 CHAPTER IV According to the fiction tapes, the colonized worlds of the galaxy vary wildly from each other. In cold and unromantic fact it isn't so. Space travel is too cheap and solid type solar systems too numerous to justify the settlement of hostile worlds. There's no point in trying to live where one has to put on special equipment every time he goes outdoors. There's no reason to settle on a world where one can't grow the kind of vegetation one's ancestors adapted themselves to some tens of thousands of generations ago. It simply doesn't make sense. So the inhabited worlds of the galaxy are farther apart than they could be, perhaps, and much more alike than is necessary. But the human race has a predilection for gravity fields not too far from 980 centimeters per second accelerated force. We humans were designed for something like that. We prefer foodstuffs containing familiar amino compounds. Our metabolism was designed around them, and since our geneticists have learned how to put aggressiveness into the genes of terrestrial origin plants, why nowadays they'd briskly overwhelm the native flora wherever they are introduced. And it's rational to let it happen. If people are to thrive and multiply on new worlds as they are colonized, it's more convenient to modify the worlds to fit the colonists than the colonists to fit the worlds. Therefore, Bron Hoddan encountered no remarkable features in the landscape of Darth as he rode through the deepening night. There was grass, which was not luxuriant. There were bushes, which were not unduly lush. There were trees and birds and various other commonplace living things, whose forebears had been dumped on Darth some centuries before. The ecological system had worked itself out strictly by hit or miss, but the result was not unfamiliar. Save for the star pattern overhead, Hoddan could have believed himself on some parts of Xan, or some parts of Walden, or very probably somewhere or other on Lohalla or Kent or Famagusta or any other occupied world between the rims. There was, though, the star pattern. Hoddan tried to organize it in his mind. He knew where the sun had set, which would be west. He asked the latitude of the Darthian spaceport. Thal did not know it. He asked about major geographical features, seas, and continents and so on. Thal had no ideas on that subject. Hoddan fumed. He hadn't worried about such things on Walden. Of course, on Walden he'd had one friend, Derek, and believed he had a sweetheart, Nedda. There he was lonely and schemed to acquire the admiration of others. He ignored the sky. Here on Darth he had no friends. But there were a number of local citizens now doubtless recovered from stun-pistol bolts and yearning to carve him up with large knives. He did not feel lonely, but the instinct to know where he was was again an operation. The ground was rocky and far from level. After two hours of riding on a small and wiry horse with no built-in springs, Hoddan heard in a great many places he'd never known he owned. He and Thal rode in an indeterminate direction, with an irregular scarf of low mountains silhouetted against the unfamiliar stars. A vagrant night wind blew. Thal had said it was a three-hour ride to Don Loris's castle. After something over two of them, he said meditatively, I think that if you wish to give me a present, I will take it and not make a gift in return. You could give me—he added helpfully—your share of the plunder from our victims? Why, demanded Hoddan, why should I give you a present? If I accepted it, explained Thal, and made no gift in return, I would become your retainer. Then it would be my obligation as a Darthian gentleman to ride beside you, advise, counsel, and fight in your defense, and generally to uphold your dignity. Hoddan suspected himself of blisters in places that had no dignity about them. He said suspiciously, How about Don Loris? Aren't you his retainer? Between the two of us, said Thal, he's stingy. His presents are not as lavish as they could be. I can make him a return present of part of the money we won in combat. That frees me of duty to him. Then I could accept the balance of the money from you, and become a retainer of yours. Oh, said Hoddan. You need a retainer badly, said Thal. You do not know the customs here. For example, there's enmity between Don Loris and the young Lord Ghek. If the young Lord Ghek is as enterprising as he should be, some of his retainers should be lying in wait to cut our throats as we approach Don Loris' stronghold. Hmm, said Hoddan grimly. But Thal seemed undisturbed. This system of gifts and presents sounds complicated. Why doesn't Don Loris simply give you so much a year, or a week, or what not? Thal made a shocked sound. That would be pay. A Dorothyan gentleman does not serve for pay. To offer it would be insult. Then he said, Listen. He reigned in. Hoddan clumsily followed his example. After a moment or two, Thal clucked to his horse and started off again. It was nothing, he said regretfully. I hoped we were riding into an ambush. Hoddan grunted. It could be that he was being told a tall tale. But back at the spaceport the men who came after him waving large knives had seemed sincere enough. Why should we be ambushed, he asked, and why do you hope for it? Your weapons would destroy our enemies, said Thal placently. And the pickings would be good, he added. We should be ambushed because the Lady Fani refused to marry the Lord Geck. She is Don Loris' daughter, and to refuse to marry a man is naturally a deadly insult. So he should ravage Don Loris' lands at every opportunity until he gets a chance to carry off the Lady Fani and marry her by force. That is the only way the insult can be wiped out. I see, said Hoddan, ironically. He didn't. The two horses topped to rise, and far in the distance there was a yellow light with a mist above it as of illuminated smoke. That is Don Loris' stronghold, said Thal. He sighed. It looks like we may not be ambushed. They weren't. It was very dark where the horses forged a head through brushwood. As they moved onward the single light became too. There were great bonfires burning in iron cages some forty feet up in the air. Those cages projected from the battlements of a massive cut stone wall. There was no light anywhere else underneath the stars. Thal rode almost underneath the crescents and shouted upward. A voice answered. Presently a gate clanked open and a black cave-like opening appeared behind it. Thal rolled grandly in and Hoddan followed. Now that the ride seemed over he let himself realize where he ached from the unaccustomed exercise. Everywhere. He also guessed at the area of his skin first rubbed to blisters and then to the discomfort of raw flesh underneath. The gate clank shut. Torches waved overhead. Hoddan found that he and Thal had ridden into a very tiny courtyard. Twenty feet above them an inner battle-minted wall offered excellent opportunities for the inhabitants of the castle to throw things down into visitors who, after admission, turned out to be undesired. Thal shouted further identifications, including a boastful and entirely untruthful declaration that he and Hoddan, together, had slaughtered twenty men in one place and thirty in another and left them lying in their gore. The voices that replied sounded derisive. Somebody came down a rope and fastened the gate from the inside. With an extreme amount of creaking an inner gate swung wide. Men came out of it and took the horses. Hoddan dismounted and it seemed to him that he creaked as loudly as a gate. Thal swaggered, displaying coins he had picked from the pockets of the men the stunt-pistols had disabled. He said splendidly to Hoddan, I will go to announce your coming to Don Loris. These are his retainers. They will give you to drink. He added amiably. If you were given food it would be disgraceful to cut your throat. He disappeared. Hoddan carried his ship back and followed a man in a dirty pink shirt to a stone-walled room containing a table and a chair. He sat down, relieved to have a rest for his back. The man in the pink shirt brought him a flagon of wine. He disappeared again. Hoddan drank sour wine and brooded. He was very hungry and very tired and it seemed to him that he had been disillusioned in a new dimension. Morbidly he remembered a frequently given lecture from his grandfather on Zan. It's no use, it was the custom of his grandfather to say, there is no bit of use in having brains, all they do is get you in trouble. A lucky idiot's ten times better off than the brainy man with the jeans on him. A smart man starts thinking and he thinks himself into a jail cell if his luck is bad and good luck's wasted on him because it ain't reasonable and he don't believe in him when it happens. It takes me a lifetime to keep my brains from ruining me, no sir. I hope none of my descendants inherit my brains, I pity them if they do. Hoddan had been on Darth not more than four hours. In that time he'd found himself robbed, had resented it, had been the object of two-spirited attempts at assassination, had written an excruciating number of miles on an unfamiliar animal, and he now found himself in a stone dungeon and deprived of food. Less feeding him obligate his host not to cut his throat. And he'd gotten into this by himself, he'd chosen it, he practically asked for it. He began strongly to share his grandfather's disillusioned view of brain. After a long time the door of the cell opened, Thao was back, chastened. Don Lourdes wants to talk to you, he said in a subdued voice. He's not pleased. Hoddan took another gulp of the wine. He picked up his ship's bag and limped to the door. He decided, painfully, that he was lipping on the wrong leg. He tried the other, no improvement. He really needed to limp on both. He followed a singularly silent Thao through a long stone corridor and up stone steps until they came to a monstrous hall with torches and holders on the side walls. It was barbarically hung with banners, but it was not exactly a cherry place. At the far end, logs burned in a great fireplace. Don Lourdes sat in a carved chair beside it, wisened and white-bearded, in a fur-trimmed velvet road, with a peevish expression on his face. May chieftain, said Thao Subduly, here is the engineer from Walden. Hoddan scowled at Don Lourdes, whose expression of peevishness did not lighten. He did regard Hoddan with a flicker of interest, however. A stranger, who unfainately scowled at a feudal lord with no superior and no superior, scowled at a feudal lord with no superior and many inferior, is anyhow a novelty. Thao tells me, said Don Lourdes fretfully, that you and he together slaughtered some dozens of the retainers of my neighbors to-day. I consider it unfortunate. They may ask me to have the two of you hanged, and it would be impolite to refuse. Hoddan said, truculently. I consider it impolite for your neighbors' retainers to march toward me, waving large knives, and announcing what they intended to do to my inwards with them. Yes, agreed Don Lourdes impatiently. I conceded