C12 XII

~ HODDAN STOPPED OFF AT KRIM by landing grid, to consult his lawyers. He felt a certain amount of hope of good results from his raid on Walden, but he was desperate about Nedda. Once she was confident of her safety under his protection, she took over the operation of the spaceship. She displayed an overwhelming saccharinity that was appalling. She was sweetness and light among criminals who respectfully did not harm her, and she sweetened and lightened the atmosphere of the space yacht until Hoddan’s followers were close to mutiny.

“It ain’t that I mind her being a nice girl,” one of his mustachioed Darthians explained almost tearfully to Hoddan, “but she wants to make a nice girl out of me!”

Hoddan, himself, cringed from her society. He could gladly have put her ashore on Krim with ample funds to return to Walden. But she was prettily, reproachfully helpless. If he did put her ashore, she would confide her kidnaping and the lovely behavior of the pirates until nobody would believe in them any more—which would be fatal.

He went to his lawyers, brooding. The news astounded him. The emigrant fleet had appeared over Krim on the way to Walden. Before it appeared, Hoddan’s affairs had been prosperous enough. Right after his previous visit, news had come of the daring piratical raid which captured a ship off Walden. This was the liner Hoddan’d brought in to Krim. All merchants and ship owners immediately insured all vessels and goods in space transit at much higher valuations. The risk-insurance stocks bought on Hoddan’s account had multiplied in value. Obeying his instructions, his lawyers had sold them out and held a pleasing fortune in trust for Hoddan.

Then came the fleet over Krim, with its letter threatening planetary destruction if resistance was offered to single ships which would land and loot later on. It seemed that all commerce was at the mercy of space marauders. Risk-insurance companies had undertaken to indemnify the owners of ships and freight in emptiness. Now that an unprecedented pirate fleet ranged and doubtless ravaged the skyways, the insurance companies ought to go bankrupt. Owners of stock in them dumped it at any price to get rid of it. In accordance with Hoddan’s instructions, though, his lawyers had faithfully if distastefully bought it in. To use up the funds available, they had to buy up not only all the stock of all the risk-insurance companies of Krim, but all stock in all off-planet companies owned by investors on Krim.

Then time passed, and ships in space arrived unmolested in port. Cargoes were delivered intact. Insurers observed that the risk-insurance companies had not collapsed and could still pay off if necessary. They continued their insurance. Risk companies appeared financially sound once more. They had more business than ever, and no more claims than usual. Suddenly their stocks went up—or rather, what people were willing to pay for them went up, because Hoddan had forbidden the sale of any stock after the pirate fleet appeared.

Now he asked hopefully if he could reimburse the owners of the ship he’d captured off Walden. He could. Could he pay them even the profit they’d have made between the loss of their ship and the arrival of a replacement? He could. Could he pay off the shippers of Rigellian furs and jewelry from the Cetis stars, and the owners of the bulk melacynth that had brought so good a price on Krim? He could. In fact, he had. The insurance companies he now owned lock, stock, and barrel had already paid the claims on the ship and its cargo, and it would be rather officious to add to that reimbursement.

Hoddan was abruptly appalled. He insisted on a bonus being paid, regardless, which his lawyers had some trouble finding a legal fiction to fit. Then he brooded over his position. He wasn’t a business man. He hadn’t expected to make out so well. He’d thought to have to labor for years, perhaps, to make good the injury he’d done the ship owners and merchants in order to help the emigrants from Colin. But it was all done, and here he was with a fortune and the framework of a burgeoning financial empire. He didn’t like it.

Gloomily, he explained matters to his attorneys. They pointed out that he had a duty, an obligation, from the nature of his unexpected success. If he let things go, now, the currently thriving business of risk insurance would return to its former unimportance. His companies had taken on extra help. More bookkeepers and accountants worked for him this week than last. More mail clerks, secretaries, janitors and scrubwomen. Even more vice presidents! He would administer a serious blow to the economy of Krim if he caused a slackening of employment by letting his companies go to pot. A slackening of employment would cause a drop in retail trade, an increase in inventories, a depression in industry....

Hoddan thought gloomily of his grandfather. He’d written to the old gentleman and the emigrant fleet would have delivered the letter. He couldn’t disappoint his grandfather!

