ce Vikings.

Melkarth was strictly a poultry planet. Its people had sunk to the
village-peasant level; they had no wealth worth taking or carrying
away. It was, however, a place where a ship could be set down, and
there were women, and the locals had not lost the art of distillation,
and made potent liquors. A crew could have fun there, much less
expensively than on a regular Viking base planet, and for the last
eight years a Captain Nial Burrik, of the _Fortuna_, had been occupying
it, taking his ship out for occasional quick raids and spending most
of the time living from day to day almost on the local level. Once
in a while, a Gilgamesher would come in to see if he had anything to
trade. It was a Gilgamesher who brought the story to Tanith, and it
was almost two years old when he told it.

"We heard it from the people of the planet, the ones who live where
Burrik had his base. First, there was a trading ship came in. You
may have heard of her; she is the one called the _Honest Horris_."

Trask laughed at that. Her captain, Horris Sasstroff, called himself
"Honest Horris," a misnomer which he had also bestowed on his ship.
He was a trader of sorts. Even the Gilgameshers despised him, and
not even a Gilgamesher would have taken a wretched craft like the
_Honest Horris_ to space.

"He had been to Melkarth before," the Gilgamesher said. "He and
Burrik are friends." He pronounced that like a final and damning
judgment of both of them. "The story the locals told our brethren
of the _Fairdealer_ was that the _Honest Horris_ was landed beside
Burrik's ship for ten days, when two other ships came in. They said
one had the blue crescent badge, and the other bore a green monster
leaping from one star to another."

The _Enterprise_ and the _Starhopper_. He wondered why they'd gone
to a planet like Melkarth. Maybe they knew in advance whom they'd
find there.

"The locals thought there would be fighting, but there was not.
There was a great feast, of all four crews. Then everything of
value was loaded aboard the _Fortuna_, and all four ships lifted
and spaced out together. They said Burrik left nothing of any worth
whatever behind; they were much disappointed at that."

"Have any of them been back since?"

All three Gilgameshers, captain, exec, and priest, shook their heads.

"Captain Gurrash of the _Fairdealer_ said it had been over a year
before his ship put in there. He could still see where the landing
legs of the