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urse. No interference with legitimate commerce. The landing-raids will be paid for by the interplanetary piracy-risk insurance companies--you. In time you'll probably have to get writers to do scripts for them, but not right away. You'll continue to get rich, but there's no harm in that so long as you re-introduce romance and adventure and derring-do to a galaxy headed for decline. Savages will not invent themselves if there are plenty of heroic characters--of your making!--to slap them down!"
Hoddan said painfully:
"I like working on electronic gadgets. My cousin Oliver and I have some things we want to work on together."
His grandfather snorted. One of the cousins came in from outside the yacht. Thal followed him, glowing. He'd reported the looting of the spaceport town, and Don Loris had gone into a tantrum of despair because nobody seemed able to make headway against these strangers. Now he'd turned about and issued a belated invitation to Hoddan and his grandfather and their guest the Interstellar Ambassador--of whom he'd learned from Thal--to dinner at the castle. They could bring their own guards.
* * * * *
Hoddan would have refused, but the Ambassador and his grandfather were insistent. Ultimately he found himself seated drearily at a long table in a stone-walled room lighted by very smoky torches. Don Loris, jittering, displayed a sort of professional conversational charm. He was making an urgent effort to overcome the bad effect of past actions by conversational brilliance. The Lady Fani sat quietly with jewels at her throat. She looked most often at her plate. The talk of the oldsters became profound. They talked administration. They talked practical politics. They talked economics.
The Lady Fani looked very bored as the talk went on after the meal was over. Don Loris said brightly, to her:
"My dear we must be tedious! Young Hoddan looks uninterested, too. Why don't you two walk on the battlements and talk about such things as persons your age find inter