"It is ... many times what we hoped," said the old man humbly. "Only--" He stopped. "We are more grateful than we can say." Hoddan took a deep breath. "I'd like to take my crew back home," he explained. "And come back and ... well ... perhaps I can be useful explaining things. And I'd like to ask a great favor of you ... for my own work." "But naturally," said the old man. "Of course. We will await your return. Naturally! And ... perhaps we can ... we can arrange something--" Hoddan was relieved. There did seem a slightly strange limitation to the happiness of the emigrants. They were passionately rejoiceful over the agricultural machinery. But they seemed rather dutifully than truly happy over the microfilm library. The vision-tape instructors were the objects of polite comment only. Hoddan felt a vague discomfort. There seemed to be a sort of secret desperation in the atmosphere, which they would not admit or mention. But he was coming back. Of course. He brought the spaceboat over to the new liner. He hooked onto a lifeboat blister and his seven Darthians crawled through the lifeboat tube. Hoddan pulled away quickly before somebody thought to ask why there were no lifeboats in the places so plainly made for them. He headed downward when the landmarks on Darth's surface told him that Don Loris' castle would shortly come over the horizon. He was just touching atmosphere when it did. The boat's rocket-tanks had been refilled, and he burned fuel recklessly to make a dramatic landing within a hundred yards of the battlements where Fani had once thoughtfully had a coil of rope ready for him. Heads peered at the lifeboat over those same battlements now, but the gate was closed. It stayed closed. There was somehow an atmosphere of suspicion amounting to enmity. Hoddan felt unwelcome. "All right, boys," he said resignedly. "Out with you and to the castle. You've got your loot from the voyage"--he'd counted out for each of them rather more actual cash than any of them really believed in--"and I want you to take this box to Don Loris. It's a gift from me. And I want to--consult with him about co-operation between the two of us in ... ah ... some plans I have. Ask if I may come and talk to him." His seven former spearmen tumbled out. They marched gleefully to the castle gate. Hoddan saw them tantalizingly displaying large sums in cash to the watchers above them. Thal held up the box for Don Loris. It was the box the lawyer's clerk had turned over to him, with a tidy sum in cash in it. The sum was partly depleted, now. Hoddan had paid off his involuntary crew with it--had paid them, in fact, as if they'd done the fighting they'd expected and he'd thought would be necessary. But there was still more in it than Don Loris would have gotten from Walden for selling him out. The castle gate opened, as if grudgingly. The seven went in. With the box.