The Pirates of Ersatz Part 30

"_Bzzz._ You're conquered. You came at me with your knife, and I shot you with my stun-pistol. It's all over. Right?"

Thal gaped at him. Then he beamed. He expanded. He gloated. He frisked.

He practically wagged a nonexistent tail in his exuberance. He'd been shown an out when he could see none.

"Send in the others one by one," said Hoddan. "I'll take care of them.

But Thal--why did the Lady Fani want me killed?"

Thal had no idea, but he did not care. Hoddan did care. He was bewildered and inclined to be indignant. A n.o.ble friends.h.i.+p like theirs-- A spearman, came in and saluted. Hoddan went through a symbolic duel, which was plainly the way the thing would have happened in reality. Others came in and went through the same process. Two of them did not quite grasp that it was a ritual, and he had to shoot them in the knife arm. Then he hunted in the s.h.i.+p's supplies for ointment for the blisters that would appear from stun-pistol bolts at such short range. As he bandaged the places, he again tried to find out why the Lady Fani had tried to get him carved up by the large-bladed knives all Darthian gentlemen wore. n.o.body could enlighten him.

But the atmosphere improved remarkably. Since each theoretic fight had taken place in private, n.o.body was obliged to admit a compromise with etiquette. Hoddan's followers ceased to brood. They developed huge appet.i.tes. Those who had been aground on Krim told zestfully of the monstrous hangovers they'd acquired there. It appeared that Hoddan was revered for the size of the benders he enabled his followers to hang on.

But there remained the fact that the Lady Fani had tried to get him ma.s.sacred. He puzzled over it. The little yacht sped through s.p.a.ce toward Walden. He tried to think how he'd offended Fani. He could think of nothing. He set to work on a new electronic setup which would make still another modification of the Lawlor s.p.a.ce-drive possible. In the others, groups of electronic components were cut out and others subst.i.tuted in rather tricky fas.h.i.+on from the control board. This was trickiest of all. It required the home-made vacuum tube to burn steadily when in use. But it was a very simple idea. Lawlor drive and landing grid force fields were formed by not dissimilar generators, and ball lightning force fields were in the same general family of phenomena.

Suppose one made the field generator that had to be on a s.h.i.+p if it was to drive at all, capable of all those allied, a.s.sociated, similar force fields? If a s.h.i.+p could make the fields that landing grids did, it should be useful to pirates.

Hoddan's present errand was neither pure nor simple piracy, but piracy it would be. The more he considered the obligation he'd taken on himself when he helped the emigrant-fleet, the more he doubted that he could lift it without long struggle. He was preparing to carry on that struggle for a long time. He'd more or less resigned himself to the postponement of his personal desires. Nedda, for example. He wasn't quite sure-- Perhaps, after all--

But time pa.s.sed, and he finished his electronic job. He came out of overdrive and made his observations and corrected his course. Finally, there came a moment when the fiery ball which was Walden's sun shone brightly in the vision plates. It writhed and spun in the vast silence of emptiness.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Hoddan drove to a point still above the five-diameter limit of Walden.

He interestedly switched on the control which made his drive-unit manufacture landing-grid-type force fields. He groped for Walden, and felt the peculiar rigidity of the s.h.i.+p when the field took hold somewhere underground. He made an adjustment, and felt the s.h.i.+p respond.

Instead of pulling a s.h.i.+p to ground, in the setup he'd made, the new fields pulled the ground toward the s.h.i.+p. When he reversed the adjustment, instead of pus.h.i.+ng the s.h.i.+p away to empty s.p.a.ce, the new field pushed the planet.

There was no practical difference, of course. The effect was simply that the s.p.a.ce yacht now carried its own landing grid. It could descend anywhere and ascend from anywhere without using rockets. Moreover, it could hover without using power.

Hoddan was pleased. He took the yacht down to a bare four-hundred-mile alt.i.tude. He stopped it there. It was highly satisfactory. He made quite certain that everything worked as it should. Then he made a call on the s.p.a.ce communicator.

