ng else to be said.

"Now, your grandfather and I have canvassed the situation thoroughly!
This good work must be continued. Diplomatic Service has been worried
all along the line. Now we've something to work up. Your grandfather
will expand his facilities and snatch ships, land and loot, and keep
piracy flying. Your job is to carry on the insurance business. The ships
that will be snatched will be your ships, of course. No interference
with legitimate commerce. The landing-raids will be paid for by the
interplanetary piracy-risk insurance companies--you. In time you'll
probably have to get writers to do scripts for them, but not right away.
You'll continue to get rich, but there's no harm in that so long as you
re-introduce romance and adventure and derring-do to a galaxy headed for
decline. Savages will not invent themselves if there are plenty of
heroic characters--of your making!--to slap them down!"

Hoddan said painfully:

"I like working on electronic gadgets. My cousin Oliver and I have some
things we want to work on together."

His grandfather snorted. One of the cousins came in from outside the
yacht. Thal followed him, glowing. He'd reported the looting of the
spaceport town, and Don Loris had gone into a tantrum of despair because
nobody seemed able to make headway against these strangers. Now he'd
turned about and issued a belated invitation to Hoddan and his
grandfather and their guest the Interstellar Ambassador--of whom he'd
learned from Thal--to dinner at the castle. They could bring their own
guards.

* * * * *

Hoddan would have refused, but the Ambassador and his grandfather were
insistent. Ultimately he found himself seated drearily at a long table
in a stone-walled room lighted by very smoky torches. Don Loris,
jittering, displayed a sort of professional conversational charm. He was
making an urgent effort to overcome the bad effect of past actions by
conversational brilliance. The Lady Fani sat quietly with jewels at her
throat. She looked most often at her plate. The talk of the oldsters
became profound. They talked administration. They talked practical
politics. They talked economics.

The Lady Fani looked very bored as the talk went on after the meal was
over. Don Loris said brightly, to her:

"My dear we must be tedious! Young Hoddan looks uninterested, too. Why
don't you two walk on the battlements and talk about such things as
persons your age find in