that point. It is natural enough to act hastily at such times. But still, how many did you kill? None, said Hoddan curtly. I shot them with stun pistols I just charged in the control room of the landing grid. Don Lourdes sat up straight. Stun pistols, he demanded sharply. You use stun pistols on D'arth? Naturally on D'arth, said Hoddan with some tartness. I was here, but nobody was killed. One or two may be slightly blistered. All of them had their pockets picked by Thao. I understand that is a local custom. There is nothing to worry about. But Don Lourdes stared at him aghast. But this is deplorable, he protested. Stun pistols used here? It is one thing I would have given strict orders to avoid. My neighbors will talk about it. Some of them may even think about it. You could have used any other weapon, but of all things, why did you have to use a stun pistol? Because I had one, said Hoddan briefly. Horrible, said Don Lourdes, peevishly. The worst thing you could possibly have done. I have to disown you, unmistakably. You have to disappear at once. We'll blame it on Ghex retainers. Hoddan said, disappear, me? Vanish, said Don Lourdes. I suppose there's no real necessity to cut your throat. But you plainly have to disappear, though it would have been much more discreet if you simply gotten killed. I was indiscreet to survive, demanded Hoddan, bristling. Extremely so, snapped Don Lourdes. Here I had you come all the way from Walton to help arrange a delicate matter, and before you've traveled even a few miles to my castle, within minutes of landing on Darth, you spoiled everything. I am a reasonable man, but there are the facts. You use a stun pistol, so you have to disappear. I think it is generous of me to say only unto people on Darth forget such things exist. But the two of you, for a year or so, there are some very cosy dungeons. Hoddan seeded suddenly. He tried to do something brilliant on Walden, and had been framed for jail for life. He defended his life and property on Darth, and nearly the same thing popped up as a prospect. Hoddan angrily suspected fate and chance of plain conspiracy against him. But there was an interruption. A clanking of arms sounded somewhere nearby. Men with long gruesome glistening spears came through a doorway. They stood aside. A girl entered the great hall. More spearmen followed her. They stopped by the door. The girl came across the hall. She was a pretty girl, but Hoddan hardly noticed the fact. With so many other things on his mind, he had no time for girls. Thao behind him said in a quivering voice, My Lady Fani, I beg you to plead with your father for his most faithful retainer. The girl looked surprisingly at him. Her eyes fell on Hoddan. She looked interested. Hoddan at that moment was very nearly as disgusted and as indignant as a man could be. He did not look romantically at her. Which to the Lady Fani, daughter of that Don Loris, who was Prince of this and Baron of that, and so on, was news. He did not look at her at all. He ground his teeth. Don't try to weadle me, Fani, snapped Don Loris. I am a reasonable man, but I am indulge you too much. Even to allowing you to refuse to that young imbecile geek, with no end of inconvenience as a result, but I will not have you question my decision about Thao and this Hoddan person. The girl said pleasantly, Of course not, Father, but what have they done? The two of them snapped Don Loris again. Fought twenty men today and defeated all of them. Thao plundered them. Then thirty other men mounted, tried to avenge the first, and they defeated them also. Thao plundered eighteen, and all this was permissible, if unlikely. But they did it with stun pistols. Everybody within news range will talk of it. They'll know that this Hoddan came to Darth to see me. They'll suspect that I imported new weapons for political purposes. They'll guess at the prettiest scheme I've had these twenty years. The girl stood still. A spearman leaned his weapon against the wall. Raced across the hall. Shifted a chair to a convenient position for the lady Fani to sit on it, and raced back to his fellows. She sat down. But did they really defeat so many? She asked marveling. That's wonderful! And Thao was undoubtedly fighting in defense of someone you told him to protect as a lawyer retainer should do, wasn't he? I wish, fumed her father, that you would not throw in irrevelences. I sent him to bring this Hoddan here this afternoon, not to massacre my neighbor's retainers, or rather, not to massacre them. A little bloodletting would have done no harm, but stun pistols. He was protecting somebody he was told to protect, said Fani. And this other man, this Hoddan, Bran Hoddan, said her father irritably. Yes, he was protecting himself. Doubtless he thought he did me a service in doing that. But if he'd only let himself get killed quietly, the whole affair would have been simplified. The lady Fani said with quiet dignity. By the same reasoning, Father, it would simplify things greatly if I let the Lord Ghek kidnap me. It's not the same thing at all. At least, said Fani. I would have a pack of spearmen following me about like puppies everywhere I go. It's not the same. Their breasts smelling of wine, except when they smell of beer, and they breathe very noisily, and it's not, and it's especially unreasonable, said the lady Fani, with even greater dignity. When you could put Thal and this Hoddan person on duty to guard me instead. If they can fight twenty and thirty men at once all by themselves, it doesn't seem to me that you think much of my safety when you want to lock them up somewhere instead of using them to keep your daughter safe from that particularly horrible Ghek. Don Loris swore in a cracked voice. Then he said, to end the argument I'll think it over. Until tomorrow. Now go away. Fani, beaming, rose and kissed him on the forehead. He squirmed. She turned to leave and beckoned casually for Thal and Hoddan to follow her. My chieftain said Thal tremulously. Do we depart too? Yes, rest, Don Loris, get out of my sight. Thal moved with agility in the wake of the lady Fani. Hoddan picked up his bag and followed. This, he considered darkly, was in the nature of a reprieve only, and if those three spaceships overhead did come from Walden, but why three? The lady Fani went out the door she'd entered by. Some of the spearmen went ahead, and others closed in behind her. Hoddan followed. There were stone steps leading upward. They were steep and uneven and interminable. Hoddan climbed on aching legs for what seemed ages. Stars appeared. The leading spearmen stepped out on a flagstone level area. When Hoddan got there, he saw that they had arrived at the battlements of a high part of the castle wall. Starlight showed a rambling wall as circumvillation, with peaked roofs inside it. He could look down into a courtyard where a fire burned and several men busily did things beside it. But there were no other lights. Beyond the castle wall, the ground stretched away toward a nearby range of rugged low mountains. It was vaguely splotched with different degrees of darkness, where fields and pastures and woodland copses stood. Here is a bench, said Fani cheerfully, and you can sit down beside me and explain things. What is your name again, and where did you come from? I'm Bron Hoddan, said Hoddan. He found himself scowling. I come from Zan, where everybody is a space pirate. My grandfather heads the most notorious of the pirate gangs. Wonderful, said Fani admiringly. I knew you couldn't just be an ordinary person and fight like my father said you did today. Thal cleared his throat. Lady Fani? Hush, said Fani. You're a nice old funny daddy that father sent to the spaceport because he figured you'd be too timid to get into trouble. Hush, to Hoddan, she said, interestingly. Now tell me all about the fighting. It must have been terrible. She watched him with her head on one side, expectantly. The fighting I did today, said Hoddan angrily, was exactly as dangerous and as difficult as shooting fish in a bucket. A little more trouble, but not much. Even in the starlight he could see that her expression was more admiring than before. I thought you'd say something like that, she said contentedly. Go on. That's all, said Hoddan. Quite all? I can't think of anything else, he told her. He added, drearily. I rode a horse for three hours today. I'm not used to it. I ache. Your father is thinking of putting me in a dungeon until some scheme or other of his goes through. I'm disappointed. I'm worried about three lights that went across the sky at sundown, and I'm simply too tired and befuddled for normal conversation. Oh, said Fani. If I may take my leave, said Hoddan quirelessly. I'll get some rest and do some thinking when I get up. I'll hope to have more entertaining things to say. He got to his feet and picked up his bag. Where do I go? he asked. Fani regarded him enigmatically. Thal squirmed. Thal would show you. Then Fani said deliberately. Run, Hoddan. Will you fight for me? Thal plucked anxiously at his arm. Hoddan said politely. If it all desirable, yes, but now I must get some sleep. Thank you, said Fani. I am troubled by the Lord Geck. She watched him move away. Thal, moaning softly, went with him down another monstrosity of a stone stairway. Oh, what folly! mourn, Thal. I tried to warn you. You would not pay attention. When the Lord Fani asked if you would fight for her, you should have said if her father permitted you that honour. But you said yes. The spearman heard you. Now you must either fight the Lord Geck within a night and a day or be disgraced. I doubt, said Hoddan, highly, that the obligations of Darthian gentility apply to the grandson of a pirate or an escaped—to me. He'd been about to say an escaped criminal from Walden, but caught himself in time. But they do apply, said Thal, shocked. A man who has been disgraced has no rights. Any man may plunder him. Any man may kill him at will. But if he resists plundering or kills anybody else in self-defense, he is hanged. Hoddan stopped short in his descent of the uneven stone steps. That's me from now on? he said sardonically. Of course, the Lady Fani didn't mean to put me on such a spot. You were not polite, explained Thal. She'd persuaded her father out of putting us in a dungeon until he thought of us again. You should have at least shown good manners. You should have said that you came here across the desert and flaming oceans because of the fame of her beauty. You might have said you have heard songs of her sweetness beside campfires half a world away. She might not have believed you, but— Hold it, said Hoddan. That's just manners. What would you say to a girl you really liked? Oh, then, said Thal, you'd get complimentary. Hoddan went heavily down the rest of the steps. He was not in the least pleased. On a strange world with strange customs and with his weapons losing their charge every hour, he did not need any handicaps. But if he got into a worse than outlawed category such as Thal described, at the bottom of the stairs he