The Pirates of Ersatz Read online

  III

  When dawn broke over the capital city of Walden, the sight wasappropriately glamorous. There were shining towers and curvingtree-bordered ways, above which innumerable small birds flewtumultuously. The dawn, in fact, was heralded by high-pitched chirpingseverywhere. During the darkness there had been a deep-toned hummingsound, audible all over the city. That was the landing grid in operationout at the spaceport, letting down a twenty-thousand-ton liner fromRigel, Cetis, and the Nearer Rim. Presently it would take off for Krim,Darth, and the Coalsack Stars, and if Hoddan was lucky he would be onit. But at the earliest part of the day there was only tranquillity overthe city and the square and the Interstellar Embassy.

  At the gate of the Embassy enclosure, staff members piled up boxes andbales and parcels for transport to the spaceport and thence todestinations whose names were practically songs. There were dispatchesto Delil, where the Interstellar Diplomatic Service had a sectorheadquarters, and there were packets of embassy-stamped invoices forLohala and Tralee and Famagusta. There were boxes for Sind and Maja, andmetal-bound cases for Kent. The early explorers of this part of thegalaxy had christened huge suns for little villages and territories backon Earth--which less than one human being in ten thousand had ever seen.

  The sound of the stacking of freight parcels was crisp and distinct inthe morning hush. The dew deposited during darkness had not yet driedfrom the pavement of the square. Damp, unhappy figures loafed nearby.They were self-evidently secret police, as yet unrelieved after anight's vigil about the Embassy's rugged wall. They were sleepy andtheir clothing stuck soggily to them, and none of them had had anythingwarm in his stomach for many hours. They had not, either, anything tolook forward to from their superiors.

  Hoddan was again in sanctuary inside the Embassy they'd guarded soineptly through the dark. He'd gotten out without their leave, and madea number of their fellows unwilling to sit down and then made all thepolice and municipal authorities ridiculous by the manner of his return.The police guards about the Embassy were very positively not in a cheerymood. But one of them saw an Embassy servant he knew. He'd stood the mandrinks, in times past, to establish a contact that might be useful. Hesummoned a smile and beckoned to that man.

  The Embassy servant came briskly to him, rubbing his hands after havingput a moderately heavy case of documents on top of the waiting pile.

  "That Hoddan," said the plainclothesman, attempting hearty ruefulness,"he certainly put it over on us last night!"

  The servant nodded.

  "Look," said the plainclothesman, "there could be something in it foryou if you ... hm-m-m ... wanted to make a little extra money."

  The servant looked regretful.

  "No chance," he said, "he's leaving today."

  The plainclothesman jumped.

  "Today?"

  "For Darth," said the Embassy servant. "The ambassador's shipping himoff on the space liner that came in last night."

  The plainclothesman dithered.

  "How's he going to get to the spaceport?"

  "I wouldn't know," said the servant. "They've figured out some way. Icould use a little extra money, too."

  He lingered, but the plainclothesman was staring at the innocent,inviolable parcels about to leave the Embassy for distant parts. He tooknote of sizes and descriptions. No. Not yet. But if Hoddan was leavinghe had to leave the Embassy. If he left the Embassy....

  * * * * *

  The plainclothesman bolted. He made a breathless report by the portablecommunicator set up for just such use. He told what the Embassy servanthad said, and the inference to be drawn from it, the suspicions to beentertained--and there he stopped short. Orders came back to him. Orderswere given in all directions. Somebody was going to distinguish himselfby catching Hoddan, and undercover politics worked to decide who itshould be. Even the job of guard outside the Embassy became desirable.So fresh, alert plainclothesmen arrived. They were bright-eyed andbushy-tailed, and they took over. Weary, hungry men yielded up theirposts. They went home. The man who'd gotten the infallibly certain cluewent home too, disgruntled because he wasn't allowed a share in thecredit for Hoddan's capture. But he was glad of it later.

  Inside the Embassy, Hoddan finished his breakfast with the ambassador.

  "I'm giving you," said the ambassador, "that letter to the character onDarth. I told you about him. He's some sort of nobleman and has need ofan electronic engineer. On Darth they're rare to nonexistent. But hisletter wasn't too specific."

