Мюррей Лейнстер - The Pirates of Ersatz

He began strongly to share his grandfather's disillusioned view of brains.

After a long time the door of the cell opened. Thal was back, chastened.

"Don Loris wants to talk to you," he said in a subdued voice. "He's not pleased."

Hoddan took another gulp of the wine. He picked up his ship bag and limped to the door. He decided painfully that he was limping on the wrong leg. He tried the other. No improvement. He really needed to limp on both.

He followed a singularly silent Thal through a long stone corridor and up stone steps until they came to a monstrous hall with torches in holders on the side walls. 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."

Hoddan scowled at Don Loris, whose expression of peevishness did not lighten. He did regard Hoddan with a flicker of interest, however. A stranger who unfeignedly scowls at a feudal lord with no superior and many inferiors is anyhow a novelty.

"Thal tells me," said Don Loris fretfully, "that you and he, together, slaughtered some dozens of the retainers of my neighbors today. I consider it unfortunate. They may ask me to have the two of you hanged, and it would be impolite to refuse."

Hoddan said truculently:

"I considered it impolite for your neighbors' retainers to march toward me waving large knives and announcing what they intended to do to my inwards with them!"

"Yes," agreed Don Loris impatiently. "I concede that point. It is natural enough to act hastily at such times. But still— How many did you kill?"

"None," said Hoddan curtly. "I shot them with stun–pistols I'd just charged in the control room of the landing grid."

Don Loris sat up straight.

"Stun–pistols?" he demanded sharply. "You used stun–pistols on Darth?"

"Naturally on Darth," said Hoddan with some tartness. "I was here! But nobody was killed. One or two may be slightly blistered. All of them had their pockets picked by Thal. I understand that is a local custom. There's nothing to worry about."

But Don Loris stared at him, aghast.

"But this is deplorable!" he protested. "Stun–pistols used here? It is the one thing I would have given strict orders to avoid! My neighbors will talk about it. Some of them may even think about it! You could have used any other weapon, but of all things why did you have to use a stun–pistol?"

"Because I had one," said Hoddan briefly.

"Horrible!" said Don Loris peevishly. "The worst thing you could possibly have done! I have to disown you. Unmistakably! You'll have to disappear at once. We'll blame it on Ghek's retainers."

Hoddan said:

"Disappear? Me?"

"Vanish," said Don Loris. "I suppose there's no real necessity to cut your throat, but you plainly have to disappear, though it would have been much more discreet if you'd simply gotten killed."

"I was indiscreet to survive?" demanded Hoddan bristling.

"Extremely so!" snapped Don Loris. "Here I had you come all the way from Walden to help arrange a delicate matter, and before you'd traveled even the few miles to my castle—within minutes of landing on Darth!—you spoiled everything! I am a reasonable man, but there are the facts! You used stun–pistols, so you have to disappear. I think it generous for me to say only until people on Darth forget that such things exist. But the two of you … oh, for a year or so … there are some fairly cozy dungeons—"

Hoddan seethed suddenly. He'd tried to do something brilliant on Walden, and had been framed for jail for life. He'd defended his life and property on Darth, and nearly the same thing popped up as a prospect. Hoddan angrily suspected fate and chance of plain conspiracy against him.

But there was an interruption. A clanking of arms sounded somewhere nearby. Men with long, gruesome, glittering spears came through a doorway. They stood aside. A girl entered the great hall. More spearmen followed her. They stopped by the door. The girl came across the hall.

She was a pretty girl, but Hoddan hardly noticed the fact. With so many other things on his mind, he had no time for girls.

Thal, behind him, said in a quivering voice:

"My Lady Fani, I beg you to plead with your father for his most faithful retainer!"

The girl looked surprisedly at him. Her eyes fell on Hoddan. She looked interested. Hoddan, at that moment, was very nearly as disgusted and as indignant as a man could be. He did not look romantically at her—which to the Lady Fani, daughter of that Don Loris who was prince of this and baron of that and so on, was news. He did not look at her at all. He ground his teeth.

"Don't try to wheedle me, Fani!" snapped Don Loris. "I am a reasonable man, but I indulge you too much—even to allowing you to refuse that young imbecile Ghek, with no end of inconvenience as a result. But I will not have you question my decision about Thal and this Hoddan person!"

The girl said pleasantly:

"Of course not, Father. But what have they done?"

"The two of them," snapped Don Loris again, "fought twenty men today and defeated all of them! Thal plundered them. Then thirty other men, mounted, tried to avenge the first and they defeated them also! Thal plundered eighteen. And all this was permissible, if unlikely. But they did it with stun–pistols! Everybody within news range will talk of it! They'll know that this Hoddan came to Darth to see me! They'll suspect that I imported new weapons for political purposes! They'll guess at the prettiest scheme I've had these twenty years!"

The girl stood still. A spearman leaned his weapon against the wall, raced across the hall, shifted a chair to a convenient position for the Lady Fani to sit on it, and raced back to his fellows. She sat down.

"But did they really defeat so many?" she asked, marveling. "That's wonderful! And Thal was undoubtedly fighting in defense of someone you'd told him to protect, as a loyal retainer should do. Wasn't he?"

"I wish," fumed her father, "that you would not throw in irrelevances! I sent him to bring this Hoddan here this afternoon, not to massacre my neighbors' retainers—or rather, not to not massacre them. A little blood–letting would have done no harm, but stun–pistols—"

"He was protecting somebody he was told to protect," said Fani. "And this other man, this—"

"Hoddan. Bron Hoddan," said her father irritably. "Yes. He was protecting himself! Doubtless he thought he did me a service in doing that! But if he'd only let himself get killed quietly the whole affair would be simplified!"

The Lady Fani said with quiet dignity:

"By the same reasoning, Father, it would simplify things greatly if I let the Lord Ghek kidnap me."

"It's not the same thing at all—"

"At least," said Fani, "I wouldn't have a pack of spearmen following me about like puppies everywhere I go!"

"It's not the same—"

"Their breaths smelling of wine except when they smell of beer, and they breathe very noisily and—"

"It's not—"

"And it's especially unreasonable," said the Lady Fani with even greater dignity, "when you could put Thal and this—Hoddan person on duty to guard me instead. If they can fight twenty and thirty men at once, all by themselves, it doesn't seem to me that you think much of my safety when you want to lock them up somewhere instead of using them to keep your daughter safe from that particularly horrible Ghek!"

Don Loris swore in a cracked voice. Then he said:

"To end the argument I'll think it over. Until tomorrow. Now go away!"