Elva waited. She knew his moods. When the blunt, bearded face had lost some of its hardness, she donned a smile and stretched herself along the couch, leaning on one elbow. “You’ve been working yourself to death,” she scolded.

He sighed. “Yeh. But the end’s in view. Another week, and all the damn paperwork will be cleared up.”

“You hope. One of your bureaucrats will probably invent nineteen more forms to fill out in quadruplicate.”

“Probably.”

“We never had that trouble at home. The planetary government was only a coordinating body with strictly limited powers. Why won’t you people even consider establishing something similar?”

“You know the reasons. Five billion of them. You’ve got room to be an individual on Vaynamo.” Golyev finished his drink and held the glass out for a refill. “By all chaos! I’m tempted to desert when we get there.”

Elva lifted her brows. “That’s a thought,” she purred.

“Oh, you know it’s impossible,” he said, returning to his usual humorlessness. “Quite apart from the fact I’d be one enemy alien on an entire planet—”

“Not necessarily.”

“—All right, even if I got naturalized (and who wants to become a clodhopper?) I’d have only thirty years till the Third Expedition came. I don’t want to be a client in my old age. Or worse, see my children made clients.”

Elva lit a second cigarette from the stub of the first. She drew in the smoke hard enough to hollow her cheeks.

But it’s fine to launch the Second Expedition and make clients of others, she thought. The First, that captured me and a thousand more (What’s become of them? How many are dead, how many found useless and sent lobotomized to the mines, how many are still being pumped dry of information?) …that was a mere scouting trip. The Second will have fifty warships, and try to force surrender. At the very least, it will flatten all possible defenses, destroy all imaginable war potential, bring back a whole herd of slaves. And then the Third, a thousand ships or more, will bring the final conquest, the garrisons, the overseers and entrepreneurs and colonists. But that won’t be for forty-five years or better from tonight. A man on Vaynamo …Hauki…a man who survives the coming of the Second Expedition will have thirty-odd years left in which to be free. But will he dare have children?

“I’ll settle down there after the Third Expedition, I think,” Golyev admitted. “From what I saw of the planet last time, I believe I’d like it. And the opportunities are unlimited. A whole world waiting to be properly developed!”

“I could show you a great many chances you’d otherwise overlook,” insinuated Elva.

Golyev shifted position. “Let’s not go into that again,” he said. “You know I can’t take you along.”

“You’re the fleet commander, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I will be, but curse it, can’t you understand? The IP is not like any other corporation. We use men who think and act on their own, not planet-hugging morons like what’s-her-name—” he jerked a thumb at Belgoya, who lowered her eyes meekly and continued mixing him a third drink. “Men of patron status, younger sons of executives and engineers. The officers can’t have special privileges. It’d ruin morale.”