  "I remember," agreed Hoddan. "I'll look him up. Thanks."

  "Somehow," said the ambassador, "I cherish unreasonable hopes of you,Hoddan. A psychologist would say that your group identification is lowand your cyclothymia practically a minus quantity, while your ergictension is pleasingly high. He'd mean that with reasonable good fortuneyou will raise more hell than most. I wish you that good fortune. AndHoddan--"

  "Yes?"

  "I don't urge you to be vengeful," explained the ambassador, "but I dohope you won't be too forgiving of these characters who'd have jailedyou for life. You've scared them badly. It's very good for them.Anything more you can do in that line will be really a kindness, and assuch will positively not be appreciated, but it'll be well worthdoing.... I say this because I like the way you plan things. And anytime I can be of service--"

  "Thanks," said Hoddan, "but I'd better get going for the spaceport."He'd write Nedda from Darth. "I'll get set for it."

  He rose. The ambassador stood up too.

  "I like the way you plan things," he repeated appreciatively. "We'llcheck over that box."

  They left the Embassy dining room together.

  * * * * *

  It was well after sunrise when Hoddan finished his breakfast, and thebright and watchful new plainclothesmen were very much on the alertoutside. By this time the sunshine had lost its early ruddy tint, andthe trees about the city were vividly green, and the sky had becomeappropriately blue--as the skies on all human-occupied planets are.There was the beginning of traffic. Some was routine movement of goodsand vehicles. But some was special.

  For example, the trucks which came to carry the Embassy shipment to thespaceport. They were perfectly ordinary trucks, hired in a perfectlyordinary way by the ambassador's secretary. They came trundling acrossthe square and into the Embassy gate. The ostentatiously loafingplainclothesmen could look in and see the waiting parcels loaded onthem. The first truckload was quite unsuspicious. There was no packagein the lot which could have held a man in even the most impossiblycramped of positions.

  But the police took no chances. Ten blocks from the Embassy the copsstopped it and verified the licenses and identities of the driver andhis helper. This was a moderately lengthy business. While it went on,plainclothesmen worked over the packages in the truck's body and putstethoscopes to any of more than one cubic foot capacity.

  They waved the truck on. Meanwhile the second truck was loading up. Andthe watching, ostensible loafers saw that nearly the last item to be puton it was a large box which hadn't been visible before. It was carriedwith some care, and it was marked fragile, and it was put into place andwedged fast with other parcels.

  The plainclothesmen looked at each other with anticipatory glee. One ofthem reported the last large box with almost lyric enthusiasm. When thesecond truck left the Embassy with the large box, a police truck cameinnocently out of nowhere and just happened to be going the same way.Ten blocks away, again the truck load of Embassy parcels was flaggeddown and its driver's license and identity was verified. Aplainclothesman put a stethoscope on the questionable case. He beamed,and made a suitable signal.

  The truck went on, while zestful, Machiavelian plans took effect.

  Five blocks farther, an unmarked empty truck came hurtling out of a sidestreet, sideswiped the truck from the Embassy, and went careening awaydown the street without stopping. The trailing police truck made noattempt at pursuit. Instead, it stopped helpfully by the truck wh
ich hadbeen hit. A wheel was hopelessly gone. So uniformed police, withconspicuously happy expressions, cleared a space around the stalledtruck and stood guard over the parcels under diplomatic seal. With eagerhelpfulness, they sent for other transportation for the Embassy'sshipment.

  A sneeze was heard from within the mass of guarded freight, and thepolicemen shook hands with each other. When substitute truckscame--there were two of them--they loaded one high with Embassy parcelsand sent it off to the spaceport with their blessing. There remainedjust one, single, large-sized box to be put on the second vehicle. Theybumped it on the ground, and a startled grunt came from within.

  There was an atmosphere of innocent enjoyment all about as the policetenderly loaded this large box on the second truck they'd sent for, andfestooned themselves about it as it trundled away. Strangely, it did nothead directly for the spaceport. The police carefully explained this toeach other in loud voices. Then some of them were afraid the box hadn'theard, so they knocked on it. The box coughed, and it seemed hilariouslyamusing to the policemen that the contents of a freight parcel shouldcough. They expressed deep concern and--addressing the box--explainedthat they were taking it to the Detention Building, where they wouldgive it some cough medicine.