said, seething, When you've tucked me in bed, go back and ask the Lady Fani to arrange for me to have a horse in permission to go fight this Lord Gek right after breakfast. He was too much enraged to think further. He let himself be led into some sort of quarters, which probably answered Don Loris's description of a cozy dungeon. Thal vanished and came back with ointments for Hoddan's blisters, but no food. He explained again that food given to Hoddan would make it disgraceful to cut his throat, and Hoddan swore poisonously, but stripped off his garments and smeared himself lavishly where he had lost skin. The ointment stung like fire, and he presently lay awake in a sort of dreary fury, and he was ravenous. It seemed to him that he lay awake for eons, but he must have dozed off because he was awakened by a yell. It was not a complete yell, only the first part of one. It stopped in a particularly unpleasant fashion, and its echoes went reverberating through the stony walls of the castle. Hoddan was out of bed with a stun pistol in his hand in a hurry, before that first yell was followed by other shouts and outcries, by the clashing of steel upon steel, and all the frenzy tumult of combat in the dark. The uproar moved. In seconds the sound of fighting came from a plainly different direction, as if a striking force of some sort went rushing through only indifferently defended corridors. It would not pass before Hoddan's door, but he growled to himself. On a feudal world, presumably, one might expect anything. But there was a certain situation in being here, in which etiquette required a rejected suitor to carry off a certain scornful maiden by force. Some young lordly named Gek had to carry off Fani or be considered a man of no spirit. A gun went off somewhere. It was a powder gun, exploding violently to send a metal bullet somewhere. It went off again. There was an instant almost of silence, then an intolerable screeching of triumph and shrieks of another sword entirely, and the excessively loud clash of arms once more. Hoddan was clothed now, at least clothed enough to have places to stick stun pistols. He jerked on the door to open it, irritably demanding of himself how he would know which side was which, or for that matter which side he should fight on. The door was locked. He raged. He flung himself against it, and it barely quivered. It was barred on the outside. He swore in highly indecorous terms and tore his bedstead apart to get a battering-ram. The fighting reached a climax. He heard a girl scream, and without question he knew that it was the Lady Fani, and equally without question he knew that he would fight to keep any girl from being abducted by a man she didn't want to marry. He swung the log, which was the corner post of his bed. Something cracked. He swung again. The sound of battle changed to that of a running fight. The objective of the raiders had been reached. Having gotten what they came for, and it could only be Fani, they retreated swiftly. Fighting only to cover their retreat. Hoddan swung his bed-leg with furious anger. He heard a flurry of yells and sword-strokes, and a fierce, desperate cry from Fani among them. And a plank in his guest-room dungeon door gave way. He struck again. The running raiders poured past the corner some yards away. He battered and swore, swore and battered as the tumult moved, and he suddenly heard a scurrying thunder of horses hooves outside the castle altogether. There were yells of derisive triumph, and the pounding, rumbling sound of horses headed away in the night until it was lost. Still raging inarticulately, Hoddan crashed his small log at the door. He was not consciously concerned about the distress Don Loris might feel over the abduction of his daughter. But there is an instinct in most men against the forcing of a girl to marriage against her will. Hoddan battered at his door. Around him the castle began to hum like a hive of bees. Women cried out or exclaimed, and men shouted furiously to one another. An off-duty fighting-men came belatedly, looking for somebody to fight, dragging weapons behind them and not knowing where to find enemies. Ron Hoddan probably made as much noise as any for them. Somebody brought a light somewhere near. It shone through the cracks in the splintered planks. He could see to aim. He smote savagely, and the door came apart. It fell outward, and he found himself in the corridor, outside, being stared at by complete strangers. It's the engineer, someone explained to someone else. I saw him when he rode with Thal. I want Thal, said Hoddan coldly. I want a dozen horses. I want men to ride them with me. He pushed his way forward, which way to the stables. But then he went back and picked up his bag of slun pistols. His air was purposeful, and his manor furious. The retainers of Don Loras were in an extremely apologetic frame of mind. The Lady Fani had been carried off into the night by a raiding party undoubtedly led by Lord Geck. The defenders of the castle hadn't prevented it, so there was no special reason to obey Hoddan, but there was every reason to seem to be doing something useful. He found himself almost swept along by agitated retainers, trying to look as if they were about a purposeful affair. They went down a long ramp, calling uneasily to each other. They eddied around a place where two men lay quite still on the floor. Then there were shouts of Thal, this way Thal, and Hoddan found himself in a small stone-walled courtyard doubtless inside a sally-port. It was filled with milling figures and many waving torches. And there was Thal, desperately pale and frightened. Behind him there was Don Loras, his eyes burning and his hands twitching, literally speechless from fury. Picket doesn't meant Thal, commanded Hoddan. Get him on horses, get a horse for me, damn it. I'll show them how to use stun-pistols as we ride. Thal panted, shaking. They hamstrung most of the horses. Get the ones that are left, barked Hoddan. He suddenly raged at Don Loras. Here's another time stun-pistols get used on Darth. Object to this if you want to. Hoof-beats. Thal on a horse that shied and reared at the flames in confusion. Other horses, skittish and scared, with the smell of spilt blood in their nostrils, fighting the men who led them, their eyes rolling. Thal called names as he looked about him. There was plenty of light. As he called the name, a man climbed on a horse. Men thrust swords, spears, all manner of weapons upon them. Some of the chosen men swaggered because of their choice. Some looked woefully unhappy. But with Don Loras glaring frenziedly upon them in the smoky glare, no man refused. Hoddan climbed ungracefully upon the mount that four or five men held for him. Thal, with a fine sense of drama, seized a torch and waved it above his head. There was a vast creaking, and an unsuspected gate opened. Thal rode out with a great clattering of hoofs. And the others rode out after. There were lights everywhere about the castle now. All along the battlements, men had set light to fire baskets and lowered them part way down the walls to disclose any attacking force which might have dishonorable intentions toward the stronghold. Others waved torches from the battlements. Thal swung his torch and pointed to the ground. They rode here, he called to Hoddan. They ride for the castle? Hoddan said angrily. Put out that light! Do you want to advertise how few we are and what we're doing? Here, right close. Thal flung down the torch and horses trotted underfoot as a nod of men rode on. Thal boomed. The piggings should be good, ah? Why do you want me? You've got to learn something, snapped Hoddan. Here, this is a stun pistol. It's set for single shot firing only. You hold it so, with your finger along this rod. You point your finger at a man and pull this trigger. The pistol will buzz briefly. You let the trigger loose and point it at another man and pull the trigger again. Understand? Don't try to use it over ten yards, you're no marksman. There, on a galloping horse beside Hoddan in the darkness, Thal zestfully repeated his lesson. Show another man and send him to me for a pistol, Hoddan commanded curtly. I'll be showing others. He turned to the man who rode too close to his left. Before he had fully instructed that man, another clamored for a weapon on his right. This was hardly adequate training in the use of modern weapons. For that matter, Hoddan was hardly qualified to give military instruction. He'd only gone on two pirate voyages himself, but little boys on Zahn played at pirate in dutiful emulation of their parents. At least the possibilities of stun guns were envisioned in their childish games. So Hoddan knew more about how to fight with stun pistols than somebody who knew nothing at all. The band of pursuing horsemen pounded through the dark night under strangely patterned stars. Hoddan held on to his saddle and barked out instructions to teach Darthians how to shoot. He felt very queer. He began to worry, but the lights of Don Loris's castle long vanished behind. He began to realize how very small his troop was. Thal had said something about horses being hamstrung. There must then have been two attacking parties. One swarmed into the stables to draw all the defending retainers there. Then the other poured over a wall, or in through a bribed open sally port, and rushed for the Lady Fani's apartments. The point was that the attackers had made sure there could be only a token pursuit. They knew they were many times stronger than any who might come after them. It would be absurd for them to flee. Hoddan kicked his horse and got up to the front of the column of riders in the night. Thal, he snapped. They'll be idiots if they keep on running away. Now they're too far off to worry about men on foot. They'll stop and wait for us, most of them anyhow. We're riding into an ambush. You good pickings, eh? said Thal. Idiot, yelped Hoddan. Those men know you. You know what I can do with stun pistols. Tell them we're riding into ambush. They're to follow close behind us too. Tell them they're not to shoot anybody more than five yards off and not coming at them. And if any man stops the plunder, I'll kill him personally. Thal gaped at him. Not stub to plunder? Gek won't, snapped Hoddan. He'll take Fani on to his castle, leaving most of his men behind to massacre us. Thal reigned aside and Hoddan pounded on at the head of the tiny troop. This was the second time in his life he'd been on a horse. It was too, too many. This adventure was not exhilarating. It came into his mind depressingly that supposedly stirring action like this was really no more satisfying than piracy. Fani had tricked him into a fix in which he had to fight Gek or be disgraced. And to be disgraced on Darth was equivalent to suicide. His horse came to a gentle rise in the ground. It grew steeper. The horse slacked in its galloping. The incline grew steeper still. The horse slowed to a walk, which it pursued with a rhythmically tossing head. It was only less uncomfortable than a gallop. The dim outline of trees appeared overhead. Perfect place for an ambush, Hoddan reflected dourly. He got out a stun pistol. He set the stud for continuous fire, something he hadn't dared trust to the others. His horse breasted the rise. There was a yell ahead and dim figures plunged toward him. He painstakingly made ready to swing his stun pistol from his extreme right across the space before him and all the way to the extreme left. The pistol should be capable of continuous fire for four seconds. But it was operating on stored charge. He didn't dare count on more than three. He pulled the trigger. The stun pistol hummed, though its noise was inaudible through the yells of the charging partisans of the Lord Gek. