"Oh, that's out of all reason!" Valkanhayn cried. "It would take twenty trips with a ship the size of this one to get all that stuff here, and how'd we ever be able to pay for it?" "That's the sort of base Duke Angus of Wardshaven planned. The _Enterprise_, practically a duplicate of the _Nemesis_, carried everything that would be needed to get it started, when she was pirated." "When she was--?" "Now you're going to have to tell the gentlemen the truth," Harkaman chuckled. "I intend to." He laid his cigar down, sipped some of his brandy, and explained about Duke Angus' Tanith adventure. "It was part of a larger plan; Angus wanted to gain economic supremacy for Wardshaven to forward his political ambitions. It was, however, an entirely practical business proposition. I was opposed to it, because I thought it would be too good a proposition for Tanith and work to the disadvantage of the home planet in the end." He told them about the _Enterprise_, and the cargo of industrial and construction equipment she carried, and then told them how Andray Dunnan had pirated her. "That wouldn't have annoyed me at all; I had no money invested in the project. What did annoy me, to put it mildly, was that just before he took the ship out, Dunnan shot up my wedding, wounded me and my father-in-law, and killed the lady to whom I had been married for less than half an hour. I fitted out this ship at my own expense, took on Captain Harkaman, who had been left without a command when the _Enterprise_ was pirated, and came out here to hunt Dunnan down and kill him. I believe that I can do that best by establishing a base on Tanith myself. The base will have to be operated at a profit, or it can't be operated at all." He picked up the cigar again and puffed slowly. "I am inviting you gentlemen to join me as partners." "Well, you still haven't told us how we're going to get the money to finance it," Spasso insisted. "The Duke of Wardshaven, and the others who invested in the original Tanith adventure will put it up. It's the only way they can recover what they lost on the _Enterprise_." "But then, this Duke of Wardshaven will be running it, not us," Valkanhayn objected. "The Duke of Wardshaven," Harkaman reminded him, "is on Gram. We are here on Tanith. There are three thousand light-years between." That seemed a satisfactory answer. Spasso, however, wanted to know who would run things here on Tanith. "We'll have to hold a meeting of all three crews," he began. "We will do nothing of the kind," Trask told him. "I will be running things here on Tanith. You people may allow your orders to be debated and voted on, but I don't. You will inform your respective crews to that effect. Any orders you give them in my name will be obeyed without argument." "I don't know how the men'll take that," Valkanhayn said.