"That's a little trick I worked out, grandfather," said Hoddan into the transmitter. "Come aboard. I'll pass it on."
His grandfather presently appeared, scowling and suspicious. His eyes shrewdly examined everything, including the loot tucked in every available space. He snorted.
"All honestly come by," said Hoddan morbidly. "It seems I've got a license to steal. I'm not sure what to do with it."
His grandfather stared at a placard on the wall. It said archly: "Remember! A Lady is Present!" Nedda had put it up.
"Hm-m-m!" said his grandfather. "What's a woman doing on a pirate ship? That's what your letter talked about!"
"They get on," said Hoddan, wincing, "like mice. You've had mice on a ship, haven't you? Come in the control room and I'll explain."
He did explain, up to the point where his arrangements to pay back for a ship and cargo he'd given away turned into a runaway success, and now he was responsible for the employment of innumerable bookkeepers and clerks and such in the insurance companies he'd come to own. There was also the fact that as the emigrant fleet went on, some fifty more planets in all would require the attention of pirate ships from time to time, or there would be disillusionment and injury to the economic system.
"Organization," said his grandfather, "does wonders for a tender conscience like you've got. What else?"
Hoddan explained the matter of his Darthian crew. Don Loris might affect to consider them disgraced because they hadn't cut his throat. Hoddan had to take care of the matter. And there was Nedda.... Fani came into the story somehow, too. Hoddan's grandfather grunted, at the end.
"We'll go down and talk to this Don Loris," he said pugnaciously. "I've dealt with his kind before. While we're down, your Cousin Oliver'll take a look at this new grid-field job. We'll put it on my ship. Hm-m-m—how about the time down below? Never land long after daybreak. Early in the morning, people ain't at their best."