The Pirates of Ersatz

by Murray Leinster

  VII

  The spaceboat floated on upon a collision-course with the arrivingfleet. That would not mean, of course, actual contact with any of theimprobable vessels themselves. Crowded as the sunlit specks might seemfrom Darth's night-side shadow, they were sufficiently separated. It wasmore than likely that even with ten-mile intervals the ships would beconsidered much too crowded. But they came pouring out of emptiness togo into a swirling, plainly pre-intended orbit about the planet fromwhich Hoddan had risen less than an hour before.

  There was inevitable confusion, though, and the spacephone proved it.There were disputes between freakish ships when craft with theastrogational qualities of washtubs tried to keep assigned positions,and failed, and there were squabbles when ships had to pass closetogether. One had to shut off its drive-field to keep from blowing thefuses of both.

  But there were some ships which proceeded quietly to their positions andothers which did the same after tumult amounting to rebellion. Andnaturally there were a few others which seemed incapable of co-operationwith anybody. They went careening through the other ships' paths in whatmust have seemed to the planet's sunset area like a most unlikelydancing of brand-new stars.

  It was a gigantic traffic tangle, and Hoddan's boat drifted toward andinto it. He'd counted a hundred ships long before. His count now passedtwo hundred and continued. Before he gave up he'd numbered two hundredforty-seven space-oddities swarming to make a whirling band--aring--around the planet Darth.

  He was fairly sure that he knew what they were, now. But he could notpossibly guess where they came from. And most mysterious of all was thequestion of why they'd come out of faster-than-light drive to make ofthemselves a celestial feature about a planet which had practicallynothing to offer to anybody.

  Presently the spaceboat was in the very thick of the fleet. Hiscommunicator spouted voices whose tones ranged from basso profundo tohigh tenor, and whose ideas of proper astrogation seemed to vary morewidely still.

  "_You there!_" boomed a voice with deafening volume. "_You're in ourclear-space! Sheer off!_"

  The volume of a signal in space varies as the square of the distance.This voice was thunderous. It came apparently from a nearby, pot-belliedtripper ship of really ancient vintage. Rows of ports in its sides hadbeen welded over. It had rocket tubes whose size was indicative of thekind of long-obsolete fuel on which it once had operated. Slenderernozzles peered out of the original ones now. It had been adapted tomodern propellants by simply welding modern rockets inside the old ones.It was only half a mile away.

  * * * * *

  Hoddan's spaceboat floated on. The relative position of the two shipschanged slowly. Another voice said indignantly:

  "_That's the same thing that missed us by less than a mile! You, there!Stop acting like a squig! Get on your own course!_"

  A third voice;

  "_What boat's that? I don't recognize it! I thought I knew all thefreaks in this fleet, too!_"

  A fourth voice said sharply:

  "_That's not one of us! Look at the design! That's not us!_"

  Other voices broke in. There was babbling. Then a harsh voice roared:

  "_Quiet! I order it!_" There was silence. The harsh voice said heavily,"_Relay the image to me._" There was a pause. The same voice saidgrimly: "_It is not of our fleet. You, stranger! Identify yourself! Whoare you and why do you slip secretly among us?_"

  Hoddan pushed the transmit button.

  "My name is Bron Hoddan," he said. "I came up to find out why threeships, and then nine ships, went into orbit around Darth. It wassomewhat alarming. Our landing grid's disabled, anyhow, and it seemedwisest to look you over before we communicated and possibly told yousomething you might not believe. But you surely don't expect to land allthis fleet! Actually, we can't land any."

  The harsh voice said as grimly as before:

  "_You come from the planet below us? Darth? Why is your ship so small?The smallest of ours is greater._"

  "This is a lifeboat," said Hoddan pleasantly. "It's supposed to becarried on larger ships in case of emergency."

  "_If you will come to our leading ship_," said the voice, "_we willanswer all your questions. I will have a smoke flare set off to guideyou._"

  Hoddan said to himself:

  "No threats and no offers. I can guess why there are no threats. Butthey should offer something!"

