Part 36 (2/2)

”Thal,” said Don Loris peevishly, sitting beside the great fireplace in the enormous hall. ”Thal, you know this Bron Hoddan better than anybody else.”

Thal breathed heavily. He turned pale.

”Where is he?” demanded Don Loris.

”I don't know,” said Thal. It was true. So far as he was concerned, Hoddan had vanished into the sky.

”What does he plan to do?” demanded Don Loris.

”I don't know,” said Thal helplessly.

”Where does that-that thing outside the castle come from?”

”I don't know,” said Thal.

Don Loris drummed on the arm of his intricately carved chair.

”I don't like people who don't know things!” he said fretfully. ”There must be somebody in thatthing.Why don't they show themselves? What are they here for? Why did they come down, especially here?

Because of Bron Hoddan?”

”I don't know,” said Thal humbly.

”Then go find out!” snapped Don Loris. ”Take a reasonable guard with you. The thing must have a door.

Knock on it and ask who's inside and why they came here. Tell them I sent you to ask.”

Thal saluted. With his teeth chattering, he gathered a half-dozen of his fellows and went tramping out the castle gate. Some of the half-dozen had been involved in the rescue of the Lady Fani from Ghek. They were still in a happy mood because of the plunder they'd brought back. It was much more than a mere retainer could usually hope for in a year.

”What's this all about, Thal?” demanded one of them as Thal arranged them in two lines to make a proper military appearance, spears dressed upright and s.h.i.+elds on their left arms.

”Frrrrdharch!”barked Thal, and they swung into motion. Thal said gloomily, ”Don Loris said to find out who landed that thing out yonder. He keeps asking about Bron Hoddan, too.”

He strode in step with the others. The seven men made an impressively soldierly group, tramping away from the castle wall.

”What happened to him?” asked a rear-file man. He marched on, eyes front, chest out, spear swinging splendidly in time with his marching. ”That lad has a nose for loot! Don't take it himself, though. If he set up in business as a chieftain, now-”

”Hup,two, three, four,” muttered Thal.”Hup,two, three-”

”Don Loris's a hard chieftain,” growled the right-hand man in the second file. ”Plenty of grub and beer, but no fighting and no loot. I didn't get to go with you the other day, but what you brought back . . .”

”Wasn't half of what was there,” mourned a front-file man. ”Wasn't half! Those pistols he issued got shot out and we had to get outta there fast! Hm . . . here's this thing, Thal. What do we do with it?”

”Hrrrmp,halt!”barked Thal. He stared at the motionless, seemingly lifeless, shapeless s.p.a.ceboat. He'd seen one like it earlier today. That one spouted fire and went up out of sight. He was wary of this one.

He grumbled. ”Those pipes in the back of it, steer clear of 'em. They spit fire. No door on this side. Don Loris said knock on the door. We go around the front. Frrrrdharch!two, three, four,hup,two, three, four.

Left turn here and mind those rocks. Don Loris'd give us h.e.l.l if somebody fell down. Left turn again.Hup, two, three, four.”

The seven men tramped splendidly around the front of the lifeboat. On the far side, its bulk hid even Don Loris' castle from view. The six spearmen, with Thal, came to a second halt.

”Here goes,” rumbled Thal. ”I tell you, boys, if she starts to spit fire, you get the h.e.l.l away!”

He marched up to s.p.a.ceboat's port. He knocked on it. There was no response. He knocked again.

Hoddan opened the door. He nodded cheerfully to Thal.

”Afternoon, Thal! Glad to see you. I've been hoping you'd come over this way. Who's with you?” He peered through the semi-darkness. ”Some of the boys, eh? Come in!” He beckoned and said casually, ”Lean your spears against the hull, there.”

Thal hesitated and was lost. The others obeyed. There were clatterings as the spears came to rest against the metal hull. Six of Don Loris' retainers followed Thal admiringly into the s.p.a.ceboat's interior, to gaze at it and at Bron Hoddan who so recently had given them the chance to loot a nearby castle.

