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Earth.’
    ‘I know.’ Coquelin swiveled around, rested his elbows on his desk, and let his head sink between his shoulders. ‘I shall argue. But… tonight I feel old, Mr. Heim.’
    ‘My God, sir! If the Federation won’t act, how about France by herself?’
    ‘Impossible. We cannot even negotiate as a single country with any extraterrestrial power, under the Constitution. We are not allowed any armed force, any machine of war, above the police level. Such is reserved for the Peace Control Authority.’
    ‘Yes, yes, yes—’
    ‘In fact—’ Coquelin glanced up. A muscle twitched in one cheek. ‘Now that I think about what you have brought me, these documents, I do not know if I should make them public.’
    ‘
What?
’
    ‘Consider. France is furious enough. Let the whole truth be known, including the betrayal, and I dare not predict what might happen. It could well end with Peace Control troops occupying us. And, yes, that would hurt the Federation itself, even more than France. One must put loyalty to the Federationabove anything else. Earth is too small for national sovereignty. Nuclear weapons are too powerful.’
    Heim looked at the bent head, and the rage in him seemed about to tear him apart. I’d like to go out myself!’ he shouted.
    ‘That would be piracy,’ Coquelin sighed.
    ‘No … wait, wait, wait.’ The thought flamed into being. Heim sprang to his feet. ‘Privateers. Once upon a time there were privately owned warships.’
    ‘Eh, you have read a little history, I see.’ Some life came back to Coquelin. He sat straighter and watched the huge, restless figure with eyes again alert. ‘But I have read more. Privateering was outlawed in the nineteenth century. Even countries not signatory to that pact observed the prohibition, until it came to be regarded as a part of international law. Admitted, the Federal Constitution does not mention so archaic a matter. Still—’
    ‘Exactly!’ Heim roared; or was it the demon that had come to birth in his skull?
    ‘No, no, flout the law and the Peace Control forces arrive. I am too old and tired, me, to stand trial before the World Court. To say nothing of the practical difficulties. France cannot declare war by herself. France cannot produce nuclear weapons.’ Coquelin uttered a small sad chuckle. ‘I am a lawyer by past profession. If there were a, you say loophole? – I could perhaps squirm through. But here—’
    Word by word, Heim said: ‘I can get hold of the weapons.’
    Coquelin leaped in his seat. ‘
Qu’est-ce que vous dites
?’
    ‘Off Earth. I know a place. Don’t you see – Alerion has to put space defenses in orbit around New Europe, or she can’t hold it against any determined attack.’ Heim was leaning on the desk now, nose to nose with the other, talking like a machine gun. ‘New Europe has only a limited industry. So the Aleriona will have to bring most of the stuff from home. A long supply line. One commerce raider – what’d that do to their bargaining position? What’d it do for our own poor buffaloed people?
One ship!
’
    ‘But I have told you—’
    ‘You told me it was physically and legally impossible. I can prove the physical possibility. And you said you were a lawyer.’
    Coquelin rose too, went to the window, and stared long out across the Seine. Heim’s pace quivered the floor. His brainwhirled with plans, data, angers, hopes; he had not been so seized by a power since he bestrode his bridge at Alpha Eridani.
    And then Coquelin turned about. His whisper filled the silence: ‘
Peut-ètre
—’ and he went to the desk and began punching keys on an infotrieve.
    ‘What are you after?’ Heim demanded.
    ‘Details of the time before quite every country had joined the Federation. The Moslem League did not recognize that it had any right as a whole to deal with them. So during the troubles, the Authority was charged with protecting Federation interests in Africa.’ Coquelin gave himself entirely to his