miles and then unleashed the fury of his forward tubes. Hellfire
coruscated over the steel turrets and stone walls of Corfu. It splashed
like a liquid flame over men and metal and twisted the towers and
buttresses into spidery tendrils of glowing thread. Corfu died without
firing a shot.

We put a party from the _Hound_ aground ten hours later. Even then, we
had to wear insulated suits to walk in that still molten inferno.
Charred bodies had become one with the stuff of the fortress, and
nothing living was left within the keep. We looted Corfu's treasure and
lifted into space heavy with gold.

* * * * *

Time passed in an orgy of looting for the men of the Compact. We grew
rich and arrogant, for in space we were kings. Torn by suspicion of one
another, America and Russia could do nothing against us. They had built
an Iron Curtain in space, and it kept them divided and weak.

Endymion felt our blasts, and Clio. Then came Tethys, Rhea, Iapetus. We
cared nothing for the flag these Bases flew. They were the gathering
points for all the gold and treasure of space and we of the Compact took
what we wished of it, leaving a trail of blood and rapine behind us. No
nation claimed our loyalty; space was our mother and lust our father.

Thus, the Peacemakers.

* * * * *

For five full years--the long years of the Outer Belt--the _Arrow_, the
_Starhound_, the _Moonmaid_, the _Lady_ and the _Argonaut_ were the
scourges of the spacelanes. No patrol could find us, and no defense
could contain us. I recall how we laughed at the angry sputtering of
Earth's radio. Vast sums were spent in searches and new weapons to
protect the meek and the mutually distrustful from Merril and the men of
the Compact. Budgets, already strained to the breaking point by
generations of the cold war, creaked and groaned as Russians and
Americans spent furiously to build up their defenses against our
depredations. But though we were few and they many--space was large and
it hid us well.

And then one darkling day, Jaq Merril and I stood on the thin methane
snow that carpeted our Base's landing ramp, waiting under our own
blue-black sky for the return of the _Argonaut_. Merril had sent her
sunward to strike at the mines of Loki, an asteroid where Russian
_komisars_ rolled in mountains of blood-red rubies.

We waited through the day and into the sable night, but the _Argonaut_
did not retur