  He waited. There was a sudden huge eruption of vapor in space some twohundred miles away. Perhaps an ounce of explosive had been introducedinto a rocket tube and fired. The smoke particles, naturally ionized,added their self-repulsion to the expansiveness of the explosive'sgases. A cauliflowerlike shape of filmy whiteness appeared and grewlarger and thinner.

  Hoddan drove toward the spot with very light touches of rocket power. Heswung the boat around and killed its relative velocity. The leading shipwas a sort of gigantic, shapeless, utterly preposterous ark-like thing.Hoddan could neither imagine a purpose for which it could have beenused, nor a time when men would have built anything like it. Its hugesides seemed to be made exclusively of great doorways now tightlyclosed.

  One of those doorways suddenly gaped wide. It would have admitted agood-sized modern ship. A nervous voice essayed to give Hoddandirections for getting the spaceboat inside what was plainly an enormoushold now pumped empty of air. He grunted and made the attempt. It wastricky. He sweated when he cut off his power. But he felt fairly safe.Rocket flames would burn down such a door, if necessary. He could workhavoc if hostilities began.

  The great cargo door swung shut. The outside-pressure needle swungsharply and stopped at thirty centimeters of mercury pressure. There wasa clanging. A smaller door evidently opened somewhere. Lights cameon--old-fashioned glow tubes. Then figures appeared through a doorleading to some other part of this ship.

  Hoddan nodded to himself. The costume was odd. It was awkward. It waseven primitive, but not in the fashion of the soiled but gaudily coloredgarments of Darth. These men wore unrelieved black, with gray shirts.There was no touch of color about them. Even the younger ones worebeards. And of all unnecessary things, they wore flat-brimmed hats--in aspaceship!

  Hoddan opened the boat door and said politely:

  "Good morning. I'm Bron Hoddan. You were talking to me just now."

  The oldest and most fiercely bearded of the men said harshly:

  "I am the leader here. We are the people of Colin." He frowned whenHoddan's expression remained unchanged. "The people of Colin!" herepeated more loudly. "The people whose forefathers settled that planet,and brought it to be a world of peace and plenty--and then foolishlywelcomed strangers to their midst!"

  "Too bad," said Hoddan. He knew what these people were doing, hebelieved, but putting a name to where they'd come from told him nothingof what they wanted of Darth.

  "We made it a fair world," said the bearded man fiercely. "But it was mygreat-grandfather who destroyed it. He believed that we should share it.It was he who persuaded the Synod to allow strangers to settle among us,believing that they would become like us."

  * * * * *

  Hoddan nodded expectantly. These people were in some sort of trouble orthey wouldn't have come out of overdrive. But they'd talked about ituntil it had become an emotionalized obsession that couldn't besummarized. When they encountered a stranger, they had to picture theirpredicament passionately and at length.

  This bearded man looked at Hoddan with burning eyes. When he went on, itwas with gestures as if he were making a speech, but it was a specialsort of speech. The first sentence told what kind.

  "They clung to their sins!" said the bearded man bitterly. "They did notadopt our ways! Our example went for naught! They brought others oftheir kind to Colin. After a little they laughed at us. In a little morethey outnumbered us! Then they ruled that the laws of our Synod shouldnot govern them. And they lured our young people to imitatethem--frivolous, sinful, riotous folk that they were!"

  Hoddan nodded
again. There were elderly people on Zan who talked likethis. Not his grandfather! If you listened long enough they'd come tosome point or other, but they had arranged their thoughts so solidlythat any attempt to get quickly at their meaning would only produceconfusion.

  "Twenty years since," said the bearded man with an angry gesture, "wemade a bargain. We held a third of all the land of the planet, but ouryoung men were falling away from the ways of their fathers. We made abargain with the newcomers we had cherished. We would trade our lands,our cities, our farms, our highways, for ships to take us to a new worldwith food for the journey and machines for the taming of the planet wewould select. We sent of our number to find a world to which we couldmove. Ten years back, they returned. They had found it. The planetThetis."

  Again Hoddan had no reaction. The name meant nothing.