He morbidly accepted his attorneys’ advice, and they arranged immediately to take over the forty-first as well as the forty-second and-third floors of the building their offices were in. Commerce would march on.

And Hoddan headed for Darth. He had to return his crew, and there was something else. Several something elses. He arrived in that solar-system and put his yacht in a search-orbit, listening for the call-signal the spaceboat should give for him to home on. He found it, deep within the gravity-field of Darth. He maneuvered to come alongside, and there was blinding light everywhere. Alarms rang. Lights went out. Instruments registered impossibilities, the rockets fired crazily, and the whole ship reeled. Then a voice roared out of the communicator:

“ Stand and deliver! Surrender and y’ll be allowed to go to ground. But if y’even hesitate I’ll hull ye and heave ye out to space without a spacesuit! “

Hoddan winced. Stray sparks had flown about everywhere inside the space yacht. A ball lightning bolt, even of only warning size, makes things uncomfortable when it strikes. Hoddan’s fingers tingled as if they’d been asleep. He threw on the transmitter switch and said annoyedly:

“Hello, grandfather. This is Bron. Have you been waiting for me long?”

He heard his grandfather swear disgustedly. Not long later, a badly battered, blackened, scuffed old spacecraft came rolling up on rocket-impulse and stopped with a billowing of rocket fumes. Hoddan threw a switch and used the landing grid field he’d used on Walden in another fashion. The ships came together with fine precision, lifeboat-tube to lifeboat-tube. He heard his grandfather swear in amazement.

“That’s a little trick I worked out, grandfather,” said Hoddan into the transmitter. “Come aboard. I’ll pass it on.”

His grandfather presently appeared, scowling and suspicious. His eyes shrewdly examined everything, including the loot tucked in every available space. He snorted.

“All honestly come by,” said Hoddan morbidly. “It seems I’ve got a license to steal. I’m not sure what to do with it.”

His grandfather stared at a placard on the wall. It said archly: “ Remember! A Lady is Present! “ Nedda had put it up.

“Hm-m-m!” said his grandfather. “What’s a woman doing on a pirate ship? That’s what your letter talked about!”

“They get on,” said Hoddan, wincing, “like mice. You’ve had mice on a ship, haven’t you? Come in the control room and I’ll explain.”

He did explain, up to the point where his arrangements to pay back for a ship and cargo he’d given away turned into a runaway success, and now he was responsible for the employment of innumerable bookkeepers and clerks and such in the insurance companies he’d come to own. There was also the fact that as the emigrant fleet went on, some fifty more planets in all would require the attention of pirate ships from time to time, or there would be disillusionment and injury to the economic system.

“Organization,” said his grandfather, “does wonders for a tender conscience like you’ve got. What else?”

Hoddan explained the matter of his Darthian crew. Don Loris might affect to consider them disgraced because they hadn’t cut his throat. Hoddan had to take care of the matter. And there was Nedda.... Fani came into the story somehow, too. Hoddan’s grandfather grunted, at the end.

“We’ll go down and talk to this Don Loris,” he said pugnaciously. “I’ve dealt with his kind before. While we’re down, your Cousin Oliver’ll take a look at this new grid-field job. We’ll put it on my ship. Hm-m-m—how about the time down below? Never land long after daybreak. Early in the morning, people ain’t at their best.”

Hoddan looked at Darth, rotating deliberately below him.

“It’s not too late, sir,” he said. “Will you follow me down?”

His grandfather nodded briskly, took another comprehensive look at the loot from Walden, and crawled back through the tube to his own ship.

So it was not too long after dawn, in that time-zone, when a sentry on the battlements of Don Loris’ castle felt a shadow over his head. He jumped a foot and stared upward. Then his hair stood up on end and almost threw his steel helmet off. He stared, unable to move a muscle.

There was a ship above him. It was not a large ship, but he could not judge of such matters. It was not supported by rockets. It should have been falling horribly to smash him under its weight. It wasn’t. Instead, it floated on with very fine precision, like a ship being landed by grid, and settled delicately to the ground some fifty yards from the base of the castle wall.

Immediately thereafter there was a muttering roar. It grew to a howl—a bellow; it became thunder. It increased from that to a noise so stupendous that it ceased altogether to be heard, and was only felt as a deep-toned battering at one’s chest. When it ended there was a second ship resting in the middle of a very large scorched place close by the first.

