ded with, looking for Dunnan
ships and exchanging information and assistance with the Royal
Mardukan Navy. Almost at once, he regretted it; the next Gilgamesher
into orbit on Tanith brought a story that Prince Viktor was
collecting a fleet on Xochitl. He sent warnings off to Amaterasu
and Beowulf and Khepera.

A ship came in from Bigglersport, a heavily armed chartered
freighter. There was sporadic fighting in a dozen places on Gram,
now--resistance to efforts on the part of King Angus to collect
taxes, and raids by unidentified persons on estates confiscated
from alleged traitors and given to Garvan Spasso, who had now
been promoted from Baron to Count. And Rovard Grauffis was dead;
poisoned, everybody said, either by Spasso or Queen Evita or both.
Even with the threat from Xochitl, some of the former Wardshaven
nobles began talking about sending ships to Gram.

Less than a thousand hours after he had left, Ravallo was back
in the _Black Star_.

"I went to Gimli, and I wasn't there fifty hours before a
Mardukan Navy ship came in. They were glad to see me; it saved
them sending off a pinnace for Tanith. They had news for you, and
a couple of passengers."

"Passengers?"

"Yes. You'll see who they are when they come down. And don't let
anybody with side-whiskers and buttoned-up coats see them," Ravallo
said. "What those people know gets all over the place before long."

* * * * *

The visitors were Lucile, Princess Bentrik, and her son, the young
Count of Ravary. They dined with Trask; only Captain Ravallo was
also present.

"I didn't want to leave my husband, and I didn't want to come here
and impose myself and Steven on you, Prince Trask," she began, "but
he insisted. We spent the whole voyage to Gimli concealed in the
captain's quarters; only a few of the officers knew we were aboard."

"Makann won the election. Is that it?" he asked. "And Prince Bentrik
doesn't want to risk you and Steven being used as hostages?"

"That's it," she said. "He didn't really win the election, but he
might as well have. Nobody has a majority of seats in the Chamber of
Representatives but he's formed a coalition with several of the
splinter parties, and I'm ashamed to say that a number of Crown
Loyalist members--Crowd of Disloyalists, I call them--are voting
with him, now. They've coined some ridiculous phrase about the 'wave
of the future,' whatever that means."

"If you can't lick them, join