The Pirates of Ersatz Read online

  II

  In something under two hours Hoddan was ushered into the ambassador'soffice. He'd been refreshed, his torn clothing replaced by morerespectable garments, and the places where stun-pistols had stung himsoothed by ointments. But, more important, he'd worked out and firmlyadopted a new point of view.

  He'd been a misfit at home on Zan because he was not contented with thehumdrum and monotonous life of a member of a space-pirate community.Piracy was a matter of dangerous take-offs in cranky rocket-ships, to befollowed by weeks or months of tedious and uncomfortable boredom inhighly unhealthy re-breathed air. No voyage ever contained more than tenseconds of satisfactory action--and all space-fighting took place justout of the atmosphere of a possibly embattled planet, because youcouldn't intercept a ship at cruising speed between the stars.Regardless of the result of the fighting, one had to get away fast whenit was over, lest overwhelming force swarm up from the nearby world. Itwas intolerably devoid of anything an ambitious young man would want.

  Even when one had made a good prize--with the lifeboats dartingfrantically for ground--and after one got back to Zan with a capturedship, even then there was little satisfaction in a piratical career. Zanhad not a large population. Piracy couldn't support a large number ofpeople. Zan couldn't attempt to defend itself against even singleheavily-armed ships that sometimes came in passionate resolve to avengethe disappearance of a rich freighter or a fast new liner. So the peopleof Zan, to avoid hanging, had to play innocent. They had to beconvincingly simple, harmless folk who cultivated their fields and ledquiet, blameless lives. They might loot, but they had to hide theirbooty where investigators would not find it. They couldn't reallybenefit by it. They had to build their own houses and make their owngarments and grow their own food. So life on Zan was dull. Piracy wasnot profitable in the sense that one could live well by it. It simplywasn't a trade for a man like Hoddan.

  So he'd abandoned it. He'd studied electronics in books from lootedpassenger-ship libraries. Within months after arrival on a law-abidingplanet, he was able to earn a living in electronics as an honest trade.

  And that was unsatisfactory. Law-abiding communities were no morethrilling or rewarding than piratical ones. A payday now and then didn'tmake up for the tedium of labor. Even when one had money there wasn'tmuch to do with it. On Walden, to be sure, the level of civilization wasso high that many people needed psychiatric treatment to stand it, andneurotics vastly outnumbered more normal folk. And on Walden electronicswas only a trade like piracy, and no more fun.

  He should have known it would be this way. His grandfather had oftendiscussed this frustration in human life.

  "Us humans," it was his grandfather's habit to say, "don't make sense!There's some of us that work so hard they're too tired to enjoy life.There's some that work so hard at enjoying it that they don't get no funout of it. And the rest of us spend our lives complainin' that thereain't any fun in it anyhow. The man that over all has the best time ofany is one that picks out something he hasn't got a chance to do, andspends his life raisin' hell because he's stopped from doing it.When"--and here Hoddan's grandfather tended to be emphatic--"hewouldn't think much of it if he could!"

  What Hoddan craved, of course, was a sense of achievement, of doingthings worth doing, and doing them well. Technically there wereopportunities all around him. He'd developed one, and it would savemillions of credits a year if it were adopted. But nobody wanted it.He'd tried to force its use, he was in trouble, and now he couldcomplain justly enough, but despite his grandfather he was not thehappiest man he knew.

  * * * * *

  The ambassador received him with a cordial wave of the hand.

  "Things move fast," he said cheerfully. "You weren't here half an hourbefore there was a police captain at the gate. He explained that anexcessively dangerous criminal had escaped jail and been seen to climbthe Embassy wall. He offered very generously to bring some men in andcapture you and take you away--with my permission, of course. He wasshocked when I declined."

  "I can understand that," said Hoddan.

  "By the way," said the ambassador. "Young men like yourself-- Is there agirl involved in this?"

  Hoddan considered.

  "A girl's father," he acknowledged, "is the real complainant againstme."

  "Does he complain," asked the ambassador, "because you want to marryher, or because you don't?"

