Nine spaceships? That wasn't possible! That would be a space fleet! And there were no space fleets! Walden would certainly have never sent more than one ship to demand his surrender to its police. The Space Patrol never needed more than one ship anywhere. Commerce wouldn't cause ships to travel in company. Piracy-- There couldn't be a pirate fleet! There'd never be enough loot anywhere to keep it in operation. Nine spaceships at one time--traveling in orbit around a primitive planet like Darth--a fleet of spaceships. It couldn't happen! Hoddan couldn't conceive of such a thing. But a recently developed pessimism suggested that since everything else, to date, had been to his disadvantage, this was probably a catastrophe also. He groaned and lay down to sleep again. VI When frantic bangings on the propped-shut door awakened him next morning, he confusedly imagined that they were noises in the communicator headphones, and until he heard his name called tried drearily to make sense of them. But suddenly he opened his eyes. Somebody banged on the door once more. A voice cried angrily: "Bron Hoddan! Wake up or I'll go away and let whatever happens to you happen! Wake up!" It was the voice of the Lady Fani, at once indignant and tearful and solicitous and angry. He rolled out of bed and found himself dressed. He hadn't slept the full night. At one time he couldn't rest for thinking about the sounds in the communicator when he listened at the spaceport. He listened again, and what he heard made him get his clothes on for action. That was when he heard a distinctly Waldenian voice, speaking communications speech with crisp distinctness, calling the landing grid. The other voices were not Waldenian ones and he grew dizzy trying to figure them out. But he was clothed and ready to do whatever proved necessary when he realized that he had the landing grid receiver, that there would be no reception even of the Waldenian call until the landing grid crew had built another out of spare parts in store, and even then couldn't do much until they'd painfully sorted out and re-spliced all the tangled wires that Hoddan had cut. That had to be done before the grid could be used again. He'd gone back to sleep while he tried to make sense of things. Now, long after daybreak, he shook himself and made sure a stun-pistol was handy. Then he said: "Hello. I'm awake. What's up? Why all the noise?" "Come out of there!" cried Fani's voice, simultaneously exasperated and filled with anxiety. "Things are happening! Somebody's here from Walden! They want you!" Hoddan could not believe it. It was too unlikely. But he opened the door and Thal came in, and Fani followed. "Good morning," said Hoddan automatically. Thal said mournfully: "A bad morning, Bron Hoddan! A bad morning! Men from Walden came riding over the hills--" "How many?"