"Here," replied the T.I.S. agent.
"Pepperell," said Norman. "Get in touch with the Terrestial Intelligence Service over the radio at once. You know their code. Tell them to send an accredited ambassador of the Earth Congress in the Empire's fastest space ship toward Neptune, but don't reveal our location. We'll contact the ship beyond the orbit of Jupiter. I want," he said with a sudden laugh, "to arrange a surprise for the ambassador."
XII
During the following days a bacchanalian orgy swept Behrl as former slaves and pirates went wild with freedom. It was the maddest spree in the history of the System. Only in the apartment of Norman Saint Clair did sanity hold forth.
There the nine remaining men of the original thirteen who had launched the Sinn Feiners, worked ceaselessly to bring order out of chaos. Hops, the traitor, was dead. Pepperell, in charge of a picked crew, had been despatched in the Rocket to fetch the ambassador of the Earth Congress. Two of the Martians had been killed in the battle with the men of the Venusian Export Lines.
Many of the pirates and slaves would desire to remain, Norman thought. Here was a new world, a rich world with unguessed resources waiting for exploitation. But for those who wished to return, transportation to Earth had to be arranged.
At the present, the nine original members of the Sinn Feiners had assumed control of Behrl, but a permanent form of government also must be drawn up. The vast housing facilities and factories thrown open to the colonists demanded cooperative ownership, a communal government. With a sigh, Norman turned over his radium mines to the new state.
The nine men were seated about a long table which had been installed in his living-room. He said with a wry grin, "Gentlemen, I'm absolutely the only man in history to turn down mastery of the Solar System and then toss away a fortune on top of it."
The buzzer softly announced a visitor. Koal rose, admitted Pepperell, the ex-T.I.S. agent. The men crowded about him, firing questions. "Did he have the ambassador with him? Was there any trouble?"