  "Neither," Hoddan told him. "She hasn't quite decided that I'm worthdefying her rich father for."

  "Good!" said the ambassador. "It can't be too bad a mess while a womanis being really practical. I've checked your story. Allowing fordifferences of viewpoint, it agrees with the official version. I'veruled that you are a political refugee, and so entitled to sanctuary inthe Embassy. And that's that."

  "Thank you, sir," said Hoddan.

  "There's no question about the crime," observed the ambassador, "or thatit is primarily political. You proposed to improve a technical processin a society which considers itself beyond improvement. If you'dsucceeded, the idea of change would have spread, people now poor wouldhave gotten rich, people now rich would have gotten poor, and you'd havedone what all governments are established to prevent. So you'll never beable to walk the streets of this planet again in safety. You've scaredpeople."

  "Yes, sir," said Hoddan. "It's been an unpleasant surprise to them, tobe scared."

  The ambassador put the tips of his fingers together.

  "Do you realize," he asked, "that the whole purpose of civilization isto take the surprises out of life, so one can be bored to death? That aculture in which nothing unexpected ever happens is in what is calledits Golden Age? That when nobody can even imagine anything happeningunexpectedly, that they later fondly refer to that period as the GoodOld Days?"

  "I hadn't thought of it in just those words, sir--"

  "It is one of the most-avoided facts of life," said the ambassador."Government, in the local or planetary sense of the word, is anorganization for the suppression of adventure. Taxes are, in part, theinsurance premiums one pays for protection against the unpredictable.And you have offended against everything that is the foundation of astable and orderly and damnably tedious way of life--againstcivilization, in fact."

  Hoddan frowned.

  "Yet you've granted me asylum--"

  "Naturally!" said the ambassador. "The Diplomatic Service works for thewelfare of humanity. That doesn't mean stuffiness. A Golden Age in anycivilization is always followed by collapse. In ancient days savagescame and camped outside the walls of super-civilized towns. They wereunwashed, unmannerly, and unsanitary. Super-civilized people refusedeven to think about them! So presently the savages stormed the citywalls and another civilization went up in flames."

  "But now," objected Hoddan, "there are no savages."

  * * * * *

  "They invent themselves," the ambassador told him. "My point is that theDiplomatic Service cherishes individuals and causes which battlestuffiness and complacency and Golden Ages and monstrous things likethat. Not thieves, of course. They're degradation, like body lice. Butrebels and crackpots and revolutionaries who prevent hardening of thearteries of commerce and furnish wholesome exercise to the bodypolitic--they're worth cherishing!"

  "I ... think I see, sir," said Hoddan.

  "I hope you do," said the ambassador. "My action on your behalf is purediplomatic policy. To encourage the dissatisfied is to insure againstuniversal satisfaction--which is lethal. Walden is in a bad way. You arethe most encouraging thing that has happened here in a long time. Andyou're not a native."

  "No-o-o," agreed Hoddan. "I come from Zan."

  "Never mind." The ambassador turned to a stellar atlas. "Consideryourself a good symptom, and valued as such. If you could start acontagion, you'd deserve well of your fellow citizens. Savages canalways invent themselves. But enough of apology from me. Let us setabout your affairs." He consulted the atlas. "Where would you like togo, since you must l
eave Walden?"

  "Not too far, sir--"

  "The girl, eh?" The ambassador did not smile. He ran his finger down apage. "The nearest inhabited worlds, of course, are Krim and Darth. Krimis a place of lively commercial activity, where an electronics engineershould easily find employment. It is said to be progressive and there ismuch organized research--"

  "I wouldn't want to be a kept engineer, sir," said Hoddanapologetically. "I'd rather ... well ... putter on my own."

  "Impractical, but sensible," commented the ambassador. He turned a page."There's Darth. Its social system is practically feudal. It'stechnically backward. There's a landing grid, but space exports areskins and metal ingots and practically nothing else. There is nobroadcast power. Strangers find the local customs difficult. There is notown larger than twenty thousand people, and few approach that size.Most settled places are mere villages near some feudal castle, and roadsare so few and bad that wheeled transport is rare."