  The box swore at them, despairingly. They howled with childish laughter,and assured the box that after they had opened it and given it coughmedicine they would close it again very carefully--leaving thediplomatic seal unbroken--and deliver it to the spaceport so it could goon its way.

  The box swore again, luridly. The truck which carried it hastened. Thebox teetered and bumped and jounced with the swift motion of the vehiclethat carried it and all the police around it. Bitter, enraged, andhighly unprintable language came from within.

  The police were charmed. Even so early in the morning they seemedinclined to burst into song. When the Detention Building gate opened forit, and closed again behind it, there was a welcoming committee in thecourtyard. It included a jailer with a bandaged head and a look ofvengeful satisfaction on his face, and no less than three guards who hadbeen given baths by a high-pressure hose when Bron Hoddan departed fromhis cell. They wore unamiable expressions.

  And then, while the box swore very bitterly, somebody tenderly looseneda plank--being careful not to disturb the diplomatic seal--and pulled itaway with a triumphant gesture. Then all the police could look into thebox. And they did.

  Then there was dead silence, except for the voice that came from atwo-way communicator set inside.

  "_And now_," said the voice from the box--and only now did anybodynotice what the muffling effect of the boards had hidden, that it was aspeaker-unit which had sworn and coughed and sneezed--"_we take ourleave of the planet Walden and its happy police force, who wave to us asour space-liner lifts toward the skies. The next sound you hear will bethat of their lamentations at our departure._"

  But the next sound was a howl of fury. The police were very muchdisappointed to learn that Hoddan hadn't been in the box, but onlyone-half of a two-way communication pair, and that Hoddan had coughedand sneezed and sworn at them from the other instrument somewhere else.Now he signed off.

  * * * * *

  The space liner was not lifting off just yet. It was still solidlyaground in the center of the landing grid. Hoddan had bade farewell tohis audience from the floor of the ambassador's ground-car, which atthat moment was safely within the extra-territorial circle about thespaceship. He turned off the set and got up and brushed himself off. Hegot out of the car. The ambassador followed him and shook his hand.

  "You have a touch," said the ambassador sedately. "You seem inspired attimes, Hoddan! You have a gift for infuriating constituted authority.You should plot at your art. You may go far!"

  He shook hands again and watched Hoddan walk into the lift which shouldraise him--and did raise him--to the entrance port of the space liner.

  Twenty minutes later the force fields of the giant landing grid liftedthe liner smoothly out to space. The twenty-thousand-ton vessel wentout to five planetary diameters, where its Lawlor drive could take holdof relatively unstressed space. There the ship jockeyed for line, andthen there was that curious, momentary disturbance of all one'ssensations which was the effect of the overdrive field going on. Theneverything was normal again, except that the liner was speeding for theplanet Krim at something more than thirty times the speed of light.

  Normality extended through all the galaxy so far inhabited by men. Therewere worlds on which there was peace, and worlds on which there wastumult. There were busy, zestful young worlds, and languid, weary oldones. From the Near Rim to the farthest of occupied systems, planetscircled their suns, and men lived on them, and every man took himselfseriously and did not quite believe that the universe had existed beforehe was born or would long survive his loss.

  Time passed. Comets let out vast streamers like bridal veils and swepttoward and around their suns. Some of them--one in ten thousand, ortwenty--were possibly seen by human eyes. The liner bearing Hoddan spedthrough the void.

  In time it made a landfall on the Planet Krim. He went aground andobserved the spaceport city. It was new and bustling with tall buildingsand traffic jams and a feverish conviction that the purpose of livingwas to earn more money this year than last. Its spaceport waschaotically busy. Hoddan had time for swift sightseeing of one city onlyand an estimate of what the people of such a planet would be sure theywanted. He saw slums and gracious public buildings, and went back to thespaceport and the liner which then rose upon the landing grid's forcefields until Krim was a great round ball below it. Then there was againa jockeying for line, and the liner winked out of sight and was againjourneying at thirty times the speed of light.

