company that's building the ship out of four air-freighters will go to
Janicot, and the company that's building a ship out of the old
Leitzenring Building will go to Jurgen, and they'll both stay off
Koshchei. Sterber, Flynn & Chen-Wong will probably be defending
antitrust suits till the end of time. The Planetary Government has
stopped liking us, you know."

"Then we'll have to get one that will like us. There'll be an election
about this time next year, won't there?"

His father nodded. "To use one of your expressions, we're working on
it. How soon can you get your ships in?"

"Well be loaded and ready to lift off in a week. Another week for the
trip."

"Well, don't forget that equipment you promised Kurt Fawzi."

"We'll have that on. Jerry Rivas is gathering it up now."

"How are you fixed for arms on Koshchei?"

"Arms? Why, there are some. There was a pretty big force of Space
Marines on duty here, and they left everything they couldn't carry in
their hands. Why? The Armageddonists and the Cybernarchists and Human
Supremacy bought all you had on hand?"

"They're buying, but I wasn't thinking of that. I was thinking that
your crews might need something to argue their way off the ships at
Storisende with. Things are getting just slightly rugged here, now."

XVII

There were no bands or speeches when they came in this time. A lot of
contragravity vehicles circled widely around the spaceport, but except
for a few news-service cars, the police were keeping them back of a
two-mile radius around the landing-pits. A couple of gunboats were
making tight circles above, and on the dock were more vehicles and a
horde of police and guards.

When Rodney Maxwell came across the bridge from the dock after they
opened the airlocks, he was followed by a dozen Barton-Massarra
private police, as villainous-looking a collection of ruffians as Conn
had ever seen. He was wearing a new suit, with a waist-length jacket
instead of the long coat he usually wore, and there was a holstered
automatic on each hip. In Litchfield, he never carried more than one
pistol, and Storisende was supposed to be an orderly place where
nobody needed to go armed. More than anything else, that told Conn
approximately what had been going on while he had been on Koshchei.

"Ship-guard," his father told Yves Jacquemont. "All your crew can come
off; they'll take care of things. Get your people in that troop
carrier over there. Everybody will