  He leaned back and said in a detached voice:

  "I had a letter from there a couple of months ago. It was ratherarrogant. The writer was one Don Loris, and he explained that hisdignity would not let him make a commercial offer, but an electronicengineer who put himself under his protection would not be the loser. Hesigned himself prince of this, lord of that, baron of the other thingand claimant to the dukedom of something else. Are you interested? Nokings on Darth, just feudal chiefs."

  Hoddan thought it over.

  "I'll go to Darth," he decided. "It's bound to be better than Zan, andit can't be worse than Walden."

  The ambassador looked impassive. An Embassy servant came in and offeredan indoor communicator. The ambassador put it to his ear. After a momenthe said:

  "Show him in." He turned to Hoddan. "You did kick up a storm! TheMinister of State, no less, is here to demand your surrender. I'llcounter with a formal request for an exit-permit. I'll talk to you againwhen he leaves."

  * * * * *

  Hoddan went out. He paced up and down the other room into which he wasshown. Darth wouldn't be in a Golden Age! He was wiser now than he'dbeen this same morning. He recognized that he'd made mistakes. Now hecould see rather ruefully how completely improbable it was that anybodycould put across a technical device merely by proving its value, withoutmaking anybody want it. He shook his head regretfully at the blunder.

  The ambassador sent for him.

  "I've had a pleasant time," he told Hoddan genially. "There was abeautiful row. You've really scared people, Hoddan! You deserve well ofthe republic! Every government and every person needs to be thoroughlyterrified occasionally. It limbers up the brain."

  "Yes, sir," said Hoddan. "I've--"

  "The planetary government," said the ambassador with relish, "insiststhat you have to be locked up with the key thrown away. Because you knowhow to make deathrays. I said it was nonsense, and you were a politicalrefugee in sanctuary. The Minister of State said the Cabinet wouldconsider removing you forcibly from the Embassy if you weren'tsurrendered. I said that if the Embassy was violated no ship would clearfor Walden from any other civilized planet. They wouldn't like losingtheir off-planet trade! Then he said that the government would not giveyou an exit-permit, and that he would hold me personally responsible ifyou killed everybody on Walden, including himself and me. I said heinsulted me by suggesting that I'd permit such shenanigans. He said thegovernment would take an extremely grave view of my attitude, and I saidthey would be silly if they did. Then he went off with greatdignity--but shaking with panic--to think up more nonsense."

  "Evidently," said Hoddan in relief, "you believe me when I say that mygadget doesn't make deathrays."

  The ambassador looked slightly embarrassed.

  "To be honest," he admitted, "I've no doubt that you invented itindependently, but they've been using such a device for half a centuryin the Cetis cluster. They've had no trouble."

  Hoddan winced.

  "Did you tell the Minister that?"

  "Hardly," said the ambassador. "It would have done you no good. You'rein open revolt and have performed overt acts of violence against thepolice. But also it was impolite enough for me to suggest that the localgovernment was stupid. It would have been most undiplomatic to proveit."

  Hoddan did not feel very proud, just then.

  "I'm thinking that the cops--quite unofficially--might try to kidnap mefrom the Embassy. They'll deny that they tried, especially if theymanage it. But I think they'll try."

  "Very likely," said the ambassador. "We'll take precautions."

  "I'd like to make something--not lethal--just in case," said Hoddan. "Ifyou can trust me not to make deathrays, I'd like to make a generator ofodd-shaped microwaves. They're described in textbooks. They ionize theair where they strike. That's all. They make air a high-resistanceconductor. Nothing more than that."

  The ambassador said:

  "There was an old-fashioned way to make ozone...." When Hoddan nodded, alittle surprised, the ambassador said: "By all means go ahead. Youshould be able to get parts from your room vision-receiver. I'll havesome tools given you." Then he added: "Diplomacy has to understand thethings that control events. Once it was social position. For a time itwas weapons. Then it was commerce. Now it's technology. But I wonder howyou'll use the ionization of air to protect yourself from kidnapers!Don't tell me! I'd rather try to guess."

