's-paw. By silent agreement the
documents were forgotten.

We agreed that the next logical step would be the Cenerentola
Spaceyards. He had some idea of sniffing around quietly first, trying to
get a line to his political opponents. I gave him to understand that the
League, and the League Navy in particular, wanted to stop the
construction of the battleship. After that he could play his politics.
With this point understood he called his car and squadron of guards and
we made a parade to the shipyards. It was a four-hour drive and we made
plans on the way down.

* * * * *

The spaceyard manager was named Rocca, and he was happily asleep when we
arrived. But not for long. The parade of uniforms and guns in the middle
of the night had him frightened into a state where he could hardly walk.
I imagine he was as full of petty larceny as Ferraro. No innocent man
could have looked so terror stricken. Taking advantage of the situation,
I latched my motorized lie detector onto him and began snapping the
questions.

Even before I had all the answers I began to get the drift of things.
They were a little frightening, too. The manager of the spaceyard that
was building the ship had no idea of its true nature.

Anyone with less self-esteem than myself--or who had led a more honest
early life--might have doubted his own reasoning at that moment. I
didn't. The ship on the ways _still_ resembled a warship to six places.
And knowing human nature the way I do, that was too much of a
coincidence to expect. Occam's razor always points the way. If there are
two choices to take, take the simpler. In this case I chose the natural
acquisitive instinct of man as opposed to blind chance and accident.
Nevertheless I put the theory to the test.

Looking over the original blueprints again, the big superstructure hit
my eye. In order to turn the ship into a warship that would have to be
one of the first things to go.

"Rocca!" I barked, in what I hoped was authentic old space-dog manner.
"Look at these plans, at this space-going front porch here. Is it still
being built onto the ship?"

He shook his head at once and said, "No, the plans were changed. We had
to fit in some kind of new meteor-repelling gear for operating in the
planetary debris belt."

I flipped through my case and drew out a plan. "Does your new gear look
anything like this?" I asked, throwing it across the table to him.

He rubbed his jaw w