Part 25 (1/2)

”As soon as my s.h.i.+p's loaded,” Hoddan told the clerk, ”I'll want to get them out of jail.”

The clerk nodded. He brought salesmen of agricultural machinery.

Representatives of microfilm libraries. Manufacturers of generators, vision-tape instructors and allied lines. Hoddan bought, painstakingly.

Delivery was promised for the next day.

”Now,” said the clerk, ”about the investments you wish to make with the balance?”

”I'll want a reasonable sum in cash,” said Hoddan reflectively. ”But....

well ... I've been told that insurance is a fine, conservative business.

As I understand it, most insurance organizations are divided into divisions which are separately incorporated. There will be a life-insurance division, a casualty division, and so on. Is that right?

And one may invest in any of them separately?”

The clerk said impa.s.sively:

”I was given to understand, sir, that you are interested in risk-insurance. Perhaps especially risk-insurance covering piracy. I was given quotations on the risk-insurance divisions of all Krim companies.

Of course those are not very active stocks, but if there were a rumor of a pirate s.h.i.+p acting in this part of the galaxy, one might antic.i.p.ate--”

”I do,” said Hoddan. ”Let's see. ... My cargo brought so much....

Hm-m-m.... My purchases will come to so much. Hm-m-m.... My legal fees, of course.... I mentioned a sum in cash. Yes. This will be the balance, more or less, which you will put in the stocks you've named, but since I antic.i.p.ate activity in them. I'll want to leave some special instructions.”

He gave a detailed, thoughtful account of what he antic.i.p.ated might be found in news reports of later dates. The clerk noted it all down, impa.s.sively. Hoddan added instructions.

”Yes, sir,” said the clerk without intonation when he was through. ”If you will come to the office in the morning, sir, the papers will be drawn up and matters can be concluded. Your new cargo can hardly be delivered before then, and if I may say so, sir, your crew won't be ready. I'd estimate two hours of festivity for each man, and fourteen hours for recovery.”

”Thank you,” said Hoddan. ”I'll see you in the morning.”

He sealed up the s.h.i.+p when the lawyer's clerk departed. Then he felt lonely. He was the only living thing in the s.h.i.+p. His footsteps echoed hollowly. There was n.o.body to speak to. Not even anybody to threaten.

He'd done a lot of threatening lately.

He went forlornly to the cabin once occupied by the liner's former skipper. His loneliness increased. He began to feel those daunting self-doubts such as plague the most unselfish and conscientious people.

His actions to date, of course, did not trouble him. Today's actions were the ones which bothered his conscience. He felt that they were not quite adequate. The balance left in the lawyer's hands would not be nearly enough to cover a certain deficit which in justice he felt himself bound to make up. It had been his thought to make this enterprise self-liquidating--everybody concerned making a profit, including the owners of the s.h.i.+p and cargo he had pirated. But he wasn't sure.

He reflected that his grandfather would not have been disturbed about such a matter. That elderly pirate would have felt wholly at ease. It was his conviction that piracy was an essential part of the working of the galaxy's economic system. Hoddan, indeed, could remember him saying precisely, snipping off the ends of his words as he spoke:

”I tell y', piracy's what keeps the galaxy's business thriving!

Everybody knows business suffers when retail trade slacks down. It backs up the movement of inventories. They get too big. That backs up orders to the factories. They lay off men. And when men are laid off they don't have money to spend, so retail trade slacks off some more, and that backs up inventories some more, and that backs up orders to factories and makes unemployment and hurts retail trade again. It's a feed-back.

See?” It was Hoddan's grandfather's custom, at this point, to stare shrewdly at each of his listeners in turn.

”But suppose somebody pirates a s.h.i.+p? The owners don't lose. It's insured. They order another s.h.i.+p built right away. Men get hired to build it and they're paid money to spend in retail trade and that moves inventories and industry picks up. More'n that, more people insure against piracy. Insurance companies hire more clerks and bookkeepers.

They get more money for retail trade and to move inventories and keep factories going and get more people hired.... Y'see? It's piracy that keeps business in this galaxy goin'!”

Hoddan had known doubts about this, but it could not be entirely wrong.

He'd put a good part of the proceeds of his piracy in risk-insurance stocks, and he counted on them to make all his actions as benevolent to everybody concerned as his intentions had been, and were. But it might not be true enough. It might be less than ... well ... sufficiently true in a particular instance. And therefore--