that's it!" Then he looked
at Trask in alarm. "Hey, you're not thinking of selling Amaterasu
plutonium and Beowulf gadolinium, are you?"

"Why not? We could make a big profit on both ends of the deal."

"You know what would happen next, don't you? There'd be ships from
both planets all over the place in a few years. We want that like
we want a hole in the head."

He couldn't see the objection. Tanith and Amaterasu and Beowulf
could work up a very good triangular trade; all three would profit.
It wouldn't cost men and ship-damage and ammunition, either. Maybe
a mutual defense alliance, too. Think about it later; there was too
much to do here on Tanith at present.

There had been mines on the Moon of Tanith before the collapse of
the Federation; they had been stripped of their equipment afterward,
while Tanith was still fighting a rearguard battle against barbarism,
but the underground chambers and man-made caverns could still be used,
and in time the mines were reopened and the steel mill put in, and
eventually ingots of finished steel were coming down by shuttle-craft.
In the meantime, the shipyard had been laid out and was taking shape.

The Gram ship _Queen Flavia_--she had been the one found unfinished
at Glaspyth--came in three months after the _Rozinante_ started
back; she must have been finished while Valkanhayn was still in
hyperspace. She carried considerable cargo, some of it superfluous
but all of it useful; everybody was investing in the Tanith Adventure
now, and the money had to be spent for something. Better, she brought
close to a thousand men and women; the leakage of brains and ability
from the Sword-Worlds was turning into a flood. Among them was Basil
Gorram. Trask remembered him as an insufferable young twerp, but he
seemed to be a good shipyard man. He very frankly predicted that
in a few years his father's yards at Wardshaven would be idle and
all the Tanith ships would be Tanith-built. A junior partner of
Lothar Ffayle's also came out, to establish a branch of the Bank of
Wardshaven at Rivington.

As soon as the _Queen Flavia_ had discharged her cargo and
passengers, she took on five hundred ground-fighters from the
_Lamia_, _Nemesis_ and _Space Scourge_ companies and spaced out on
a raiding voyage. While she was gone, the second ship, the one Duke
Angus had started at Wardshaven and King Angus had finished, the
_Black Star_, came in.

Trask was slightly incredulous at realizing that she h