voyage back to Koshchei had been a week-long nightmare. When she
had been the pride and budget-wrecker of Transcontinent & Overseas
Airline, the _Harriet Barne_ had accommodated two hundred first-class
and five hundred lower-deck passengers, but the conversion to a
spaceship had drastically reduced her capacity. The three hundred men
and women who had been recruited for the Koshchei colony had been
crammed into her with brutal disregard for comfort, privacy or
anything else except the ability of the air-recyclers to keep them
breathing. When Captain Nichols set her down at the administration
building at Port Carpenter, a few had had to be carried off, but they
were all alive, which made the trip an unqualified success.

The dozen leaders of the expedition were congratulating themselves on
that in one of the executive offices after the first dinner at Port
Carpenter. Rodney Maxwell, in Storisende, had joined them in
screen-image; he was mostly listening, and sometimes contributing a
remark apropos of something the rest of them had said five minutes
ago.

"Our hypership," Conn was saying, "is going to have to be item
two on the agenda. The first thing we need is a ship for the
Poictesme-Koshchei run. By this time next year, we ought to have a
thousand to fifteen hundred people here at the least. We can't haul
them all on that flying sardine can."

"We'll need supplies, too. What was left here won't last forever,"
Nichols added.

"And you're going to have to run this at a profit," Luther Chen-Wong,
who had come along for first hand experience and to help with
administrative work, added. "You have a big payroll to meet, and
you'll have to keep the stockholders happy. People like Jethro
Sastraman and some of these Storisende bankers aren't going to be
satisfied with promises and long-term prospects; they'll want
dividends."

"We'll have to get claims staked on something besides Port Carpenter,
too. Those ships that are building at Storisende will be finished
before long," Jerry Rivas said. "If we don't get some more things
claimed, the first thing you know, we'll own Port Carpenter and
nothing else."

"Well, let's see what we can find in the way of a big airboat, or a
small ship," Conn said. "Jerry, you can pick a party for exploring.
Just zigzag around the planet and transmit in locations and views of
whatever you find, and we'll send it on to Storisende."

"And don't pick anybody for your exploring party that ca