* * * *

But time passed, and he finished his electronic job. He came out of
overdrive and made his observations and corrected his course. Finally,
there came a moment when the fiery ball which was Walden's sun shone
brightly in the vision plates. It writhed and spun in the vast silence
of emptiness.

[Illustration]

Hoddan drove to a point still above the five-diameter limit of Walden.
He interestedly switched on the control which made his drive-unit
manufacture landing-grid-type force fields. He groped for Walden, and
felt the peculiar rigidity of the ship when the field took hold
somewhere underground. He made an adjustment, and felt the ship respond.
Instead of pulling a ship to ground, in the setup he'd made, the new
fields pulled the ground toward the ship. When he reversed the
adjustment, instead of pushing the ship away to empty space, the new
field pushed the planet.

There was no practical difference, of course. The effect was simply that
the space yacht now carried its own landing grid. It could descend
anywhere and ascend from anywhere without using rockets. Moreover, it
could hover without using power.

Hoddan was pleased. He took the yacht down to a bare four-hundred-mile
altitude. He stopped it there. It was highly satisfactory. He made quite
certain that everything worked as it should. Then he made a call on the
space communicator.

"Calling ground," said Hoddan. "Calling ground. Pirate ship calling
ground!"

He waited for an answer. Now he'd find out the result of very much
effort and planning. He was apprehensive, of course. There was much
responsibility on his shoulders. There was the liner he'd captured and
looted and given to the emigrants. There were his followers on the
yacht, now enthusiastically sharpening their two-foot knife blades in
expectation of loot. He owed these people something. For an instant he
thought of the Lady Fani and wondered how he could make reparation to
her for whatever had hurt her feelings so she'd try to get his throat
cut.

A whining, bitterly unhappy voice came to him.

"_Pirate ship!_" said the voice plaintively, "_we received the fleet's
warning. Please state where you intend to descend, and we will take
measures to prevent disorder. Repeat, please state where you intend to
descend and we will take measures to prevent disorder--_"

Hoddan drew a sharp breath of relief. He named a spot--a high-income
residential small city some fort