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It was not ruined, but nobody else could use it without much labor finding out what he'd done. This was the sort of thing his grandfather on Zan would have advised. His grandfather's views were explicit. "Helping one's neighbor," he'd said frequently in Hoddan's hearing while Hoddan was a youth, "is all right as a two-way job. But maybe he's laying for you.
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 ship?
And of all the changes which offend people, changes which require them to think are most disliked. The high brass in the Power Board considered that everything was moving smoothly. There was no need to consider new devices. Hoddan's drawings and plans had simply never been bothered with, because there was no recognized need for them.
There were several horses tethered near it, and men who were plainly retainers of the nearby castle reposed in its shade. Hoddan reined in. "Here we part," he told Thal. "When we first met I enabled you to pick the pockets of a good many of your fellow-countrymen. I never asked for my split of the take. I expect you to remember me with affection." Thal clasped both of Hoddan's hands in his.
She walked with frigid dignity to a place beside her father. Hoddan's grandfather regarded her with a wicked, estimating gaze. "Not bad!" he said brightly. "Not bad at all!" Then he turned to Hoddan. "Those retainers coming?" "On the way," said Hoddan. He was not happy. The Lady Fani had passed her eyes over him exactly as if he did not exist. There was a murmurous noise.
Darthian gentlemen all, Hoddan's followers still gazed and floated over the plunder tucked everywhere. It crowded the living quarters. It threatened to interfere with the astrogation of the ship. Hoddan came out of the control room and was annoyed. "Break it up!" he snapped. "Pack that stuff away somewhere! What do you think this is?"
In seconds the sound of fighting came from a plainly different direction, as if a striking force of some sort went rushing through only indifferently defended corridors. It would not pass before Hoddan's door, but he growled to himself. On a feudal world, presumably one might expect anything.
If a ship could make the fields that landing grids did, it should be useful to pirates. Hoddan's present errand was neither pure nor simple piracy, but piracy it would be. The more he considered the obligation he'd taken on himself when he helped the emigrant-fleet, the more he doubted that he could lift it without long struggle. He was preparing to carry on that struggle for a long time.
"He likes your men," confided Hoddan's grandfather. "Used them twice. Says they make nice, well-behaved pirates. He's going to give them stun-pistols and cannon like the one that smashed your gate. Only men on Darth with guns like that! Seize the spaceport and put in power broadcast, and make sure nobody else gets stun-weapons. Run the country. Your men'll love it. Love that boy, too!
Hoddan's last three men came out of a corridor, wiping blood from various scratches and complaining plaintively that their pistols had shot empty and they'd had to defend themselves with knives. Three minutes later the cavalcade rode out of the castle gate and away into the darkness.
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