Part 22 (1/2)

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, because 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 he'd taken them for, no matter where it led.

Numbly, they waited for what would befall.

VIII

Hoddan did not worry about his followers--captives--noting the obsolescence of the s.p.a.ce fleet into which they presently drifted.

Ancient hulks and impractical oddities did not seem antique or freakish to them. They had no standards in such matters. The planet Darth seemed slightly off to one side in s.p.a.ce, at some times, and at others it seemed underfoot while at others it looked directly overhead. At all times it moved visibly, while the s.p.a.ceboat and the s.h.i.+ps in orbit seemed merely to float in nearly fixed positions. When the dark part of Darth appeared to roll toward the s.p.a.ceboat again all the bright specks which were s.h.i.+ps about them winked out of sight and there were only faraway stars and a vast blackness off to one side like nothingness made visible.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The spearmen were wholly subdued when there was light once more and eccentric shapes around them. There was a ring-s.h.i.+p--the hull like a metal wheel with a huge tire, with pipe pa.s.sages from the tire part to the hub where the control room was located. It seemed unbelievable that such a relic could still exist, dating as it did from the period before gravity-fields could be put into s.p.a.cecraft. It would have provided a crazy sort of gravity by spinning as it limped from one place to another. Whoever had collected this fleet for the emigrants from Colin must have required only one thing--that there be a hull. Given something that would hold air, a Lawlor drive, a gravity-unit, and air apparatus would turn it into a s.h.i.+p that could go into overdrive and hence cross the galaxy at need. Those who bargained with the emigrants had been content to furnish nothing more than that.

But this could not be appreciated by Hoddan's involuntary crew. The s.p.a.ceboat drew up alongside the gigantic hulk which was the leader's.

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 to fight nonexistent wars.h.i.+ps under conditions which never came about. 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 companions--followers--victims, once the s.p.a.ceboat was still.

”This,” he said in a manner which could only be described as one of smiling ferocity, ”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 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.

”I'll try you for one voyage,” he told them. ”There will be plunder.

There will be pirate revels. If you serve faithfully and fight well, I'll return you to Don Loris' stronghold with your loot after the one voyage. If you don't--” He grinned mirthlessly at them--”out the air lock with you, to float forever between the stars. Understand?”

The last was pure savagery. They cringed. The outside-pressure meter went up to normal. Hoddan turned off the visionscreens, so ending any view of the interior of the hold. He opened the port and went out.

Sitting in something like continued paralysis in their seats, the seven spearmen of Darth heard his voice in conversation outside the boat. They could catch no words, but Hoddan's tone was strictly businesslike. He came back.

”All right,” he said shortly. ”Thal, march 'em over.”

Thal gulped. He loosened his seat belt. The enlistment of the seven in the pirate fleet was tacitly acknowledged. They were unarmed save for the conventional large knives at their belts.

”Frrrd, _harch!_” rasped Thal with a lump in his throat. ”Two, three, four. _Hup_ two, three, four. _Hup_--”

Seven men marched dismally out of the s.p.a.ceboat and down to the floor of the huge hold. Eyes front, chests out, throats dry, they marched to the larger but still small vessel that shared this hold compartment. They marched into that s.h.i.+p. Thal barked, ”_Halt!_” and they stopped. They waited.

Hoddan came in very matter-of-factly only moments later. He closed the entrance port, so sealing the s.h.i.+p. He nodded approvingly.

”You can break ranks now,” he said. ”There's food and such stuff around.

The s.h.i.+p's yours. But don't turn k.n.o.bs or push b.u.t.tons until you've asked me what for!”

He went forward, and a door closed behind him.

He looked at the control board, and could have done with a little information himself. When the s.h.i.+p was built, generations ago, there'd been controls installed which would be quite useless now. When the present working instruments were installed, it had been done so hastily that the wires and relays behind them were not concealed, and it was these that gave him the clues to understand them.