at him in
surprise. He hastened to change the subject:

"I see Len made you a suit out of that material," he said to his
father. "And I see you're not bulging the coat out behind with a
hip-holster."

"Oh, I stopped carrying a gun; I'm a city man, now. Nobody carries one
in Storisende. Won't even be necessary in Litchfield before long. Our
new marshal had a regular reign of terror in Tramptown for a few days,
and you wouldn't know the place. Wade, here, is acting mayor now."

They went back to talking about the new company. "You're going to have
so many companies you won't be able to to keep track of them before
long," Conn said.

"Well, I'm doing something about that. A holding company; Trisystem
Investments, Ltd.; you're a non-office-holding stockholder in that,
too."

Merlin was now a political issue. A bill had been introduced in
Parliament to amend the Abandoned Property Act of 867 and nationalize
Merlin, when and if discovered and regardless by whom. The support
seemed to come from an extremist minority; everybody else, including
the Administration, was opposed to it. There was considerable
acrimony, however, on the propositions: 1) that Merlin was too
important to the prosperity of Poictesme to become a private monopoly;
and 2) that Merlin was too important, etc., to become a political
football and patronage plum.

It was discovered, after they were half assembled, that the controls
for the _Harriet Barne_ would only work while she was in a horizontal
position. The whole thing had to be torn out and rebuilt. There was
also trouble with the air-and-water recycling system. The _City of
Nefertiti_ came in from Aton for Odin; Rodney Maxwell was almost
frantic because they hadn't gotten together a cargo of medical stores
from the first hospital to be opened.

"There's all sorts of stuff," he was fuming, by screen. "Stuff that's
in short supply anywhere and that we could get good prices for
off-planet. Get Federation sols for it, too."

"The _City of Asgard_ will be along in six months," Conn said. "You
can have a real cargo assembled by then. You can make arrangements in
advance to dispose of it on Terra or Baldur or Marduk."

"There are a couple of other companies interested in interplanetary
ships now," his father added. "One of them had gotten four old
freighters off Mothball Row, and they're tearing them down and
cannibalizing them into one spaceship. That work's being done here at
Storisende Spacepo