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Updated: September 14, 2025
He set his controls for a very gradual descent. He went out to where his followers made grisly zinging noises where they honed their knives. "We'll land," said Hoddan sternly, "in about three-quarters of an hour. You will go ashore and loot in parties of not less than three! Thal, you will be ship guard and receive the plunder and make sure that nobody from Walden gets on board.
Thal hesitated and was lost. The others obeyed. There were clatterings as the steel spearheads came to rest against the metal hull. Six of Don Loris' retainers followed Thal admiringly into the spaceboat's interior, to gaze at it and that Bron Hoddan who so recently had given three of them and nearly half a score of their fellows the chance to loot a nearby castle.
He marched up to the spaceboat's port. He knocked on it. There was no response. He knocked again. Hoddan opened the door. He nodded cheerfully to Thal. "'Afternoon, Thal! Glad to see you. I've been hoping you'd come over this way. Who's with you?" He peered through the semidarkness. "Some of the boys, eh? Come in!" He beckoned and said casually: "Lean your spears against the hull, there."
If you're conquered, you're in the clear?" Thal said miserably: "True. Too true! When a man is conquered he is conquered. His conqueror may plunder him, when the matter is finished, or he can spare him, when he may never fight his conqueror again." "Draw your knife," said Hoddan. "Come at me." Thal bewilderedly made the gesture. Hoddan leveled a stun-pistol and said: "Bzzz. You're conquered.
Men came out of it and took the horses. Hoddan dismounted, and it seemed to him that he creaked as loudly as the gate. Thal swaggered, displaying coins he had picked from the pockets of the men the stun-pistols had disabled. He said splendidly to Hoddan: "I go to announce your coming to Don Loris. These are his retainers. They will give you to drink."
Hoddan held up his hand for cease fire. Thal rode up beside him, not quite believing what he'd seen. "Wonderful!" he said shakily. "Wonderful! Don Loris will be pleased! He will give me gifts for my help to you! This is a great fight! We will be great men, after this!" "Then let's go and brag," said Hoddan. Thal was shocked. "You need me," he said commiseratingly.
It was barbarically hung with banners, but it was not exactly a cheery place. At the far end logs burned in a great fireplace. Don Loris sat in a carved chair beside it; wizened and white-bearded, in a fur-trimmed velvet robe, with a peevish expression on his face. "My chieftain," said Thal subduedly, "here is the engineer from Walden."
He would be in as bad a fix as ever if he came out of the boat. Twilight remained, a fairy half-light in which all things looked much more charming than they really were. And Don Loris, reduced to peevish sputtering by pure mystery, summoned Thal to him. It should be remembered that Don Loris knew nothing of the disappearance of the spaceboat from his neighbor's land.
Thal gazed at him abstractedly, not quite able to tear his mind and thoughts from this completely unimaginable mass of plunder. Then intelligence came into his eyes as much as could appear there. He grinned suddenly. He slapped his thigh. "Boys!" he gurgled. "He don't know what we got for him!" One man looked up. Two. They beamed. They got to their feet, dripping jewelry.
Thal came in with an armful of stun-pistols in various stages of discharge. Hoddan briskly broke the butt of one of his own and presented it to the terminals he'd used the day before. "He's not to touch anything, Thal," said Hoddan. To the red-headed man he observed, "I suspect that call's been coming in all night. Something was in orbit at sundown. You closed up shop and went home early, eh?"
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