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Red lights went off on the board as damage-control crews and their robots sealed the breaches in the hull and pumped air back into evacuated areas, and then more red lights came on. Occasionally, he would glance toward Boake Valkanhayn, who sat motionless in his chair, chewing a cigar that had gone out long ago. He wasn't enjoying it, but he wasn't showing fear.
And I really believe, now, that Valkanhayn can be trusted." "I do, too. I'm not worried about what might happen on the ship. But we don't know what's been happening on Gram. Glaspyth and Didreksburg could have teamed up and jumped Wardshaven before Duke Angus was ready to invade Glaspyth. Boake might be landing the ship in a trap at Wardshaven." "Be a sorry looking trap after it closed on him.
"A subcrit display job, about four miles over the city." He laid the phone down and looked to the underside viewscreen. A little later, a silvery shape dropped away from the ship's south pole. The telescopic screen went off, and the unmagnified screen darkened as the filters went on. Valkanhayn, aboard the other ship, was shouting a warning about his own screens.
Well, I'm very sorry, gentlemen. Captain Harkaman is in my service, and I'm not in the least interested in establishing a base on Tanith." Valkanhayn and Spasso looked at each other. At least, in the two side-by-side screens, their eyes shifted, each to the other's screen on his own ship. "I get it!" Spasso cried suddenly. "There's two ships, the Enterprise and this one.
"Then the Enterprise didn't come here at all!" The man in the screen started. "Isn't that the Enterprise you're in?" "Oh, no. Pardon my remissness, Captain Valkanhayn," Harkaman apologized. "This is the Nemesis. The gentleman with me, Lord Lucas Trask, is owner-aboard, for whom I am commanding. Lord Trask, Captain Boake Valkanhayn, of the Space Scourge. Captain Valkanhayn is a Space Viking."
"With our three ships we could have a real thing, here." Harkaman looked at him inquiringly. "The gentlemen," Trask said, "are putting this wrongly. They mean, why don't we let them join us?" "Well, if you want to put it like that," Valkanhayn conceded. "We'll admit, your Nemesis would be the big end of it. But why not? Three ships, we could have a real base here.
"I can get Garvan on screen and switch him over to your ship " "Well, we have a lot of Sword-World merchandise aboard," Harkaman said. "We could make you good prices on some of it. How are you fixed for robotic equipment?" "But aren't you going to stay here?" Valkanhayn was almost in a panic. "Listen, suppose I talk to Garvan, and we all get together on this. Just excuse me for a minute "
They had Valkanhayn and Spasso aboard the Nemesis for dinner; it didn't take much guiding to keep the conversation on the subject of Tanith and its resources, advantages and possibilities. Finally, when they had reached brandy and coffee, Trask said idly: "I believe, together, we could really make something out of this planet."
As soon as the Lamia was on orbital watch, the Space Scourge was set down at the spaceport and work started on her. It was decided that Valkanhayn would take her to Gram; enough Nemesis people would go along to insure good faith on his part, and to talk to Duke Angus and the Tanith investors.
Immediately, the People's Welfare Party had leaped into the incident and branded the investigation as an unwarranted persecution of a national of a friendly power at the instigation of corrupt tools of the Gilgamesh Interstellar Conspiracy. "So that's it," Valkanhayn finished. "It seems they're having an election and they're afraid to antagonize anybody who might have a vote.
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