Part 20 (2/2)
The bearded man said coldly:
”I can understand that. The hearts of the rich are hardened. The existence of the poor is a reproach to them.”
But Hoddan began suddenly to see real possibilities. This was not a direct move toward the realization of his personal ambitions. But on the other hand, it wasn't a movement away from them. Hoddan suddenly remembered an oration he'd heard his grandfather give many, many times in the past.
”Straight thinkin',” the old man had said obstinately, ”is a delusion.
You think things out clear and simple, and you can see yourself ruined and your family starving any day! But real things ain't simple! They ain't clear! Any time you try to figure things out so they're simple and straightforward, you're goin' against nature and you're going to get 'em mixed up! So when something happens and you're in a straightforward, hopeless fix--why, you go along with nature! Make it as complicated as you can, and the people who want you in trouble will get hopeless confused and you can get out!”
Hoddan adverted to his grandfather's wisdom--not making it the reason for doing what he could, but accepting that it not impossibly might apply. He saw one possibility right away. It looked fairly good. After a minute's examination it looked better. It was astonis.h.i.+ng how plausible--
”Hm-m-m,” he said. ”I have planned work of my own, as you may have guessed. I am here because of ... ah ... people on Walden. If I could make a quick trip to Walden my ... hm-m-m ... present position might let me help you. I cannot promise very much, but if I can borrow even the smallest of your s.h.i.+ps for the journey my s.p.a.ceboat can't make ...
why.... I may be able to do something. Much more than can be done on Darth!”
The bearded man looked at his companions.
”He seems frank,” he said forbiddingly, ”and we can lose nothing. We have stopped our journey and are in orbit. We can wait. But ... our people should not go to Walden. Fleshpots--”
”I can find a crew,” said Hoddan cheerfully. Inwardly he was tremendously relieved. ”If you say the word, I'll go down to ground and come back with them. Er ... I'll want a very small s.h.i.+p!”
”It will be,” said the old man. ”We thank you--”
”Get it inboard, here,” suggested Hoddan, ”so I can come inside as before, transfer my crew without s.p.a.cesuits, and leave my boat in your care until I come back.”
”It shall be done,” said the old man firmly. He added gravely: ”You must have had an excellent upbringing, young man, to be willing to live among the poverty-stricken people you describe, and to be willing to go so far to help strangers like ourselves.”
”Eh?” Then Hoddan said enigmatically, ”What lessons I shall apply to your affairs, I learned at the knee of my beloved grandfather.”
Of course, his grandfather was head of the most notorious gang of pirates on the disreputable planet Zan, but Hoddan found himself increasingly respecting the old gentleman as he gained experience of various worlds.
He went briskly back to his s.p.a.ceboat. On the way he made verbal arrangements for the enterprise he'd envisioned so swiftly. It was remarkable how two sets of troubles could provide suggestions for their joint alleviation. He actually saw possible achievement before him. Even in electronics!
By the time the cargo s.p.a.ce was again pumped empty and the great door opened to the vastness of s.p.a.ce, Hoddan had a very broad view of things.
He'd said that same day to Fani that a practical man can always make what he wants to do look like a sacrifice of his personal inclinations to others' welfare. He began to suspect, now, that the welfare of others can often coincide with one's own.
He needed some rather extensive changes in the relations.h.i.+p of the cosmos to himself. Walden was prepared to pay bribes for him. Don Loris felt it necessary to have him confined somewhere. There were a number of Darthian gentlemen who would a.s.suredly like to slaughter him if he wasn't kept out of their reach in some cozy dungeon. But up to now there had been not even a practical way to leave Darth, to act upon Walden, or even to change his status in the eyes of Darthians.
He backed out of the big s.h.i.+p and consulted the charts of the lifeboat.
They had been consulted before, of course, to locate the landing grid which did not answer calls. He found its position. He began to compare the chart with what he saw from out here in orbit above Darth. He identified a small ocean, with Darth's highest mountain chain just beyond its eastern limit. He identified a river-system, emptying into that sea. And here he began to get rid of his excess velocity, because the landing grid was not very far distant--some fifteen hundred or two thousand miles.
To a scientific pilot, his maneuvering from that time on would have been a complex task. The advantage of computation over astrogation by ear, however, is largely a matter of saving fuel. A perfectly computed course for landing will get down to ground with the use of the least number of centigrams of fuel possible. But fuel-efficient maneuvers are rarely time-efficient ones.
Hoddan hadn't the time or the data for computation. He swung the s.p.a.ceboat end for end, very judgmatically used rocket power to slow himself to a suitable east-west velocity, and at the last and proper instant applied full-power for deceleration and went down practically like a stone. One cannot really learn this. It has to be absorbed through the pores of one's skin. That was the way Hoddan had absorbed it, on Zan.
Within minutes, then, the stronghold of Don Loris was startled by a roaring mutter in the sky high overhead. Helmeted sentries on the battlements stared upward. The mutter rose to a howl, and the howl to the volume of thunder, and the thunder to a very great noise which made loose pebbles dance and quiver.
Then there was a speck of white cloudiness in the late afternoon sky. It grew swiftly in size, and a winking blue-white light appeared in its center. That light grew brighter--and the noise managed somehow to increase--and presently the ruddy sunlight was diluted by light from the rockets with considerably more blue in it. Secondary, pallid shadows appeared.
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