uilding
reported as it went through the spaceport records, picking up such
information concerning Mekinese commercial regulations,
identification-calls and anticipated ship-movements as might prove
useful elsewhere. The rasping voice began to broadcast again. It went on
for fifteen seconds and cut off.

"Tell the government broadcasting system that if they stop relaying our
broadcast," said Bors, "we'll heave a bomb into the police barracks and
the supply-depots."

He heard the threat issued and very soon thereafter an agitated voice
announced to the people of Tralee that a pirate ship was in possession
of the planet's spaceport and that it insisted upon broadcasting to the
planet's people. It was considered unwise to refuse. Therefore the
broadcast would continue, but of course citizens could turn off their
sets.

There came a roar of anger and the harsh-voiced broadcaster returned to
the air. His taped broadcast had run out. Now he bellowed such
subversive profanity directed at the officials of Tralee-under-Mekin
that Bors smiled sourly. It was not good for Mekinese prestige to have a
subject people know that one ship could defy the empire, even for
minutes. It was still less desirable to have the members of the puppet
government described as dogs of particularly described breeds, of
particularly described characteristics, and particular lack of
legitimacy. Bors had chosen for his broadcast a man of vivid imagination
and large vocabulary. He did not want the _Isis_ to appear under
discipline, lest it seem to act under orders. He wanted to create the
impression of men turned pirates because everything they lived for had
been destroyed, and who now were running amok among the planets Mekin
had subjugated.

The broadcast was not incitement to revolt, because Bors's ship was
posing as the only survivor of a planet's fleet. But it conveyed such
contempt and derision and hatred of all things Mekinese that for months
to come men would whisper jokes based on what an _Isis_ crewman had said
on Tralee's air. The respect the planet's officials craved would drop
below its former low level.

Time passed. Bors, of course, could not send a landing-party anywhere,
lest it be sniped. He had actually accomplished the purpose for which
he'd landed, the getting of a shipload of food out to space, the
announcement of the destruction of Kandar's fleet and the spreading of
contempt and derision for Mekin in Tralee. Now he had to keep