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of The Pirates of Versace This Libravox recording is in the public domain. The Pirates of Versace by Murray Leinster Chapter 5 Hoddan swore from the depths of a very considerable vocabulary. You, censored, deleted, omitted, unprintability, He roared, Get back up on your horse or I'll blast you and leave you for Gek's men to handle when they're able to move about again. Get back on that horse. One. Two. The man got back on the horse. Now go on ahead, raps Hoddan. All of you, I'm going to count you. The dozen horsemen from Don Loris's stronghold rode reluctantly on ahead. He did count them. He rode on, shepherding them before him. Gek, he told him in a blood-curdling tone, has a bigger prize than any cash you'll ever plunder from one of his shot-down retainers. He's got the Lady Fani. He won't stop before he has her behind castle walls. We've got to catch up with him. Do you want to try to climb into his castle by your fingernails? You'll do it if he gets there first. The horses moved a little faster. Thal said with surprising humility. If we force our horses too much, they'll be exhausted before we can catch up. Figure it out, snapped Hoddan. We have to catch up. He settled down to more of the acutious comfort that riding was to him. He did not think again of the ambush. It had happened and it had failed. Four-fifths of the raiding party that had fought its way into Don Loris's stronghold and out again had been waiting for pursuers atop a certain bit of rising ground. They'd known their pursuers must come this way. There were certain passes through the low but rugged hills. One went this way or that, but no other. Their blood already warmed by past fighting. When Hoddan and his dozen seemed to ride right into destruction, they flung themselves into a charge. But Hoddan had a stun pistol set for continuous fire. He used it like a hose or a machine gun, painstakingly sweeping it across the night before him, neither too fast nor too slowly. It affected the rushing followers of Lord Gek exactly as if it had been an oversized meat chopper. They went down. Only three men remained in their saddles. They'd probably been sheltered by the bodies of men ahead. Hoddan attended to those three with individual, personalized, stun pistol bolts and immediately had trouble with his men who wanted to dismount and plunder their fallen enemies. He wouldn't even let them collect the horses of the men now out of action. It would cost time and Gek wouldn't be losing any that he could help. With a raging, trembling girl as prisoner, most men would want to get her behind battlements as soon as possible. But Hoddan knew that his party was slowed down by him. Presently he began to feel bitterly sure that Gek would reach his castle before he was overtaken. This place he's heading for, he said discouragingly to Thal. Any chance of our rushing it? Oh no, said Thal doltfully. Ten men could hold it against a thousand. Then can't we make better time? Thal said resignedly, Gek probably had fresh horses waiting so he could keep on at top speed in his flight. I doubt we will catch him now. The Lady Fani, said Hoddan bitterly, has put me in a fix so if I don't fight him I'm ruined. Disgrace, corrected Thal, he said mournfully. It's the same thing. Gloom descended on the whole party as it filled their leaders. Insensibly the pace of the horses slackened still more. They had done well. But a horse that can cover fifty miles a day at its own gate can be exhausted in ten or less if pushed. By the time Hoddan and his men were within two miles of Gek's castle, their mounts were extremely reluctant to move faster than a walk. At a mile they were kept in motion only by kicks. The route they followed was specific. There was no choice of routes here in the hills. They could only follow every twist and turn of the trail among steep mountain flanks and minor peaks. But suddenly they came to a clear wide valley. Yellow Crested's burned at its upper end no more than half a mile distant. They showed a castle gate open with the last of a party of horsemen filing into it. Even as Hoddan swore the gate closed. Faint shouts of triumph came from inside the castle walls to the completely frustrated pursuers without. I'd have bet on this, said Hoddan miserably. Stop here, Thal. Pick out a couple of your more hangdog characters and fix them up with their hands apparently tied behind their backs. We'll take a breather for five minutes. No more. He would not let any man dismount. He shifted himself about on his own saddle, trying to find a comfortable way to sit in it. He failed. At the end of five minutes he gave orders. There were still shouts occasionally from within Geck's castle. They had that unrhythmic frequency which suggested that they were responses to a speech. Geck was making a fine, dramatic spectacle of his capture of an unwilling bride. He was addressing his retainers and saying that through their fine loyalty, co-operation, and willingness to risk all for their chieftain, they now had the Lady Fani to be their chattelain. He thanked them from the bottom of his heart, and they were invited to the official wedding, which would take place some time to-morrow, most likely. Before the speech was quite finished, however, Hoddan and his weary following rode up into the patch of light cast by the cressets outside the walls. Thal bellowed to the battlements. "'Prisoners!' he roared, according to the instructions from Hoddan. We got some prisoners in the ambush. They got fancy news. Tell Lord Geck he'd better get their story right off. No time to waste. Urgent!' Hoddan played the part of one prisoner just in case anybody noticed from above that one man rode as if either entirely unskilled in riding or else injured in a fight. He heard shouting over the walls. He glared at his men and they drooped in their saddles. The gate creaked open, and the horsemen from Don Loris's castle filed inside. They showed no elation, because Hoddan had promised to ram a spear-shaft its full length down the throat of any man who gave away his stratagem ahead of time. The gate closed behind them. Men appeared to take their horses. This could have revealed that the newcomers were strangers, but Geck would have recruited new and extra retainers for the emergency of tonight. There would be many strange faces in his castle just now. "'Good fighter!' bellowed an ancient long-haired retainer with a wine-bottle in his hand. "'Good fight!' agreed Thal. "'Good plunder, ah!' bellowed the ancient above the heads of the younger men, like the good old days. "'Better!' boomed Thal. At just this instant the young Lord Geck appeared. There were scratches on his cheek, acquired during the ride with Fani across the saddle-ball. He looked thrilled by his victory, but uneasy about his prize. "'What's this about prisoners with fancy news?' he demanded. "'What is it?' "'Don Loris!' whooped Thal. "'Long live the Lady Fani!' Hoddan painstakingly opened fire, with a continuous fire-stud of this pistol his third to-night pressed down. The merry-makers in the courtyard wavered and went down in windrows. Thal opened fire with a stun-pistol. The others bellowed and began to fling-bolts at every living thing they saw. "'To the Lady Fani!' rassed Hoddan, getting off his horse with as many creakings as the castle gate. His followers now rushed, dismounting where they had to. They fired with reckless abandon. A stun-pistol, which does not kill, imposes few restraints upon its user. If you shoot somebody who doesn't need to be shot, he may not like it, but he isn't permanently harmed. So the twelve who'd followed Hoddan poured in what would have been a murderous fire if they'd been shooting bullets. But was no worse than devastating, as matters stood. There were screams and flight and utterly hopeless defiances by sword-armed and spear-armed men. In instance, Hoddan went lipping into the castle with Thal by his side. Searching for Fani. Gek had not fallen at the first fire. He vanished, and the castle was plainly fallen, and he made no attempt to lead resistance against its invaders. Hoddan's men went raging happily through corridors and halls as they came to them. They used their stun-pistols with zest, and at such close quarters with considerable effect. Hoddan heard Fani scream angrily, and he and Thal went swiftly to sea. They came upon the young Lord Gek trying to let Fani down out of a window on a rope. He undoubtedly intended to follow her and complete his abduction on the run. But Fani bit him, and Hoddan said vexedly, Look here, it seems I'm disgraced if I don't fight you somehow. The young Lord Gek rushed him, soared out, eyes blazing in a fine frenzy of despair. Hoddan brought him down with a buzz of the stun-gun. One of Hoddan's followers came hunting for him. Said, he sputtered. We've got to get us a cornered in our quarters, and we've been picking them off through the windows, and they think they're dropping dead and want to surrender. Shall we let them? By all means, Hoddan said irritably, and Thal, go get something heavier than a nightgown for the Lady Fani to wear, and then do what plundering is practical, but I want to be out of here in half an hour, understood? I'll attend to the costume, said the Lady Fani vengefully. You cut his throat while I'm getting dressed. She nodded at the unconscious Lord Gek on the pavement. She disappeared through a door nearby. Hoddan could guess that Gek would have prepared something elaborate in the way of a trousseau for the bride he was to carry screaming from her home. Somehow it was the sort of thing a Darthian would do. Now Fani would enjoyably attire herself in the best of it while. Thal, said Hoddan, help me get this character into a closet somewhere. He's not to be killed. I don't like him, but at this moment I don't like anybody very much, and I won't play favorites. Thal dragged the insensible young nobleman into the next room. Hoddan locked the door and pocketed the key as Fani came into view again. She was splendidly attired, now, in brocade and jewels. Gek had evidently hoped to placate her after marriage by things of that sort and had spent lavishly on. Now, throughout the castle, there were many and diverse noises. Sometimes, not often, there was still the crackling hum of a stun pistol. There were many more exuberant shoutings they apparently