian town!
But Hoddan got them back to the ship. He fought a way clear for them to get into the ship. 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 s.p.a.ceyacht 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 gloated 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 the h.e.l.l do you think this is?"
Thal gazed at him dully, not quite able to tear his mind and thoughts from this marvelous ma.s.s of plunder.