  "We began to prepare," said the old man, his eyes flashing. "Five yearssince, we were ready. But we had to wait three more before thebargainers were ready to complete the trade. They had to buy and collectthe ships. They had to design and build the machinery we would need.They had to collect the food supplies. Two years ago we moved ouranimals into the ships, and loaded our food and our furnishings, andtook our places. We set out. For two years we have journeyed towardThetis."

  Hoddan felt an instinctive respect for people who would undertake tomove themselves, the third of the population of a planet, over adistance that meant years of voyaging. They might have tastes in costumethat he did not share, and they might go in for elaborate oratoryinstead of matter-of-fact statements, but they had courage.

  "Yes, sir," said Hoddan. "I take it this brings us up to the present."

  "No," said the old man, his eyes flashing. "Six months ago we consideredthat we might well begin to train the operators of the machines we woulduse on Thetis. We uncrated machines. We found ourselves cheated!"

  Hoddan found that he could make a fairly dispassionate guess of whatadvantage--say--Nedda's father would take of people who would not checkon his good faith for two years and until they were two years' journeyaway. The business men on Krim would have some sort of code determininghow completely one could swindle a customer. Don Loris, now--

  "How badly were you cheated?" asked Hoddan.

  "Of our lives!" said the angry old man. "Do you know machinery?"

  "Some kinds," admitted Hoddan.

  "Come," said the leader of the fleet.

  With a sort of dignity that was theatrical only because he was aware ofit, the leader of the people of Colin showed the way. Hoddan had beenadmitted with his spaceboat into one gigantic cargo hold. He was nowescorted to the next. It was packed tightly with cases of machinery. Onehuge crate had been opened and its contents fully disclosed. Others hadbeen hacked at enough to show their contents.

  The uncrated machine was a jungle plow. It was a powerful piece ofequipment which would attack jungle on a thirty-foot front, knock downall vegetation up to trees of four-foot diameter, shred it, loosen andsift the soil to a three-foot depth, and leave behind it smoothed,broken, pulverized dirt mixed with ground-up vegetation ready to breakdown into humus. Such a machine would clear tens of acres in a day andnight, turning jungle into farmland ready for terrestrial crops.

  "We ran this for five minutes," said the bearded man fiercely as Hoddannodded approval. He lifted a motor hood.

  The motors were burned out. Worthless insulation. Gears were splinteredand smashed. Low-grade metal castings. Assembly bolts had parted.Tractor treads were bent and cracked. It was not a machine except inshape. It was a mock-up in worthless materials which probably cost itsmaker the twentieth part of what an honest jungle plow would cost tobuild.

  Hoddan felt the anger any man feels when he sees betrayal of that honora competent machine represents.

  "It's not all like this!" he said incredulously.

  "Some is worse," said the old man, with dignity. "There are crates whichare marked to contain turbines. Their contents are ancient, worn-outbrick-making machines. There are crates marked to contain generators.They are filled with corroded irrigation pipe and broken castings. Wehave shiploads of crush-baled, rusted sheet-metal trimmings! We havebeen cheated of our lives!"

  * * * * *

  Hoddan found himself sick with honest fury. The population of one-thirdof a planet, packed into spaceships for two years and more, would beappropriate subjects for sympathy at the best of times. But it was onlyaccident that had kept these people from landing on Thetis byrocket--since none of their ships would be expected ever to riseagain--and from having their men go out and joyfully hack at an alienjungle to make room for their machines to land--and then find out they'dbrought scrap metal for some thousands of light-years to no purpose.

  They'd have starved outright. In fact, they were in not much better caseright now. Because there was nowhere else that they could go! There wasno new colony which could absorb so many people, with only their barehands for equipment to live by. There was no civilized, settled worldwhich could admit so many paupers without starving its own population.There was nowhere for these people to go!

  Hoddan's anger took on the feeling of guilt. He could do nothing, andsomething had to be done.

  "Why ... why did you come to Darth?" he asked. "What can you gain byorbiting here? You can't expect--"

  The old man faced him.

  "We are beggars," he said with bitter dignity. "We stopped here to askfor charity--for the old and worn-out machines the people of Darth canspare us. We will be grateful for even a single rusty plow. Because wehave to go on. We can do nothing else. We will land on Thetis. And oneplow can mean that a few of us will live who otherwise would diewith ... with the most of us."