  He waved his hand in cordial dismissal and an Embassy servant showedHoddan to his quarters. Ten minutes later another staff man brought himtools such as would be needed for work on a vision set. He was leftalone.

  * * * * *

  He delicately disassembled the set in his room and began to put some ofthe parts together in a novel but wholly rational fashion. The scienceof electronics, like the science of mathematics, had progressed awaybeyond the point where all of it had practical applications. One couldspend a lifetime learning things that research had discovered in thepast, and industry had never found a use for. On Zan, industriouslyreading pirated books, Hoddan hadn't known where utility stopped. He'dkept on learning long after a practical man would have stopped studyingto get a paying job.

  Any electronic engineer could have made the device he now assembled. Itonly needed to be wanted--and apparently he was the first person to wantit. In this respect it was like the receptor that had gotten him intotrouble. But as he put the small parts together, he felt a certainloneliness. A man Hoddan's age needs to have some girl admire him fromtime to time. If Nedda had been sitting cross-legged before him,listening raptly while he explained, Hoddan would probably have beenperfectly happy. But she wasn't. It wasn't likely she ever would be.Hoddan scowled.

  Inside of an hour he'd made a hand-sized, five-watt, wave-guideprojector of waves of eccentric form. In the beam of that projector, airbecame ionized. Air became a high-resistance conductor comparable tonichrome wire, when and where the projector sent its microwaves.

  He was wrapping tape about the pistol grip when a servant brought him ascribbled note. It had been handed in at the Embassy gate by a woman whofled after leaving it. It looked like Nedda's handwriting. It read likeNedda's phrasing. It appeared to have been written by somebody in ahighly emotional state. But it wasn't quite--not absolutely--convincing.

  He went to find the ambassador. He handed over the note. The ambassadorread it and raised his eyebrows.

  "Well?"

  "It could be authentic," admitted Hoddan.

  "In other words," said the ambassador, "you are not sure that it is abooby trap--an invitation to a date with the police?"

  "I'm not sure," said Hoddan. "I think I'd better bite. If I have anyillusions left after this morning, I'd better find it out. I thoughtNedda liked me quite a lot."

  "I make no comment," observed the ambassador. "Can I help you in anyway?"

  "I have to leave the Embassy," said Hoddan, "and there's a practicallysolid line of police outside the walls. Could I borrow some old clothes,a few pillows, and a length of r
ope?"

  Half an hour later a rope uncoiled itself at the very darkest outsidecorner of the Embassy wall. It dangled down to the ground. This was atthe rear of the Embassy enclosure. The night was bright with stars, andthe city's towers glittered with many lights. But here there was almostcomplete blackness and that silence of a city which is sometimes socompanionable.

  The rope remained hanging from the wall. No light reached the groundthere. The tiny crescent of Walden's farthest moon cast an insufficientglow. Nothing could be seen by it.

  The rope went up, as if it had been lowered merely to make sure that itwas long enough for its purpose. Then it descended again. This time afigure dangled at its end. It came down, swaying a little. It reachedthe blackest part of the shadow at the wall's base. It stayed there.

  Nothing happened. The figure rose swiftly, hauled up in rapid pullingsof the rope. Then the line came down again and again a figure descended.But this figure moved. The rope swayed and oscillated. The figure camedown a good halfway to the ground. It paused, and then descended withmuch movement to two-thirds of the way from the top.

  There something seemed to alarm it. It began to rise with violentwrithings of the rope. It climbed--

  There was a crackling noise. A stun-pistol. The figure seemed to climbmore frantically. More cracklings. Half a dozen--a dozen sharp, snappingnoises. They were stun-pistol charges and there were tiny sparks wherethey hit. The dangling figure seemed convulsed. It went limp, but it didnot fall. More charges poured into it. It hung motionless halfway up thewall of the Embassy.

