brought home from
Terra. He was nodding, with quick head jerks, at each item.

"That'll do it, all right. Now, listen; what we want to do is get a
company organized, a regular limited-liability company, with a
charter. We'll contribute the information you brought back from Terra,
and we'll get the rest of this gang to put all the money we can twist
out of them into it, so we'll be sure they won't say, 'Aw, Nifflheim
with it!' and walk out on us as soon as the going gets a little
tough." Rodney Maxwell got to his feet, hitching his gun-belt. "I'll
pass the word to Kurt to get a meeting set up for tomorrow afternoon."

"What'll we call this company? Merlin Rediscovery, Ltd?"

"No! We keep Merlin out of it. As far as the public is supposed to
know, this is just a war-material prospecting company. I'll impress on
them that Merlin is to be kept a secret. That way, we'll have to
engage in regular prospecting and salvage work as a front. I'll see to
it that the front is also the main objective." He nodded down the
Mall, toward the sunset, which was blazing even higher and redder.
"Well, let's go. You don't want to be late for your own welcome-home
party."

They walked slowly, still talking, until they came to the end of the
Mall. The escalators to the level below weren't working. Now that he
thought of it, they hadn't been when he had gone away, six years ago,
but he could remember riding up and down on them as a small child. For
a moment they stood in the sunset light, looking down on the lower
terrace as they finished their cigars.

Senta's was mostly outdoors, the tables under the open sky. The people
gathered below were looking at the sunset, too; Litchfielders loved to
watch sunsets, maybe because a sunset was one of the few things
economic conditions couldn't affect. There was Kurt Fawzi, the center
of a group to whom he was declaiming earnestly; there was his mother,
and Flora, and Flora's fiance, who was the uncomfortable lone man in
an excited feminine flock. And there was Senta herself, short and
dumpy, in one of her preposterous red and purple dresses, bubbling
happily one moment and screaming invective at some laggard waiter the
next.

They threw away their cigars and started down the long, motionless
escalator. Conn Maxwell, Hero of the Hour, marching to Destiny. He
seemed to hear trumpets sounding before him.

And an occasional muted Bronx cheer.

IV

The alarm chimed softly beside his bed; he