uld feel the heat from
it--chuffing and clanking and pouring lavalike molten rock for a new
pavement. And all the nymphs and satyrs and dryads and fauns and
centaurs had had their pedestals rebuilt and were sand-blasted clean.

He landed on the top of the Airlines Building and rode a lift down to
the office where Kurt Fawzi neglected the affairs of his shipline
agency, his brokerage business, and the city of Litchfield. The
afternoon habitues had begun to gather--Raymond Fitch, the
used-vehicles dealer, Lorenzo Menardes, Judge Ledue, Tom Brangwyn,
Klem Zareff. Fawzi was on the screen, talking to somebody with sandy
hair and a suit that didn't seem to be made of any sort of Federation
Armed Forces material, about warehouse facilities. The addresses they
were mentioning were in Storisende.

"No, Leo, I don't know when," Fawzi was saying, "but don't you worry.
You just have space for it, and we'll fill it up. And don't ask me
what sort of stuff. You know what a salvage operation's like; you just
haul out the stuff as you come to it."

Tom Brangwyn, lounging in one of the deep chairs, looked up.

"Hello, Conn. We're having a time. Another two hundred tramps came in
on the _Countess_ this morning, and Ghu only knows how many in their
own vehicles, and they all seem to think if there's work for some
there ought to be work for all, and some of them are getting nasty."

"We can use some more out at the dig. The ones you sent out Thursday
are doing all right, once they found out we weren't taking any
foolishness."

Fawzi turned away from the screen. "Well, Conn, we're in," he said.
"The charter was granted this morning; now we're Litchfield
Exploration & Salvage, Ltd. And Lester Dawes has found us a
contragravity ship."

"How much will it cost us?"

Fawzi began to laugh. "Conn, this'll slay you! She isn't costing us a
centisol. You know those old ships on Mothball Row, back of the old
West End ship docks at Storisende?"

Conn nodded. He'd seen them before he had gone away, and from the

_City of Asgard_ coming in--a lot of old Army Transport craft, covered
with muslin and sprayed with protectoplast. The Planetary Government
had taken them over after the War and forgotten them.

"Well, Lester's getting one of them for us under the old 878
Commercial Enterprise Encouragement Act. She's an Army combat
freighter, regimental ammunition ship. Of course, she still has
armament; we'll have to pay to get that off."

"Why?