tice of steel, half a mile high and
enclosing a circle not less in diameter. It filled much the larger part
of the level valley floor, and horned _duryas_ and what Hoddan later
learned were horses grazed in it. The animals paid no attention to the
deep-toned humming noise the grid made in its operation.

The ship seemed the size of a pea. Presently it was the size of an
apple. Then it was the size of a basketball, and then it swelled
enormously and put out spidery metal legs with large splay metal feet on
them and alighted and settled gently to the ground. The humming stopped.

* * * * *

There were shoutings. Whips cracked. Straining, horn-tossing _duryas_
heaved and dragged something, very deliberately, out from between
warehouses under the arches of the grid. There were two dozen of the
_duryas_, and despite the shouts and whip-crackings they moved with a
stubborn slowness. It took a long time for the object with the
wide-tired wheels to reach a spot below the spacecraft. Then it took
longer, seemingly, for brakes to be set on each wheel, and then for the
draught animals to be arranged to pull as two teams against each other.

More shoutings and whip-crackings. A long, slanting, ladderlike arm
arose. It teetered, and a man with a lurid purple cloak rose with it at
its very end. The ship's air lock opened and a crewman threw a rope. The
purple-cloaked man caught it and made it fast. From somewhere inside the
ship of space the line was hauled in. The end of the landing ramp
touched the sill of the air lock. Somebody made other things fast and
the purple-cloaked man triumphantly entered the ship.

There was a pause. Men loaded carts with cargo to be sent to remote and
unimagined planets. In the air lock, Bron Hoddan stepped to the
unloading ramp and descended to the ground. He was the only passenger.
He had barely reached a firm footing when objects followed him. His own
ship bag--a gift from the ambassador--and then parcels, bales, boxes,
and such nondescript items of freight as needed special designation.
Rolls of wire. Long strings of plastic objects, strung like beads on
shipping cords. Plexiskins of fluid which might be anything from wine to
fuel oil in less than bulk-cargo quantities. For a mere five minutes the
flow of freight continued. Darth was not an important center of trade.

Hoddan stared incredulously at the town outside one side of the grid. It
was only a town--and was