en away turned into a runaway success, and now he
was responsible for the employment of innumerable bookkeepers and clerks
and such in the insurance companies he'd come to own. There was also the
fact that as the emigrant fleet went on, some fifty more planets in all
would require the attention of pirate ships from time to time, or there
would be disillusionment and injury to the economic system.

"Organization," said his grandfather, "does wonders for a tender
conscience like you've got. What else?"

Hoddan explained the matter of his Darthian crew. Don Loris might
affect to consider them disgraced because they hadn't cut his throat.
Hoddan had to take care of the matter. And there was Nedda.... Fani came
into the story somehow, too. Hoddan's grandfather grunted, at the end.

"We'll go down and talk to this Don Loris," he said pugnaciously. "I've
dealt with his kind before. While we're down, your Cousin Oliver'll take
a look at this new grid-field job. We'll put it on my ship. Hm-m-m--how
about the time down below? Never land long after daybreak. Early in the
morning, people ain't at their best."

Hoddan looked at Darth, rotating deliberately below him.

"It's not too late, sir," he said. "Will you follow me down?"

His grandfather nodded briskly, took another comprehensive look at the
loot from Walden, and crawled back through the tube to his own ship.

* * * * *

So it was not too long after dawn, in that time-zone, when a sentry on
the battlements of Don Loris' castle felt a shadow over his head. He
jumped a foot and stared upward. Then his hair stood up on end and
almost threw his steel helmet off. He stared, unable to move a muscle.

There was a ship above him. It was not a large ship, but he could not
judge of such matters. It was not supported by rockets. It should have
been falling horribly to smash him under its weight. It wasn't. Instead,
it floated on with very fine precision, like a ship being landed by
grid, and settled delicately to the ground some fifty yards from the
base of the castle wall.

Immediately thereafter there was a muttering roar. It grew to a howl--a
bellow; it became thunder. It increased from that to a noise so
stupendous that it ceased altogether to be heard, and was only felt as a
deep-toned battering at one's chest. When it ended there was a second
ship resting in the middle of a very large scorched place close by the
first.

Neither of these