again. Self-sustaining cyclic reaction, like the Bethe solar-phoenix.
And every time I try to pour a little oil on the troubled waters, I
find I've gotten it on the fire instead. And then, Flora had this
fight with Wade Lucas, and of course, she blames you for that."

"Good heavens, why?"

"Well, she couldn't blame it on herself, could she? Oh, you mean why
the fight? Lucas is in business with your father now, and she can't
convince him that you and your father are a pair of quadruple-dyed
villains, I suppose. Anyhow, the engagement is _phttt_! Conn, is my
father going back to Koshchei?"

"As soon as we can round up some people to help us on the ship."

"Then I'm going along. I've had it, Conn. I'm a combat-fatigue case."

"But, Sylvie; that isn't any place for a girl."

"Oh, poo! This is Sylvie. We're old war buddies. We soldiered together
on Barathrum; remember?"

"Well, you'd be the only girl, and...."

"That's what you think. If you expect to get any kind of a gang
together, at least a third of them will be girls. A lot of technicians
are girls, and when work gets slack, they're always the first ones to
get shoved out of jobs. I'll bet there are a thousand girl technicians
out of work here--any line of work you want to name. I know what I'll
do; I'll make a telecast appearance. I still have some news value,
from the Barathrum business. Want to bet that I won't be the working
girl's Joan of Arc by this time next week?"

That cheered him. A girl can punch any kind of a button a man can, and
a lot of them knew what buttons to punch, and why. Say she could find
fifty girls....

He had a slightly better chance to talk to his father before the
banquet at the Executive Palace that evening. They shared the same
suite at the Ritz-Gartner, and even welcoming committees seldom chase
their victims from bedroom to bath.

"Yes, I know all about it," Rodney Maxwell said bitterly. "I was home,
a couple of weeks ago. Flora simply will not speak to me, and your
mother begged me, in tears, to quit everything we're doing here. I
tried to give her some idea of what would happen if I dropped this,
even supposing I could; she wouldn't listen to me." He finished
putting the studs in his shirt. "You still think this is worth what
it's costing us?"

"You saw the views we sent back. There's work on Koshchei for a
million people, at least. Why, even these two makeshift ships they're
putting together here at Storisende are givi