e government, or being
disreputable. But trying to use one's brains is bad business! A serious
offense! Are your legs all right now? Then come on down with me and I'll
have you given some dinner and some fresh clothing and so on. Offhand,"
he added amiably, "it would seem that using one's brains would be
classed as a political offense rather than a criminal one on Walden.
We'll see."

Hoddan gaped up at him.

"You mean there's a possibility that--"

"Of course!" said the ambassador in surprise. "You haven't phrased it
that way, but you're actually a rebel. A revolutionist. You defy
authority and tradition and governments and such things. Naturally the
Interstellar Diplomatic Service is inclined to be on your side. What do
you think it's for?"

II

In something under two hours Hoddan was ushered into the ambassador's
office. He'd been refreshed, his torn clothing replaced by more
respectable garments, and the places where stun-pistols had stung him
soothed by ointments. But, more important, he'd worked out and firmly
adopted a new point of view.

He'd been a misfit at home on Zan because he was not contented with the
humdrum and monotonous life of a member of a space-pirate community.
Piracy was a matter of dangerous take-offs in cranky rocket-ships, to be
followed by weeks or months of tedious and uncomfortable boredom in
highly unhealthy re-breathed air. No voyage ever contained more than ten
seconds of satisfactory action--and all space-fighting took place just
out of the atmosphere of a possibly embattled planet, because you
couldn't intercept a ship at cruising speed between the stars.
Regardless of the result of the fighting, one had to get away fast when
it was over, lest overwhelming force swarm up from the nearby world. It
was intolerably devoid of anything an ambitious young man would want.

Even when one had made a good prize--with the lifeboats darting
frantically for ground--and after one got back to Zan with a captured
ship, even then there was little satisfaction in a piratical career. Zan
had not a large population. Piracy couldn't support a large number of
people. Zan couldn't attempt to defend itself against even single
heavily-armed ships that sometimes came in passionate resolve to avenge
the disappearance of a rich freighter or a fast new liner. So the people
of Zan, to avoid hanging, had to play innocent. They had to be
convincingly simple, harmless folk who cultivated their fields