The Pirates of Zan, page 14
“Calling the leader’s ship,” he said crisply. “Calling the leader’s ship! This is Brom Hoddan, reporting back from Walden with a ship and machinery contributed for your use!”
The harsh voice of the bearded old leader of the emigrants seemed somehow broken when he replied. He called down blessings on Hoddan, who could use them. Then there was the matter of getting the emigrants on board the new ship. They didn’t know how to use the lifeboat tubes. Hoddan had to demonstrate. But shortly after, there were twenty, thirty, fifty of the folk from Colin, feverishly searching the ship and incredulously reporting what they found.
“It’s impossible!” said the old man. “It’s impossible!”
“I wouldn’t say that,” said Hoddan. “It’s unlikely, but it’s happened. I’m only afraid it’s not enough.”
“It is many times more than what we hoped,” said the old man humbly. “Only—” he stopped. “We are more grateful than we can say.”
Hoddan took a deep breath.
“I’d like to take my crew back home,” he explained. “And come back. Perhaps I can be useful explaining things. And I’d like to ask a great favor of you — for my own work.”
“But naturally,” said the old man. “Of course. We will await your return.”
Hoddan was relieved. There seemed to be a strange limitation to the happiness of the emigrants. They were passionately rejoiceful over the agricultural machinery. But they seemed dutifully rather than truly happy over the microfilm library. The vision-tape instructors were the objects of polite comment only. Hoddan felt a vague discomfort. There seemed to be a sort of secret desperation in the atmosphere, which they would not admit or mention. But he was coming back. Of course.
He brought the spaceboat over to the new liner. He hooked onto a lifeboat blister and his seven Darthians crawled through the lifeboat tube. Hoddan pulled away quickly before somebody thought to ask why there were no lifeboats in the places so plainly made for them.
He headed downward when the landmarks on Darth’s surface told him that Don Loris’ castle would shortly come over the horizon. He was just touching atmosphere when it did. The boat’s tanks had been refilled, and he burned fuel recklessly to make a dramatic landing within a hundred yards of the battlements where Fani had once thoughtfully had a coil of rope ready for him.
Heads peered at the lifeboat over those same battlements now, but the gate was closed. It stayed closed. There was somehow an atmosphere of suspicion amounting to enmity. Hoddan felt unwelcome.
“All right, boys,” he said resignedly. “Out with you and to the castle. Here’s your loot from the voyage.” He counted out for each of them rather more actual cash than any of them really believed in. “And I want you to take this box to Don Loris. It’s a gift from me. And I want to consult with him about cooperation between the two of us in some plans I have. Ask if I may come and talk to him.”
His seven former spearmen tumbled out. They marched gleefully to the castle gate. Hoddan saw them make a tantalizing display of the large sums of cash to the watchers above them. Thai held up the box for Don Loris. It was the box the lawyer’s clerk had turned over to him, with a tidy sum in cash in it. The sum was partly depleted now. Hoddan had paid off his involuntary crew with it. But there was still more in it than Don Loris would have gotten from Walden for selling him out.
The castle gate opened, as if grudgingly. The seven went in.
Time passed. Much time. Hoddan went over the arguments he meant to use on Don Loris. He needed to make up a very great sum, and it could be done thus-and-so, but thus-and-so required occasional pirate raids, which called for crews, and if Don Loris would encourage his retainers… He could have gone to another Darthian chieftain, of course, but he knew what kind of scoundrel Don Loris was. He’d have to find out about another man.
Nearly an hour elapsed before the castle gate opened again. Two files of spearmen marched out. There were eight men with a sergeant in command. Hoddan did not recognize any of them. They came to the spaceboat. The sergeant formally presented an official message. Don Loris would admit Bron Hoddan to his presence, to hear what he had to say.
