He paused for a moment, then continued, allowing his voice to harden noticeably.

"As such, you are expected to conduct yourselves as mature, responsible adults, not as bickering children. Our agenda will require at least four days to cover, but it will take four months if you cannot contain yourselves. Now, if you will resume your seats, I would like to continue with the subject at hand."

The group began to obediently sort themselves out and shuffle toward their seats. One captain, however, remained in place. She was short, middle-aged, and grossly overweight, but her ferocious expression gave her additional stature as she waved her hand in the air, demanding recognition.

"Yes, Momma?" Tambu asked, acknowledging the woman's hand.

"I think what you said points out our need to limit the size of the fleet," she declared without preamble. "We're getting too big to function effectively, even in a meeting like this."

"Am I to understand that you feel being too big has hampered your effectiveness?" Tambu quipped, deliberately misunderstanding in an effort to lighten the mood.

The group chuckled appreciatively, but Momma was not to be sidetracked.

"Not me, the fleet," she insisted.

"Plans for expansion are on the agenda for tomorrow," Tambu pointed out. "I would appreciate it if you would hold your comments and opinions until that time."

"Well, I want to put a motion on the agenda then," Momma pressed stubbornly. "I think we should put a top limit of a hundred ships on the fleet."

Tambu noted the murmurs and nods of assent among the other captains. There were also several angry faces and hands being thrust violently into the air. The meeting was poised on the brink of another argumentative digression if he didn't exert control immediately.

"Momma," he asked, "are you volunteering to withdraw your membership from the fleet?"

"Me?" the woman blinked, taken aback. "No! I never said that."

"The fleet is already over a hundred strong," Tambu pointed out solemnly. "To adopt or even consider your proposal would imply a willingness to remove several existing member ships from the roster. I assume you would not suggest such a thing unless you were ready to accept the same exile as you were suggesting for others."

"No," Momma admitted, "I-I didn't know there were that many ships already."

Defeated, she sank into a chair, avoiding the eyes of the other captains. Tambu deliberately waited several moments before offering a lifeline.

"You have raised a good point, one I feel all the captains should ponder prior to our expansion discussion tomorrow. The subject currently under consideration, though, is the treatment of our crewmen during their visits planetside."

Several hands went up, seeking recognition. Tambu's attention, however, was drawn to one figure whose raised hand was accompanied by a thoughtful expression, a marked contrast to the eager or angry faces around him.

"Yes, Puck?" Tambu asked.

"I've been listening for the past hour, and it seems to me we're saying the same thing over and over. Now, we could all take turns telling horror stories and have a lot of fun one-upping each other and get everyone all worked up, but I don't see much point in it. We're all in agreement that our crews are being treated shabbily. Once that's been established, I think it's a waste of time to continue recounting the gory details. The real question we should be discussing is what are we going to do about it?"

There was scattered applause as Puck sat down. Tambu smiled to himself. Puck had come a long way from the cocky, hair-trigger kid he used to be. He was rapidly becoming one of the most valuable and popular captains in the fleet.

"I think Puck has put his finger on the problem," Tambu announced firmly. "If we can dispense with further itemizing of complaints, I'd like to hear some discussion from the floor as to proposed courses of action."

"We've got to hit them back," Blackjack called, leaping to his feet. "As long as the Groundhogs think they can gang up on our crewmembers and get away with it, they're going to keep doing it. I say we should teach

ROBERT LYNN ASPRJN them that if they lean on someone off a Tambu ship, they're going to get it shoved back down their throats." Tambu frowned at the growls of assent that responded to Blackjack's suggestion. " Whitey?" he said, recognizing the scowl on her face. "We can't do that, Blackjack," she argued. "Last time I checked, we were still a law enforcement organization. Now, the one rule that's always held for law enforcement groups is that to gain and keep public support, you can't use undue force. That means if someone jostles you on the street, you can't break his arm. If we start going around exacting vengeance with interest for every insult or injury, we'll never get any public support."

"Public support?" Blackjack roared. "The last public support my ship got put three of my crew in the hospital!"

"How do you know your roughnecks didn't start it?" Whitey challenged.

"Three men don't start a fight with a whole bar," Blackjack shot back.

"They might," Whitey corrected. "Or they might try to hassle a hooker with a lot of friends." "Are you saying my men-"

"That's enough!" Tambu barked. "It was decided that we weren't going to discuss specific incidents, nor am I going to allow this discussion to degenerate into childish name-calling."

Though they couldn't see him, the anger in his voice was sufficient to subdue the two combatants.

"Now then, Blackjack, you've proposed a program of retribution. Whitey has raised two questions. First, how much force are you suggesting we employ; and second, what level of investigation do you plan to carry out before launching your retribution? I am also curious as to your answers to those questions. Would you care to comment?" "I haven't thought it through that far," Blackjack admitted. "I was just suggesting it as a possible solution for discussion."

"I see," Tambu commented. "Very well, does anyone else have anything they'd like to add to this proposal?"

Cowboy, the lanky captain of the Whiplash, rose slowly to his feet.

"Ah'd like to add a thing er two to what Whitey said. My paw, he used to be a policeman, and I learned a lot listenin' to him talk over dinner."

"Is that how you managed to dodge the law for so long?" someone quipped from the back of the room.

Cowboy shrugged and smiled, drawing a round of laughter from the assemblage.

"Anyway," he continued, "Paw used to say anytime there was a fight, both sides would insist the other side started it. Usually they weren't even tryin' to cover up or anythin'; they really believed it was the other folks doin". More often 'n not, my paw never could sort out whose fault it really was."

He paused to look around the room.

"Now Ah'm not sayin' it's always our fault when there's a fight, but Ah don't think we kin always say it's the Groundhogs' fault neither. What's more, Ah don't think that even if we tried to investigate each problem that anyone'd believe we was bein' fair and impartial. Heck, Ah don't think we'd believe it ourselves."

"But we can't just ignore it!" Blackjack roared, surging to his feet again. "Just because I don't have a plan doesn't mean we should just sit back and do nothing. Our crews are being discriminated against. We owe it to them to take some kind of firm action."

Several voices rose in both support and protest, but Tambu cut the growing pandemonium short.

"Jelly," he said, "I believe you're next as soon as we have some quiet."

"Thank you, sir." The old man bowed as the voices died down around him. "I would contest Mr.

-

Blackjack's last comment, I do not feel our crews are being singled out for special treatment."

There were several growls at this; but for the most part, the audience held its peace, waiting for the old captain to have his say.