n to find
Tanith devastated. Things like that had happened in space-war. The
only thing to do was sit tight, defend Tanith when Viktor attacked,
and then counterattack if he had any ships left by that time.
Prince Viktor was probably reasoning in the same way.

He had no time to think about Andray Dunnan, except, now and then,
to wish that Otto Harkaman would stop thinking about him and bring
the _Corisande_ home. He needed that ship on Tanith, and the wits
and courage of her commander.

More news--Gilgamesh sources--came in from Xochitl. There were only
two ships, both armed merchantmen, on the planet. Prince Viktor had
spaced out with the rest an estimated two thousand hours before the
story reached him. That was twice as long as it would take the
Xochitl armada to reach Tanith. He hadn't gone to Beowulf; that was
only sixty-five hours from Tanith and they would have heard about
it long ago. Or Amaterasu, or Khepera. How many ships he had was
a question; not fewer than five, and possibly more. He could have
slipped into the Tanith system and hidden his ships on one of the
outer uninhabitable planets. He sent Valkanhayn and Ravallo
microjumping their ships from one to another to check. They returned
to report in the negative. At least, Viktor of Xochitl wasn't camped
inside their own system, waiting for them to leave Tanith open
to attack.

But he was somewhere, and up to nothing even resembling good, and
there was no possible way of guessing when his ships would be
emerging on Tanith. The only thing to do was wait for him. When he
did, Trask was confident that he would emerge from hyperspace into
serious trouble. He had the _Nemesis_, the _Space Scourge_, the
_Black Star_ and _Queen Flavia_, the strongly rebuilt _Lamia_, and
several independent Space Viking ships, among them the _Damnthing_
of his friend Roger-fan-Morvill Esthersan, who had volunteered to
stay and help in the defense. This, of course, was not pure
altruism. If Viktor attacked and had his fleet blown to
Em-See-Square, Xochitl would lie open and unprotected, and there
was enough loot on Xochitl to cram everybody's ships. Everybody's
ships who had ships when the Battle of Tanith was over, of course.

He was apologetic to Princess Bentrik:

"I'm very sorry you jumped out of Zaspar Makann's frying pan into
Prince Viktor's fire," he began.

She laughed at that. "I'll take my chances on the fire. I seem to
see a lot of good firemen around. If there