locals. She was
in here twice, according to the commercial shipping records, and the
second time she was in too bad shape to be moved out, and Sasstroff
couldn't pay to have her rebuilt, so she was libeled for spaceport
charges and sold. Some one-lung trading company bought her and fixed
her up a little; they went bankrupt in a year or so, and she was
bought by another small company, Startraders, Ltd., and they've been
using her on a milk-run to and from Gimli. They seem to be a
legitimate outfit, but we're looking into them. We're looking for
Sasstroff, too, but we haven't been able to find him."

"If you have a ship out Gimli way, you might find out if anybody
there knows anything about her. You may discover that she hasn't
been going there at all."

"We might, at that," Shefter agreed. "We'll just find out."

* * * * *

Everybody at Cragdale knew about the projected treaty with Tanith
by the morning after Trask's first conversation with Prince Edvard
on the subject. The Queen of the Royal Bedroom, the Royal Playroom
and the Royal Bathroom was insisting that her domains should have
a treaty with Tanith, too.

It was beginning to look to Trask as though that would be the only
treaty he'd sign on Marduk, and he was having his doubts about that.

"Do you think it would be wise?" he asked Lady Valerie Alvarath.
The Queen of three rooms and one four-footed subject had already
decreed that Lady Valerie should be the Space Viking Prince's girl
on the planet of Marduk. "If it got out, these People's Welfare
lunatics would pick it up and twist it into evidence of some kind
of a sinister plot."

"Oh, I believe Her Majesty could sign a treaty with Prince Trask,"
Her Majesty's Prime Minister decided. "But it would have to be kept
very secret."

"Gee!" Myrna's eyes widened. "A real secret treaty; just like the
wicked rulers of the old dictatorship!" She hugged her subject
ecstatically. "I'll bet Grandpa doesn't even have any secret treaties!"

* * * * *

In a few days, everybody on Marduk knew that a treaty with Tanith
was being discussed. If they didn't, it was no fault of Zaspar
Makann's party, who seemed to command a disconcertingly large number
of telecast stations, and who drenched the ether with horror stories
of Space Viking atrocities and denunciations of carefully unnamed
traitors surrounding the King and the Crown Prince who were about to
betray