lag in communication between the ship and
Poictesme.

"My private detectives found out about the _Andromeda_," he said.
"She's going to Panurge, in the Gamma System. They have a couple of
computermen with them, one they hired from the Stock Exchange, and one
they practically shanghaied away from the Government. And some of the
people who chartered the ship are members of a family that were
interested in a positronic-equipment plant on Panurge at the time of
the War."

"That's all right, then; we don't need to worry about that any more.
They're just hunting for Merlin."

Some of his companions were looking at him curiously. A little later,
Piet Ludvyckson, the electromagnetics engineer, said: "I thought you
were looking for Merlin, Conn."

"Not on Koschchei. We're looking for something to build a hypership
out of. If I had Merlin in my hip pocket right now, I'd trade it for
one good ship like the _City of Asgard_ or the _City of Nefertiti_,
and give a keg of brandy and a box of cigars to boot. If we had a ship
of our own, we'd be selling lots of both, and not for Storisende
Spaceport prices, either."

"But don't you think Merlin's important?" Charley Gatworth, who had
overheard him, asked.

"Sure. If we find Merlin, we can run it for President. It would make a
better one than Jake Vyckhoven."

He let it go at that. Plenty of opportunities later to expand the
theme.

The gravitation gauge dropped to zero. Now they were in free fall, and
it lasted twice as long as Yves Jacquemont had predicted. There were a
few misadventures, none serious and most of them comic--For example,
when Jerry Rivas opened a bottle of beer, everybody was chasing the
amber globules and catching them in cups, and those who were splashed
were glad it hadn't been hot coffee.

They made their second, 180-degree turnover while weightless. Then
they began decelerating and approached Koshchei stern-on, and the
gravity gauge began climbing slowly up again, and things began
staying put, and they were walking instead of floating. Koshchei grew
larger and larger ahead; the polar icecaps, and the faint dappling of
clouds, and the dark wiggling lines on the otherwise uniform red-brown
surface which were mountain ranges became visible. Finally they began
to see, first with the telescopic screens and then without
magnification, the little dots and specks that were cities and
industrial centers.

Then they were in atmosphere, and Jacquemont made th