  Again time passed. In one of the remoter galaxies a super-nova flamed,and on a rocky, barren world a small living thing squirmedexperimentally--and to mankind the one event was just as important asthe other.

  But presently the liner from Krim and Walden appeared in Darth as thetiniest of shimmering pearly specks against the blue. To the north andeast and west of the spaceport, rugged mountains rose steeply. Patchesof snow showed here and there, and naked rock reared boldly in spurs andprecipices. But there were trees on all the lower slopes, and there wasnot really a timberline.

  The space liner increased in size, descending toward the landing grid.The grid itself was a monstrous lattice of steel, half a mile high andenclosing a circle not less in diameter. It filled much the larger partof the level valley floor, and horned _duryas_ and what Hoddan laterlearned were horses grazed in it. The animals paid no attention to thedeep-toned humming noise the grid made in its operation.

  The ship seemed the size of a pea. Presently it was the size of anapple. Then it was the size of a basketball, and then it swelledenormously and put out spidery metal legs with large splay metal feet onthem and alighted and settled gently to the ground. The humming stopped.

  * * * * *

  There were shoutings. Whips cracked. Straining, horn-tossing _duryas_heaved and dragged something, very deliberately, out from betweenwarehouses under the arches of the grid. There were two dozen of the_duryas_, and despite the shouts and whip-crackings they moved with astubborn slowness. It took a long time for the object with thewide-tired wheels to reach a spot below the spacecraft. Then it tooklonger, seemingly, for brakes to be set on each wheel, and then for thedraught animals to be arranged to pull as two teams against each other.

  More shoutings and whip-crackings. A long, slanting, ladderlike armarose. It teetered, and a man with a lurid purple cloak rose with it atits very end. The ship's air lock opened and a crewman threw a rope. Thepurple-cloaked man caught it and made it fast. From somewhere inside theship of space the line was hauled in. The end of the landing ramptouched the sill of the air lock. Somebody made other things fast andthe purple-cloaked man triumphantly entered the ship.

  There was a pause. Men loaded carts with cargo to be sent to remote andunimagined planet
s. In the air lock, Bron Hoddan stepped to theunloading ramp and descended to the ground. He was the only passenger.He had barely reached a firm footing when objects followed him. His ownship bag--a gift from the ambassador--and then parcels, bales, boxes,and such nondescript items of freight as needed special designation.Rolls of wire. Long strings of plastic objects, strung like beads onshipping cords. Plexiskins of fluid which might be anything from wine tofuel oil in less than bulk-cargo quantities. For a mere five minutes theflow of freight continued. Darth was not an important center of trade.

  Hoddan stared incredulously at the town outside one side of the grid. Itwas only a town--and was almost a village, at that. Its houses hadsteep, gabled roofs, of which some seemed to be tile and others thatch.Its buildings leaned over the narrow streets, which were unpaved. Theylooked like mud. And there was not a power-driven ground vehicleanywhere in sight, nor anything man made in the air.

  Great carts trailed out to the unloading belt. They dumped bales ofskins and ingots of metal, and more bales and more ingots. Those objectsrode up to the air lock and vanished. Hoddan was ignored. He felt thatwithout great care he might be crowded back into the reversed loadingbelt and be carried back into the ship.

  The loading process ended. The man with the purple cloak, who'd riddenthe teetering belt-beam up, reappeared and came striding grandly down toground. Somebody cast off, above. Ropes writhed and fell and dangled.The ship's air lock door closed.

  There was a vast humming sound. The ship lifted sedately. It seemed tohover momentarily over the group of _duryas_ and humans in the center ofthe grid's enclosure. But it was not hovering. It shrank. It was risingin an absolutely vertical line. It dwindled to the size of a basketballand then an apple. Then to the size of a pea. And then that peadiminished until the spaceship from Krim, Walden, Cetis, Rigel and theNearer Rim had become the size of a dust mote and then could not be seenat all. But one knew that it was going on to Lohala and Tralee andFamagusta and the Coalsack Stars.

