Мюррей Лейнстер - The Pirates of Ersatz

Don Loris' retainers did know 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 visionscreens showed Don Loris' stronghold as 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 boatport and stood in the opening. Derec had been a guest—anyhow an inhabitant—of 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 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 deathrays, 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 was gone away.

"Hm–m–m," 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 deathrays. 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 something quite desperate.

"What did you really come here for, Derec?"

"To beg you to—"

Then, in one instant, Derec made an 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 boatport instead of inside.

It exploded luridly as Derec crumpled from the pistol bolt. 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 boatport.

Nearly half an hour later, figures came very cautiously toward the spaceboat. Thal was their leader. 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."

A spearman just behind Thal said:

"Dirty trick! I was with him to Walden, and he paid off good! A good man! Shoulda been a chieftain! Good man!"

Thal entered the spaceboat. Gingerly. He wrinkled his nose at the faint smell of explosive still inside. Another man came in. Another.

"Say!" said one of them in a conspiratorial voice. "We got our share of that loot from Walden. But he hadda share, too! What'd he do with it? He could've kept it in this boat here. We could take a quick look! What Don Loris don't know don't hurt him!"

"I'm going to find Hoddan first," said Thal, with dignity. "We don't have to carry him outside so's Don Loris knows we're looking for loot, but I'm going to find him first."

There were other men in the spaceboat now. A full dozen of them. Their spears were very much in the way.

The boat door closed quietly. Don Loris' retainers stared at each other. The locking–dogs grumbled for half a second, sealing the door tightly. Don Loris' retainers began to babble protestingly.

There was a roaring outside. The spaceboat stirred. The roaring rose to thunder. The boat lurched. It flung the spearmen into a sprawling, swearing, terrified heap at the rear end of the boat's interior.

The boat went on out to space again. In the control room Hoddan said dourly to himself:

"I'm in a rut! I've got to figure out some way to ship a pirate crew without having to kidnap them. This is getting monotonous!"

There was a disturbing air which was shared by all the members of Hoddan's crew, on the way to Walden. It was not exactly reluctance, because there was self–evident enthusiasm over the idea of making a pirate voyage under him. So far as past enterprises were concerned, Hoddan as a leader was the answer to a Darthian gentleman's prayer. The partial looting of Ghek's castle, alone, would have made him a desirable leader. But a crew of seven, returned from space, had displayed currency which amounted to the wealth of fabled Ind. Nobody knew what Ind was, any longer, but it was a synonym for fabulous and uncountable riches. When men went off with Hoddan, they came back rich.

But nevertheless there was an uncomfortable sort of atmosphere in the renovated yacht. They'd transshipped from the spaceboat to the yacht through lifeboat tubes, and they were quite docile about it because none of them knew how to get back to ground. Hoddan left the spaceboat with a triggerable timing–signal set for use on his return. He'd done a similar thing off Krim. He drove the little yacht well out, until Darth was only a spotted ball with visible clouds and ice caps. Then he lined up for Walden, direct, and went into overdrive.

Within hours he noted the disturbing feel of things. His followers were not happy. They moped. They sat in corners and submerged themselves in misery. Large, massive men with drooping blond mustaches—ideal characters for the roles of pirates—tended to squeeze tears out of their eyes at odd moments. When the ship was twelve hours on its way, the atmosphere inside it was funereal. The spearmen did not even gorge themselves on the food with which the yacht was stocked. And when a Darthian gentleman lost his appetite, something had to be wrong.