ould go along, and Harkaman was almost sure of
the _Black Star_ and _Queen Flavia_. He turned to Bentrik.

"Start that pinnace off for Gimli at once; within the hour if
possible. We don't know how many ships will be gathered there,
but we don't want them wasted in detail-attacks. Tell whoever's
in command there that ships from Tanith are on the way, and to
wait for them."

Fifteen hundred hours, less the five hundred Bentrik was in space
from Marduk. He hadn't time to estimate voyage-time to Gimli from
the other Mardukan trade-planets, and nobody could estimate how many
ships would respond.

"It may take us a little time to get an effective fleet together.
Even after we get through arguing about it. Argument," he told
Bentrik, "is not exclusively a feature of democracies."

* * * * *

Actually, there was very little argument, and most of that among
the Mardukans. Prince Bentrik insisted that Crown Princess Myrna
would have to be taken along; King Mikhyl would be either dead or
brainwashed into imbecility by now, and they would have to have
somebody to take the throne. Lady Valerie Alvarath, Sir Thomas
Kobbly, the tutor, and the nurse Margot refused to be separated
from her. Prince Bentrik was equally firm, with less success, on
leaving his wife and son on Tanith. In the end, it was agreed that
the entire Mardukan party would space out on the _Nemesis_.

The leader of the Bigglersport delegation attempted an impassioned
tirade about going to the aid of strangers while their own planet
was being enslaved. He was booed down by everybody else and informed
that Tanith was being defended where a planet ought to be, on
somebody else's real estate. When the Bigglersporters emerged
from the meeting, they found that their own space-yacht had been
commandeered and sent off to Amaterasu and Beowulf for assistance,
that the regiment of local infantry they had enlisted from the King
of Tradetown had been taken over by the Rivington authorities, and
that the Gilgamesh freighter they had chartered to transport them
to Gram would now take them to Marduk.

The problem broke into two halves: the purely naval action that
would be fought to relieve the Moon of Marduk, if it still held out,
and to destroy the Dunnan and Makann ships, and the ground-fighting
problem of wiping out Makann's supporters and restoring the Mardukan
monarchy. A great many of the people of Marduk would be glad of
a chance to t