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Updated: May 12, 2025
You have to be locked up forever, Bron. You have to!" Hoddan said inadequately: "Oh." "I beg your forgiveness for having you arrested," said Derec in abysmal sorrow, "but I couldn't do anything but tell " Hoddan stared at his cell wall. Derec went away weeping. He was an admirable, honorable, not-too-bright young man who had been Hoddan's only friend. Hoddan stared blankly at nothing.
Presently his friend Derec came to see him in the tool-steel cell in which he had been placed. Derec looked white and stricken. "I'm in trouble because I'm your friend, Bron," he said miserably, "but I asked permission to explain things to you. After all, I caused your arrest. I urged you not to connect up your receptor without permission!"
Looking at Derec, Hoddan found himself able to understand why. Derec was the sort of friend one might make on Walden for lack of something better. He was well-meaning. He might be capable of splendid things even heroism. But he was horribly, terribly, appallingly civilized! "Well! Well!" said Hoddan kindly. "And what's on your mind, Derec?"
"What's that?" "Your machine killed him. He was outside the building at the foot of a tree. Your receptor killed him through a stone wall! It broke his bones and killed him.... Bron " Derec wrung his hands. "At some stage of power-drain your receptor makes deathrays!" Hoddan had had a good many shocks today.
"The ... the justice," said Derec tearfully, "didn't name it in court, because it would have to be published. But he's set your bond at fifty million credits! Nobody could raise that for you, Bron! And with the reason for it what it is, you'll never be able to get it reduced." "But anybody who looks at the plans of the receptor will know it can't make deathrays!" protested Hoddan blankly.
They piled him in one, and four cops climbed after him, keeping stun-pistols trained on him during the maneuver. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Derec climbing into another truck. The entire fleet sped away together. The whole affair had been taken with enormous seriousness by the police. Traffic was detoured from their route.
His expression was mournful and depressed. Other brawny retainers came uncertainly behind him. At a nod from Thal, two of them picked up Derec and carted him off toward the castle. "I guess he got it," said Thal dismally. He peered in. He shook his head. "Wounded, maybe, and crawled off to die." He peered in again and shook his head once more. "No sign of 'im."
Another cop was ripping the seams of his mattress to look inside. Somebody else was going carefully through a little pile of notes that Nedda had written, squinting at them as if he were afraid of seeing something he'd wish he hadn't. "What's happened?" asked Hoddan blankly. "What's this about?" Derec said miserably: "You killed someone, Bron. An innocent man!
I'll take it up with the court when I get back to Walden. No reason to lock you up any more, you know. You might even sell the Power Board on using your receptor, now!" "Thanks," said Hoddan politely. He added, "Don Loris has that Derec and a cop from Walden here now. Tell them that and they may go home." He accompanied the Lady Fani to the battlements. The stars were very bright. They strolled.
He said: "One of them, I think, is named Derec. He's to identify me so good money isn't wasted paying for the wrong man. The other man's police, isn't he?" He reflected a moment. "If I were you, I'd start talking at a million credits. You might get half that." He bit into the roll as Don Loris looked shocked.
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