Hoddan felt excessively uncomfortable. Waiting, he’d thought about that secret despair in the emigrant fleet. He worried about it. He was concerned because Don Loris had not welcomed him with cordiality, now that he’d brought back his retainers in good working order. In a sudden gloomy premonition, he checked his stun-pistols. They needed charging. He managed it from the lifeboat unit.
He went with foreboding toward the castle with the eight spearmen surrounding him as cops had once surrounded him on Walden. He did not like to be reminded of it. He frowned to himself as he went in the castle gate, and along a long stone passage, and up stone stairs into the great hall of state. Don Loris, as once before, sat peevishly by the huge fireplace. This time he was almost inside it, with its hood and mantel actually over his head. The Lady Fani sat there with him.
Don Loris seemed to put aside his peevishness only a little to greet Hoddan.
“My dear fellow,” he said complainingly, “I don’t like to welcome you with reproaches, but do you know that when you absconded with that spaceboat, you made a mortal enemy for me? It’s a fact! My neighbor, on whose land the boat descended, was deeply hurt. He considered it his property. He had summoned his retainers for a fight over it when I heard of his resentment and partly soothed him with apologies and presents. But he still considers that I should return it to him, whenever you appear here with it!”
“Oh,” said Hoddan. “That’s too bad.”
Things looked ominous. The Lady Fani looked at him strangely. As if she were trying to tell him something without speaking. She looked as if she had wept lately.
“To be sure,” said Don Loris fretfully, “to be sure you gave me a very pretty present just now. But my retainers tell me that you came back with a ship. A very fine ship. What became of it? The landing-grid has been repaired at last and you could have landed there. What happened to it?”
“I gave it away,” said Hoddan. He saw what Fani was trying to tell him. Leading into the great hall” was a corridor filled with spearmen. His tone turned sardonic. “I gave it to a poor old man.”
Don Loris shook his head.
“That’s not right, Hoddan! That fleet overhead, now. If they are pirates and want some of my men for crews, they should come to me! I don’t take kindly to’ the idea of your kidnaping my men and carrying them off on piratical excursions! They must be profitable! But on the other hand, if you can afford to give me presents like this, and be so lavish with my retainers — why maybe…”
Hoddan grimaced.
“I came to arrange a deal on that order,” he observed.
“I don’t think I like it,” said Don Loris peevishly. “I prefer to deal with people direct. I’ll arrange about the landing-grid, and for a regular recruiting service which I will conduct, of course. But you — you are irresponsible! I wish you well, but when you carry my men off for pirates, and make my neighbors into my enemies, and infect my daughter with strange notions and the government of a friendly planet asks me in so many words not to shelter you any longer — why, that’s the end, Hoddan. So with great regret…”
“The regret is mine,” said Hoddan. Thoughtfully, he aimed a stun-pistol at a slowly opening corridor door. He pulled the trigger. Yells followed its humming, because not everybody it hit was knocked out. Nor did it hit everybody in the corridor. Men came surging out of one door, and then two.
Then a spear went past Hoddan’s face and missed him only by inches. It buried its point in the floor. A whirling knife spun past his nose. He glanced up. There were balconies all around the great hall, and men popped up from behind the railings and threw things at him. They popped down out of sight instantly. There was no rhythm involved. He could not anticipate their rising, nor shoot them through the balcony-front. And more men infiltrated the hall, getting behind heavy chairs and tables. More spears and knives flew.
“Bron!” cried the Lady Fani, throatily.
He thought she had an exit for him. He sprang to her side.
“I — I didn’t want you to come,” she wept.
There was a singular pause in the clangings and clashings of weapons on the floor. Then one man popped up and hurled a knife. The clang of its fall was a very lonely one. Don Loris fairly howled at him.
“Idiot! Think of the Lady Fani!”
The Lady Fani suddenly smiled tremulously.
“Wonderful!” she said. “They don’t dare do anything while you’re as close to me as this!”
“Do you suppose,” asked Hoddan, “I could count on that?”
“I’m certain of it!” said Fani. “And I think you’d better.”
