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Updated: May 13, 2025
It sped toward the liner and hung off its side, menacingly. The yacht from Darth moved steadily closer. Five miles. Two. "All out," said Hoddan regretfully. "We can't wait any longer!" A boat darted away from the liner. A second. A third and fourth and fifth. The last boat lingered desperately.
They sat unanimously very still, because they could see in the vision plates that a strange, mottled, again-sunlit surface flowed past them with an appalling velocity. They were very much afraid that they knew what it was. They did. It was the surface of the planet Darth, well below them. "I'm glad you boys came along," said Hoddan. "We'll catch up with the fleet in a moment or two.
But you surely don't expect to land all this fleet! Actually, we can't land any." The harsh voice said as grimly as before: "You come from the planet below us? Darth? Why is your ship so small? The smallest of ours is greater." "This is a lifeboat," said Hoddan pleasantly. "It's supposed to be carried on larger ships in case of emergency."
He'd have landed only two days before his pursuers could reach the planet. And on a roadless, primitive world like Darth he couldn't have gotten far from the spaceport. So his pursuers would have landed close by, also. But it must have taken considerable courage. When the landing grid failed to answer, it must have seemed likely that Hoddan's deathrays had been at work.
Then he'd sit back and enjoy life. Holding the spaceport, nobody else could get stun-weapons, and nobody could resist his retainers who had 'em. So he'd be top man on Darth. He'd have exactly as much power as he chose to seize. I think he cherished that little idea, and I've given advance publicity to stun-pistols. Now he hasn't a ghost of a chance of pulling it off.
"If you ever return," he said with mournful warmth, "I am your friend!" Hoddan nodded and rode out of the brushwood toward the spaceboat the lifeboat that had landed the emissaries from Walden. That it landed so close to the spaceport, of course, was no accident. It was known on Walden that Hoddan had taken space passage to Darth.
He's some sort of nobleman and has need of an electronic engineer. On Darth they're rare to nonexistent. But his letter wasn't too specific." "I remember," agreed Hoddan. "I'll look him up. Thanks." "Somehow," said the ambassador, "I cherish unreasonable hopes of you, Hoddan.
Thal went ponderously to one of the two owners' staterooms the yacht contained. At the door he turned, expansively. "She came to the port," he said exuberantly, "and said we were wearin' clothes like they wore on Darth. Did we come from there? I said we did. Then she said did we know somebody named Bron Hoddan on Darth? And I said we did and if she'd step inside the ship she'd meet you.
Hoddan relaxed. Then he tensed again. He had not been in a city since he stopped briefly in this on the way to Darth. The traffic was abominable. And he, who'd been in various pitched battles on Darth and had only lately captured a ship in space Hoddan grew apprehensive as his ground-car charged into the thick of hooting, rushing, squealing vehicles. When the car came to a stop he was relieved.
The man who'd gotten the infallibly certain clue went home too, disgruntled because he wasn't allowed a share in the credit for Hoddan's capture. But he was glad of it later. Inside the Embassy, Hoddan finished his breakfast with the ambassador. "I'm giving you," said the ambassador, "that letter to the character on Darth. I told you about him.
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