taneously exasperated and
filled with anxiety. "Things are happening! Somebody's here from Walden!
They want you!"

Hoddan could not believe it. It was too unlikely. But he opened the door
and Thal came in, and Fani followed.

"Good morning," said Hoddan automatically.

Thal said mournfully:

"A bad morning, Bron Hoddan! A bad morning! Men from Walden came riding
over the hills--"

"How many?"

"Two," said Fani angrily. "A fat man in a uniform, and a young man who
looks like he wants to cry. They had an escort of retainers from one of
my father's neighbors. They were stopped at the gate, of course, and
they sent a written message in to my father, and he had them brought
inside right away!"

Hoddan shook his head.

"They probably said that I'm a criminal and that I should be sent back
to Walden. How'd they get down? The landing grid isn't working."

Fani said viciously:

"They landed in something that used rockets. It came down close to a
castle over that way--only six or seven miles from the spaceport. They
asked for you. They said you'd have landed from the last liner from
Walden. And because you and Thal fought so splendidly--why, everybody's
talking about you. So the chieftain over there accepted a present of
money from them, and gave them horses as a return gift, and sent them
here with a guard. Thal talked to the guards. The men from Walden have
promised huge gifts of money if they help take you back to the thing
that uses rockets."

"I suspect," said Hoddan, "that it would be a spaceboat--a lifeboat.
Hm-m-m.... Yes. With a built-in tool-steel cell to keep me from telling
anybody how to make--" He stopped and grimaced. "If they had time to
build one in, that's certain! They'd take me to the spaceport in a
sound-proofed can and I'd be hauled back to Walden in it. Fine!"

"What are you going to do?" asked Fani anxiously.

* * * * *

Hoddan's ideas were not clear. But Darth was not a healthy place for
him. It was extremely likely, for example, that Don Loris would feel
that the very bad jolt he'd given that astute schemer's plans, by using
stun-pistols at the spaceport, had been neatly canceled out by his
rescue of Fani. He would regard Hoddan with a mingled gratitude and
aversion that would amount to calm detachment. Don Loris could not be
counted on as a really warm personal friend.

On the other hand, the social system of Darth was not favorable to a
stranger with