"Calling ground," said Hoddan. "Calling ground. Pirate s.h.i.+p calling ground!"

He waited for an answer. Now he'd find out the result of very much effort and planning. He was apprehensive, of course. There was much responsibility on his shoulders. There was the liner he'd captured and looted and given to the emigrants. There were his followers on the yacht, now enthusiastically sharpening their two-foot knife blades in expectation of loot. He owed these people something. For an instant he thought of the Lady Fani and wondered how he could make reparation to her for whatever had hurt her feelings so she'd try to get his throat cut.

A whining, bitterly unhappy voice came to him.

"_Pirate s.h.i.+p!_" said the voice plaintively, "_we received the fleet's warning. Please state where you intend to descend, and we will take measures to prevent disorder. Repeat, please state where you intend to descend and we will take measures to prevent disorder--_"

Hoddan drew a sharp breath of relief. He named a spot--a high-income residential small city some forty miles from the planetary capital. 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 ash.o.r.e and loot in parties of not less than three! Thal, you will be s.h.i.+p guard and receive the plunder and make sure that n.o.body from Walden gets on board. You will not waste time committing atrocities on the population!"

He went back to the control room. He turned to general-communication bands and listened to the broadcasts down below.

"_Special Emergency Bulletin!_" boomed a voice. "_Pirates are landing in the city of Ensfield, forty miles from Walden City. The population is instructed to evacuate immediately, leaving all action to the police.

Repeat! The population will evacuate Ensfield, leaving all action to the police. Take nothing with you. Take nothing with you. Leave at once._"

Hoddan nodded approvingly. The voice boomed again:

"_Special Emergency Bulletin! Pirates are landing ... evacuate ... take nothing with you.... Leave at once...._"

He turned to another channel. An excited voice barked:

"_... Seems to be only the one pirate s.h.i.+p, which has been located hovering in an unknown manner over Ensfield. We are rus.h.i.+ng camera crews to the spot and will try to give on-the-spot as-it-happens coverage of the landing of pirates on Walden, their looting of the city of Ensfield, and the traffic jams inevitable in the departure of the citizens before the pirate s.h.i.+p touches ground. For background information on this the most exciting event in planetary history, I take you to our editorial rooms._" Another voice took over instantly. "_It will be remembered that some days since the gigantic pirate fleet then overhead sent down a communication to the planetary government, warning that single s.h.i.+ps would appear to loot and giving notice that any resistance--_"

Hoddan felt a contented, heart-warming glow. The emigrant fleet had most faithfully carried out its leader's promise to let down a letter from s.p.a.ce while in orbit around Walden. The emigrants, of course, did not know the contents of the letter. They would not send anybody down to ground, because of the temptations to sin in societies other than their own. Blithely, and cheerfully, and dutifully, they would give the appearance of monstrous piratical strength. They would awe Walden thoroughly. And then they'd go on, faithfully leaving similar letters and similar impressions on Krim, and Lohala, and Tralee, and Famagusta, and throughout the Coalsack stars until the stock of addressed missives ran out. They would perform this kindly act out of grat.i.tude to Hoddan.

And every planet they visited would be left with the impression that the fleet overhead was that of bloodthirsty s.p.a.ce-marauders who would presently send single s.h.i.+ps to collect loot--which must be yielded without resistance. Such looting expeditions were to be looked for regularly and must be submitted to under penalty of unthinkable retribution from the monster fleet of s.p.a.ce.

Now, as the yacht descended on Walden, it represented that mythical but impressive piratical empire of Hoddan's contrivance. He listened with genuine pleasure to the broadcasts. When low enough, he even picked up the pictures of highways thronged with fugitives from the to-be-looted town. He saw Waldenian police directing the traffic of flight. He saw other traffic heading toward the city. Walden was the most highly civilized planet in the Nurmi Cl.u.s.ter, and its citizens had had no worries at all except about tranquilizers to enable them to stand it.

