f. The base will have to be
operated at a profit, or it can't be operated at all." He picked up
the cigar again and puffed slowly. "I am inviting you gentlemen to
join me as partners."

"Well, you still haven't told us how we're going to get the money to
finance it," Spasso insisted.

"The Duke of Wardshaven, and the others who invested in the original
Tanith adventure will put it up. It's the only way they can recover
what they lost on the _Enterprise_."

"But then, this Duke of Wardshaven will be running it, not us,"
Valkanhayn objected.

"The Duke of Wardshaven," Harkaman reminded him, "is on Gram. We are
here on Tanith. There are three thousand light-years between."

That seemed a satisfactory answer. Spasso, however, wanted to know
who would run things here on Tanith.

"We'll have to hold a meeting of all three crews," he began.

"We will do nothing of the kind," Trask told him. "I will be running
things here on Tanith. You people may allow your orders to be
debated and voted on, but I don't. You will inform your respective
crews to that effect. Any orders you give them in my name will be
obeyed without argument."

"I don't know how the men'll take that," Valkanhayn said.

"I know how they'll take it if they're smart," Harkaman told him.
"And I know what'll happen if they aren't. I know how you've been
running your ships, or how your ships' crews have been running you.
Well, we don't do it that way. Lucas Trask is owner, and I'm
captain. I obey his orders on what's to be done, and everybody else
obeys mine on how to do it."

Spasso looked at Valkanhayn, then shrugged. "That's how the man
wants it, Boake. You want to give him an argument? I don't."

"The first order," Trask said, "is that these people you have
working here are to be paid. They are not to be beaten by these
plug-uglies you have guarding them. If any of them want to leave,
they may do so; they will be given presents and furnished
transportation home. Those who wish to stay will be issued rations,
furnished with clothing and bedding and so on as they need it, and
paid wages. We'll work out some kind of a pay-token system and set
up a commissary where they can buy things."

Disks of plastic or titanium or something, stamped and
uncounterfeitable. Get Alvyn Karffard to see about that. Organize
work-gangs, and promote the best and most intelligent to foremen.
And those guards could be taken in hand by some ground-fighter
sergeant and give