  Hoddan ran his hands through his hair. This was not his trouble, but hecould not thrust it from him.

  "But again--why Darth?" he asked helplessly. "Why not stop at a worldwith riches to spare? Darth's a poor place--"

  "Because it is the poor who are generous," said the bearded man evenly."The rich might give us what they could spare. But simple, not-richpeople, close to the soil, will give us what they need themselves. Theywill share what they have, and accept a share of our need."

  Hoddan paced up and down the ancient flooring of this compartment in anancient ship. Presently he said jerkily:

  "With all the good will in the world.... Darth is poverty-stricken. Ithas no industries. It has no technology. It has not even roads! It is aplanet of little villages and tiny towns. A ship from elsewhere stopshere only once a month. Ground communications are almost nonexistent. Tospread the word of your need over Darth would require months. But tocollect what might be given, without roads or even wheeled vehicles-- No.It's impossible! And I have the only space vessel on the planet, andit's not fit for a journey between suns."

  The bearded man waited with a sort of implacable despair.

  "But," said Hoddan grimly, "I have an idea. I ... ah ... have contactson Walden. The government of Walden does not regard charity with favor.The need for charity seems a ... ah ... a criticism of the Waldenianstandard of living."

  The bearded man said coldly:

  "I can understand that. The hearts of the rich are hardened. Theexistence of the poor is a reproach to them."

  But Hoddan began suddenly to see real possibilities. This was not adirect move toward the realization of his personal ambitions. But on theother hand, it wasn't a movement away from them. Hoddan suddenlyremembered an oration he'd heard his grandfather give many, many timesin the past.

  "Straight thinkin'," the old man had said obstinately, "is a delusion.You think things out clear and simple, and you can see yourself ruinedand your family starving any day! But real things ain't simple! Theyain't clear! Any time you try to figure things out so they're simple andstraightforward, you're goin' against nature and you're going to get 'emmixed up! So when something happens and you're in a straightforward,hopeless fix--why, you go along with nature! Make it as complicated asyou can, and the people who want you in trouble
will get hopelessconfused and you can get out!"

  Hoddan adverted to his grandfather's wisdom--not making it the reasonfor doing what he could, but accepting that it not impossibly mightapply. He saw one possibility right away. It looked fairly good. After aminute's examination it looked better. It was astonishing howplausible--

  "Hm-m-m," he said. "I have planned work of my own, as you may haveguessed. I am here because of ... ah ... people on Walden. If I couldmake a quick trip to Walden my ... hm-m-m ... present position might letme help you. I cannot promise very much, but if I can borrow even thesmallest of your ships for the journey my spaceboat can't make ...why.... I may be able to do something. Much more than can be done onDarth!"

  The bearded man looked at his companions.

  "He seems frank," he said forbiddingly, "and we can lose nothing. Wehave stopped our journey and are in orbit. We can wait. But ... ourpeople should not go to Walden. Fleshpots--"

  "I can find a crew," said Hoddan cheerfully. Inwardly he wastremendously relieved. "If you say the word, I'll go down to ground andcome back with them. Er ... I'll want a very small ship!"

  "It will be," said the old man. "We thank you--"

  "Get it inboard, here," suggested Hoddan, "so I can come inside asbefore, transfer my crew without spacesuits, and leave my boat in yourcare until I come back."

  "It shall be done," said the old man firmly. He added gravely: "You musthave had an excellent upbringing, young man, to be willing to live amongthe poverty-stricken people you describe, and to be willing to go so farto help strangers like ourselves."

  "Eh?" Then Hoddan said enigmatically, "What lessons I shall apply toyour affairs, I learned at the knee of my beloved grandfather."

  * * * * *

  Of course, his grandfather was head of the most notorious gang ofpirates on the disreputable planet Zan, but Hoddan found himselfincreasingly respecting the old gentleman as he gained experience ofvarious worlds.

  He went briskly back to his spaceboat. On the way he made verbalarrangements for the enterprise he'd envisioned so swiftly. It wasremarkable how two sets of troubles could provide suggestions for theirjoint alleviation. He actually saw possible achievement before him. Evenin electronics!

