“The mechanics you have trained,” said the old man proudly, “have made a little ship ready for you. It is not much larger than your spaceboat, but it is fit for travel between suns, which will be convenient for your work. I hope you will accept it. There is even a tiny tool shop on it!”

Hoddan would have been more touched if he hadn’t known about it. But one of the men entrusted with the job had needed his advice. He knew what he was getting. It was the spaceyacht he’d used before, refurbished and fitted with everything the emigrants could provide.

He affected great surprise and expressed unfeigned appreciation. Barely an hour later he transferred to it with the spaceboat in tow. He watched the emigrant fleet swing out to emptiness and resume its valiant journey. But it was not a hopeless journey, now. In fact, the colony on Thetis ought to start out better equipped than most settled planets.

And he went to sleep. He’d nothing urgent to do, except allow a certain amount of time pass before he did anything. He was exhausted. He slept the clock round, and waked and ate sluggishly, and went back to sleep again. On the whole, the cosmos did not notice the difference. Stars flamed in emptiness, and planets rotated sedately. Comets flung out gossamer veils or retracted them, and spaceliners went about upon their lawful occasions.

When he waked again he was rested, and he reviewed all his actions and his situation. It appeared that matters promised fairly well on the emigrant fleet now gone forever. They would remember Hoddan with affection for a year or so, and dimly after that. But settling a new world would be enthralling and important work. Nobody’d think of him at all, after a certain length of time. But he had to think of an obligation he’d assumed on their account.

He considered his own affairs. He’d told Fani he was going to marry Nedda. The way things looked, that was no longer so probable. Of course, in a year or two, or a few years, he might be out from under the obligations he now considered due. In time even the Waldenian government would realize that death rays didn’t exist, and a lawyer might be able to clear things for his return to Walden. But Nedda was a nice girl…

He frowned. That was it. She was a remarkably nice girl. But Hoddan suddenly doubted if she were a delightful one. He found himself questioning that she was exactly and perfectly what his long-cherished ambitions described. He tried to imagine spending his declining years with Nedda. He couldn’t quite picture it as exciting. She did tend to be a little insipid.

Presently, gloomy and a trifle dogged about it, he brought the spaceboat around to the modernized boat-port of the yacht. He got into it, leaving the yacht in orbit. He headed down toward Darth. Now that he’d rested, he had work to do which could not be neglected. To carry out that work, he needed a crew able and willing to pass for pirates for a pirate’s pay. And there were innumerable castles on Darth, with quite as many shifty noblemen, and certainly no fewer plunder-hungry Darthian gentlemen hanging around them. But Don Loris’ castle had one real advantage and one which existed only in Hoddan’s mind.

Don Loris’ retainers knew that Hoddan had led their companions to loot. Large loot. He’d have less trouble and more enthusiastic support from Don Loris’ retainers than any other. This was true.

The illusion was that the Lady Fani was his firm personal friend with no nonsense about her. This was a very great mistake.

He landed for the fourth time outside Don Loris’ castle. This time he had no booty-laden men to march to the castle and act as heralds of his presence. The spaceboat’s vision screens showed Don Loris’ stronghold as squat, immense, dark and menacing. Banners flew from its turrets, their colors bright in the ruddy light of near-sunset. The gate remained closed. For a long time there was no sign that his landing had been noted. Then there was movement on the battlements, and a figure began to descend outside the wall. It was lowered to the ground by a long rope.

It reached the ground and shook itself. It marched toward the spaceboat through the red and nearly level rays of the dying sun. Hoddan watched with a frown on his face. This wasn’t a retainer of Don Loris’. It assuredly wasn’t Fani, He couldn’t even make out its gender until the figure was very near.

Then he looked astonished. It was his old friend Derec, arrived on Darth a long while since in the spaceboat Hoddan had been using ever since. Derec had been his boon companion in the days when he expected to become rich by splendid exploits in electronics. Derec was also the character who’d conscientiously told the cops on Hoddan, when they found his power-receptor sneaked into a Mid-Continent station and a stray corpse coincidentally outside.

He opened the boat-port and stood in the opening. Derec had been a guest in Don Loris’ castle for a good long while, now. Hoddan wondered if he considered his quarters cozy.

“Evening, Derec,” said Hoddan cordially. “You’re looking well!”

“I don’t feel it,” said Derec dismally. “I feel like a fool in the castle yonder. And the high police official I came here with has gotten grumpy and snaps when I try to speak to him.”

Hoddan said gravely:

“I’m sure the Lady Fani—”

“A tigress!” said Derec bitterly: “We don’t get along.”

Looking at Derec, Hoddan found himself able to understand why. Derec was the sort of friend one might make on Walden for lack of something better. He was well-meaning. He might even be capable of splendid things — even heroism. But he was horribly, terribly, appallingly civilized!

“Well! Well!” said Hoddan kindly. “And what’s on your mind, Derec?”

“I came,” said Derec dismally, “to plead with you again,

Bron. You must surrender! There’s nothing else to do! People can’t have death rays, Bron! Above all, you mustn’t tell the pirates how to make them!”

Hoddan was puzzled for a moment. Then he realized that Derec’s information about the fleet came from the spearmen he’d brought back, loaded down with cash. Derec hadn’t noticed the absence of the flashing lights at sunset — or hadn’t realized that they meant the fleet had gone away.

“Hm,” said Hoddan_, “Why don’t you think I’ve already done it?”

“Because they’d have killed you,” said Derec. “Don Loris pointed that out. He doesn’t believe you know how to make death rays. He says it’s not a secret anybody would be willing for anybody else to know. But you know the truth, Bron! You killed that poor man back on Walden. You’ve got to sacrifice yourself for humanity! You’ll be treated kindly!”

Hoddan shook his head. It seemed somehow very startling for Derec to be harping on that same idea, after so many things had happened to Hoddan. But he didn’t think Derec would actually expect him to yield to persuasion. There must be something else. Derec might even have nerved himself up to do something quite desperate.

“What did you really come here for, Derec?”

“To beg you to—”

Then, in one instant, Derec made a hysterical gesture and Hoddan’s stun-pistol hummed. A small object left Derec’s hand as his muscles convulsed from the stun-pistol bolt. It did not fly quite true. It fell a foot or so to one side of the boat-port instead of inside.

It exploded luridly as Derec crumpled. There was thick, strangling smoke. Hoddan disappeared. When the thickest smoke drifted away there was nothing to be seen but Derec lying on the ground, and thinner smoke drifting out of the still-open boat-port.

Nearly half an hour later, figures came very cautiously toward the spaceboat. Thai was their leader. His expression was mournful and depressed. Other brawny retainers came uncertainly behind him. At a nod from Thai, two of them picked up Derec and carted him off toward the castle.

“I guess he got it,” said Thai 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.”