Again time passed. In one of the most remote galaxies a super-nova flamed, and on a rocky, barren world a small living thing squirmed experimentally — to mankind the one event was just as important as the other.
But presently the liner from Walden via Krim appeared on Darth as the tiniest of shimmering pearly specks against the blue. To the north and east and west of the spaceport, rugged mountains rose steeply. Patches of snow showed here and there, and naked rock reared boldly in spurs and precipices. But there were trees on all the lower slopes, and there was not really a timber line.
The spaceliner increased in size, descending toward the landing-grid. The grid itself was a monstrous lattice of steel, a half-mile high and enclosing a circle not less in diameter. It filled the larger part of the level valley floor, and horned duryas and what Hoddan later learned were horses grazed in it. The animals paid no attention to the deep humming noise the grid made in its operation.
The ship seemed the size of a pea. Presently it was the size of an apple. Then it was the size of a basketball, and then it swelled enormously and put out spidery metal legs with large splay metal feet on which it alighted and settled gently to the ground. The humming stopped.
There were shoutings. Whips cracked. Straining, horn-tossing duryas heaved and dragged something, very deliberately, out from between warehouses and under the arches of the grid. There were two dozen of the duryas, and despite the shouts and whip cracking they moved with a stubborn slowness. It took a long time for the object with the big clumsy wheels to reach a spot below the spacecraft. Then it took longer, seemingly, for brakes to be set on each wheel, and then for the draft animals to be arranged to pull as two teams against each other.
More shoutings and whip-crackings. A long, slanting, ladder-like arm rose. It teetered, and a man with a vivid purple cloak rose with it at its very end. The ship’s airlock opened and a crewman threw a rope. The purple-cloaked man caught it and made it fast. From somewhere inside the ship, the line was hauled in. The end of the landing ramp touched the sill of the airlock. Somebody made these fast and the purple-cloaked man triumphantly entered the ship.
There was a pause. Men loaded carts with cargo to be sent to other remote planets. In the airlock, Bron Hoddan stepped to the unloading-ramp and descended to the ground. He was the only passenger. He had barely reached a firm footing when objects followed him. His own shipbag and then parcels, bales, boxes, and other such nondescript items of freight. For a mere five minutes the flow of freight continued. Darth was not an important center of trade.
Hoddan stared incredulously at the town outside one side of the grid. It was only a town, and was almost a village. Its houses had steep, gabled roofs, of which some seemed to be tile and others thatch. Its buildings leaned over the narrow streets, which were unpaved. They looked like mud. And there was not a power-driven ground-vehicle anywhere in sight, nor anything man-made in the air.
Great carts trailed out to the unloading-belt. They dumped bales of skins and ingots of metal, and more bales and more ingots. Those objects rode up to the airlock and vanished. Hoddan was ignored. He felt that without great care he might be crowded back into the reversed loading-belt and be carried back into the ship.
The loading process ended. The man with the purple cloak, who’d ridden the teetering ladder up, reappeared and came striding grandly down to ground. Somebody cast off, above. Ropes writhed, fell and dangled. The ship’s airlock door closed.
There was a vast humming sound. The ship lifted sedately. It seemed to hover momentarily over the group of duryas and humans in the center of the grid’s enclosure. But it was hovering. It shrank. It was rising in an absolutely vertical line. It dwindled to the size of a basketball and then an apple. Then to the size of a pea. And then that pea diminished until the spaceship from Krim, Walden, Cetis, Rigel and the Nearer Rim had become the size of a dust mote and then could not be seen at all. But one knew that it was going on to Lohala and Tralee and Famagusta and the Coalsack Stars.
Hoddan shrugged and began to trudge toward the warehouses. The durya-drawn landing-ramp began to roll slowly in the same direction. Carts and wagons loaded the stuff discharged from the ship. Creaking, plodding, with the curved horns of the duryas rising and falling, the wagons overtook Hoddan and passed him. He saw his shipbag on one of the carts. It was a gift from the Interstellar Ambassador on Walden. He’d assured Hoddan that there was a fund for the assistance of political refugees, and that the bag and its contents was normal. But in addition to this, Hoddan had a number of stun-pistols, formerly equipment of the police department of Warden’s capital city.
He followed his bag to a warehouse. Arrived there, he found the bag surrounded by a group of whiskered Darthian characters wearing felt pants and large sheath knives. They had opened the bag and were in the act of ferocious dispute about who should get what of its contents. Incidentally they argued over the stun-pistols, which looked like weapons but weren’t because nothing happened when one pulled the trigger. Hoddan grimaced. They’d been in store on the liner during the voyage. Normally they picked up a trickle charge from broadcast power, on Walden, but there was no broadcast power on the liner, nor on Darth. They’d leaked their charges and were quite useless. The one in his pocket would be useless, too.
He grimaced again and swerved to the building where the landing-grid control’s must be. He opened the door and went in. The interior was smoky and vile-smelling, but the equipment was wholly familiar. Two unshaven men in violently colored shirts languidly played cards. Only one, a redhead, paid attention to the controls of the landing-grid. He watched dials. As Hoddan pushed his way in, he threw a switch and yawned. The ship was five diameters out from Darth, and he’d released it from the landing-grid fields. He turned and saw Hoddan.
“What the hell do you want?” he demanded sharply.
“A few kilowatts,” said Hoddan. The redhead’s manner was not amiable.’
“Get outta here!” he barked.
The transformers and snaky cables leading to relays outside — all were clear as print to Hoddan. He moved confidently toward an especially understandable panel, pulling out his stun-pistol and briskly breaking back the butt for charging. He shoved the pistol butt to contact with two terminals devised for another purpose, and the pistol slipped for an instant and a blue spark flared.
“Quit that!” roared the man. The unshaven men pushed back from their game of cards. One of them stood up, smiling unpleasantly.
The stun-pistol clicked. Hoddan withdrew it from charging-contact, flipped the butt shut, and turned toward the three men. Two of them charged him suddenly — the redhead and the unpleasant smiler.
The stun-pistol hummed. The redhead howled. He’d been hit in the hand. His unshaven companion buckled in the middle and fell to the floor. The third man backed away in panic, automatically raising his arms in surrender.
Hoddan saw no need for further action. He nodded graciously and went out of the control building, swinging the recharged pistol in his hand. In the warehouse, argument still raged over his possessions. He went in. Nobody looked at him. The casual appropriation of unguarded property was apparently a social norm here. The man in the purple cloak was insisting furiously that he was a Darthian gentleman and he’d have his share — or else!
“Those things,” said Hoddan, “are mine. Put them back.”
Faces turned to him, expressing shocked surprise. A man in dirty yellow pants stood up with a suit of Hoddan’s underwear and a pair of shoes. He moved to depart with great dignity.