Maybe that was another
milestone of progress.

And there was the Treaty of Khepera, between the Princely State of
Tanith, the Commonwealth of Beowulf, and the Planetary League of
Amaterasu. The Kheperans agreed to allow bases on their planet, to
furnish workers, and to send students to school on all three planets.
Tanith, Beowulf and Amaterasu obligated themselves to joint defense
of Khepera, to free trade among themselves, and to render one another
armed assistance.

That _was_ a milestone of progress, and no argument about it.

* * * * *

The _Space Scourge_ returned from Gimli, and Valkanhayn reported
that nobody on the planet had ever seen or heard of the _Honest
Horris_. They had found a Mardukan Navy ship's pinnace there, manned
entirely by officers, some of them Navy Intelligence. According to
them, the investigation into the activities of that ship had come to
an impasse. The ostensible owners claimed, and had papers to prove
it, that they had chartered her to a private trader, and he claimed,
and had papers to prove it, that he was a citizen of the Planetary
Republic of Aton, and as soon as they began questioning him, he was
rescued by the Atonian ambassador, who lodged a vehement protest
with the Mardukan Foreign Ministry. Immediately, the People's
Welfare Party had leaped into the incident and branded the
investigation as an unwarranted persecution of a national of a
friendly power at the instigation of corrupt tools of the Gilgamesh
Interstellar Conspiracy.

"So that's it," Valkanhayn finished. "It seems they're having an
election and they're afraid to antagonize anybody who might have a
vote. So the Navy had to drop the investigation. Everybody on
Marduk's scared of this Makann. You think there might be some tie-up
between him and Dunnan?"

"The idea's occurred to me. Have there been any more raids on Marduk
trade-planets since the Battle of Audhumla?"

"A couple. The _Bolide_ was on Audhumla a while ago. There were a
couple of Mardukan ships there, and they had the _Victrix_ fixed up
enough to do some fighting. They ran the _Bolide_ out."

A study of the time between the destruction of the _Enterprise_
and _Yo-Yo_ and the appearance of the _Bolide_ could give them a
limiting radius around Audhumla. It did; seven hundred light-years,
which also included Tanith.

So he sent Harkaman in the _Corisande_ and Ravallo in the _Black
Star_ to visit the planets Marduk tra