"They knew one simple thing about the universe. That rule is that if anything works once, it may be made to work again." He held up his hand as Kingman started to speak. "You'll bring all sorts of cases to hand and try to disprove me. You can't. Oh, you couldn't cause a quick return of the diplodocus, or re-enact the founding of the solar government, or even re-burn a ton of coal. But there is other carbon, there will be other governmental introductions and reforms, and there may be some day the rebirth of the dinosaur--on some planet there may be carboniferous ages now. Any phenomena that is a true phenomena--and your detector was definite, not a misinterpretation of effect--can be repeated. But, Kingman, we'll not be out-engineered again." "That I do believe." "And so we will have our revenge on Venus Equilateral and upon the system itself." "We're heading home now?" "Right. We want this ship fitted with the triple turret I mentioned before. Also I want the interconnecting links between the solar intake and the power-projectors beefed up. When you're passing several hundred megawatts through any system, losses of the nature of .000,000,1% cause heating to a dangerous degree. We've got to cut the I²R losses. I gave orders that the turret be started, by the way. It'll be almost ready when we return." "_You_ gave orders?" said Kingman. "Oh, yes," said Hellion Murdoch with a laugh. "Remember our _last_ bout with the stock market? I seem to have accumulated about forty-seven percent. That's sufficient to give me control of our company." "But ... but--" spluttered Kingman. "That took money--" "I still have enough left," said Murdoch quietly. "After all, I spent years in the Melanortis Country of Venus. I was working on the _Hippocrates_ when I wasn't doing a bit of mining. There's a large vein of platiniridium there. You may answer the rest." "I still do not get this piracy." Murdoch's eyes blazed. "That's my interest. That's my revenge! I intend to ruin Don Channing and Venus Equilateral. With the super turret they'll never be able to catch us, and we'll run the entire system." Kingman considered. As a lawyer, he was finished. His last try at the ruination of the Venus Equilateral crowd by means of pirating the interplanetary communications beam was strictly a violation of the Communications Code. The latter absolutely prevented any man or group of men from diverting communications not intended for them and using these communications for their own purpose. His defense that Venus Equilateral had also broken the law went unheard. It was pointed out to him that Venus Equilateral tapped his own line, and the tapping of an illegal line was the act of a communications agent in the interest of the government. He was no longer a lawyer, and, in fact, he had escaped a long jail term by sheer bribery.