shifted his drink back to his right hand, chuckled.

"That's right. I've fathered my share of brats in the Old
Federation, and I know Space Vikings whose fathers were born on
Old Federation planets." He turned to Basil Gorram. "You see, the
gentleman isn't crazy, at all. That's what happened to the Terran
Federation, by the way. The good men all left to colonize, and the
stuffed shirts and yes-men and herd-followers and safety-firsters
stayed on Terra and tried to govern the galaxy."

"Well, maybe this is all new to you, captain," Rovard Grauffis
said sourly, "but Lucas Trask's dirge for the Decline and Fall
of the Sword-Worlds is an old song to the rest of us. I have
too much to do to stay here and argue."

Lothar Ffayle evidently did intend to stay and argue.

"All you're saying, Lucas, is that we're expanding. You want us
to sit here and build up population pressure like Terra in the
First Century?"

"With three and a half billion people spread out on twelve planets?
They had that many on Terra alone. And it took us eight centuries
to reach that."

That had been since the Ninth Century, Atomic Era, at the end of
the Big War. Ten thousand men and women on Abigor, refusing to
surrender, had taken the remnant of the System States Alliance navy
to space, seeking a world the Federation had never heard of and
wouldn't find for a long time. That had been the world they had
called Excalibur. From it, their grandchildren had colonized Joyeuse
and Durendal and Flamberge; Haulteclere had been colonized in the
next generation from Joyeuse, and Gram from Haulteclere.

"We're not expanding, Lothar; we're contracting. We stopped
expanding three hundred and fifty years ago, when that ship came
back to Morglay from the Old Federation and reported what had
been happening out there since the Big War. Before that, we were
discovering new planets and colonizing them. Since then, we've
been picking the bones of the dead Terran Federation."

* * * * *

Something was going on by the escalators to the landing stage.
People were moving excitedly in that direction, and the news cars
were circling like vultures over a sick cow. Harkaman wondered,
hopefully, if it mightn't be a fight.

"Some drunk being bounced." Nikkolay, Lucas' cousin, commented.
"Sesar's let all Wardshaven in here, today. But, Lucas, this Tanith
adventure; we're not making any hit-and-run raid. We're taking over
a whole planet; it'