transmit button.

"My name is Bron Hoddan," he said. "I came up to find out why three
ships, and then nine ships, went into orbit around Darth. It was
somewhat alarming. Our landing grid's disabled, anyhow, and it seemed
wisest to look you over before we communicated and possibly told you
something you might not believe. But you surely don't expect to land all
this fleet! Actually, we can't land any."

The harsh voice said as grimly as before:

"_You come from the planet below us? Darth? Why is your ship so small?
The smallest of ours is greater._"

"This is a lifeboat," said Hoddan pleasantly. "It's supposed to be
carried on larger ships in case of emergency."

"_If you will come to our leading ship_," said the voice, "_we will
answer all your questions. I will have a smoke flare set off to guide
you._"

Hoddan said to himself:

"No threats and no offers. I can guess why there are no threats. But
they should offer something!"

He waited. There was a sudden huge eruption of vapor in space some two
hundred miles away. Perhaps an ounce of explosive had been introduced
into a rocket tube and fired. The smoke particles, naturally ionized,
added their self-repulsion to the expansiveness of the explosive's
gases. A cauliflowerlike shape of filmy whiteness appeared and grew
larger and thinner.

Hoddan drove toward the spot with very light touches of rocket power. He
swung the boat around and killed its relative velocity. The leading ship
was a sort of gigantic, shapeless, utterly preposterous ark-like thing.
Hoddan could neither imagine a purpose for which it could have been
used, nor a time when men would have built anything like it. Its huge
sides seemed to be made exclusively of great doorways now tightly
closed.

One of those doorways suddenly gaped wide. It would have admitted a
good-sized modern ship. A nervous voice essayed to give Hoddan
directions for getting the spaceboat inside what was plainly an enormous
hold now pumped empty of air. He grunted and made the attempt. It was
tricky. He sweated when he cut off his power. But he felt fairly safe.
Rocket flames would burn down such a door, if necessary. He could work
havoc if hostilities began.

The great cargo door swung shut. The outside-pressure needle swung
sharply and stopped at thirty centimeters of mercury pressure. There was
a clanging. A smaller door evidently opened somewhere. Lights came
on--old-fashioned glow tubes. Then figures appeared thro