floors of the building their offices were in. Commerce would
march on.

* * * * *

And Hoddan headed for Darth. He had to return his crew, and there was
something else. Several something elses. He arrived in that solar-system
and put his yacht in a search-orbit, listening for the call-signal the
spaceboat should give for him to home on. He found it, deep within the
gravity-field of Darth. He maneuvered to come alongside, and there was
blinding light everywhere. Alarms rang. Lights went out. Instruments
registered impossibilities, the rockets fired crazily, and the whole
ship reeled. Then a voice roared out of the communicator:

"_Stand and deliver! Surrender and y'll be allowed to go to ground. But
if y'even hesitate I'll hull ye and heave ye out to space without a
spacesuit!_"

Hoddan winced. Stray sparks had flown about everywhere inside the space
yacht. A ball lightning bolt, even of only warning size, makes things
uncomfortable when it strikes. Hoddan's fingers tingled as if they'd
been asleep. He threw on the transmitter switch and said annoyedly:

"Hello, grandfather. This is Bron. Have you been waiting for me long?"

He heard his grandfather swear disgustedly. Not long later, a badly
battered, blackened, scuffed old spacecraft came rolling up on
rocket-impulse and stopped with a billowing of rocket fumes. Hoddan
threw a switch and used the landing grid field he'd used on Walden in
another fashion. The ships came together with fine precision,
lifeboat-tube to lifeboat-tube. He heard his grandfather swear in
amazement.

"That's a little trick I worked out, grandfather," said Hoddan into the
transmitter. "Come aboard. I'll pass it on."

His grandfather presently appeared, scowling and suspicious. His eyes
shrewdly examined everything, including the loot tucked in every
available space. He snorted.

"All honestly come by," said Hoddan morbidly. "It seems I've got a
license to steal. I'm not sure what to do with it."

His grandfather stared at a placard on the wall. It said archly:
"_Remember! A Lady is Present!_" Nedda had put it up.

"Hm-m-m!" said his grandfather. "What's a woman doing on a pirate ship?
That's what your letter talked about!"

"They get on," said Hoddan, wincing, "like mice. You've had mice on a
ship, haven't you? Come in the control room and I'll explain."

He did explain, up to the point where his arrangements to pay back for a
ship and cargo he'd giv