ything out of it themselves?"

"Like what?" Harkaman hooted. "They have no equipment, and they have
no men. Not for a job like that. The only thing they can do is space
out and forget it."

"We could sell them equipment."

"We could if they had anything to use for money. They haven't. One
thing, we do want to let down and give the men a chance to walk on
ground and look at a sky for a while. The girls here aren't too bad,
either," Harkaman said. "As I remember, some of them even take a
bath, now and then."

"That's the kind of news of Dunnan we're going to get. By the time
we'd get to where he's been reported, he'd be a couple of thousand
light-years away," he said disgustedly. "I agree; we ought to give
the men a chance to get off the ship, here. We can stall this pair
along for a while and we won't have any trouble with them."

* * * * *

The three ships were slowly converging toward a point fifteen
thousand miles off-planet and over the sunset line. The _Space
Scourge_ bore the device of a mailed fist clutching a comet by the
head; it looked more like a whisk broom than a scourge. The _Lamia_
bore a coiled snake with the head, arms and bust of a woman.
Valkanhayn and Spasso were taking their time about screening back,
and he began to wonder if they weren't maneuvering the _Nemesis_
into a cross-fire position. He mentioned this to Harkaman and Alvyn
Karffard; they both laughed.

[Illustration]

"Just holding ship's meetings," Karffard said. "They'll be yakking
back and forth for a couple of hours, yet."

"Yes; Valkanhayn and Spasso don't own their ships," Harkaman
explained. "They've gone in debt to their crews for supplies and
maintenance till everybody owns everything in common. The ships
look like it, too. They don't even command, really; they just
preside over elected command-councils."

Finally, they had both of the more or less commanders on screen.
Valkanhayn had zipped up his shirt and put on a jacket. Garvan
Spasso was a small man, partly bald. His eyes were a shade too close
together, and his thin mouth had a bitterly crafty twist. He began
speaking at once:

"Captain, Boake tells me you say you're not here in the service of
the Duke of Wardshaven at all." He said it aggrievedly.

"That's correct," Harkaman said. "We came here because Lord Trask
thought another Gram ship, the _Enterprise_, would be here. Since
she isn't, there's no point in our being here. We d