  By the time the cargo space was again pumped empty and the great dooropened to the vastness of space, Hoddan had a very broad view of things.He'd said that same day to Fani that a practical man can always makewhat he wants to do look like a sacrifice of his personal inclinationsto others' welfare. He began to suspect, now, that the welfare of otherscan often coincide with one's own.

  He needed some rather extensive changes in the relationship of thecosmos to himself. Walden was prepared to pay bribes for him. Don Lorisfelt it necessary to have him confined somewhere. There were a number ofDarthian gentlemen who would assuredly like to slaughter him if hewasn't kept out of their reach in some cozy dungeon. But up to nowthere had been not even a practical way to leave Darth, to act uponWalden, or even to change his status in the eyes of Darthians.

  He backed out of the big ship and consulted the charts of the lifeboat.They had been consulted before, of course, to locate the landing gridwhich did not answer calls. He found its position. He began to comparethe chart with what he saw from out here in orbit above Darth. Heidentified a small ocean, with Darth's highest mountain chain justbeyond its eastern limit. He identified a river-system, emptying intothat sea. And here he began to get rid of his excess velocity, becausethe landing grid was not very far distant--some fifteen hundred or twothousand miles.

  To a scientific pilot, his maneuvering from that time on would have beena complex task. The advantage of computation over astrogation by ear,however, is largely a matter of saving fuel. A perfectly computed coursefor landing will get down to ground with the use of the least number ofcentigrams of fuel possible. But fuel-efficient maneuvers are rarelytime-efficient ones.

  Hoddan hadn't the time or the data for computation. He swung thespaceboat end for end, very judgmatically used rocket power to slowhimself to a suitable east-west velocity, and at the last and properinstant applied full-power for deceleration and went down practicallylike a stone. One cannot really learn this. It has to be absorbedthrough the pores of one's skin. That was the way Hoddan had absorbedit, on Zan.

  Within minutes, then, the stronghold of Don Loris was startled by aroaring mutter in the sky high overhead. Helmeted sentries on thebattlements stared upward. The mutter rose to a howl, and the howl tothe volume of thunder, and the thunder to a very great noise which madeloose pebbles dance and quiver.

  Then there was a speck of white cloudiness in the late afternoon sky. Itgrew swiftly in size, and a winking blue-white light appeared in itscenter. That light grew brighter--and the noise managed somehow toincrease--and presently the ruddy sunlight was diluted by light from therockets with considerably more blue in it. Secondary, pallid shadowsappeared.

  Then, abruptly, the rockets cut off, and something dark plungeddownward, and the rockets flamed again, and a vast mass of steam arosefrom scorched ground--and the spaceboat lay in a circle of wildlysmoking, carbonized Darthian soil. The return of tranquility after somuch of tumult was startling.

  * * * * *

  Absolutely nothing happened. Hoddan unstrapped himself from the pilot'sseat, examined his surroundings thoughtfully, and turned off the visionapparatus. He went back and examined the feeding arrangements of theboat. He'd had nothing to eat since breakfast in this same time-zone.The food in store was extremely easy to prepare and not especiallyappetizing. He ate with great deliberation, continuing to make planswhich linked the necessities of the emigrants from Colin to hisrelationship to the government of Walden, the brief visit he'd made toKrim, the ship the emigrants would lend him and his unpopularity withDon Loris on Darth. He also thought very respectfully about hisgrandfather's opinions on many subjects, including space-piracy. Hoddanfound himself much more in agreement with his grandfather than he'dbelieved possible.

  Outside the boat, birds which had dived to ground and cowered thereduring the boat's descent now flew about again, their terror forgotten.Horses which had galloped wildly in their pastures, or kicked in panicin the castle stalls, returned to their oats and hay.

  And there were human reactions. Don Loris had been in an excessivelyfretful state of mind since the conclusion of his deal with the pairfrom Walden. Hoddan had estimated that he ought to get a half-millioncredits for Hoddan delivered to Derec and the Waldenian police. He'dbeen unable to get the police official--Derec merely sat miserably byand said nothing--to promise more than half so much. But he'd closed thedeal and sent for Hoddan--and Hoddan was gone.

