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Updated: June 26, 2025
Thal vanished and came back with ointments for Hoddan's blisters, but no food. He explained again that food given to Hoddan would make it disgraceful to cut his throat. And Hoddan swore poisonously, but stripped off his garments and smeared himself lavishly where he had lost skin. The ointment stung like fire, and he presently lay awake in a sort of dreary fury. And he was ravenous!
And another voice still said formally: "Reporting group five, but four ships are staying behind with tanker Toya, which is having stabilizer trouble...." Hoddan's eyes opened very wide. He turned down the sound while he tried to think. But there wasn't anything to think.
With a built-in tool-steel cell to keep me from telling anybody how to make " He stopped and grimaced. "If they had time to build one in, that's certain! They'd take me to the spaceport in a sound-proofed can and I'd be hauled back to Walden in it. Fine!" "What are you going to do?" asked Fani anxiously. Hoddan's ideas were not clear. But Darth was not a healthy place for him.
Right after his previous visit, news had come of the daring piratical raid which captured a ship off Walden. This was the liner Hoddan'd brought in to Krim. All merchants and ship owners immediately insured all vessels and goods in space transit at much higher valuations. The risk-insurance stocks bought on Hoddan's account had multiplied in value.
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, to require the attention of his weapons. 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.
Nobody could enlighten him. But the atmosphere improved remarkably. Since each theoretic fight had taken place in private, nobody was obliged to admit a compromise with etiquette. Hoddan's followers ceased to brood. They developed huge appetites. Those who had been aground on Krim told zestfully of the monstrous hangovers they'd acquired there.
There were extra horses, with loads. There were cheerful shoutings. His grandfather came into Hoddan's ship. "Brought back some company," he said. "Spaceliner landed while we were there. Friend of yours on it. Congenial fellow, Bron. Thinks well of you, too!" A large figure followed his grandfather in. A large figure with snow-white hair. The amiable and relaxed Interstellar Ambassador to Walden.
It was a gigantic traffic tangle, and Hoddan's boat drifted toward and into it. He'd counted a hundred ships long before. His count now passed two hundred and continued. Before he gave up he'd numbered two hundred forty-seven space-oddities swarming to make a whirling band a ring around the planet Darth. He was fairly sure that he knew what they were, now.
Don Loris opened his mouth fretfully. Hoddan's grandfather forestalled him. "You've heard about that big pirate fleet that's been floating around these parts? Eh? It's my grandson's. I run a squadron of it for him. Wonderful boy, my grandson! Bloodthirsty crews on those ships, but they love that boy!" "Very " Don Loris caught his breath. "Very interesting."
Don Loris might affect to consider them disgraced because they hadn't cut his throat. Hoddan had to take care of the matter. And there was Nedda.... Fani came into the story somehow, too. Hoddan's grandfather grunted, at the end. "We'll go down and talk to this Don Loris," he said pugnaciously. "I've dealt with his kind before.
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