Part 22 (2/2)

The s.p.a.ce ark's door opened. Hoddan backed his s.h.i.+p out. Its rockets had surprising power. He reflected that the Lawlor drive wouldn't have been designed for this present s.h.i.+p, either. There'd probably been a quant.i.ty order for so many Lawlor drives, and they'd been installed on whatever needed a modern drive-system, which was every s.h.i.+p in the fleet. But since this was one of the smallest craft in the lot, with its low ma.s.s it should be fast.

”We'll see,” he said to n.o.body in particular.

Out in emptiness, but naturally sharing the orbit of the s.h.i.+p from which it had just come, Hoddan tried it out tentatively. He got the feel of it. Then as a matter of simple, rule-of-thumb astrogation, he got from a low orbit to a five-diameter height where the Lawlor drive would take hold by mere touches of rocket power. It was simply a matter of stretching the orbit to extreme eccentricity as all the s.h.i.+ps went round the planet. After the fourth go round he was fully five diameters out at aphelion. He touched the Lawlor drive b.u.t.ton and everybody had that very peculiar disturbance of all their senses which accompanies going into overdrive. The small craft sped through emptiness at a high multiple of the speed of light.

Hoddan's knowledge of astrogation was strictly practical. He went over his s.h.i.+p. From a look at it outside he'd guessed that it once had been a yacht. Various touches inside verified that idea. There were two staterooms. All the hull-s.p.a.ce was for living and supplies. None was for cargo. He nodded. There was a faint mustiness about it. But there'd been a time when it was some rich man's pride.

He went back to the control room to make an estimate. From the pilot's seat one could see a speck of brightness directly ahead. Infinitesimal dots of brightness appeared, grew swiftly brighter and then darted outward. As they darted they disappeared because their motion became too swift to follow. There were, of course, methods of measuring this phenomenon so that one could get an accurate measure of one's speed in overdrive. Hoddan had no instrument for the purpose. But he had the feel of things. This was a very fast s.h.i.+p indeed, at full Lawlor thrust.

Presently he went out to the central cabin. His followers had found provisions. There were novelties--hydroponic fruit, for instance--and they'd gloomily stuffed themselves. They were almost resigned, now.

Memory of the loot he'd led other men to at Ghek's castle inclined them to be hopeful. But they looked uneasy when he stopped where they were gathered.

”Well?” he said sharply.

Thal swallowed.

”We have been companions, Bron Hoddan,” he said unhappily. ”We fought together in great battles, two against fifty, and we plundered the slain.”

”True enough,” agreed Hoddan. If Thal wanted to edit his memories of the fighting at the s.p.a.ceport, that was all right with him. ”Now we're headed for something much better.”

”But what?” asked Thal miserably. ”Here we are high above our native world--”

”Oh, no!” said Hoddan. ”You couldn't even pick out its sun, from where we are now!”

Thal gulped.

”I ... do not understand what you want with us,” he protested. ”We are not experienced in s.p.a.ce! We are simple men--”

”You're pirates now,” Hoddan told him with a sort of genial bloodthirstiness. ”You'll do what I tell you until we fight. Then you'll fight well or die. That's all you need to know!”

He left them. When men are to be led it is rarely wise to discuss policy or tactics with them. Most men work best when they know only what is expected of them. Then they can't get confused and they do not get ideas of how to do things better.

Hoddan inspected the yacht more carefully. There were still traces of decorative features which had nothing to do with s.p.a.ce-worthiness. But the mere antiquity of the s.h.i.+p made Hoddan hunt more carefully. He found a small compartment packed solidly with supplies. A supply-cabinet did not belong where it was. He hauled out stuff to make sure. It was ... it had been ... a machine shop in miniature. In the early days, before s.p.a.cephones were long-range devices, a yacht or a s.h.i.+p that went beyond orbital distance was strictly on its own. If there were a breakdown, it was strictly private. It had to repair itself or else. So all early s.p.a.cecraft carried amazingly complete equipment for repairs. Only liners are equipped that way in recent generations, and it is almost unheard-of for their tool shops to be used.

But there was the remnant of a shop on the yacht that Hoddan had in hand for his errand to Walden. He'd told the emigrant leaders that he went to ask for charity. He'd just a.s.sured his followers that their journey was for piracy. Now--

He began to empty the cubbyhole of all the items that had been packed into it for storage. It had been very ingenious, this miniature repair shop. The lathe was built in with strength-members of the walls as part of its structure. The drill press was recessed. The welding apparatus had its coils and condensers under the floor. The briefest of examinations showed the condensers to be in bad shape, and the coils might be hopeless. But there was good material used in the old days.

Hoddan began to have quite unreasonable hopes.

He went back to the control room to meditate.

He'd had a reasonably sound plan of action for the pirating of a s.p.a.ce-liner, even though he had no weapons mounted on the s.h.i.+p nor anything more deadly than stun-pistols for his reluctant crew. But he considered it likely that he could make the same sort of landing with this yacht that he'd already done with the s.p.a.ceboat. Which should be enough.

If he waited off Walden until a liner went down to the planet's great s.p.a.ceport, he could try it. He would go into a close orbit around Walden which would bring him, very low, over the landing grid within an hour or so of the liner's landing. He'd turn the yacht end for end and apply full rocket power for deceleration. The yacht would drop like a stone into the landing grid. Everything would happen too quickly for the grid crew to think of clapping a force field on it, or for them to manage it if they tried. He'd be aground before they realized it.

The rest was simply fast action. Hoddan and seven Darthians, stun-pistols humming, would tumble out of the yacht and dash for the control room of the grid. Hoddan would smash the controls. Then they'd rush the landed liner, seize it, shoot down anybody who tried to oppose them, and seal up the s.h.i.+p.

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