  Movements began in the darkness. Men appeared, talking in low tones andstraining their eyes toward the now motionless figure. They gatheredunderneath it. One went off at a run, carrying a message. Someone ofauthority arrived, panting. There was more low-toned argument. More andstill more men appeared. There were forty or fifty figures at the baseof the wall.

  One of those figures began to climb the rope hand over hand. He reachedthe motionless object. He swore in a shocked voice. He was shushed frombelow. He let the figure drop. It made next to no sound when it landed.

  Then there was a rushing, as the guards about the Embassy went furiouslyback to their proper posts to keep anybody from slipping out Two menremained swearing bitterly over a dummy made of old clothes and pillows.But their profanity was in vain.

  * * * * *

  Hoddan was then some blocks away. He suffered painful doubt about thenote ostensibly from Nedda. The guards about the Embassy would havetried to catch him in any case, but it did seem very plausible that thenote had been sent him to get him to try to get down the wall. On theother hand, a false descent of a palpably dummylike dummy had beenplausible, too. He'd drawn all the guards to one spot by his seemingdoubt and by testing out their vigilance with a dummy. The only thingimprobable in his behavior had been that after testing their vigilancewith a dummy, he'd made use of it.

  A fair distance away, he turned sedately into a narrow lane betweenbuildings. This paralleled another lane serving the home of a girlfriend of Nedda's. The note had named the garden behind that othergirl's home as a rendezvous. But Hoddan was not going to that garden. Hewanted to make sure. If the cops had forged the note--

  He judged his position carefully. If he climbed this tree,--hm-m-m....Kind of the city-planners of Walden to use trees so lavishly--if heclimbed this tree he could look into the garden where Nedda in theorywaited in tears. He climbed it. He sat astride a thick limb in scenteddarkness and considered further. Presently he brought out his five-wattprojector. There was deepest darkness hereabouts. Trees and shrubberywere merely blacker than their surroundings. But there was reason forsuspicion.

  Neither in the house of Nedda's girl friend, nor in the nearer housebetween, was there a single lighted window.

  Hoddan adjusted the wave-guide and pressed the stud of his instrument.He pointed it carefully into the nearer garden.

  A man grunted in a surprised tone. There was a stirring. A man sworestartledly. The words seemed inappropriate to a citizen merely breathingthe evening air.

  Hoddan frowned. The note from Nedda seemed to have been a forgery. Tomake sure, he readjusted the wave-guide to project a thin but fan-shapedbeam. He aimed again. Painstakingly, he traversed the area in which menwould have been posted to jump him, in the event that the note wasforged. If Nedda were there, she would feel no effect. If police lay inwait, they would notice. At once.

  They did. A man howled. Two men yelled together. Somebody bellowed.Somebody squealed. Someone, in charge of the flares made ready to givelight for the police, was so startled by a strange sensation that hejerked the cord. An immense, cold-white brilliance appeared. The gardenwhere Nedda definitely was not present became bathed in incandescence.Light spilled over the wall of one garden into the next and disclosed asquirming mass of police in the nearer garden also. Some of them leapedwildly and ungracefully while clawing behind them. Some stood still andstruggled desperately to accomplish something to their rear, whileothers gazed blankly at them until Hoddan swung his instrument theirway, also.

  A man tore off his pants and swarmed over the wall to get away fromsomething intolerable. Others imitated him, save in the direction oftheir flight. Some removed their trousers before they fled, but otherstried to get them off while fleeing. Those last did not fare too well.Mostly they stumbled and other men fell over them, when both fallen andfallen-upon uttered hoarse and profane lamentations--they howled to thehigh heavens.

  Hoddan let the confusion mount past any unscrambling, and then slid downthe tree and joined in the rush. With the glare in the air behind him,he only feigned to stumble over one figure after another. Once hegrunted as he scorched his own fingers. But he came out of the lane witha dozen stun-pistols, mostly uncomfortably warm, as trophies of theambush.

  As they cooled off he stowed them away in his belt and pockets,strolling away down the tree-lined street. Behind him, cops realizedtheir trouserless condition and appealed plaintively to householders tonotify headquarters of their state.