Neither of these ships was a spaceboat. The silently landed vessel, which was the smaller of the two, was several times the sizes of the only spacecraft ever seen on Darth outside the spaceport. Its design was somehow suggestive of a yacht. The other, larger, ship was blunt and soiled and space-worn, with patches on its plating here and there.

A landing ramp dropped down from the battered craft. It neatly spanned the scorched and still-smoking patch of soil. A port opened. Men came out, following a jaunty small figure with belligerent gray whiskers. They dragged an enigmatic object behind them.

Hoddan came out of the yacht. His grandfather said waspishly:

“This the castle?”

He waved at the massive pile of cut gray stone, with walls twenty feet thick and sixty high.

“Yes, sir,” said Hoddan.

“Hm-m-m,” snorted his grandfather. “Looks flimsy to me!” He waved his hand again. “You remember your cousins.”

Familiar, matter-of-fact nods came from the men of the battered ship. Hoddan hadn’t seen any of them for years, but they were his kin. They wore commonplace, workaday garments, but carried weapons slung negligently over their shoulders. They dragged the cryptic object behind them without particular formation or apparent discipline, but somehow they looked capable.

Hoddan and his grandfather strolled to the castle gate, their companions a little to their rear. They came to the gate. Nothing happened. Nobody challenged. There was the feel of peevish refusal to associate with persons who landed in spaceships.

“Shall we hail?” asked Hoddan.

“Nah!” snorted his grandfather. “I know his kind! Make him make the advances.” He waved to his descendents. “Open it up.”

Somebody casually pulled back a cover and reached in and threw switches.

“Found a power broadcast unit,” grunted Hoddan’s grandfather, “on a ship we took. Hooked it to the ship’s space-drive. When y’can’t use the space-drive, you still got power. Your Cousin Oliver whipped this thing up to use it.”

The enigmatic object made a spiteful noise. The castle gate shuddered and fell halfway from its hinges. The thing made a second noise. Stones splintered and began to collapse. Hoddan admired. Three more unpleasing but not violently loud sounds. Half the wall on either side of the gate was rubble, collapsing partly inside and partly outside the castle’s proper boundary.

Figures began to wave hysterically from the battlements. Hoddan’s grandfather yawned slightly.

“I always like to talk to people,” he observed, “when they’re worryin’ about what I’m likely to do to them, instead of what maybe they can do to me.”

Figures appeared on the ground level. They’d come out of a sally port to one side. They were even extravagantly cordial when Hoddan’s grandfather admitted that it might be convenient to talk over his business inside the castle, where there would be an easy-chair to sit in.

Presently they sat beside the fireplace in the great hall. Don Loris, jittering, shivered next to Hoddan’s grandfather. The Lady Fani appeared, icy-cold and defiant. She walked with frigid dignity to a place beside her father. Hoddan’s grandfather regarded her with a wicked, estimating gaze.

“Not bad!” he said brightly. “Not bad at all!” Then he turned to Hoddan. “Those retainers coming?”

“On the way,” said Hoddan. He was not happy. The Lady Fani had passed her eyes over him exactly as if he did not exist.

There was a murmurous noise. The dozen spearmen came marching into the great hall. They carried loot. It dripped on the floor and they blandly ignored such things as stray golden coins rolling off away from them. Stay-at-home inhabitants of the castle gazed at them in joyous wonderment.

Nedda came with them. The Lady Fani made a very slight, almost imperceptible movement. Hoddan said desperately:

“Fani, I know you hate me, though I can’t guess why. But here’s a thing that ... has to be taken care of! We made a raid on Walden ... that’s where the loot came from ... and my men kidnaped this girl ... her name is Nedda ... and brought her on the ship as a present to me ... because she’d admitted that she knew me! Nedda’s in an awful fix, Fani! She’s alone and friendless, and ... somebody has to take care of her! Her father’ll come for her eventually, no doubt, but somebody’s got to take care of her in the meantime, and I can’t do it!” Hoddan felt hysterical at the bare idea. “I can’t!”

The Lady Fani looked at Nedda. And Nedda wore the brave look of a girl so determinedly sweet that nobody could possibly bear it.

