almost a village, at that. Its houses had
steep, gabled roofs, of which some seemed to be tile and others thatch.
Its buildings leaned over the narrow streets, which were unpaved. They
looked like mud. And there was not a power-driven ground vehicle
anywhere in sight, nor anything man made in the air.

Great carts trailed out to the unloading belt. They dumped bales of
skins and ingots of metal, and more bales and more ingots. Those objects
rode up to the air lock and vanished. Hoddan was ignored. He felt that
without great care he might be crowded back into the reversed loading
belt and be carried back into the ship.

The loading process ended. The man with the purple cloak, who'd ridden
the teetering belt-beam up, reappeared and came striding grandly down to
ground. Somebody cast off, above. Ropes writhed and fell and dangled.
The ship's air lock door closed.

There was a vast humming sound. The ship lifted sedately. It seemed to
hover momentarily over the group of _duryas_ and humans in the center of
the grid's enclosure. But it was not hovering. It shrank. It was rising
in an absolutely vertical line. It dwindled to the size of a basketball
and then an apple. Then to the size of a pea. And then that pea
diminished until the spaceship from Krim, Walden, Cetis, Rigel and the
Nearer Rim had become the size of a dust mote and then could not be seen
at all. But one knew that it was going on to Lohala and Tralee and
Famagusta and the Coalsack Stars.

* * * * *

Hoddan shrugged and began to trudge toward the warehouses. The
_durya_-drawn landing ramp began to roll slowly in the same direction.
Carts and wagons loaded the stuff discharged from the ship. Creaking,
plodding, with the curved horns of the _duryas_ rising and falling, the
wagons overtook Hoddan and passed him. He saw his ship bag on one of the
carts. It was a gift from the Interstellar Ambassador on Walden. He'd
assured Hoddan that there was a fund for the assistance of political
refugees, and that the bag and its contents was normal. But in addition
to the gift-clothing, Hoddan had a number of stun-pistols, formerly
equipment of the police department of Walden's capital city.

He followed his bag to a warehouse. Arrived there, he found the bag
surrounded by a group of whiskered or mustachioed Darthian characters
wearing felt pants and large sheath-knives. They had opened the bag and
were in the act of ferocious dispute abou