had to do with loot. There was some squealings in female voices, but many more giggling. I need not say, said the lady Fani with dignity, that they thank you very much, but I do say so. You're quite welcome, said Hoddan politely. And what are you going to do now? I imagine, said Hoddan, that we'll go down into the courtyard where our horses are. I gave my men half an hour to loot in. During that half hour I shall sit down on something which will, I hope, remain perfectly still. And I may, he added morbidly, eat an apple. I've had nothing to eat since I landed on dark. People don't want to commit themselves to not cutting my throat. But after half an hour we'll leave. The lady Fani looked sympathetic. But the castle surrendered to you, she protested. You hold it. Aren't you going to try to keep it? There are a good many unpleasant characters out yonder, said Hoddan, waving his hand at the great outdoors. Who've reasoned to dislike me very much. They'll be anxious to express their emotions when they fill up to it. I want to dodge them. And presently the people in this castle will realize that even stun pistols can't keep on shooting indefinitely here. I don't want to be around when that occurs to them. He offered his arm with a reasonably grand air, and went limping with her down to the courtyard just inside the gate. Two of Don Loris' retainers staggered into view as they arrived, piling up plunder which ranged from a quarter keg of wine to a mass of frothy stuff which must be female garments. They went away, and other men arrived loaded down with their own accumulations of loot. Some of the local inhabitants looked on with uneasy indignation. Hoddan found a bench and sat down. He conspicuously displayed one of the weapons which had captured the castle. Geck's defeated retainers looked at him darkly. Bring me something to eat, commanded Hoddan. Then if you bring fresh horses for my men, and one extra for each to carry his plunder on, I'll take them away. I'll even throw in the Lord Geck, who is now unharmed but with his life and the balance. Otherwise, he moved the pistol suggestively. The normal inhabitants of Geck's castle moved away, discussing the situation in subdued voices. The Lady Fani sat down proudly on the bench beside him. You were wonderful, she said with conviction. I used to cherish that illusion myself, said Hoddan. But nobody before did all Darthian history has ever fought twenty men, and then thirty men, and destroyed an ambush and captured a castle all in one day. And without a meal, said Hoddan darkly, and with a lot of blisters. He considered. Somebody came running with bread and cheese and wine. He bit into the bread and cheese. After a moment he said, his mouth full. I once saw a man perform the unparalleled feat of jumping over nine barrels placed in a row. It had never been done before, but I didn't envy him. I never wanted to jump over nine barrels in a row. In the same way, I never especially wanted to fight other men or break up ambushes or capture castles. I want to do what I want to do, not what other people happen to admire. Then what do you want to do? she asked admiringly. I'm not sure now, said Hoddan glumily. He took a fresh bite. But a little while ago I wanted to do some interesting and useful things in electronics, and get reasonably rich, and marry a delightful girl, and become a prominent citizen on Walden. I think I'll settle for another planet now. My father will make you rich, said the girl proudly. You saved me from being married to Gek. Hoddan shook his head. I've got my doubts, he said. He had a scheme to import a lot of stun pistols and arm his retainers with them. Then he meant to rush the spaceport and have me set up a broadcast power unit that'll keep them charged all the time. Then he'd sit back and enjoy life holding the spaceport. Nobody else could get stun weapons and nobody could resist his retainers who had him, so he'd be top man on dark. He'd have exactly as much power as he chose to seize. I think he cherished that little idea. And I've given advanced publicity to stun pistols. Now he hasn't a ghost of chance pulling it off. I'm afraid he'll be displeased with me. I can take care of that, said Fani confidently. She did not question that her father would be displeased. Maybe you can, said Hoddan. But though he's kept a daughter, he's lost a dream and that's bereavement, I know. Horses came plodding into the courtyard with Gek's retainers driving them. They were anxious to get rid of their conquerors. Hoddan's men came trickling back with arms full of plunder to add to the piles they'd previously gathered. Thal took charge, commanding the exchange of saddles from tired to fresh horses, and that the booty be packed on the extra mounts. It was time. Nine of the dozen looters were at work on the task when there was a tumult back at the castle. Yelling's in the clash of steel. Hoddan shook his head. Bad. Somebody's pistol went empty and the local boys found it out. Now I'll have to fight some more. No. He beckoned to a listening, tense, resentful inhabitant of the castle. He held up the key of the room in which he'd locked the young Gek. Now open the castle gate, he commanded, and fetch out my last three men, and we'll leave without setting fire to anything. The Lord Gek would like it that way. He's locked up in a room that's particularly inflamable. The last statement was a gas only. But Gek's retainer looked horrified. He bellowed. There was a subtle change in the bitterly hostile atmosphere. Men came angrily to help load the spare horses. Hoddan's last three men came out of a corridor, wiping blood from various scratches, and complaining plaintatively that their pistols had shot empty, and they had to defend themselves with knives. Three minutes later the cavalcade rode out of the castle gate and away into the darkness. Hoddan had arrived here when Gek was inside with Fani as his prisoner. When there was only a dozen men without, and at least a hundred insides to defend the walls, and the castle was considered impregnable. In half an hour Hoddan's followers had taken the castle, rescued Fani, looted it superficially, gotten fresh horses for themselves, and spare ones for their plunder, and were headed away again. In only one respect were they worse off than when they arrived. Some stunned pistols were empty. Hoddan searched the sky and pieced together the star pattern he'd noted before. Hold it, he said sharply to Thal. We don't go back the same way we came. The gang that ambushed us will be stirring around again, and we haven't got full stunt pistols now. We make a wide circle around those characters. Why, demanded Thal, there are only so many passes. The only other one is three times as long, and it is disgraceful to avoid a fight. Thal snapped an icy voice from beside Hoddan. You have an order, obey it. Even in the darkness Hoddan could see Thal jump. Yes, my Lady Fani, said Thal shakily, but we go a long distance round about. The direction of motion through the night now changed. The long line of horses moved in deepest darkness, lessened only by the light of many stars. Even so, in time one's eyes grew accustomed, and it was a glamorous spectacle. Twenty-eight beasts, moving through dark defiles and over steep passes among the rugged, ragged hills. From any one spot they seemed at once to swagger and to slink, swaying as they moved on and vanished into obscurity. The small wild things in the night paused affrightedly in their skirrings until they had gone far away. Fani said in a soft voice, this is nice. What's nice about it? demanded Hoddan. Writing like this, said Fani enthusiastically, with men who have fought for me to guard me in the darkness, with the leader who has rescued me by my side, underneath the stars, it's a delicious feeling. You're used to riding horseback, said Hoddan dourly. He rode on, while mountains stabbed skyward in the past, they followed round this way and that, and he knew that it was very roundabout way indeed, and he had unpleasing prospects to make it seem less satisfying, even, than it would have been otherwise. But they came at last to a narrow defile which opened out before them, and there were no more mountains ahead but only foothills. And there, far and far away, they could see the sky as vaguely brighter. As they went on, indeed, a glory of red and golden colorings appeared on the horizon. And out of that magnificence, three bright lights suddenly darted. In strict V-formation, they flashed from the sunrise toward the west. They went overhead, more brilliant than the brightest stars, and when partway down to the horizon they suddenly winked out. What on earth are they, demanded Fani? I never saw anything like that before. Their spaceships in orbit, said Hoddan. He was as astounded as the girl, but for a different reason. I thought they'd be landed by now. It changed everything. He could not see what the change amounted to, but change there was, for one thing. We're going to the spaceport, he told Thal curtly. We'll recharge our stun pistols there. I thought those ships had landed, they haven't. Now we'll see if we can keep them aloft. How far to the landing-grid? You insisted, plain Thal, that we go back to Don Lorce's castle by the way we are lefted. There are only so many passes through the hills. The only other one is very long. We are only four miles. Then we head there right now, snapped Hoddan, and we step up the speed. He barked commands to his followers. Thal, puzzled but in dread of acid-comment from Fani, bustled up and down the line of men, insisting on a faster pace. And the members of the cavalcade had not pushed these animals, as they had their first. Even the lead horses, loaded with loot, managed to get up a respectable, ambling trot. The sunrise proceeded. Due upon the straggly grass became visible, separate drops appeared as gems upon the grass-blades, and then began gradually to vanish as the sun's disc showed itself. Then the angular metal framework of the landing-grid rose dark against the sunrise sky. When they rode up to it, Hoddan reflected that it was the only really civilized structure on the planet. Architecturally, it was surely the least pleasing. It had been built when Darth was first settled on, and when ideas of commerce and interstellar trade seemed reasonable. It was half a mile high and built of massive metal beams. It loomed hugely overhead when the double file of shaggy horses trodded under its lower arches and across the grass-grown space within it. Hoddan headed purposefully for the control shed. There was no sign of movement anywhere. The steeply gabled roofs of the nearby town showed only the fluttering of tiny birds. No smoke rose from chimneys. Yet the slanting morning sunshine was bright. As Hoddan actually reached the control shed, he saw a sleepy man in the act of putting a key in the door. He dismounted within feet of that man, who turned and blinked sleepily at him, and then immediately looked the reverse of cordial. It was the red-headed man he'd stung with a stun-pistol day