if not rapacious. Greedy,
venal, ruthless. All of that.

"Five of us," he said in a hard voice, "Captains all--with ships and
men. We carry the riches of the universe and let it slip through our
fingers. What greater fools could there be?"

Oh, he was right enough. We had the power to command in our hands
without the sense to grasp it firmly and take what we chose.

"And mark you, my friends," Merril said, "A wall has been built around
Mars. A wall that weakens rather than strengthens. A wonderful, stupid,
wall...." He laughed and glanced around the table at our faces, flushed
with wine and greed. "With all space full of walls," he said softly,
"Who could unite against us?"

The question struck home. I thought of the five ships standing out there
on the rusty desert across the silted canal. Five tall ships--against
the stars. We felt no kinship to those at home who clung to creature
comforts while we bucketed among the stars risking our lives and more.
We, the spacemen, had become a race apart from that of the home planet.
And Merril saw this in our faces that night so long ago, and he knew
that he had spoken our thoughts.

Thus was born the Compact.

Gods of space, but I must laugh when I read what history has recorded of
the Compact.

"_Merril, filled with the wonder of his great dream, spoke his mind
to the Captains. He told them of the sorrow in his heart for his
divided fellow men, and his face grew stern when he urged them to
put aside ideology and prejudice and join with him in the Compact._"

So speaks Quintus Bland, historian of the Age of Space. I imagine that I
hear Merril's laughter even as I write. Oh, we put aside ideology and
prejudice, all right! That night in Yakki the five Captains clasped
hands over the formation of the first and only compact of space-piracy
in history!

* * * * *

It was an all or nothing venture. Our crews were told nothing, but their
pockets were emptied and their pittances joined with ours. We loaded the
five ships with supplies and thundered off into the cobalt Martian sky
to seek a stronghold. We found one readily enough. The chronicles do not
record it accurately. They say that the fleet of the Compact based
itself on Eros. This is incorrect. We wanted no Base that would bring us
so close to the home planet every year. The asteroid we chose was
nameless, and remained so. We spoke of it seldom aspace, but it was ever
i