“I’m ... very sorry,” said Nedda bravely, “that I’ve been the cause of poor Bron turning pirate and getting into such dreadful trouble. I cry over it every night before I go to sleep. He treated me as if I were his sister, and the other men were so gentle and respectful that I ... I think it will break my heart when they are punished. When I think of them being executed with all that dreadful, hopeless formality—”

“On Darth,” said the Lady Fani practically, “we’re not very formal about such things. Just cutting somebody’s throat is usually enough. But he treated you like a sister, did he? Thal?”

Thal swallowed. He’d been beaming a moment before, with his arms full of silver plate, jewelry, laces, and other bits of booty from the town of Ensfield. But now he said desperately:

“Yes, Lady Fani. But not the way I’d’ve treated my sister. My sisters, Lady Fani, bit me when they were little, slapped me when they were bigger, and scorned me when I grew up. I’m fond of ‘em! But if one of my sisters’d ever lectured me because I wasn’t refined, or shook a finger at me because I wasn’t gentlemanly— Lady Fani, I’d’ve strangled her!”

There was a certain gleam in the Lady Fani’s eye as she said warmly to Hoddan:

“Of course I’ll take care of the poor thing! I’ll let her sleep with my maids and I’m sure one of them can spare clothes for her to wear, and I’ll take care of her until a space liner comes along and she can be shipped back to her family. And you can come to see her whenever you please, to make sure she’s all right!”

Hoddan’s eyes tended to grow wild. His grandfather cleared his throat loudly. Hoddan said doggedly:

“You, Fani, asked each of my men if they’d fight for you. They said yes. You sent them to cut my throat. They didn’t. But they’re not disgraced! I want that clear! They’re good men! They’re not disgraced for failing to assassinate me!”

“Of course they aren’t,” conceded the Lady Fani sweetly. “Whoever heard of such a thing?”

Hoddan wiped his forehead. Don Loris opened his mouth fretfully. Hoddan’s grandfather forestalled him.

“You’ve heard about that big pirate fleet that’s been floating around these parts? Eh? It’s my grandson’s. I run a squadron of it for him. Wonderful boy, my grandson! Bloodthirsty crews on those ships, but they love that boy!”

“Very—” Don Loris caught his breath. “Very interesting.”

“He likes your men,” confided Hoddan’s grandfather. “Used them twice. Says they make nice, well-behaved pirates. He’s going to give them stun-pistols and cannon like the one that smashed your gate. Only men on Darth with guns like that! Seize the spaceport and put in power broadcast, and make sure nobody else gets stun-weapons. Run the country. Your men’ll love it. Love that boy, too! Follow him anywhere. Loot.”

Don Loris quivered. It was horribly plausible. He’d had the scheme of the only stun-weapon-armed force on Darth, himself. He knew his men tended to revere Hoddan because of the plunder his followers seemed always to acquire. Don Loris was in a very, very uncomfortable situation. Bored men from the battered spacecraft stood about his great hall. They were unimpressed. He knew that they, at least, were casually sure that they could bring his castle down about his ears in minutes if they chose.

“But ... if my men—” Don Loris quavered. “What about me?”

“Minor problem,” said Hoddan’s grandfather blandly. “The usual thing would be pfft! Cut your throat.” He rose. “Decide that later, no doubt. Yes, Bron?”

“I’ve brought back my men,” growled Hoddan, “and Nedda’s taken care of. We’re through here.”

He headed abruptly for the great hall’s farthest door. His grandfather followed him briskly, and the negligent, matter-of-fact armed men who were mostly Hoddan’s first and second cousins came after them. Outside the castle, Hoddan said angrily:

“Why did you tell such a preposterous story, grandfather?”

“It’s not preposterous,” said his grandfather. “Sounds like fun, to me! You’re tired now, Bron. Lots of responsibilities and such. Take a rest. You and your Cousin Oliver get together and fix those new gadgets on my ship. I’ll take the other boys for a run over to this spaceport town. The boys need a run ashore, and there might be some loot. Your grandmother’s fond of homespun. I’ll try to pick some up for her.”

Hoddan shrugged. His grandfather was a law unto himself. Hoddan saw his cousins bringing horses from the castle stables, and a very casual group went riding away as if on a pleasure excursion. As a matter of fact, it was. Thal guided them.