before. I've come back, said Hoddan, for a few more kilowatts. The red-headed man swore angrily. Hush! said Hoddan gently. The lady Fani is with us. The red-headed man jerked his head around and paled. Thal glowered at him. Others of Don Loris's retainers shifted their position significantly to make their oversighted spelt knives handier. We'll come in, said Hoddan. Thal, collect the pistols and bring them inside. Fani swung lightly to the ground and followed him in. She looked curiously at the cables and instrument boards and switches inside. On one wall, a red light pulsed and went out, and pulsed again. The red-headed man looked at it. You're being called, said Hoddan. Don't answer it. The red-headed man scowled. Thal came in with an armful of stun-pistols in various stages of discharge. Hoddan briskly broke the butt of one of his own and presented it to the terminals he'd used the day before. He's not to touch anything, Thal, said Hoddan. To the red-headed man he observed, I suspect that call's been coming in all night. Something was in orbit at sundown. You closed up shop and went home early, eh? Thay not, wrasped the red-haired man. There's only one ship a month. Sometimes, said Hoddan, there are specials. But I commend your negligence. It was probably good for me. He charged one pistol and snapped its butt shut, and snapped open another and charged it. It was no difficulty, of course. In minutes all the pistols he'd brought from Walden were ready for use again. He tucked away as many as he could conveniently carry on his person. He handed the rest to Thal. He went competently to the pulsing call signal. He put headphones to his ears. He listened. His expression became extremely strange, as if he did not quite understand nor wholly believe what he heard. Ah, hot, he said mildly. He considered for a moment or two. Then he rummaged around in the drawer of desks. He found wire clips. He began to snip wires in half. The red-headed man started forward automatically. Take care of him, Thal, said Hoddan. He cut the microwave receiver free of its wires and cables. He lifted it experimentally and opened part of its case to make sure the thermal battery that would power it in an emergency was there and in working order. It was. Put this on a horse, Thal, commanded Hoddan. We're taking it up to Don Loris's. The red-headed man's mouth dropped open. He said stridently, Hey, you can't do that! Hoddan turned upon him and said sourly. All right, you can. I'm not trying to stop you with all those hard cases outside. You can build another in a week, said Hoddan kindly. You must have spare parts. Thal carried the communicator outside. Hoddan opened a cabinet through switches and painstakingly cut and snipped and snipped at a tangle of wires within. Just your instrumentation, he explained to the appalled red-headed man. You won't use the grid until you've fixed this, too. A few days of harder work than you're used to, that's all. He led the way out again and on his way explained to Fani. Pretty old-fashioned job, this grid. They make simpler ones nowadays. They'll be able to repair it, though, in time. Now we go back to your father's castle. He may not be pleased, but he should be mollified. He saw Fani mount lightly into her own saddle and shook his head gloomily. He climbed clumsily into his own. They moved off to return to Don Loris's stronghold. Hoddan suffered. They reached the castle before noon. And the sight of the lady Fani, riding beside a worn-out Hoddan, was productive of enthusiasm and loud cheers. The loot displayed by the returned wayfarers increased the rejoicing. There was envy among the men who had stayed behind. There was respectfully admiring looks cast upon Hoddan. He had displayed, in furnishing opportunities for plunder, the most admired equality a leader of feudal fighting men could show. The lady Fani beamed as she and Thal in Hoddan, all very dusty and travel-stained, presented themselves to her father in the castle's great hall. Here is your daughter, sir, said Hoddan, and yawned. I hope there won't be any further trouble with Ghek. We took his castle and looted it a little and brought back some extra horses. Then we went to the spaceport. I recharged my sun-pistols and put the landing grid out of order for the time being. I brought away the communicator there. He yawned again. There's something highly improper going up just beyond the atmosphere. There are three ships up there in orbit, and they're all trying to call the spaceport in non-regulation fashion. It's possible that some of your neighbors would be interested, so I postponed everything until I could get some sleep. It seemed to me that when better skull-degrees are concocted, that Don Loris and his associates ought to concoct them. And if you'll excuse me, he moved away, practically dead on his feet. If he had been accustomed to horseback riding, he would not have been so exhausted, but now he yawned and yawned, and Thal took him to a room quite different from the guest-room dungeon to which he'd been taking the night before. He noted that the door at this time opened inward. He braced chairs against it to make sure that nobody could open it from without. He lay down and slept heavily. He was waked by loud poundings. He roused himself enough to say sleepily. Be wide! The light in the sky, cried Frani's voice outside the door. Though once you say our spaceships, it's sunset again, and I just saw them, but there aren't three. Now there are nine. All right, said Hoddan. He lay down his head again and thrust it into his pillow. Then he was suddenly very wide awake indeed. He sat up with a start. Nine spaceships, that wasn't possible. That would be a space fleet. And there were no space fleets. Walden would certainly have never sent more than one ship to demand his surrender to its police. The space patrol never needed more than one ship anywhere. Commerce wouldn't cause ships to travel in company. Piracy. There couldn't be a pirate fleet. There'd never be enough loot anywhere to keep it in operation. Nine spaceships at one time. Traveling in orbit around a primitive planet like Darth. A fleet of spaceships. It couldn't happen. Hoddan couldn't conceive of such a thing. But a recently developed pessimism suggested that since everything else to date had been to his disadvantage, this was probably a catastrophe also. He groaned and lay down to sleep again. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of The Pirates of Ursatz This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Pirates of Ursatz by Murray Leinster Chapter 6 When frantic bangings on the propped shut door awakened him next morning, he confusedly imagined that they were noises in the communicator headphones, and until he heard his name called, tried trierily to make sense of them. But suddenly he opened his eyes. Someone banged on the door once more. A voice cried angrily, Brown Hoddan, wake up or I'll go away and let whatever happens to you happen. Wake up! It was the voice of the Lady Fani, at once indignant and tearful and solicitous and angry. He rolled out of bed and found himself dressed. He hadn't slept the full night. At one time he couldn't rest for thinking about the sounds in the communicator when he listened at the spaceport. He listened again, and what he heard made him get his clothes on for action. That was when he heard a distinctly Waldinian voice speaking communication speech with crisp distinctness, calling the landing-grid. The other voices were not Waldinian ones, and he grew dizzy trying to figure them out. But he was clothed and ready to do whatever proved necessary when he realized that he had the landing-grid receiver, that there would be no reception, even of the Waldinian call, until the landing-grid crew had built another one out of spare parts in store. And even then couldn't do much until they painfully sorted out and re-spliced all the tangled wires that Hoddan had cut. That had to be done before the grid could be used again. He'd gone back to sleep when he tried to make sense of things. Now, long after daybreak, he shook himself and made sure a stun-pistol was handy. Then he said, Hello, I'm awake. What's up? Why all the noise? Come out of there! cried Fani's voice, simultaneously exasperated and filled with anxiety. Things are happening. Somebody's here from Waldin. They want you! Hoddan could not believe it. It was too unlikely, but he opened the door and Thal came in, and Fani followed. Good morning! said Hoddan automatically. Thal said mournfully. A bad morning, Blan Hoddan. A bad morning. Men from Waldin came riding over the hills. How many? Two! cried Fani angrily. A fat man in a uniform and a young man who looks like he wants to cry. They had an escort of retainers from one of my father's neighbors. They were stopped at the gate, of course, and they sent a written message in to my father. And he had them brought inside right away. Hoddan shook his head. They probably said that I'm a criminal and that I should be sent back to Waldin. How'd they get down? The landing grid isn't working. Fani said viciously. They landed in something that used rockets. It came down close to a castle over that way, only six or seven miles from the spaceport. They asked for you. They said you'd have landed in the last liner from Waldin. And because you and Thal fought so spelendedly, why everyone's talking about you, so the chieftain over there accepted a present of money from them and gave them horses as a return gift and sent them here with a guard. Thal talked to the guards. The men from Waldin have promised huge gifts of money if they help take you back to the thing that uses rockets. I suspect, said Hoddan, there would be a spaceboat, a lifeboat. Huh. Yes. With a built-in tool-steel cell to keep me from telling anybody how to make— He stopped and grimaced. If they had time to build one in, that's certain. They'd take me to the spaceport in a soundproof can, and I'd be hauled back to Waldin in it. Fine. What are you going to do? asked Fani anxiously. Hoddan's ideas were not clear. But Darth was not a healthy place for him. It was extremely likely, for example, that Don Loris would feel that the very bad jolt he'd given that astute schemer's plans by using stun-pistols at the spaceport had been neatly cancelled out by his rescue of Fani. He would regard Hoddan with a mingled gratitude and aversion that would amount to calm detachment. Don Loris could not be counted on as a really warm personal friend. On the other hand, the social system of Darth was not favorable to a stranger with an already lurid reputation for fighting, but whose weapons would be useless unless frequently recharged, and who couldn't count on that as a steady thing. As a practical matter, his best bet was probably to investigate the nine inexplicable ships overhead. They hadn't cooperated with the Waldinians. It could be inferred that no confidential relationship existed up there. It was possible that the nine ships and the Waldinians didn't even know of each other's presence. There is a lot of room in