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make.” He cocked a bright eye up, mocking and yet serious. “We great shipping magnates have our work, as well as these tarry sailors.”
    “Hah!” I said, not particularly convincingly, and went up on deck.
    A great deal had to be thought about, and much of what I had to contend with was, of course, completely unknown to my kregoinye comrade Pompino. We headed straight across the Bay of Panderk in the days following, shipboard routine continued, the breeze blew, the Suns of Scorpio shed their mingled lights across the waves, and if a fellow had had no other thoughts in his head he might well have enjoyed an idyllic period. We sighted no other sail until a morning of crimson and jade and hurling wind, with
Tuscurs Maiden
bowling along under all plain sail, hard braced, heeling on the starboard tack, racing along — well, racing along for a stumpy argenter.
    “You’ll get no damned renders in this weather,” exclaimed Cap’n Murkizon, bristling, grasping a ratline. He stared off across the tumbled sea. “Up by the Hoboling Islands you’ll find ’em creeping about, pirating honest sailormen.”
    “You’ve experience of the Hobolings, Cap’n?”
    “By reputation. I heard that once they sent a fleet to fill the oceans down to Tomboram. That was a time ago, now. They’ve not repeated that kind of raid, to the glory of Pandrite the credit.”
    That was a most serious statement from our Murkizon.
    Carefully, I said: “I heard a chief pirate was Viridia the Render. Does the name mean aught to you?”
    “Only as a render leader. She fought better than a man, I am told.” Before he or I could continue this hazy conversation, the lookout bellowed. For want of anything better to do and the desire to know, I scampered up to the cross-trees and wedged myself and stared at the distant speck bobbing on the horizon rim.
    The breeze blustered past and the ship gyrated as any ship will on almost any board and the old sailorman’s trick of holding the glass steady enabled me to center the sighting.
    She was no pirate. She was a Galleon of Vallia.
    Satisfying myself that she was on an interception course, I shinned down the backstay and found Pompino on the quarterdeck with Captain Linson. Both looked grave.
    “A Vallian?” Linson rubbed his chin. “We cannot outsail her, then.”
    Pompino huffed up; but he had to accept that when it came to sailing ships, the Galleons of Vallia were the finest sailing these seas — apart always from the damned Leem-Loving Shanks from over the curve of the world, blast their eyes.
    “The days of enmity between Pandahem and Vallia are over,” I said. “By Chusto! Those days are dead and gone!”
    Both men swiveled to regard me. I realized I had spoken with some warmth. The subject was close to my heart, as you know, and I was wrapped up in schemes for the future when Pandahem, Vallia and the other land masses of Paz must cooperate against the Shanks.
    “I picked up rumors in the Captains’ Saloons, here and there,” remarked Linson. “Not all Vallians share the friendship for Pandahem proclaimed by their new emperor.”
    I said: “There has for many seasons been friendship between Vallia and Tomboram.”
    We spoke lightly of Pandahem, which is an island cut up into kingdoms and kovnates, when each nation was an entity unto itself. Just how much truth there was in my last observation I still was not sure; maybe that was just a pious hope.
    “Well, Vallian galleons have pirated ships of Tomboram, along with all the other nations of Pandahem. I think,” said Linson in his hard way. “I shall prepare for any eventuality.”
    “Of course.”
    No captain was going to risk his ship through lack of preparation.
    “You think, Jak,” said Pompino, “we should run up the flag of Tomboram? Of Bormark? This will safeguard us from the Vallian?”
    “It should.”
    I could hear that infuriating quaver of doubt in my voice as I spoke. By Vox! Hadn’t these idiots grasped essentials yet?