“Then, excuse me,” said Hoddan with great politeness.
He swung her up and over his shoulder. With a stun-pistol in his free hand he headed down the hall.
“Outside,” she said zestfully, “get out the side door and turn left, and nobody can jump down on your neck. Then left again to the gate.”
He obeyed. Now and again he got in a pot-shot with his pistol. Don Loris had turned the castle into a very pretty trap. The Lady Fani said plaintively:
“This is terribly undignified, and I can’t see where we’re going. Where are we now?”
“Almost at the gate,” panted Hoddan. “At it, now.” He swung out of the massive entrance to Don Loris’ stronghold. “I’ll put you down now.”
“I wouldn’t,” said the Lady Fani. “I think you’d better make for the spaceboat exactly as we are.”
Again Hoddan obeyed, racing across the open ground. Howls of fury followed him. It was evidently the opinion of the castle that the Lady Fani was to be abducted in the place of the seven returned spearmen.
Hoddan, breathing hard, reached the spaceboat. He put Fani down and said anxiously:
“You’re all right? I’m very much in your debt! I was in a spot!” Then he nodded toward the castle. “They’re upset, aren’t they? They must think I mean to kidnap you.”
The Lady Fani beamed.
“It would be terrible if you did,” she said hopefully. “I couldn’t do a thing to stop you! And a successful public abduction’s a legal marriage, on Darth! Wouldn’t it be terrible?”
Hoddan mopped his face and patted her reassuringly on the shoulder.
“Don’t worry!” he said warmly. “You just got me out of an awful fix! You’re my friend! And anyhow I’m going to marry a girl on Walden, named Nedda. Goodbye, Fani! Keep clear of the rocket blast.”
He went into the boat’s port, turned to smile paternally back at her, and shut the port behind him. Seconds later the spaceboat took off. It left behind clouds of rocket smoke.
And, though Hoddan hadn’t the faintest idea of it, he had left behind the maddest girl in several solar systems.
CHAPTER TEN
IT is THE custom of all men, everywhere, to be obtuse where women are concerned: Hoddan went skyward in the space-boat with feelings of warm gratitude toward the Lady Fani. He had not the slightest inkling that she had anything but the friendliest of feelings toward him.
As Hoddan drove on up and up, the sky became deep purple and then black velvet set with flecks of fire. He was relieved by the welcome he’d received earlier today from the emigrants, but he remained slightly puzzled by a very faint impression of desperation remaining. He felt very virtuous on the whole, however, and his plans for the future were specific. He’d already composed a letter to his grandfather, which he’d ask the emigrant fleet to deliver. He had another letter in mind, a form letter — practically a public-relations circular — which he hoped to whip into shape before the emigrants got too anxious to be on their way. He considered that he needed to earn a little more of their gratitude so he could make everything come out even; everybody being satisfied and happy but himself.
For himself he anticipated only the deep satisfaction of accomplishment. He’d wanted to do great things since he was a small boy. He’d gone to Walden in the hope of achievement. There, of course, he failed because in a free economy, industrialists consider that freedom is the privilege of being stupid without penalty. But Hoddan now believed himself in the fascinating situation of having knowledge and abilities which were needed by other people.
It was only when he’d made contact with the fleet, and was in the act of maneuvering toward a boat-blister on the liner he’d brought back, that doubts again assailed him. He had done a few things — accomplished little. He’d devised a broadcast-power receptor and a microwave projector and he’d turned a Lawlor drive into a ball-lightning projector and worked out a few little things like that. But the first had been invented before by somebody in the Cetis cluster, and the second could have been made by anybody and the third was standard practice on Zan. He still had to do something significant.
When he made fast to the liner and crawled through the tube to its hull, he was in a state of doubt which passed very well for modesty.
The bearded old man received him in the skipper’s quarters, which Hoddan himself had occupied for a few days. He looked very weary. He seemed to have aged, in hours.
