on the Big Board. It covered,
optimistically, the whole of one wall in his office, and for some
time that one chalked note about the raid on Chermosh, and the date,
as nearly as it could be approximated, looked very lonely on it. The
captain of the _Black Star_ brought back material for a couple more.
He had put in on several planets known to be temporarily occupied by
Space Vikings, to barter loot, give his men some time off-ship, and
make inquiries, and he had names for a couple of planets raided by
the blue crescent ship. One was only six months old.

The way news filtered about in the Old Federation, that was
practically hot off the stove.

The owner-captain of the _Alborak_ had something to add, when he
brought his ship in six months later. He sipped his drink slowly,
as though he had limited himself to one and wanted to make it last
as long as possible.

"Almost two years ago, on Jagannath," he said. "The _Enterprise_ was
on orbit there, getting some light repairs. I met the man a few
times. Looks just like those pictures, but he's wearing a small
pointed beard, now. He'd sold a lot of loot. General merchandise,
precious and semiprecious stones, a lot of carved and inlaid
furniture that looked as though it had come from some Neobarb king's
palace, and some temple stuff. Buddhist; there were a couple of big
gold Dai-Butsus. His crew were standing drinks for all comers. Some
of them were pretty dark above the collar, as though they'd been on
a hot-star planet not too long before. And he had a lot of Imhotep
furs to sell, simply fabulous stuff."

"What kind of repairs? Combat damage?"

"That was my impression. He spaced out a little over a hundred hours
after I came in, in company with another ship. The _Starhopper_,
Captain Teodor Vaghn. The talk was that they were making a two-ship
raid somewhere." The captain of the _Alborak_ thought for a moment.
"One other thing. He was buying ammunition, everything from pistol
cartridges to hellburners. And he was buying all the air-and-water
recycling equipment, and all the carniculture and hydroponic
equipment, he could get."

That was something to know. He thanked the Space Viking, and then asked:

"Did he know, at the time, that I'm out here hunting for him?"

"If he did, nobody else on Jagannath did. I didn't hear about it,
myself, till six months afterward."

That evening, he played off the recording he had made of the
conversation for Harkaman and Valkanhayn