space, if both called on ship frequency and listened on ground frequency, they would not have picked up each other's summons to the ground. You've got to do something, insisted Fani. I saw Father talking to them. He'd looked happy, and he never looks happy unless he's planning some skull-duggery. I think, said Hoddan, that I'll have some breakfast, if I may, as soon as I fasten up my shipbag. Thal said mournfully, if anything happens to you, something will happen to me, too, because I helped you. Breakfast first, said Hoddan. That, as I understand it, should make it disgraceful for your father to have my throat cut. But beyond that, he said gloomily, Thal, get a couple of horses outside the wall. We may need to ride somewhere. I'm very much afraid we will. But first, I'd like to have some breakfast. Fani said, disappointingly, But aren't you going to face them, the men from Walden? You could shoot them. Hoddan shook his head. It wouldn't solve anything. Anyhow, a practical man like your father won't sell me out before he's sure I can't pay off better. I'll bet on a conference with me before he makes a deal. Fani stomped her foot. Out the rage is, think what you saved me from. But she did not question the possibility, Hoddan observed. A practical man can always make what he wants to do look like a noble sacrifice of personal inclinations to the welfare of the community. I've decided that I've got to be practical myself. And that's one of the rules. How about breakfast? He strapped the ship bag shut on the stun pistols his pockets would not hold. He made a minor adjustment to the space communicator. It was not ruined, but nobody else could use it much without labor finding out what he'd done. This was a sort of thing his grandfather Anzan would have advised. His grandfather's views were explicit. Helping one's neighbor, he'd said frequently in Hoddan's hearing while Hoddan was a youth, is all right, is a two-way job. But maybe he's laying for you. You get a chance to fix him so he can't do you no harm and you're a lot better off. And he's a hell of a lot better neighbor. This was definitely true of the men from Walton. Hoddan guessed that Derek was one of them. The other would represent the police or the planetary government. It was probably just as true of Don Loris and others. Hoddan found himself disapproving of the way the cosmos was designed. Even though presently he sat at breakfast high up on the battlements and Fani looked at him with interesting anxiety, he was filled with forebodings. The future looked dark. Yet what he asked of fate and chance was so simple. He asked only a career and riches and a delightful girl to marry and the admiration of his fellow citizens. Trivial things. But it looked like he'd have to do battle for even such minor gifts of destiny. Fani watched him breakfast. I don't understand you, she complained. Anybody else would be proud of what he'd done and angry with my father. Or don't you think he'll act ungratefully? Of course I do, said Hoddan. Then why aren't you angry? I'm hungry, said Hoddan. And you take it for granted that I want to be properly grateful, said Fani in one breath, and yet you haven't shown the least appreciation of my getting two horses over in that patch of woodland yonder. She pointed and Hoddan nodded. And having thou there with orders to serve you faithfully. She stopped short. Don Loris appeared, beaming. At the top of the steps leading here from the great hall were conferences took place. He regarded Hoddan benignly. This is a very bad business, my dear fellow, he said benevolently. Has Fani told you of the people who have arrived from Walden in search of you? They tell me terrible things about you. Yes, said Hoddan. He prepared a roll for biting. He said, One of them, I think, is named Derek. He's to identify me so good money isn't wasted paying for the wrong man, the other man's police, isn't he? He reflected a moment. If I were you, I'd start talking at a million credits. You might get half that. He bit into the roll as Don Loris looked shocked. Do you think, he asked indignantly, that I would give up the rescuer of my daughter to emissaries from a foreign planet to be locked in a dungeon for life? Not in those words, conceded Hoddan. But after all, despite your deep gratitude to me, there are such things as one's duty to humanity as a whole. And while it would cause you bitter anguish if someone dear to you represented a danger to millions of innocent women and children, still, under such circumstances, you might feel it necessary to do violence to your own emotions. Don Loris looked at him with abrupt suspicion. Hoddan waved the roll. Moreover, he observed, gratitude for actions done on Darth does not entitle you to judge of my actions on Walden. While you might and even should feel obligated to defend me in all things I've done on Darth, your obligation to me does not let you deny that I may have acted less defensively on Walden. Don Loris looked extremely uneasy. I may have thought of something like that, he admitted, but so that, said Hoddan, while your debt to me cannot and should not be overlooked, nevertheless, Hoddan put the roll into his mouth and spoke less clearly. You feel that you should give consideration to the claims of Walden to inquire into my actions while there. He chewed and swallowed and said gravely, and can I make death raise? Don Loris brightened. He drew a deep breath of relief. He said, complainingly, I don't see why you're so sarcastic. Yes, that is a rather important question, you see. On Walden they don't know how to. They say you do. They're very anxious that nobody should be able to. But while in unscrupulous hands such as an instrument of destruction would be most unfortunate, under proper control, yours, said Hoddan, say ours, said Don Loris, hopefully, with my experience of men in affairs and my loyal and devoted retainers, and cozy dungeons, said Hoddan, he wiped his mouth. No. Don Loris started violently. No what? No death raise, said Hoddan. I can't make him. Nobody can. If they could be made, some star somewhere would be turning them out. Or some natural phenomenon would let them lose from time to time. If there were such things as death raise, all living things would have died, or else would have adjusted to their weaker manifestations and developed in immunity so they wouldn't beat death raise any longer. As a matter of fact, that's probably been the case some time in the past. So as far as the gadget goes that they're talking about, it's been in use for half a century in the Cetis cluster. Nobody's side of it yet. Don Loris looked bitterly disappointed. That's the truth, he asked unhappily. Honestly, that's your last word on it? Much, said Hoddan, much as I hate to spoil the prospects of profitable spagal duggery, that's my last word. And it's true. But those men from Walden are very anxious, protested Don Loris. There was no ship available so their government got a liner that normally wouldn't stop here to take an extra lifeboat aboard. It came out of overdrive in the solar system, let out of the lifeboat, and went on its way again. Those two men are extremely anxious. Ambitious maybe, said Hoddan. They're prepared to pay it to overcome your sense of gratitude to me. Naturally, you want all the traffic to bear. I think you can get half a million. Don Loris looks suspicious again. You don't seem worried, he said fretfully. I don't understand you. I have a secret, said Hoddan. What is it? It will develop, said Hoddan. Don Loris hesitated, as they'd to speak and thought better of it. He shrugged his shoulders and went slowly back to the flight of stone steps. He descended. The Lady Fani started to wring her hands. Then she said hopefully. What's your secret? That your father thinks I have one, said Hoddan. Thanks for the breakfast. Should I walk out the gate, or... It's closed, said the Lady Fani forlornly. But I have a rope for you. You can go down over the wall. Thanks, said Hoddan. It's been a pleasure to rescue you. Who are you? Fani hesitated. I've never known anybody like you before. Will you ever come back? Hoddan shook his head at her. Once you asked me if I'd fight for you, and look what it got me into. No commitments. He glanced along the battlements. There was a fairly large coil of rope in view. He picked up his bag and went over to it. He checked the fastening of one end and tumbled the other over the wall. Ten minutes later, he trudged up the thaw, waiting in the nearby woodland with two horses. The Lady Fani, he said, has the kind of brains I like. She pulled up the rope again. Dahl did not comment. He watched morosely as Hoddan made the perpetually present ship bag fast to his saddle and then distastefully climbed aboard the horse. What are you going to do, asked Dahl unhappily. I didn't make a parting present to Dahl Lord, so I'll be disgraced if he finds out I help you. And I don't know where to take you. Where, asked Hoddan, did those characters from Walden come down? Dahl told him. At the castle of a considerable feudal chieftain, on the plain some four miles from the mountain range and six miles this side of the spaceport. We ride there, said Hoddan. Liberty is said to be sweet, but the man who said that didn't have blisters from a saddle. Let's go. They rode away. There would be no immediate pursuit and possibly none at all. Don Loras had left Hoddan at breakfast on the battlements. The Lady Fani would make as much confusion over his disappearance as she could. But there'd be no search for him until Don Loras had made his deal. Hoddan was sure that Fani's father would have an enjoyable morning. He would relish the bargaining session. He'd explain in great detail how valuable had been Hoddan's service to him, in rescuing Fani from an abductor who would have been an intolerable son-in-law. He'd grow almost tearful as he described his affection for Hoddan, how he loved his daughter, as he observed grievantly that they were asking him to betray the man who had saved him from the solace of his old age. He would mention also that the price they offered was an affront to his paternal affection and his dignity as Prince of this. Baron of that, Lord of the other thing, and claimant to the dukedom of something or other, either they'd come up or the deal was off. But, meanwhile, Hoddan and Thal rode industriously toward the place from which those emissaries had come. All was tranquil, all was calm. Once they saw a dust-cloud, and Thal turned aside to a providential wooded cobs in which they remained while a cavalcade went by. Thal explained that it was a feudal chieftain on his way to the spaceport town. It was simple discretion for them not to be observed, said Thal, because they had great reputations as fighting men. Whoever defeated them would become prominent at once, so somebody might try to pick a quarrel under one of the finer points of etiquette, when it would be a disgrace to use anything but standard d'arthian implements for massacre. Hoddan admitted that he did not feel quarrelsome. They rode on after a