"Well?" said Cole as he reached the bridge the next morning. "What’s the bad news?"

"We lost eight more ships, sir," said Rachel Marcos, who was at the main computer station.

"Can’t say that I blame them," replied Cole. "They didn’t know Four Eyes, they don’t give a damn about the Republic, and there’s no money in it for them."

"And we still have a fleet of forty ships," added Rachel.

"Yeah, when you’re up against all those millions, I don’t suppose there’s a hell of a lot of difference between forty and fifty," said Cole wryly. "By the way, this is still red shift, isn’t it?"

"Yes, sir."

"So where’s Jacovic?"

"I believe he’s at the station, sir."

"His first day on duty and he’s already deserted his post," said Cole. "I’ve seen better beginnings."

"I’m back," said an alien voice, and they turned and saw Jacovic approaching them.

"You weren’t supposed to be gone," said Cole.

"The ship is docked, and I saw the possibility of adding to our fleet," said Jacovic. "Two Teroni ships arrived I last night. I took the liberty of visiting them, and they have pledged their support."

"Of course they have," said Cole. "They get to shoot down Navy ships."

"If I misunderstood you yesterday," began Jacovic, "I can tell them that—"

"You did fine," said Cole. "Executive officers are supposed to use their initiative. In fact, you might spend some of your time at Duke’s Place and the non-human restaurants. There are bound to be other Teronis there. See if you can get them to convince their captains to join the cause. We’re going to need all the help we can get."

"Yes, sir."

"And while I’m thinking of it, we’ve still got some Lodinites, Mollutei, and a couple of other races aboard the ship," said Cole. "Suggest to each of them that they spend some time on the station, recruiting members of their races and anyone else they know."

"I’ll do that after I seek out Teronis on Singapore Station," promised Jacovic.

"Do it now," said Cole. Jacovic looked at him questioningly. "You’re still on duty. This qualifies."

"Yes, sir."

He turned to Rachel. "Are you dating anyone at the station?"

"No, sir."

"As young and blonde and pretty as you are?" said Cole. "What a pity You’ve taken one of my best recruiting tools away."

"Thank you," she said. "I think."

He looked over at Domak, a warrior-caste Polonoi with more natural body armor than some perfectly healthy men could carry, and decided that she wasn’t seeing anyone socially—or, if she was, he was just as happy not meeting the object of her affections.

Suddenly the Platinum Duke’s face appeared in front of Cole.

"How did your meeting go?" he asked.

"Don’t pretend you don’t know," said Cole. "I saw the holo camera blinking up in the balcony."

"Just in case you said anything momentous."

"Good. Shoot it over to the ship, and I’ll have Christine send it out as a recruiting holo."

"No problem."

"I assume you watched it?"

"Of course," said the Duke. "You should have made me sound more heroic, donating Singapore Station to the cause."

"And simultaneously not losing more than five hundred drinkers and gamblers," said Cole with a smile.

"Well said," replied the Duke. "By the way, I haven’t seen David Copperfield since your speech. I wonder where he’s hiding?"

"Beats me," said Cole. "All I know is that he’s not in a bulkhead. He used to hide there during battles, but then he found out that our sensor system could always pick him up. He’s probably somewhere on the station."

"How did such a coward get to be the biggest fence on the Frontier?"

"He’s a damned good businessman."

"But wasn’t he terrified of the people he did business with?" asked the Duke.

"He always met them on his turf," replied Cole. Suddenly he smiled. "The first time I met him he had eight or nine hidden guns trained on me. That has to boost a coward’s confidence."

"And he joined you solely because you called yourself Steerforth?"

"He joined me because I offered him protection and used the name of a character from David Copperfield. He stayed because he was able to earn a lot of commissions for us when we became mercenaries."

"Interesting little character, always dressing like something from Charles Dickens."

"Well, we can’t all be things of metallic beauty like yourself,'' said Cole.

"Of course you can," said the Duke. "All it takes is a lot of time and even more money."

"Money’s going to be in short supply for a while. We’ve got to turn Singapore Station into a fortress, remember?"

"It didn’t take that much time or money the last time, when you had that little skirmish with Csonti."

"Probably because it was a little skirmish," replied Cole. "Csonti had fewer than thirty ships, and a number of them were not what one would call loyal. The Navy could come here with a hundred ships, each of which could do more damage that fifty Csontis."

"Point taken," said the Duke. "How do we go about it?"

"I’ll send Mustapha Odom—that’s our chief engineer—over later today. He’s not much to look at, and even less to talk to, but he knows his stuff, and there’s no one I’d trust more to make a place like this attack-proof. Probably I’ll send Val over, too. Not much gets by her."

"We could just stand her on one of the docks armed with a thumper and a laser rifle, and that’s all the defense we’d need," said the Duke.

"You won’t need any for a few weeks, unless we screw up pretty badly," said Cole. "Then you’ll wish you had five thousand of her."

"How soon do you expect to see conflict?"

"I don’t know. No one fought those other five ships, and they’re safely back in the Republic by now. I wish we could make them our target, but they may never even enter the Frontier again." He paused and ran a hand through his hair. "That isn’t to say that there aren’t a couple of hundred Navy ships here right now. We’ll try to pick one that’s all by itself, and destroy it so fast it hasn’t got time to send out a message. We’re not ready for the Republic to come looking for us yet.

"You’re forgetting something, Wilson."

"Oh?"

The Duke nodded. "They know the Theodore Roosevelt is in the Inner Frontier, and they know you killed the Endless Night. Won’t it be logical for them to assume you’ve killed any other ship that suddenly vanishes on the Frontier?"

"Perhaps. But if we do it right, if we don’t leave any trace, if we prevent the ship from sending out an SOS, then I don’t see what they can do about it short of sending in a couple of thousand ships they can’t spare to do a really thorough search."

"That’s a lot of ifs," noted the Duke.

"We’re drawing a line in the dirt—well, in space—and telling the greatest military power in the history of the galaxy that they can’t cross it," said Cole. "I don’t know how you do it except with a lot of ifs."

"To say nothing of maybes."

"Yeah," said Cole grimly. "Let’s not even think of them."