  Now the landing of this spaceboat roused a lively uneasiness in DonLoris. It might be new bargainers for Hoddan. It might be anything.Hoddan had said he had a secret. This might be it. Don Loris vexedlytried to contrive some useful skulduggery without the information tobase it on.

  Fani looked at the spaceboat with bright eyes. Thal was back at thecastle. He'd told her of Hoddan riding up to the spaceboat near anotherchieftain's castle, entering it, and that then it had taken to the skiesin an aura of flames and smoke and thunder. Fani hoped that he mighthave returned here in it. But she worried while she waited for him to dosomething.

  Hoddan did nothing. The spaceboat gave no sign of life.

  The sun set, and the sky twinkled with darting lights which flew towardthe west and vanished. Twilight followed, and more lights flashed acrossthe heavens as if pursuing the sun. Fani had learned to associate threeand then nine such lights with spacecraft, but she could not dream of afleet of hundreds. She dismissed the lights from her mind, being muchmore concerned with Hoddan. He would be in as bad a fix as ever if hecame out of the boat.

  Twilight remained, a fairy half-light in which all things looked muchmore charming than they really were. And Don Loris, reduced to peevishsputtering by pure mystery, summoned Thal to him. It should beremembered that Don Loris knew nothing of t
he disappearance of thespaceboat from his neighbor's land. He knew nothing of Thal's journeywith Hoddan. But he did remember that Hoddan had seemed unworried atbreakfast and explained his calm by saying that he had a secret. Thefeudal chieftain worried lest this spaceboat be it.

  "Thal," said Don Loris peevishly, sitting beside the great fireplace inthe enormous, draughty hall, "you know this Bron Hoddan better thananybody else."

  Thal breathed heavily. He turned pale.

  "Where is he?" demanded Don Loris.

  "I don't know," said Thal. It was true. So far as he was concerned,Hoddan had vanished into the sky.

  "What does he plan to do?" demanded Don Loris.

  "I don't know," said Thal helplessly.

  "Where does that ... that thing outside the castle come from?"

  "I don't know," said Thal.

  Don Loris drummed on the arm of his intricately carved chair.

  "I don't like people who don't know things!" he said fretfully. "Theremust be somebody in that--thing. Why don't they show themselves? Whatare they here for? Why did they come down--especially here? Because ofBron Hoddan?"

  "I don't know," said Thal humbly.

  "Then go find out!" snapped Don Loris. "Take a reasonable guard withyou. The thing must have a door. Knock on it and ask who's inside andwhy they came here. Tell them I sent you to ask."

  Thal saluted. With his teeth tending to chatter, he gathered ahalf-dozen of his fellows and went tramping out the castle gate. Some ofthe half dozen had been involved in the rescue of the Lady Fani fromGhek. They were still in a happy mood because of the plunder they'dbrought back. It was much more than a mere retainer could usually hopefor in a year.

  "What's this all about, Thal?" demanded one of them as Thal arrangedthem in two lines to make a proper military appearance, spears dressedupright and garrison-shields on their left arms.

  "Frrrrd _harch!_" barked Thal, and they swung into motion. "Two, three,four, _Hup_, two, three, four. _Hup_, two, three--" The cadence wasestablished.

  Thal said gloomily, "Don Loris said to find out who landed that thingout yonder. And he keeps asking me about Bron Hoddan, too."

  He strode in step with the others. The seven men made an impressivelysoldierly group, tramping away from the castle wall.

  "What happened to him?" asked a rear-file man. He marched on, eyesfront, chest out, spear-shaft swinging splendidly in time with hismarching. "That lad has a nose for loot! Don't take it himself, though.If he set up in business as a chieftain, now--"

  "_Hup_, two, three, four," muttered Thal. "_Hup_, two, three--"

  "Don Loris' a hard chieftain," growled the right-hand man in the secondfile. "Plenty of grub and beer, but no fighting and no loot. I didn'tget to go with you characters the other day, but what you broughtback--"

  "Wasn't half of what was there," mourned a front-file man. "Wasn't half!Those pistols he issued got shot out and we had to get outta therefast!... Hm-m-m.... Here's this thing, Thal. What do we do with it?"