time, and in late afternoon the towers and battlements of the castle they sought appeared. The ground here was only gently rolling. They approached it with caution, following the reverse slope of hills and dry stream beds, and at last penetrating horse-high brush to the point where they could see it clearly. If Hoddan had been a student of early terrestrial history, he might have remarked upon the reemergence of ancient architectural forms to match the revival of primitive social systems. As it was, he noted in this feudal castle the use of bastions for flanking fire upon attackers. He recognized the value of battlements for the protection of defenders while allowing them to shoot, and the tricky positioning of salliports. He even grasped the reason for the massive, stark, unornamented keep, but his eyes did not stay on the castle for long. He saw the spaceboat in which Derrick and his more authoritative companion had arrived. It lay on the ground a half mile from the castle walls. It was a clumsy, obese, flattened shape, some forty feet long and nearly fifteen wide. The ground about it was scorched where it had descended upon its rocket-flames. There were several horses tethered near it, and men who were plainly retainers of the nearby castle reposed in its shade. Hoddan reigned in. Here we part, he told Thal. When we first met, I enabled you to pick the pockets of a good many of your fellow countrymen. I never asked for my split of the take. I expect you to remember me with affection. Thal clasped both of Hoddan's hands in his. If you ever return, he said with mournful warmth, I am your friend. Hoddan nodded and rode out of the brushwood toward the spaceport, the lifeboat that had landed the emissaries from Walden. That had landed so close to the spaceport, of course, was no accident. It was known on Walden that Hoddan had taken space passage to D'arth. He'd have landed only two days before his pursuers could reach the planet. And on a roadless, primitive world like D'arth, he couldn't have gotten far from the spaceport. So his pursuers would have landed close by also. But it must have taken considerable courage. When the landing grid failed to answer, it must have seemed likely that Hoddan's death rays had been at work. Here and now, though, there was no uneasiness. Hoddan rode heavily, without haste, through the slanting sunshine. He was seen from a distance and watched without apprehension by the loafing guards about the boat. He looked hot and thirsty. He was both. So the posted guard merely looked at him without too much interest when he brought his dusty mount up to the shadowed lifeboat cast. And apparently decided there wasn't room to get into it. He grunted a greeting and looked at them speculatively. These two characters from Walden, he observed, sent me to get something from this thing here. Don Loris told him I was a very honest man. He painstakingly looked like a very honest man. After a moment there were responsive grins. If there's anything missing when I start back, said Hoddan, I can't imagine how it happened. None of you would take anything. Oh, no. I bet you'll blame it on me. He shook his head and said, one of the guards sat up and said appreciatively, but it's locked good. Being an honest man, said Hoddan amably, they told me how to unlock it. He got off his horse. He removed the bag from his saddle. He went into the grateful shadow of the metal hole. He paused and mopped his face and then went to the entrance port. He put his hand on the turning bar. Then he painstakingly pushed in the locking stud with his other hand. Of course the handle turned. The boat port opened. The two from Walden would have thought everything safe because it was under guard. On Walden that protection would have been enough. On Darth the spaceboat had not been looted simply because locks there were not made with separate vibration checks to keep vibration from loosening them. On spaceboats such a precaution was usual. Give me two minutes, said Hoddan over his shoulder. I have to get what they sent me for. After that everybody starts even. He entered and closed the door behind him. Then he locked it. By the nature of things it is as needful to be able to lock a spaceboat from the inside as it is unnecessary to lock it from without. He looked things over. Standard equipment everywhere. He checked everything, even to the fuel supply. There were knockings on the port. He continued to inspect. He turned on the vision screens which provided the control room indeed all the boat with an uninstructed view in all directions. He was satisfied. The knocks became bangings. Something approaching indignation could be deduced. The guards around the spaceboat felt that Hoddan was taking an unfair amount of time to pick the cream of the loot inside. He got a glass of water. It was excellent. A second. The bangings became violent hammerings. Hoddan seated himself leisurely in the pilot's seat and turned small knobs. He waited. He touched a button. There was a mildly thunderous bang outside and the lifeboat reacted as if to a slight shock. The vision screens showed a cloud of dust at the spaceboat's stern, roused by a deliberate explosion in the rocket tubes. It also showed the retainers in full flight. He waited until they were in safety and made the standard takeoff preparations. A horrific roaring started up outside. He touched controls and a monstrous weight pushed him back in his seat. The rocket swung and lifted and shot skyward with greater acceleration than before. It went up at a lifeboat's full, fall-like rate of climb, leaving a trail of blue-white flame behind it. All the surface of Darth seemed to contract swiftly below him. The spaceport and the town rushed toward a spot beneath the spaceport's tail. They shrank and shrank. He saw other places, mountains, castles. He saw Don Laura's stronghold. Higher, he saw the sea. The sky turned purple. It went black with specks of star shine in it. Hoddan swung to a westward course and continued to rise, watching the star images as they shifted on the screens. The image of the sun, of course, was automatically diminished, so it was not dazzling. The rockets continued to roar, though in a minor fashion, because there was no longer air outside in which a bellow could develop. Hoddan painstakingly made use of those rule-of-thumb methods of astrogation, which his piratical forebears had developed and which a boy on Xan absorbed without being aware. He wanted an orbit around Darth. He didn't want to take time to try and compute it, so he watched the star images ahead in a stern. If the stars ahead rose above the planet's edge faster than those behind sank down below it, he would be climbing. If the stars behind sank down faster than those ahead rose up, he would be descending. If all the stars rose equally, he'd be climbing straight up. And if they all dropped equally, he'd be moving straight down. It was not a complex method, and it worked. Presently he relaxed. He sped swiftly back past midday and toward the sunrise line on Darth. This was the reverse of a normal orbit, but it was the direction followed by the ships up here. He hoped his orbit was lower than theirs. If it was, he'd overtake them from behind. If he were higher, they'd overtake him. He turned on the space phone. Its reception indicator was piously placed at ground. He shifted it to space so that it would pick up calls going planet-ward, instead of listening vainly for replies from the non-operative landing grid. Instantly voices boomed in his ears, many voices, and a possibly large number of voices, many, many more than nine transmitters were in operation now. Idiot! said a voice in quiet passion. She'd offer you a guitar-field drive. A high-pitched voice said, And group two, take second orbit position. Somebody bellowed. But why don't they answer? And another voice still said formally, Reporting group five, but four ships are staying behind with Tankertoya, which is having stabilizer trouble. Hoddan's eyes opened very wide. He turned down the sound while he tried to think. But there wasn't anything to think. He'd come aloft to scout three ships that had turned nine, because he was in such a fix on Darth that anything strange might be changed into something useful. But this was more than nine ships, itself an impossibly large space fleet. There was no reason why ships of space should ever travel together. There were innumerable reasons why they shouldn't. There was a limit to the number of ships that could be accommodated at any spaceport in the galaxy. There was no point, no profit, no purpose in the number of ships traveling together. Darth's sunrise line appeared far ahead. The lifeboat would soon cease to be a bright light in the sky now. The sun's image vanished from the rear screens. The boat went hurtling onward through the blackness of the planet's shadow while voices squabbled and wrangled and formally reported, and now and again ones admonished disputants to a proper discipline of language. During the period of darkness, Hoddan racked his brains for the vaguest of ideas on why so many ships should appear about an obscure and unimportant world like Darth. Presently the sunset line appeared ahead, and far away he saw moving lights, which were the hulls of the volubly communicating vessels. He stared blankly. There were tens, scores. He was forced to guess at the stark impossibility of more than a hundred spacecraft in view. As the boat rushed onward, he had to raise the guess. It couldn't be. But he turned on the outside telescope, and the image on its screen was more incredible than the voices and the existence of the fleet itself. The scope focused first on a bulging monster-antiquitated freighter of a design that had not been built for a hundred years. The second view was of a passenger liner with the elaborate ornamentation that in past generations was considered suitable for space. There was a bulk cargo ship, with no emergency rockets at all, and cruise quarters and long blisters built outside the gigantic tank which was the ship itself. There was a needle-sharp space sea-acht, more freighters with streaks of rust on their sides where they had lain aground for tens of years. The fleet was an anomaly, and each of its component parts was separately a freak. It was a gathering together of all the outmoded and obsolete hulks and monstrosities of space. One would have to scavenge half the galaxy to bring together so many crazy, over-aged derelicts that should have been in junkyards. Then Hoddan drew an explosive deep breath. It was suddenly clear what the fleet was, and what its reason must be. Why it stopped here could not yet be guessed, but Hoddan watched absorbitly. He couldn't know what was toward, but there was some emergency. It could be in the line of what an electronic engineer could handle. If so, why, it could mean an opportunity to accomplish great things and grow rich and probably marry some delightful girl and be a great man somewhere. An assortment of ambitions one could not easily gratify on Zahn or Walden or Darth.