  * * * * *

  Hoddan shrugged and began to trudge toward the warehouses. The_durya_-drawn landing ramp began to roll slowly in the same direction.Carts and wagons loaded the stuff discharged from the ship. Creaking,plodding, with the curved horns of the _duryas_ rising and falling, thewagons overtook Hoddan and passed him. He saw his ship bag on one of thecarts. It was a gift from the Interstellar Ambassador on Walden. He'dassured Hoddan that there was a fund for the assistance of politicalrefugees, and that the bag and its contents was normal. But in additionto the gift-clothing, Hoddan had a number of stun-pistols, formerlyequipment of the police department of Walden's capital city.

  He followed his bag to a warehouse. Arrived there, he found the bagsurrounded by a group of whiskered or mustachioed Darthian characterswearing felt pants and large sheath-knives. They had opened the bag andwere in the act of ferocious dispute about who should get what of itscontents. Incidentally they argued over the stun-pistols, which lookedlike weapons but weren't because nothing happened when one pulled thetrigger. Hoddan grimaced. They'd been in store on the liner during thevoyage. Normally they picked up a trickle charge from broadcast power,on Walden, but there was no broadcast power on the liner, nor any onDarth. They'd leaked their charges and were quite useless. The one inhis pocket would be useless, too.

  He grimaced again and swerved to the building where the landing gridcontrols must be. He opened the door and went in. The interior was smokyand ill-smelling, but the equipment was wholly familiar. Two unshavenmen--in violently colored shirts--languidly played cards. Only one, aredhead, paid attention to the controls of the landing grid. He watcheddials. As Hoddan pushed his way in, he threw a switch and yawned. Theship was five diameters out from Darth, and he'd released it from thelanding grid fields. He turned and saw Hoddan.

  "What the hell do you want?" he demanded sharply.

  "A few kilowatts," said Hoddan. The redhead's manner was not amiable.

  "Get outta here!" he barked.

  The transformers and snaky cables leading to relays outside--all wereclear as print to Hoddan. He moved confidently toward an especiallyunderstandable panel, pulling out his stun-pistol and briskly breakingback the butt for charging. He shoved the pistol butt to contact withtwo terminals devised for another purpose, and the pistol slipped for aninstant and a blue spark flared.

  "Quit that!" roared the red-headed man. The unshaven men pushed backfrom their game of cards. One of them stood up, smiling unpleasantly.

  The stun-pistol clicked. Hoddan withdrew it from charging-contact,flipped the butt shut, and turned toward the three men. Two of themcharged him suddenly--the redhead and the unpleasant smiler.

  The stun-pistol hummed. The redhead howled. He'd been hit in the hand.His unshaven companion buckled in the middle and fell to the floor. Thethird man backed away in panic, automatically raising his arms insurrender.

  Hoddan saw no need for further action. He nodded graciously and went outof the control building, swinging the recharged pistol in his hand. Inthe warehouse, argument still raged over his possessions. He went in,briskly. Nobody looked at him. The casual appropriation of unguardedproperty was apparently a social norm, here. The man in the purple cloakwas insisting furiously that he was a Darthian gentleman and he'd havehis share or else--

  "Those things," said Hoddan, "are mine. Put them back."

  Faces turned to him, expressing shocked surprise. A man in dirty yellowpants stood up with a suit of Hoddan's underwear and a pair of shoes. Hemoved with great dignity to depart.

  The stun-pistol buzzed. He leaped and howled and fled. Hoddan had aimedaccurately enough, but prudence suggested that if he appeared to killanybody, the matter might become serious. So he'd fired to sting the manwith a stun-pistol bolt at about the same spot where, on Walden, he'dscorched members of a party of police in ambush. It was nice shooting.But this happened to be a time and place where prudence did not pay.

  There was a concerted gasp of outrage. Men leaped to their feet. Largeknives came out of elaborate holsters. Figures in all the colors of therainbow--all badly soiled--roared their indignation and charged atHoddan. They waved knives as they came.

  He held down the stun-pistol trigger and traversed the rushing men. Thewhining buzz of the weapon was inaudible, at first, but before hereleased the trigger it was plainly to be heard. Then there was silence.His attackers formed a very untidy heap on the floor. They breathedstertorously. Hoddan began to retrieve his possessions. He rolled a manover, for the purpose.

  A pair of very blue, apprehensive eyes stared at him. Their owner hadstumbled over one man and been stumbled over by others. He gazed up atHoddan, speechless.

