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There was also the fact that as the emigrant fleet went on, some fifty more planets in all would require the attention of pirate ships from time to time, or there would be disillusionment and injury to the economic system. "Organization," said his grandfather, "does wonders for a tender conscience like you've got. What else?" Hoddan explained the matter of his Darthian crew.
I am troubled by Bron Hoddan. So what could I do? She said the same thing to each of us, and each of us had to say that he would fight for her. To each she said that she was troubled by you. Then Don Loris sent us out to look at your body. And now we are disgraced!" Hoddan's mouth opened and closed and opened again. He remembered this item of Darthian etiquette.
He found Thal wearing an apron and an embittered expression. He ceased to wield a mop as Hoddan halted before him. "I'm going ashore," said Hoddan crisply. "You're in charge until I get back." "In charge of what?" demanded Thal bitterly. "Of a bunch of male housemaids! I run a mop! And me a Darthian gentleman! I thought I was being a pirate! What do I do? I scrub floors! I wash paint!
I stencil cases in cargo holds! I paint over names and put others in their places! Me, a Darthian gentleman!" "No," said Hoddan. "A pirate. If I don't get back, you and the others can't work this ship, and presently the police of Krim will ask why. They'll recheck my careful forgeries, and you'll all be hung for piracy. So don't let anybody in. Don't talk to anybody. If you do pfft!"
Don Loris felt it necessary to have him confined somewhere. There were a number of Darthian gentlemen who would assuredly like to slaughter him if he wasn't kept out of their reach in some cozy dungeon. But up to now there had been not even a practical way to leave Darth, to act upon Walden, or even to change his status in the eyes of Darthians.
And there were innumerable castles on Darth, with quite as many shiftly noblemen, and certainly no fewer plunder-hungry Darthian gentlemen hanging around them. But Don Loris' castle had one real advantage and one which existed only in Hoddan's mind. Don Loris' retainers did know that Hoddan had led their companions to loot. Large loot.
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 piratical raids, which called for pirate 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.
Then, abruptly, the rockets cut off, and something dark plunged downward, and the rockets flamed again, and a vast mass of steam arose from scorched ground and the spaceboat lay in a circle of wildly smoking, carbonized Darthian soil. The return of tranquility after so much of tumult was startling. Absolutely nothing happened.
Commentators, adding informed comment to delectably thrilling pictures, observed that the pirates wore Darthian costume, but observed crisply that this did not mean that Darth as an entity had turned pirate, but only that some of her citizens had joined the pirate fleet. The camera crews then asked apologetically if they would permit themselves to be broadcast in the act of looting.
She gazed about her in purest despairing horror. She did not see Hoddan for a moment. Her eyes were filled with the brawny, mustachioed piratical figures who were Darthian gentlemen and who grinned at her in what she took for evil gloating. She wailed. Hoddan swallowed, with much difficulty, and said sickly: "It's all right, Nedda. It was a mistake. Nothing will happen to you.
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