C5 V

~ 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 blast you and leave you for Ghek’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,” rasped Hoddan. “All of you! I’m going to count you!”

The dozen horsemen from Don Loris’ stronghold rode reluctantly on ahead. He did count them. He rode on, shepherding them before him.

“Ghek,” he told them in a blood-curdling tone, “has a bigger prize than any cash you’ll 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 acute discomfort 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’ 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 Ghek 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 Ghek 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 Ghek would reach his castle before he was overtaken.

“This place he’s heading for,” he said discouragedly to Thal. “Any chance of our rushing it?”

“Oh, no!” said Thal dolefully. “Ten men could hold it against a thousand!”

“Then can’t we make better time?”

Thal said resignedly:

“Ghek 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!”

“Disgraced,” 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 gait, can be exhausted in ten or less, if pushed. By the time Hoddan and his men were within two miles of Ghek’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 cressets 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 hang-dog characters and fix them up with their hands apparently tied behind their backs. We 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. He failed. At the end of five minutes he gave orders. There were still shouts occasionally from within Ghek’s castle. They had that unrhythmic frequency which suggested that they were responses to a speech. Ghek 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 chatelaine. He thanked them from the bottom of his heart and they were invited to the official wedding, which would take place sometime tomorrow, 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 instructions from Hoddan. “We caught some prisoners in the ambush! They got fancy news! Tell Lord Ghek 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 shoutings, over the walls. He glared at his men and they drooped in their saddles. The gate creaked open and the horsemen from Don Loris’ 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 Ghek would have recruited new and extra retainers for the emergency of tonight. There would be many strange faces in his castle just now.

“Good fight, eh?” bellowed an ancient, long-retired retainer with a wine bottle in his hand.

“Good fight!” agreed Thal.

“Good plunder, eh?” bellowed the ancient above the heads of younger men. “Like the good old days?”

“Better!” boomed Thal.

At just this instant the young Lord Ghek appeared. There were scratches on his cheek, acquired during the ride with Fani across his saddlebow. 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 the continuous-fire stud of this pistol—his third tonight—pressed down. The merrymakers 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!” rasped 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 instants Hoddan went limping into the castle with Thal by his side, searching for Fani. Ghek 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 see. They came upon the young Lord Ghek 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 that I’m disgraced if I don’t fight you somehow—”

The young Lord Ghek rushed him, sword 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.

“Sir,” he sputtered, “we got the garrison cornered in their 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 ‘em?”

“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. Understand?”

“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 Ghek on the pavement. She disappeared through a door nearby. Hoddan could guess that Ghek 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. Ghek had evidently hoped to placate her after marriage by things of that sort and had spent lavishly for them.

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 were some squealings in female voices, but many more gigglings.

“I need not say,” said the Lady Fani with dignity, “that I 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 Darth. 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’s 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 reason to dislike me very much. They’ll be anxious to express their emotions, when they feel 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 it 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. Ghek’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 Ghek, who is now unharmed but with his life in the balance. Otherwise—”

He moved the pistol suggestively. The normal inhabitants of Ghek’s castle moved away, discussing the situation in subdued voices.

The Lady Fani sat down proudly on the bench beside him.

“You are wonderful!” she said with conviction.

“I used to cherish that illusion myself,” said Hoddan.

“But nobody before in 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 gloomily. 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 Ghek!”

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’d 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 ‘em. So he’d be top man on Darth. He’d have exactly as much power as he chose to seize. I think he cherished that little idea,—and I’ve given advance publicity to stun-pistols. Now he hasn’t a ghost of a chance of 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 Ghek’s retainers driving them. They were anxious to get rid of their conquerors. Hoddan’s men came trickling back, with armsful 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 in the castle. Yellings and the clash of steel. Hoddan shook his head.

“Bad! Somebody’s pistol went empty and the local boys found it out. Now we’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 young Ghek.

“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 Ghek would like it that way. He’s locked up in a room that’s particularly inflammable.”

The last statement was a guess, only, but Ghek’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 plaintively that their pistols had shot empty and they’d 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 Ghek was inside with Fani as his prisoner, when there were only a dozen men without and at least a hundred inside 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 stun-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 stun-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 roundabout.”

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 scurryings until they had gone far away.

Fani said in a soft voice:

“This is nice!”

“What’s nice about it?” demanded Hoddan.

“Riding 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 and the pass they followed wound this way and that and he knew that it was a 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 at 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!”

“They’re 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,” complained Thal, “that we not go back to Don Loris’ castle by the way we left it. 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 to a respectable ambling trot. The sunrise proceeded. Dew 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 disk 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 trotted 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 the 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’ retainers shifted their positions significantly, to make their oversized belt-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?”

“Why not?” rasped the red-headed 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. There 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.

“Odd,” he said mildly. He considered for a moment or two. Then he rummaged around in the drawers 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 thermo 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’.”

The red-headed man’s mouth dropped open. He said stridently:

“Hey! You can’t do that!” Hoddan turned upon him and he 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, threw 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 got this fixed, too. A few days of harder work than you’re used to. That’s all!”

He led the way out again, and on the 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’ 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 were respectfully admiring looks cast upon Hoddan. He had displayed, in furnishing opportunities for plunder, the most-admired quality a leader of feudal fighting men could show.

The Lady Fani beamed as she and Thal and Hoddan, all very dusty and travel-stained, presented themselves to her father in the castle’s great hall.

“Here’s 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 stun-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 on, up just beyond atmosphere. There are three ships up there in orbit, and they were trying to call the spaceport in nonregulation fashion, and 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 skulduggeries 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 wouldn’t 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 taken the night before. He noted that the door, 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:

“Whaddyawant?”

“The lights in the sky!” cried Fani’s voice outside the door. “The ones you say are spaceships! It’s sunset again, and I just saw them. But there aren’t three, now. 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.