ey wouldn't have put on the
shielding if they hadn't. They did that as soon as they had the
outside armor on."

"Wonder why they didn't finish her, if they got that far," Retief
said.

"They didn't need her. They'd had it; they wanted to go home."

"Well, we're not going to finish her, not with any fifteen men,"
Retief said. "One man has only two hands, two feet and one brain; he
can only handle so much robo-equipment at a time."

"I never expected we'd build a ship ourselves," Conn said. "We came to
look the place over and get a few claims staked. When we've done that,
we'll go back and get a real gang together."

"I don't know where you'll find them," Jacquemont commented. "We'll
need a couple of hundred, and they ought all to be graduate engineers.
We can't do this job with farm-tramps."

"You made some good shipyard men out of farm-tramps on Barathrum."

"And what'll you do for supervisors?"

"You're one. General superintendent. Mack, you and Schalk are a couple
of others. You just keep a day ahead of your men in learning the job,
you'll do all right."

Vibart turned to Jacquemont. "You know, Yves, he'll do it," he said.
"He doesn't know how impossible this is, and when we try to tell him,
he won't believe us. You can't stop a guy like that. All right, Conn;
deal me in."

"I won't let anybody be any crazier than I am," Jacquemont declared,
and then looked around the vastness of the empty ship with its
lacework of steel. "All you need is about ten million square feet of
decks and bulkheads, and air-and-water system, hydroponic tanks and
carniculture vats, astrogation and robo-pilot equipment, about which I
know very little, a hyperspace pilot system, about which I know
nothing at all.... Conn, why don't you just build a new Merlin? It
would be simpler."

"I don't want a new Merlin. I'm not even interested in the original
Merlin. This is what I want, right here."

He told his father, by screen, about the ship. "I believe we can
finish her, but not with the gang that's here. We'll need a couple of
hundred men. Now, with the supplies we've found, we can stay here
indefinitely. Should we do more exploring and claim some more of these
places, or should we come home right away and start recruiting, and
then come back with a large party, start work on the ship, and explore
and make further claims as we have time?" he asked.

"Better come back as soon as possible. Just explore Port Carpenter,
find out what'