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time?”
    “Brass or good iron,” said Makhno. “I know you can swap for it at Kenny-Camp.”
    “Then why din’cha swap for it there yerself?” Irish leaned forward on the plank table. “Yah know we got nothin’ down here but local produce an’ the occasional shimmer stone.”
    “I’d rather the assayer’s office didn’t know all my business.” Makhno grinned back. “They’ve got too many company men peeping over their shoulders.”
    Himself smiled broadly, showing crooked teeth. “An’ they just might take it into their heads to put an end to the euph-leaf trade, startin’ with yerself, eh?”
    “Something like that,” Makhno agreed.
    Irish leaned back, exuding confidence. “Well now, it just so happens that we’ve got a wee blacksmith’s shop, an’ a few pigs o’ copper an’ tin, and summat more o’ fine-smelted iron. We was hopin’ ta make it inta minin’ tools, but for such foine brandy, not ta mention the leaf, I do think we can dicker.”
    “Coal,” Van Damm put in. “We know there’s plenty of carbon on the planet, or the forests wouldn’t exist. But where can we get usable amounts of it?”
    Himself laughed and slapped the table. “From the black-stump tree, o’ course! What did yah think it made its black core from? Eh, I suppose yah had ta be a miner ta notice. Ah, but for big loads o’ that, ye’ll have ta bring us more than just euph an’ brandy.”
    “I think we can come up with something,” Makhno grinned, “And in larger loads, too.”
    As Van Damm watched, the two of them leaned close over the table and settled in for some serious dickering. Chains of trade routes, he considered. Stronger than steel…
    He wondered idly if he could stir up the kind of trouble Max Cole wanted by setting the free miners against the company’s slaves, but then decided it wouldn’t work. The company “indentured laborers” would desert in a red-hot minute if they knew there was some way they could survive outside the company’s town….
    And right there, a beautiful idea blossomed.

     
    When Max Cole heard that there was a coded special message for him coming up from the planet, he practically ran to the radio room to get his transcript, and actually did run back to his cabin to decode it. Yes, of course it was from Van Damm, and high time, too. The ship was due to leave in another two hours.
    Have a possibility, the message read. Can get miners to desert Kennicott. K/Co will then go after them and shoot up local farmers in the process. Is this the atrocity you want?
    Cole swore blisteringly, then coded a return message and carried it back to the radio room himself.
    Down on the surface, in Sam Kilroy’s establishment on the outskirts of Castell City, the message was received and then relayed to Hell’s-A-Comin’. Van Damm got the reply and took it off to the storeroom of the Irish Bar to decode.
    Hell, no! Cole’s reply read. Do nothing to make K look bad! Find something else. Stay there until you do.
    Van Damm laughed aloud, drawing Makhno’s attention, and he felt obliged to share the news. Both of them laughed uproariously, shared a pitcher of very good Janesfort beer and settled down to some serious analysis and speculation.
    Two hours later the ship left orbit and headed back toward Wayforth Station, taking Max Cole with it.

     
    It took a quarter of a T-year for the relocated Golden Parrot to become a successful venture. DeCastro had been obliged to buy raw grains and other seeds from the local farmers, sprout and ferment them himself before he could come up with a passable beer, and his attempts at creating whiskey or brandy had failed dismally. He had built a workable grill and made the Parrot into an acceptable restaurant, and the services of his girls were always a good draw, but for the life of him he could not start a decent drug-trade. A local product called euph-leaf was abundant and popular, but he couldn’t find the source, much less get a monopoly on it. The