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"All right," he said shortly. "Thal, march 'em over." Thal gulped. He loosened his seat belt. The enlistment of the seven in the pirate fleet was tacitly acknowledged. They were unarmed save for the conventional large knives at their belts. "Frrrd, harch!" rasped Thal with a lump in his throat. "Two, three, four. Hup two, three, four. Hup "
But he made out the spaceport and the shadow of the landing grid, and in the very center of that grid there was something silvery which cast a shadow of its own. A ship. A liner. There was a tap on the control-room door. Thal. "Anything happening?" he asked uneasily. "I just sighted the ship we're going to take," said Hoddan. Thal looked unhappy. He withdrew.
Now you must either fight the Lord Ghek within a night and day or be disgraced!" "I doubt," said Hoddan tiredly, "that the obligations of Darthian gentility apply to the grandson of a pirate or an escap.... To me." He'd been about to say an escaped criminal from Walden, but caught himself in time. "But they do apply!" said Thal, shocked. "A man who has been disgraced has no rights!
There was envy among the men who had stayed behind. There were respectfully admiring looks cast upon Hoddan. He had displayed, in furnishing opportunities for plunder, the most-admired quality a leader of feudal fighting men could show. The Lady Fani beamed as she and Thal and Hoddan, all very dusty and travel-stained, presented themselves to her father in the castle's great hall.
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."
He tucked away as many as he could conveniently carry on his person. He handed the rest to Thal. He went competently to the pulsing call-signal. He put headphones to his ears. He listened. His expression became extremely strange, as if he did not quite understand nor wholly believe what he heard. "Odd," he said mildly. He considered for a moment or two.
"Of course I do!" said Hoddan. "Then why aren't you angry?" "I'm hungry," said Hoddan. "And you take it for granted that I want to be properly grateful," said Fani in one breath, "and yet you haven't shown the least appreciation of my getting two horses over in that patch of woodland yonder" she pointed and Hoddan nodded "and having Thal there with orders to serve you faithfully "
Seven men marched dismally out of the spaceboat and down to the floor of the huge hold. Eyes front, chests out, throats dry, they marched to the larger but still small vessel that shared this hold compartment. They marched into that ship. Thal barked, "Halt!" and they stopped. They waited. Hoddan came in very matter-of-factly only moments later. He closed the entrance port, so sealing the ship.
So the chieftain over there accepted a present of money from them, and gave them horses as a return gift, and sent them here with a guard. Thal talked to the guards. The men from Walden have promised huge gifts of money if they help take you back to the thing that uses rockets." "I suspect," said Hoddan, "that it would be a spaceboat a lifeboat. Hm-m-m.... Yes.
It is the countenance of an accusing archangel, who summons us to judgment. In the valley she wears the countenance of a Virgin Mother, looking at us with tearful eyes, and a face of pity and love! But yesterday Flemming had come up the valley of the Saint Gothard Pass, through Amsteg, where the Kerstelenbach comes dashing down the Maderaner Thal, from its snowy cradle overhead.
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