ng, Conn," Tom Brangwyn said.
"You got no idea at all how bad things were, the last couple of
years."

"I know. I'm sorry." He was ashamed of himself. "But I needed a ship,
and now we have no ship at all."

"A ship means something to you?" Yves Jacquemont asked.

"Yes." He told him why. "If we could get to Koshchei, we could build a
hypership of our own, and get our brandy and things to markets where
we could get a decent price for them."

"I know. I was in and out of Storisende on these owner-captain tramps
for a couple of years before I decided to retire and settle here,"
Jacquemont said. "The profit on a cargo of Poictesme brandy on Terra
or Baldur is over a thousand percent."

"Well, don't give up too soon," Nichols advised. "You can't keep the
_Harriet Barne_, of course, but you're entitled to prize-money on her,
and that ought to buy you something you could build a spaceship out
of."

"That's right," Jacquemont said. "Everything else besides the frame
can be made here. Look, these pirates burned me out; except for the
money I have in the bank, I lost everything, home, business and all.
As soon as I can find a place for Sylvie to stay, I'll come back and
go to work for your company building a spaceship. And a lot of the men
who were working here are farm-tramps and drifters, one job's as good
as another as long as they get paid for it. And I know a few good men
in Storisende--engineers--who'd be glad for a job, too."

"You think it would be all right with Mother and Flora if Sylvie
stayed with us?" Conn asked.

"Of course it would; they'd be glad to have her." Rodney Maxwell
turned to Yves Jacquemont. "Let's consider that fixed up. Now,
suppose you and I go into Storisende, and...."

The Transcontinent & Overseas people arrived at Barathrum Spaceport
the next morning; a rear-rank vice-president, a front-rank
legal-eagle, and three engineers. They were horrified at what they
saw. The _Harriet Barne_ had been gutted. Bulkheads and decks had
been ripped out and relocated incomprehensibly; the bridge and the
control room under it were gone; she had been stripped to her framework,
and the whole underside was sheathed in shimmering collapsium.

"Great Ghu!" the vice-president almost howled. "That isn't _our_
ship!"

"That's the _Harriet Barne_," her captain said. "She looks a little
ragged now, but--"

"You helped these pirates do this to her?"

"If I hadn't, they'd have cut my throat and gotten somebod