ships was a spaceboat. The silently landed vessel,
which was the smaller of the two, was several times the sizes of the
only spacecraft ever seen on Darth outside the spaceport. Its design was
somehow suggestive of a yacht. The other, larger, ship was blunt and
soiled and space-worn, with patches on its plating here and there.

A landing ramp dropped down from the battered craft. It neatly spanned
the scorched and still-smoking patch of soil. A port opened. Men came
out, following a jaunty small figure with belligerent gray whiskers.
They dragged an enigmatic object behind them.

Hoddan came out of the yacht. His grandfather said waspishly:

"This the castle?"

He waved at the massive pile of cut gray stone, with walls twenty feet
thick and sixty high.

"Yes, sir," said Hoddan.

"Hm-m-m," snorted his grandfather. "Looks flimsy to me!" He waved his
hand again. "You remember your cousins."

Familiar, matter-of-fact nods came from the men of the battered ship.
Hoddan hadn't seen any of them for years, but they were his kin. They
wore commonplace, workaday garments, but carried weapons slung
negligently over their shoulders. They dragged the cryptic object behind
them without particular formation or apparent discipline, but somehow
they looked capable.

Hoddan and his grandfather strolled to the castle gate, their companions
a little to their rear. They came to the gate. Nothing happened. Nobody
challenged. There was the feel of peevish refusal to associate with
persons who landed in spaceships.

[Illustration]

"Shall we hail?" asked Hoddan.

"Nah!" snorted his grandfather. "I know his kind! Make him make the
advances." He waved to his descendents. "Open it up."

Somebody casually pulled back a cover and reached in and threw switches.

"Found a power broadcast unit," grunted Hoddan's grandfather, "on a ship
we took. Hooked it to the ship's space-drive. When y'can't use the
space-drive, you still got power. Your Cousin Oliver whipped this thing
up to use it."

The enigmatic object made a spiteful noise. The castle gate shuddered
and fell halfway from its hinges. The thing made a second noise. Stones
splintered and began to collapse. Hoddan admired. Three more unpleasing
but not violently loud sounds. Half the wall on either side of the gate
was rubble, collapsing partly inside and partly outside the castle's
proper boundary.

Figures began to wave hysterically from the battlements. Hoddan's
grandfather y