  "Hrrrmp, _halt!_" barked Thal. He stared at the motionless, seeminglylifeless, shapeless spaceboat. He'd seen one like it earlier today. Thatone spouted fire and went up out of sight. He was wary of this one. Hegrumbled: "Those pipes in the back of it--steer clear of 'em. They spitfire. No door on this side. Don Loris said knock on the door. We goaround the front. Frrrrd _harch!_ two, three, four, _hup_, two, three,four. Left turn here and mind those rocks. Don Loris'd give us hell ifsomebody fell down. Left turn again, _Hup_, two, three, four--"

  * * * * *

  The seven men tramped splendidly around the front of the lifeboat. Onthe far side, its bulk hid even Don Loris' castle from view. The sixspearmen, with Thal, came to a second halt.

  "Here goes," rumbled Thal. "I tell you, boys, if she starts to spitfire, you get the hell away!"

  He marched up to the spaceboat's port. He knocked on it. There was noresponse. He knocked again.

  Hoddan opened the door. He nodded cheerfully to Thal.

  "'Afternoon, Thal! Glad to see you. I've been hoping you'd come overthis way. Who's with you?" He peered through the semidarkness. "Some ofthe boys, eh? Come in!" He beckoned and said casually: "Lean your spearsagainst the hull, there."

  Thal hesitated and was lost. The others obeyed. There were clatteringsas the steel spearheads came to rest against the metal hull. Six of DonLoris' retainers followed Thal admiringly into the spaceboat's interior,to gaze at it and that Bron Hoddan who so recently had given three ofthem and nearly half a score of their fellows the chance to loot anearby castle.

  "Sit down!" said Hoddan cordially. "If you want to feel what aspaceboat's really like, clasp the seat belts around you. You'll feelexactly like you're about to make a journey out of atmosphere. That'sit. Lean back. You notice there are no viewports in the hull? That'sbecause we use these visionscreens to see around with."

  He flicked on the screens. Thal and his companions were charmed to seethe landscape outside portrayed on screens. Hoddan shifted thesensitivity-point toward infra red, and details came out that would havebeen invisible to the naked eye.

  "With the boatport closed," said Hoddan, "like this--" The port clangedshut and grumbled for half a second as the locking-dogs went home."We're all set for take-off. I need only get into the pilot's seat"--hedid so, "and throw on the fuel pump--" A tiny humming sounded. "And wemove when I advance this throttle!"

  He pressed the firing-stud. There was a soul-shaking roar. There was aterrific pressure. The seven men from Don Loris' stronghold were pressedback in their seats with an overwhelming, irresistible pressure whichheld them absolutely helpless. Their mouths dropped open. Appalledprotests tried to come out, but were pushed back by the seeminglyever-increasing acceleration.

  The screens, showing the outside, displayed a great and confused tumultof smoke and fumes and dust to rearward. They showed only stars ahead.Those stars grew brighter and brighter, as the roar of the rocketsdiminished to a merely deafening sound. Suddenly the disk of the localsun appeared, rising above the horizon to the west. The spaceboat,naturally, overtook it as it rose into an orbit headed east to westinstead of the other way about.

  Presently Hoddan turned off the fuel pump. He turned to lookthoughtfully at the seven men. They were very pale. They sat unanimouslyvery still, because they could see in the vision plates that a strange,mottled, again-sunlit surface flowed past them with an appallingvelocity. They were very much afraid that they knew what it was. Theydid. It was the surface of the planet Darth, well below them.

  "I'm glad you boys came along," said Hoddan. "We'll catch up with thefleet in a moment or two. The pirate fleet, you know! I'm very pleasedwith you. Not many groundlings would volunteer for space-piracy, noteven with the loot there is in it!"

  Thal choked slightly, but no one else made a sound. No one evenprotested. Protests would have been no use. There were looks of anguish,but nothing else, because Hoddan was the only one in the spaceboat whohad the least idea of how to get it down again. His passengers had to goalong for the ride he'd taken them for, no matter where it led.

  Numbly, they waited for what would befall.