For the rest of that morning and part of the afternoon Hoddan and his Cousin Oliver worked at the battered ship’s Lawlor drive. Hoddan was pleased with his cousin’s respect for his device. He unfeignedly admired the cannon his cousin had designed. Presently they reminisced about their childhood. It was pleasant to renew family ties like this.

The riders came back about sunset. There were extra horses, with loads. There were cheerful shoutings. His grandfather came into Hoddan’s ship.

“Brought back some company,” he said. “Spaceliner landed while we were there. Friend of yours on it. Congenial fellow, Bron. Thinks well of you, too!”

A large figure followed his grandfather in. A large figure with snow-white hair. The amiable and relaxed Interstellar Ambassador to Walden.

“Hard-gaited horses, Hoddan,” he said wryly. “I want a chair and a drink. I traveled a good many light-years to see you, and it wasn’t necessary after all. I’ve been talking to your grandfather.”

“Glad to see you, sir,” said Hoddan reservedly.

His Cousin Oliver brought glasses, and the Ambassador buried his nose in his and said in satisfaction:

“A-a-ah! That’s good! Capable man, your grandfather. I watched him loot that town. Beautifully professional job! He got some homespun sheets for your grandmother. But about you.”

Hoddan sat down. His grandfather puffed and was silent. His cousins effaced themselves. The Ambassador waved a hand.

“I started here,” he observed, “because it looked to me like you were running wild. That spacefleet, now ... I know something of your ability. I thought you’d contrived some way to fake it. I knew there couldn’t be such a fleet. Not really! That was a sound job you did with the emigrants, by the way. Most praiseworthy! And the point was that if you ran hogwild with a faked fleet, sooner or later the Space Patrol would have to cut you down to size. And you were doing much too good work to be stopped!”

Hoddan blinked.

“Satisfaction,” said the Ambassador, “is well enough. But satiety is death. Walden was dying on its feet. Nobody could imagine a greater satisfaction than curling up with a good tranquilizer! You’ve ended that! I left Walden the day after your Ensfield raid. Young men were already trying to grow mustaches. The textile mills were making colored felt for garments. Jewelers were turning out stun-gun pins for ornaments, Darthian knives for brooches, and the song writers had eight new tunes on the air about pirate lovers, pirate queens, and dark ships that roam the lanes of night. Three new vision-play series were to start that same night with space-piracy as their theme, and one of them claimed to be based on your life. Better make them pay for that, Hoddan! In short, Walden had rediscovered the pleasure to be had by taking pains to make a fool of one’s self. People who watched that raid on visionscreens had thrills they’d never swap for tranquilizers! And the ones who actually mixed in with the pirate raiders— You deserve well of the republic, Hoddan!”

Hoddan said, “Hm-m-m,” because there was nothing else to be said.

“Now, your grandfather and I have canvassed the situation thoroughly! This good work must be continued. Diplomatic Service has been worried all along the line. Now we’ve something to work up. Your grandfather will expand his facilities and snatch ships, land and loot, and keep piracy flying. Your job is to carry on the insurance business. The ships that will be snatched will be your ships, of course. No interference with legitimate commerce. The landing-raids will be paid for by the interplanetary piracy-risk insurance companies—you. In time you’ll probably have to get writers to do scripts for them, but not right away. You’ll continue to get rich, but there’s no harm in that so long as you re-introduce romance and adventure and derring-do to a galaxy headed for decline. Savages will not invent themselves if there are plenty of heroic characters—of your making!—to slap them down!”

Hoddan said painfully:

“I like working on electronic gadgets. My cousin Oliver and I have some things we want to work on together.”

His grandfather snorted. One of the cousins came in from outside the yacht. Thal followed him, glowing. He’d reported the looting of the spaceport town, and Don Loris had gone into a tantrum of despair because nobody seemed able to make headway against these strangers. Now he’d turned about and issued a belated invitation to Hoddan and his grandfather and their guest the Interstellar Ambassador—of whom he’d learned from Thal—to dinner at the castle. They could bring their own guards.

Hoddan would have refused, but the Ambassador and his grandfather were insistent. Ultimately he found himself seated drearily at a long table in a stone-walled room lighted by very smoky torches. Don Loris, jittering, displayed a sort of professional conversational charm. He was making an urgent effort to overcome the bad effect of past actions by conversational brilliance. The Lady Fani sat quietly with jewels at her throat. She looked most often at her plate. The talk of the oldsters became profound. They talked administration. They talked practical politics. They talked economics.

