d be three or
four minutes later.

At last, when he was completely convinced that he had really been
killed, and was damned and would spend all eternity in this
fire-riven chaos, the _Nemesis_ began firing red flares and the
speakers in all the vehicles were signaling recall. He got aboard
the _Space Scourge_ somehow, after assuring himself that nobody who
was alive was left behind.

There were twenty-odd who weren't, and the sick bay was full of
wounded who had gone up with cargo, and more were being helped off
the vehicles as they were berthed. The car in which he had been
riding had been hit several times, and one of the gunners was
bleeding under his helmet and didn't seem aware of it. When he got
to the command room, he found Boake Valkanhayn, his face drawn and
weary, getting coffee from a robot and lacing it with brandy.

"That's it," he said, blowing on the steaming cup. It was the
battered silver one that had been in front of him when he had first
appeared in the _Nemesis'_ screen. He nodded toward the damage
screen; everything had been patched up, or the outer decks around
breached portions of the hull sealed. "Ship secure." He set down
the silver mug and lit a cigar. "To quote Garvan Spasso, 'Nobody
can call that chicken-stealing.'"

"No. Not even if you count Tizona giraffe-birds as chickens. That
Gram gum-pear brandy you're putting in that coffee? I'll have the
same. Just leave out the coffee."

XIV

The _Lamia_'s detection picked them up as soon as they were out of
the last microjump; Trask's gnawing fear that Dunnan might attack in
their absence had been groundless. Incredibly, he realized, they had
been gone only thirty-odd Galactic Standard days, and in that time
Alvyn Karffard had done an incredible amount of work.

He had gotten the spaceport completely cleared of rubble and debris,
and he had the woods cleared away from around it and the two tall
buildings. The locals called the city Rivvin; a few inscriptions
found here and there in it indicated that the original name had been
Rivington. He had done considerable mapping, in some detail of the
continent on which it was located and, in general, of the rest of
the planet. And he had established friendly relations with the
people of Tradetown and made friends with their king.

Nobody, not even those who had collected it, quite believed their
eyes when the loot was unloaded. The little herd of long haired
unicorns--the Khepera locals