“What the hell do you want?” he demanded sharply.
“A few kilowatts,” said Hoddan. The redhead’s manner was not amiable.’
“Get outta here!” he barked.
The transformers and snaky cables leading to relays outside — all were clear as print to Hoddan. He moved confidently toward an especially understandable panel, pulling out his stun-pistol and briskly breaking back the butt for charging. He shoved the pistol butt to contact with two terminals devised for another purpose, and the pistol slipped for an instant and a blue spark flared.
“Quit that!” roared the man. The unshaven men pushed back from their game of cards. One of them stood up, smiling unpleasantly.
The stun-pistol clicked. Hoddan withdrew it from charging-contact, flipped the butt shut, and turned toward the three men. Two of them charged him suddenly — the redhead and the unpleasant smiler.
The stun-pistol hummed. The redhead howled. He’d been hit in the hand. His unshaven companion buckled in the middle and fell to the floor. The third man backed away in panic, automatically raising his arms in surrender.
Hoddan saw no need for further action. He nodded graciously and went out of the control building, swinging the recharged pistol in his hand. In the warehouse, argument still raged over his possessions. He went in. Nobody looked at him. The casual appropriation of unguarded property was apparently a social norm here. The man in the purple cloak was insisting furiously that he was a Darthian gentleman and he’d have his share — or else!
“Those things,” said Hoddan, “are mine. Put them back.”
Faces turned to him, expressing shocked surprise. A man in dirty yellow pants stood up with a suit of Hoddan’s underwear and a pair of shoes. He moved to depart with great dignity.
The stun-pistol buzzed. He leaped and howled and fled.
There was a concerted gasp of outrage. Men leaped to their feet. Large knives came out of elaborate holsters. Figures in all the colors of the rainbow — all badly soiled — roared their indignation and charged at Hoddan. They waved knives as they came.
He held down the stun-pistol trigger and traversed the rushing men. The whining buzz of the weapon was inaudible, at first, but before he released the trigger it was plainly to be heard. Then there was silence. His attackers formed a very untidy heap on the floor. They breathed stertorously. Hoddan began to retrieve his possessions. He rolled a man over, for this purpose; a pair of very blue, apprehensive eyes stared at him. Their owner had stumbled over one man and been stumbled over by others. He gazed up at Hoddan, speechless.
“Hand me that, please,” said Hoddan. He pointed.
The man in the purple cloak obeyed, shaking. Hoddan completed the recovery of all his belongings. He turned. The man in the purple cloak winced and closed his eyes.
“Hm,” said Hoddan. He needed information. He spoke to the man: “I have a letter of introduction to one Don Loris. Would you have any idea how I could reach him?”
The man in the purple cloak gaped at Hoddan.
“He is… is my chieftain,” he said, aghast. “I — am Thai, his most trusted retainer.” Then he practically wailed. “You must be the man I was sent to meet! He sent me to learn if you came on the ship! I should have fought by your side! This is disgrace!”
“It’s disgraceful,” agreed Hoddan grimly. But he, who had been born and raised in a space-pirate community, was not too critical of others. “Let it go. How do I find him?”
“I should take you!” complained Thai bitterly. “But you have killed all these men. Their friends and chieftains are honor bound to cut your throat! And you shot Merk, but he ran away, and he will be summoning his friends to come and kill you now! This is shame!” Then he said hopefully, “Your strange weapon… how many men can you fight? If fifty, we may live to ride away. If more, we may even reach Don Loris’ castle. How many?”
“We’ll see what we see,” said Hoddan dourly. “But I’d better charge these other pistols. You can come with me, or wait. I haven’t killed these men. They’re only stunned. They’ll come around presently.”
He went out of the warehouse, carrying the bag which was again loaded with uncharged stun-pistols. He went back to the grid’s control-room. He pushed it open and entered for the second time. The redhead swore and rubbed at his hand. The man who’d smiled unpleasantly lay in a heap on the floor. The second unshaven man jittered visibly at sight of Hoddan.
“I’m back,” said Hoddan politely, “for more kilowatts.”
He put his bag conveniently close to the terminals at which his pistols could be recharged. He snapped open a pistol butt and presented it to the electric contacts.
“Quaint customs you have here,” he said conversationally. “Robbing a newcomer. Resenting his need for a few watts of power that comes free from the sky.” The stun-pistol clicked. He snapped the butt shut and opened another, which he placed in contact for charging. “Making him act,” he added acidly, “with manners as bad as the local ones. Going at him with knives so he has to be resentful in his turn.” The second stun-pistol clicked. He closed it and began to charge a third. He said severely, “Innocent tourists — relatively innocent ones, anyhow — are not likely to be favorably impressed with Darth!” He had the charging process going swiftly now. He began to charge a fourth weapon. “It’s particularly bad manners,” he added sternly, “to stand there grinding your teeth at me while your friend behind the desk crawls after an old-fashioned chemical gun to shoot me with.”
He snapped the fourth pistol shut and went after the man who’d dropped down behind a desk. He came upon that man, hopelessly panicked, just as his hands closed on a clumsy gun that was supposed to set off a chemical explosive to propel a metal bullet.
“Don’t!” said Hoddan severely. “If I have to shoot you at this range, you’ll have blisters!”
He took the weapon out of the other man’s hands. He went back and finished charging the rest of the pistols.
He returned most of them to his bag, though he stuck others in his belt and pockets to the point where he looked like the fiction-tape version of a space-pirate. He moved to the door. As a last thought, he picked up the bullet-firing weapon.
“There’s only one spaceship here a month,” he observed politely, “so I’ll be around. If you want to get in touch with me, ask Don Loris. I’m going to visit him while I look over the professional opportunities on Darth.”
He went out once more. Somehow he felt more cheerful than a half-hour since, when he’d landed as the only passenger from the spaceliner. Then he’d felt ignored and lonely and friendless on a strange and primitive world. He still had no friends, but he had already acquired some enemies and therefore material for more or less worthwhile achievement. He surveyed the sunlit scene about him from the control-room door.
Thai, the purple-cloaked man, had brought two shaggy-haired animals around to the door of the warehouse. Hoddan later learned that they were horses. He was in furious haste to mount one of them. As he climbed up, small bright metal disks cascaded from a pocket. He tried to stop the flow of money as he got feverishly into the saddle.
From the small town a mob of some fifty mounted men plunged toward the landing-grid. They wore garments of yellow and blue and magenta. They waved huge knives and made bloodthirsty noises. Thai saw them and bolted, riding one horse and towing the other by a lead rope. It happened that his line of retreat passed by where Hoddan stood.