be lifted onto my windroller and fitted into specially prepared racks--or perhaps, holes--on the middeck? Also, you will show me how to analyze sea water so that its formula may be sold to the Estoryans, and they can thus keep the fish alive in their own tanks?"

"That's right."

"Hmmm." Miran ran his fat, ring-studded finger over his hook nose and the square gold ornament hanging therefrom. His single eye glared pale-bluely at Green. The other was covered with a white patch to hide the emptiness left after a ball from a Ving musket had struck it.

"It's four weeks until the very last day on which I can set sail from here and still get to Estorya and back before the rains come. It's just barely possible to have the tanks built, get them convoyed down to the seashore, get the fish in and bring them back. Meantime, I can be having the deck altered. If my men work day and night we can make it."

"Of course, this is a one-shot proposition. You can't possibly keep a monopoly on the idea, once the first trip is over. Too many people are bound to talk, and the other captains will hear of it."

"I know; don't teach an Effenycan to suck eggs. But what if the fish should die?"

Green shrugged and spread out his palms. "A possibility. You're taking a tremendous gamble. But every voyage on the Xurdimur is, isn't it? How many windrollers come back? Or how many can boast your list of forty successful trips?"

"Not many," said Miran. He slumped in his seat, brooding over his goblet of wine. His eye, sunk in ranges of fat, seemed to stare through Green. The Earthman pretended indifference, though his heart was pounding, and he controlled his breathing with difficulty.

"You're asking a great deal," Miran finally said. "If the Duke were to find out that I'd agreed to help a valued slave escape, I'd be tortured in a most refined way, and the Clan Effenycan would be stripped of all its rights to sail windrollers and would probably be exiled to its native hills. Or else would have to take to piracy. And that, despite all the glamorous stories you hear, is not a very well-paying profession."

"You'd make a killing in Estorya."

"True, but when I think of what the Duchess will do when she discovers you've fled the country! Ow, ow, ow!"

"There's no reason why you 

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