”Sit down!” said Hoddan cordially. ”If you want to feel what a s.p.a.ceboat's really like, clasp the seat-belts around you. You'll feel exactly like you're about to make a journey out of atmosphere. That's it, lean back. You notice there are no viewports in the hull? That's because we use these vision screens to see around with.”

He flicked on the screens. Thal and his companions were charmed to see the landscape outside portrayed on screens. Hoddan s.h.i.+fted the sensitivity point toward infrared, and details came out that would have been invisible to the naked eye.

”With the port closed,” said Hoddan, ”like this,” the port clanged shut and grumbled for half a second as the locking-dogs went home, ”we're all set for take-off. I need only get into the pilot's seat . . .” he did so, ”and throw on the fuel pump.” A tiny humming sounded. ”And we move when I advance this throttle!”

He pressed the firing-stud. There was a soul-shaking roar. There was a terrific pressure. The seven men from Don Loris' stronghold were pressed back in their seats with an overwhelming, irresistible pressure which held them absolutely helpless. Their mouths dropped open. Appalled protests tried to come out, but were pushed back by the seemingly ever-increasing acceleration.

The screens, showing the outside, displayed a great and confused tumult of smoke and fumes and dust to rearward. They showed only stars ahead. Those stars grew brighter and brighter, as the roar of the rockets diminished to a deafening sound. Suddenly the disk of the local sun appeared, rising above the horizon to the west. The s.p.a.ceboat, naturally, overtook it as it rose into an orbit headed east to west instead of the other way about.

Presently Hoddan turned off the fuel pump. He turned to look thoughtfully at the seven men. They were very pale. They all sat very still, because they could see in the vision-screens that a strange, mottled, again-sunlit surface flowed past them with an appalling velocity. They were very much afraid that they knew what it was. They did. It was the surface of the planet Darth.

”I'm glad you boys came along,” said Hoddan. ”We'll catch up with the fleet in a moment or two. The pirate fleet, you know! I'm very pleased with you. Not many groundlings would volunteer for s.p.a.ce-piracy, not even with the loot there is in it.”

Thal choked slightly, but no one else made a sound. No one even protested. Protests would have been no use. There were looks of anguish, but nothing else. Hoddan was the only one in the s.p.a.ceboat who had the least idea of how to get it down again. His pa.s.sengers had to go along for the ride, no matter where it led.

Numbly, they waited for what would befall.

Chapter 8.

Hoddan did not worry about his captive-followers. Soon he saw the weird s.p.a.cefleet.

The s.p.a.ceboat drew up alongside the gigantic hulk of the leader's s.h.i.+p. The seven Darthians were still numbed by their kidnaping and the situation in which they found themselves. They looked with dull eyes at the mountainous object they approached. It had actually been designed as a fighter-carrier of s.p.a.ce, intended to carry smaller craft. It must have been sold for sc.r.a.p a couple of hundred years since, and patched up for this emigration.

Hoddan waited for the huge door to open. It did. He headed into the opening, noticing as he did so that an object two or three times the size of the s.p.a.ceboat was already there. It cut down the room for maneuvering, but a thing once done is easier thereafter. Hoddan got the boat inside, and there was a very small sc.r.a.ping and the great door closed before the boat could drift out again.

Hoddan turned to his victim-followers once the s.p.a.ceboat was still.

”This,” he said in a manner which could only be described as one of smiling ferocity, ”this is a pirate s.h.i.+p, belonging to the pirate fleet we pa.s.sed through on the way here. It's manned by characters so murderous that their leaders don't dare land anywhere away from their home star-cl.u.s.ter, or all the galaxy would combine against them, to exterminate them or be exterminated. You've joined that fleet. You're going to get out of this boat and march over to that s.h.i.+p yonder. Then you're going to be s.p.a.ce-pirates under me.”

They quivered, but did not protest.

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