  Hoddan did not feel particularly disillusioned, somehow. It occurred tohim, even, that this particular event was likely to help him get off ofWalden. If he was to leave against the cops' will, he needed to havethem at less than top efficiency. And men who have had their pantsscorched off them are not apt to think too clearly. Hoddan felt acertain confidence increase in his mind. He'd worked the thing out verynicely. If ionization made air a high-resistance conductor, then anionizing beam would make a high-resistance short between the powerterminals of a stun-pistol. With the power a stun-pistol carried, thatshort would get hot. So would the pistol. It would get hot enough, infact, to scorch cloth in contact with it. Which had happened.

  If the effect had been produced in the soles of policemen's feet, Hoddanwould have given every cop a hotfoot. But since they carried theirstun-pistols in their hip-pockets--

  The thought of Nedda diminished his satisfaction. The note could be pureforgery, or the police could have learned about it through the treacheryof the servant she sent to the Embassy with it. It would be worthwhileto know. He headed toward the home of her father. If she were loyal tohim--why it would complicate things considerably. But he felt itnecessary to find out.

  He neared the spot where Nedda lived. This was an especially desirableresidential area. The houses were large and gracefully designed, and thegardens were especially lush. Presently he heard music ahead--livemusic. He went on. He came to a place where strolling citizens hadpaused under the trees of the street to listen to the melody and thesound of voices that accompanied it. And the music and the festivity wasin the house in which Nedda dwelt. She was having a party, on the verynight of the day in which he'd been framed for life imprisonment.

  It was a shock. Then there was a rush of vehicles, and police truckswere disgorging cops before the door. They formed a cordon about thehouse, and some knocked and were admitted in haste. Then Hoddan noddeddourly to himself.

  His escape from the Emba
ssy was now known. No less certainly, thefailure of the trap Nedda's note had baited had been reported. Thepolice were now turning the whole city into a trap for one Bron Hoddan,and they were looking first at the most probable places, then they'dsearch the possible places for him to be, and by the time that had beenaccomplished they'd have cops from other cities pouring into the cityand they'd search every square inch of it for him. And certainly andpositively they'd take the most urgent and infallible precautions tomake sure he didn't get back into the Embassy.

  It was a situation that would have appalled Hoddan only that morning.Now, though, he only shook his head sadly. He moved on. He'd gotten intotrouble by trying to make an industrial civilization accept something itdidn't want--a technical improvement in a standard electronic device.He'd gotten partly out of trouble by giving his jailers what theydefinitely desired--the sight of him apparently a suicide in the cell inthe Detention Building. He'd come out of the Embassy, again, by givingthe watchers outside a view they urgently desired--a figure secretlydescending the Embassy wall. He'd indulged himself at the ambuscade, butthe way to get back into the Embassy....

  * * * * *

  It was not far from Nedda's house to a public-safety kiosk, decorativelyplaced on a street corner. He entered it. It was unattended, of course.It was simply an out-of-door installation where cops could be summonedor fires reported or emergencies described by citizens independently ofthe regular home communicators. It had occurred to Hoddan that theplanetary authorities would be greatly pleased to hear of a situation,in a place, that would seem to hint at his presence. There were allsorts of public services that would be delighted to operate impressivelyin their own lines. There were bureaus which would rejoice in a chanceto show off their efficiency.

  He used his microwave generator--which at short enough range wouldshort-circuit anything--upon the apparatus in the kiosk. It wasperfectly simple, if one knew how. He worked with a sort of tenderthoroughness, shorting this item, shorting that, giving this franticemergency call, stating that baseless lie. When he went out of the kioskhe walked briskly toward an appointment he had made.