When something genuinely exciting turned up, they wanted to be there to see it.

The yacht descended below the clouds. Hoddan turned on an emergency flare to make a landing by. Sitting in the control room he saw his own s.h.i.+p as the broadcast cameras picked it up and relayed it to millions of homes. He was impressed. It was a glaring eye of fierce light, descending deliberately with a dark and mysterious s.p.a.cecraft behind it.

He heard the chattered on-the-spot news accounts of the happening. He saw the people who had not left Ensfield joined by avid visitors. He saw all of them held back by police, who frantically shepherded them away from the area in which the pirates should begin their horrid work.

Hoddan even watched pleasurably from his control room as the broadcast cameras daringly showed the actual touch-down of the s.h.i.+p; the dramatic slow opening of its entrance port: the appearance of authentic pirates in the opening, armed to the teeth, bristling ferociously, glaring about them at the here-silent, here-deserted streets of the city left to their mercy.

It was a splendid broadcast. Hoddan would have liked to stay and watch all of it. But he had work to do. He had to supervise the pirate raid.

It was, as it turned out, simple enough. Looting parties of three pirates each moved skulking about, seeking plunder. Quaking cameramen dared to ask them, in shaking voices, to pose for the news cameras. It was a request no Darthian gentleman, even in an act of piracy, could possibly refuse. They posed, making pictures of malignant ruffianism.

Commentators, adding informed comment to delectably thrilling pictures, observed that the pirates wore Darthian costume, but observed crisply that this did not mean that Darth as an ent.i.ty had turned pirate, but only that some of her citizens had joined the pirate fleet.

The camera crews then asked apologetically if they would permit themselves to be broadcast in the act of looting. Growling savagely for their public, and occasionally adding even a fiendish "Ha!" they obliged. The camera crews helped pick out good places to loot for the sake of good pictures. The pirates co-operated in fine dramatic style.

Millions watching vision sets all over the planet s.h.i.+vered in delicious horror as the pirates went about their nefarious enterprise.

Presently the press of onlookers could not be held back by the police.

They surrounded the pirates. Some, greatly daring, asked for autographs.

Girls watched them with round, frightened, fascinated eyes. Younger men found it vastly thrilling to carry burdens of loot back to the pirate s.h.i.+p for them. Thal complained hoa.r.s.ely that the s.h.i.+p was getting overloaded. Hoddan ordered greater discrimination, but his pirates by this time were in the position of directors rather than looters themselves. Romantic Waldenian admirers smashed windows and brought them treasure, for the reward of a scowling acceptance.

Hoddan had to call it off. The pirate s.h.i.+p was loaded. It was then the center of an agitated, excited, enthusiastic crowd. He called back his men. One party of three did not return. He took two others and fought his way through the mob. He found the trio backed against a wall while hysterically adoring girls struggled to seize sc.r.a.ps of their garments for mementos of real, live pirates looting a Waldenian town!

But Hoddan got them back to the s.h.i.+p, in confusion tending toward the blushful. Their clothes were shreds. He fought a way clear for them to get into the s.h.i.+p. He fought his way in. Cheers rose from the onlookers.

He got the landing port shut only by the help of police who kept pirate fans from having their fingers caught in its closing.

Then the piratical s.p.a.ce yacht rose swiftly toward the stars.

An hour later there was barely any diminution of the excitement inside the s.h.i.+p. Darthian gentlemen all, Hoddan's followers still gazed and floated over the plunder tucked everywhere. It crowded the living quarters. It threatened to interfere with the astrogation of the s.h.i.+p.

Hoddan came out of the control room and was annoyed.

"Break it up!" he snapped. "Pack that stuff away somewhere! What do you think this is?"

Thal gazed at him abstractedly, not quite able to tear his mind and thoughts from this completely unimaginable ma.s.s of plunder. Then intelligence came into his eyes--as much as could appear there. He grinned suddenly. He slapped his thigh.