  "Hand me that, please," said Hoddan. He pointed.

  * * * * *

  The man in the purple cloak obeyed, shaking. Hoddan completed therecovery of all his belongings. He turned. The man in the purple cloakwinced and closed his eyes.

  "Hm-m-m," said Hoddan. He needed information. He wasn't likely to get itfrom the men in the grid's control room. He would hardly be popular withany of these, either. He irritably suspected himself of a tendency tomake enemies unnecessarily. But he did need directions. He said: "I havea letter of introduction to one Don Loris, prince of something-or-other,lord of this, baron of that, and claimant to the dukedom of the otherthing. Would you have any idea how I could reach him?"

  The man in the purple cloak gaped at Hoddan.

  "He is ... my chieftain," he said, aghast. "I ... am Thal, his mosttrusted retainer." Then he practically wailed, "You must be the man Iwas sent to meet! He sent me to learn if you came on the ship! I shouldhave fought by your side! This is disgrace!"

  "It's disgraceful," agreed Hoddan grimly. But he, who had been born andraised in a space-pirate community, should not be too critical ofothers. "Let it go. How do I find him?"

  "I should take you!" complained Thal bitterly. "But you have killed allthese men. Their friends and chieftains are honor bound to cut yourt
hroat! And you shot Merk, but he ran away, and he will be summoning hisfriends to come and kill you now! This is shame! This is--" Then he saidhopefully: "Your strange weapon! How many men can you fight? If fifty,we may live to ride away. If more, we may even reach Don Loris' castle.How many?"

  "We'll see what we see," said Hoddan dourly. "But I'd better chargethese other pistols. You can come with me, or wait. I haven't killedthese men. They're only stunned. They'll come around presently."

  He went out of the warehouse, carrying the bag which was again loadedwith uncharged stun-pistols. He went back to the grid's control room. Hepushed it open and entered for the second time. The red-headed man sworeand rubbed at his hand. The man who'd smiled unpleasantly lay in a heapon the floor. The second unshaven man jittered visibly at sight ofHoddan.

  "I'm back," said Hoddan politely, "for more kilowatts."

  He put his bag conveniently close to the terminals at which his pistolscould be recharged. He snapped open a pistol butt and presented it tothe electric contacts.

  "Quaint customs you have here," he said conversationally. "Robbing anewcomer. Resenting his need for a few watts of power that comes freefrom the sky." The stun-pistol clicked. He snapped the butt shut andopened another, which he placed in contact for charging. "Making himact," he said acidly, "with manners as bad as the local ones. Going athim with knives so he has to be resentful in his turn." The secondstun-pistol clicked. He closed it and began to charge a third. He saidseverely: "Innocent tourists--relatively innocent ones, anyhow--are notlikely to be favorably impressed with Darth!" He had the chargingprocess going swiftly now. He began to charge a fourth weapon. "It'sparticularly bad manners," he added sternly, "to stand there grindingyour teeth at me while your friend behind the desk crawls after anold-fashioned chemical gun to shoot me with."

  He snapped the fourth pistol shut and went after the man who'd droppeddown behind a desk. He came upon that man, hopelessly panicked, just ashis hands closed on a clumsy gun that was supposed to set off a chemicalexplosive to propel a metal bullet.

  "Don't!" said Hoddan severely. "If I have to shoot you at this range,you'll have blisters!"

  He took the weapon out of the other man's hands. He went back andfinished charging the rest of the pistols.

  He returned most of them to his bag, though he stuck others in his beltand pockets to the point where he looked like the fiction-tape picturesof space pirates. But he knew what space pirates were actually like. Hemoved to the door. As a last thought, he picked up the bullet-firingweapon.

  "There's only one spaceship here a month," he observed politely, "soI'll be around. If you want to get in touch with me, ask Don Loris. I'mgoing to visit him while I look over professional opportunities onDarth."

  He went out once more. Somehow he felt more cheerful than a half-hoursince, when he'd landed as the only passenger from the space liner. Thenhe'd felt ignored and lonely and friendless on a strange and primitiveworld. He still had no friends, but he had already acquired some enemiesand therefore material for more or less worthwhile achievement. Hesurveyed the sunlit scene about him from the control-room door.