“We grow more astounded by the minute,” he told Hoddan heavily, “by what you have brought us. Ten shiploads like this and we would be better equipped than we believed ourselves in the beginning. It looks as if some thousands of us will now be able to survive our colonization of the planet Thetis.”
Hoddan gaped at him. The old man put his hand on Hoddan’s shoulder.
“We are grateful,” he said with a pathetic attempt at warmth. “Please do not doubt that! It is only that… that… I cannot help wishing very desperately that… that instead of unfamiliar tools for metal-working and machines with tapes which show pictures — I wish that even one more jungle plow had been included!”
Hoddan’s jaw dropped. The people of Colin wanted planet-subduing machinery. They wanted it so badly that they did not want anything else. They could not even see that anything else had any value at all. Most of them could only look forward to starvation when the ships’ supplies were exhausted, because not enough ground could be broken and cultivated early enough to grow food enough in time.
“Would it,” asked the old man desperately, “would it be possible to exchange these useless machines for others that will be useful?”
“Let me talk to your mechanics, sir,” said Hoddan unhappily. “Maybe something can be done.”
He restrained himself from tearing his hair as he went to where the mechanics of the fleet looked over their new equipment He’d come up to the fleet again to gloat and do great things for people who needed him and knew it. But he faced the hopelessness of people to whom his utmost effort seemed mockery because it was so far from being enough.
He gathered together the men who’d tried to keep the fleet’s ships in working order during their flight. They were competent men, of course. They were resolute. But now they had given up hope. Hoddan began to lecture them. They needed machines. He hadn’t brought the machines they wanted, perhaps, but he’d brought the machines to make them with. Here were automatic shapers, turret lathes, dicers. He’d brought these because they already had the raw material — the ships themselves! Even some of the junk they carried in crates was good metal, merely worn out in its present form. They could make anything they needed with what he’d brought them. For example, he’d show them how to make a lumber saw.
He showed them how to make the slender, rapier-like revolving tool with which a man stabbed a tree and cut outward with the speed of a hot knife cutting butter. And one could mount it so, and cut out planks and beams for temporary bridges and such constructions.
They watched, baffled. They gave no sign of hope. They did not want lumber saws. They wanted jungle-breaking machinery.
“I’ve brought you everything!” he insisted. “You’ve got a civilization, compact, on this ship! You’ve got life instead of starvation! Look at this. I’ll make a water pump to irrigate your fields!”
Before their eyes he turned out an irrigation pump on an automatic shaper. He showed them that the shaper went on, by itself, making other pumps without further instructions.
The mechanics stirred uneasily. They had watched without comprehension. Now they listened without enthusiasm. Their eyes were like those of children who watch marvels without comprehension.
He made a sledge whose runners slid on the air between themselves and whatever object would otherwise have touched them. It was practically frictionless. He made a machine to make nails. He made a power-hammer which hummed and pushed nails into any object that needed to be nailed. He made-He stopped abruptly, and sat down with his head in his hands. The people of the fleet faced so overwhelming a catastrophe that they could not see through it. They could only experience it. As their leader would have been unable to answer questions about the fleet’s predicament before he’d poured out the tale in the form it had taken in his mind, now these mechanics were unable to see ahead. They were paralyzed by the completeness of the disaster before them. They could live until the supplies of the fleet gave out. They could not grow fresh supplies without jungle-breaking machinery. They had to have jungle-breaking machinery. They could not imagine wanting anything more or less than jungle-breaking machinery.
Hoddan raised his head. The mechanics looked dully at him.
“You men do maintenance?” he asked. “You repair things when they wear out on the ship? Have you run out of some of the materials you need for repairs?”
After a long time a tired-looking man said slowly:
“On the ship I come from, we’re having trouble. Our hydroponic garden keeps the air fresh, of course. But the water-circulation pipes are gone. Rusted through. We haven’t got any pipe to fix them with. We have to keep the water moving with buckets.”