The Lady Fani looked very bored as the talk went on after the meal was over. Don Loris said brightly, to her:

“My dear we must be tedious! Young Hoddan looks uninterested, too. Why don’t you two walk on the battlements and talk about such things as persons your age find interesting?”

Hoddan rose, gloomily. The Lady Fani, with a sigh of polite resignation, rose to accompany him. The Ambassador said suddenly:

“Hoddan! I forgot to tell you! They found out what killed that man outside the power station!” When Hoddan showed no comprehension, the Ambassador explained, “The man your friend Derec thought was killed by deathrays. It develops that he’d gotten a terrific load on—drunk, you know—and climbed a tree to escape the pink, purple, and green duryas he thought were chasing him to gore him. He climbed too high, a branch broke, and he fell and was killed. I’ll take it up with the court when I get back to Walden. No reason to lock you up any more, you know. You might even sell the Power Board on using your receptor, now!”

“Thanks,” said Hoddan politely. He added, “Don Loris has that Derec and a cop from Walden here now. Tell them that and they may go home.”

He accompanied the Lady Fani to the battlements. The stars were very bright. They strolled. Remembering his Darthians, he felt very unpopular.

“What was that the Ambassador told you?” she asked.

He explained without zest. He added morbidly that it didn’t matter. He could go back to Walden now, and if the Ambassador was right he could even accomplish things in electronics there. But he wasn’t interested. It was odd that he’d once thought such things would make him happy.

“I thought,” said the Lady Fani, in gentle melancholy, “that I would be happier with you dead. You had made me very angry. No, no matter how! But I found it was not so.”

Hoddan fumbled for her meaning. It wasn’t quite an apology for trying to get him killed. But at least it was a disclaimer of future intentions in that direction.

“And speaking of happiness,” she added in a different tone, “this Nedda....” He shuddered, and she said: “I talked to her. So then I sent for Ghek. We’re on perfectly good terms again, you know. I introduced him to Nedda. She was vanilla ice cream with meringue and maple syrup on it. He loved it! She gazed at him with pretty sadness and told him how terrible it was of him to kidnap me. He said humbly that he’d never had her ennobling influence nor dreamed that she existed. And she loved that! They go together like strawberries and cream! I had to leave, or stop being a lady. I think I made a match.”

Then she said tranquilly:

“But seriously, you ought to be perfectly happy. You’ve everything you ever said you wanted, except a delightful girl to marry.”

Hoddan squirmed.

“We’re old friends,” said Fani kindly, “and you did me a great favor once. I’ll return it. I’ll round up some really delightful girls for you to look over.”

“I’m leaving,” said Hoddan, alarmed.

“The only thing is— I don’t know what type you like. Nedda isn’t it.”

Hoddan shuddered.

“Nor I,” said Fani. “What type would you say I was?”

“Delightful,” said Hoddan hoarsely.

The Lady Fani stopped and looked up at him. She said approvingly:

“I hoped that word would occur to you one day. Er ... what does a man usually do when he discovers a girl is delightful?”

Hoddan thought it over. He started. He put his arms around her with singularly little skill. He kissed her, at first as if amazed at himself, and then with enthusiasm.

There were scraping sounds on the stone nearby. Footsteps. Don Loris appeared, gazing uncertainly about.

“Fani!” he said plaintively. “Hoddan? Our guests are going to the spaceships. I want to speak privately to Hoddan.”

“Yes?” said Hoddan. Don Loris peered blindly about. He kissed Fani again.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Don Loris fretfully. “I’ve made some mistakes, my dear boy, and I’ve given you excellent reason to dislike me, but at bottom I’ve always thought a great deal of you. And ... ah ... there seems to be only one way in which I can properly express how much I admire you. Ah— How would you like to marry my daughter?”

Hoddan looked down at Fani. She did not try to move away.

“What do you think of the idea, Fani?” he asked. “How about marrying me tomorrow morning?”

“Of course not!” said Fani indignantly. “I wouldn’t think of such a thing! I couldn’t possibly get married before tomorrow afternoon!”

THE END