  And presently the murmur of the city at night had new sounds added toit. They began as a faint, confused clamor at the edges of the city. Theuproar moved centralward and grew louder as it came. There were clangingbells and sirens and beeper-horns warning all nonofficial vehicles tokeep out of the way. On the raised-up expressway snorting metal monstersrushed with squealing excitement. On the fragrant lesser streets, smallvehicles rushed with proportionately louder howlings. Police truckspoured out of their cubbyholes and plunged valiantly through the dark.Broadcast-units signaled emergency and cut off the air to make theplacid ether waves available to authority.

  All these noises and all this tumult moved toward a single point. Theouter parts of the city regained their former quiet, save that there wasless music. The broadcasts were off. But the sound of racing vehiclesclamoring for right-of-way grew louder and louder, and more and moreperemptory as it concentrated toward the large open square on which theInterstellar Embassy faced. From every street and avenue fire-fightingequipment poured into that square. In between and behind, hooting loudlyfor precedence, police trucks accompanied and fore-ran them. Emergencyvehicles of all the civic bureaus appeared, all of them with immenseconviction of their importance.

  It was a very large open square, that space before the Embassy. From itsedge, the monument to the First Settlers in the center looked small. Buteven that vast plaza filled up with trucks of every imaginable variety,from the hose towers which could throw streams of water four hundredfeet straight up, to the miniature trouble-wagons of Electricity Supply.Staff cars of fire and police and sanitary services crowded each otherand bumped fenders with tree-surgeon trucks prepared to move fallentrees, and with public-address trucks ready to lend stentorian tones toany voice of authority.

  But there was no situation except that there was no situation. There wasno fire. There was no riot. There were not even stray dogs for the poundwagons to pursue, nor broken water mains for the water departmenttechnicians to shut off and repair. There was nothing for anybody to dobut ask everybody else what the hell they were doing there, andpresently to swear at each other for cluttering up the way.

  * * * * *

  The din of arriving horns and sirens had stopped, and a mutter ofprofanity was developing, when a last vehicle arrived. It was anambulance, and it came purposefully out of a side avenue and swungtoward a particular place as if it knew exactly what it was about. Whenits way was blocked, it hooted impatiently for passage. Its lightsblinked violently red, demanding clearance. A giant fire-fighting unitpulled aside. The ambulance ran past and hooted at a cluster of policetrucks. They made way for it. It blared at a gathering of dismounted,irritated truck personnel. It made its way through them. It moved in astraight line for the gate of the Interstellar Embassy.

  A hundred yards from that gate, its horn blatted irritably at the car ofthe acting head of municipal police. That car obediently made way forit.

  The ambulance rolled briskly up to the very gate of the Embassy. Thereit stopped. A figure got down from the driver's seat and walkedpurposefully in the gate.

  Thereafter nothing happened at all until a second figure rolled andtoppled itself out on the ground from the seat beside the ambulancedriver's. That figure kicked and writhed on the ground. A policeman wentto find out what was the matter.

  It was the ambulance driver. Not the one who'd driven the ambulance tothe Embassy gate, but the one who should have. He was bound hand andfoot and not too tightly gagged. When released he swore vividly whilepanting that he had been captured and bound by somebody who said he wasBron Hoddan and was in a hurry to get back to the Interstellar Embassy.

  There was no uproar. Those to whom Hoddan's name had meaning were struckspeechless with rage. The fury of the police was even too deep fortears.

  But Bron Hoddan, back in the quarters assigned him in the Embassy,unloaded a dozen cooled-off stun-pistols from his pockets and sent wordto the ambassador that he was back, and that the note ostensibly fromNedda had actually been a police trap.

  Getting ready to retire, he reviewed his situation. In some respects itwas not too bad. All but Nedda's share in trying to trap him, and havinga party the same night.... He stared morosely at the wall. Then he saw,very simply, that she mightn't have known even of his arrest. She liveda highly sheltered life. Her father could have had her kept completelyin ignorance....

  He cheered immediately. This would be his last night on Walden, if hewere lucky, but vague plans already revolved in his mind. Yes.... He'dachieve splendid things, he'd grow rich, he'd come back and marry thatdelightful girl, Nedda, and end as a great man. Already, today, he'ddone a number of things worth doing, and on the whole he'd done themwell.