"A prisoner?" It was my hope that spoke so, not my sure knowledge of what was to come.
Merril shook his head slowly. "A technician. They developed the beam that killed the Argonaut and the Lady—together." His voice was harsh and bleak. Then suddenly he laughed. "We've touched them," he said, "Touched them on their tender spot—their purses." He bowed low, filled with bitter mockery. "Behold the diplomats, the men who are accomplishing the impossible!"
And I knew that his words spelt doom. Doom for the Compact and for the Wall Decade that was our life.
Yet we did not stint. In that year we raided Dione, Io, Ganymede, and even the American naval Base on Callisto. We gutted six Russian and four American rockets filled with treasure. And we ventured sunward as far as the moons of Mars.
We dared battles with patrol ships and won. We killed the destroyer Alexei Tolstoi off Europa and we shattered an American monitor over Syrtis itself, and watched the wreckage rain down on Yakki, the place where the Compact was born.
And we lost the Moonmaid.
The radio told us the story. Other new weapons were being developed against us, and here and there American and Russian spacecraft were seen in company for the first time in the history of the Age of Space. Convoys were formed from ships of both flags to protect spatial commerce from the imagined "great fleet" of the Compact. None knew that only the Arrow and the Starhound, small ships, weary ships, were left to face the slowly combining might of Earth.
And then at last, the pickings—growing slimmer always—diminished to the vanishing point. Merril stood before us and gave the assembled crews their option.
"The treasure hunt is over," our captain told us, "And those who wish may withdraw now. Take your women and the space-boats and return to Mars. You have your shares, and you can live in comfort wherever you may choose. If you wish it, go now."