  * * * * *

  Thal, the purple-cloaked man, had brought two shaggy-haired animalsaround to the door of the warehouse. Hoddan later learned that they werehorses. He was frenziedly in the act of mounting one of them. As heclimbed up, small bright metal disks cascaded from a pocket. He tried tostop the flow of money as he got feverishly into the saddle.

  From the gable-roofed small town a mob of some thirty mounted menplunged toward the landing grid. They wore garments of yellow and blueand magenta. They waved large-bladed knives and made bloodthirstynoises. Thal saw them and bolted, riding one horse and towing the otherby a lead rope. It happened that his line of retreat passed by whereHoddan stood.

  Hoddan held up his hand. Thal reined in.

  "Mount!" he cried hoarsely. "Mount and ride!"

  Hoddan passed up the chemical--powder--gun. Thal seized it frantically.

  "Hurry!" he panted. "Don Loris would have my throat cut if I desertedyou! Mount and ride!"

  Hoddan painstakingly fastened his bag to the saddle of the lead horse.He unfastened the lead rope. He'd noticed that Thal pulled in theleather reins to stop the horse. He'd seen that he kicked it furiouslyto urge it on. He deduced that one steered the animal by pulling on onestrap or the other. He climbed clumsily to a seat.

  There was a howl from the racing, mounted men. They waved their knivesand yelled in zestful anticipation of murder.

  Hoddan pulled on a rein. His horse turned obediently. He kicked it. Theanimal broke into a run toward the rushing mob. The jolting motionamazed Hoddan. One could not shoot straight while being shaken up likethis! He dragged back on the reins. The horse stopped.

  "Come!" yelled Thal despairingly. "This way! Quick!"

  Hoddan got out a stun-pistol. Sitting erect, frowning a little in hisconcentration, he began to take pot-shots at the charging small horde.

  Three of them got close enough to be blistered when stun-pistol boltshit them. Others toppled from their saddles at distances ranging fromone hundred yards to twenty. A good dozen, however, saw what washappening in time to swerve their mounts and hightail it away. But therewere eighteen luridly-tinted heaps of garments on the ground inside thelanding grid. Two or three of them squirmed and swore. Hoddan had partlymissed, on them. He heard the chemical weapon booming thunderously. Nowthat victory was won, Thal was shooting valorously. Hoddan held up hishand for cease fire. Thal rode up beside him, not quite believing whathe'd seen.

  "Wonderful!" he said shakily. "Wonderful! Don Loris will be pleased! Hewill give me gifts for my help to you! This is a great fight! We will begreat men, after this!"

  "Then let's go and brag," said Hoddan.

  Thal was shocked.

  "You need me," he said commiseratingly. "It is fortunate that Don Lorischose me to fight beside you!"

  He sent his horse trotting toward the mostly unconscious men on theground. He alighted. Hoddan saw him happily and publicly pick thepockets of the stun-gun's victims. He came back, beaming and nowswaggering in his saddle.

  "We will be famous!" he said zestfully. "Two against thirty, and someran away!" He gloated. "And it was a good haul! We share, of course,because we are companions."

  "Is it the custom," asked Hoddan mildly, "to loot defenseless men?"

  "But of course!" said Thal. "How else can a gentleman live, if he has nochieftain to give him presents? You defeated them, so of course you taketheir possessions!"

  "Ah, yes," said Hoddan. "To be sure!"

  He rode on. The road was a mere horse track. Presently it was less thanthat. He saw a frowning, battlemented stronghold away off to the left.Thal openly hoped that somebody would come from that castle and try tocharge them toll for riding over their lord's land. After Hoddan hadknocked them over with the stun-pistol, Thal would add to the heavyweight of coins already in his possession.

  It did not look promising, in a way. But just before sunset, Hoddan sawthree tiny bright lights flash across the sky from west to east. Theymoved in formation and at identical speeds. Hoddan knew a spaceship inorbit when he saw one. He bristled, and muttered under his breath.

  "What's that?" asked Thal. "What did you say?"

  "I said," said Hoddan dourly, "that I've got to do something aboutWalden. When they get an idea in their heads...."