Robinson nodded his understanding and agreement. Moreover, it would be months before the ship would be able to take orbit around the target world. He had great respect for the position-or at least for the power- of the clergy of Earth, but really didn't want them for company for all that time. The representative of the caliph of Rome, in particular, grew tiresome very quickly, despite the body she would share gleefully and for the asking.

And on that not entirely happy thought, Robinson considered inviting the captain, once again, to his bed.

It would be a long braking maneuver before the ship assumed orbit and, while he could, by right and tradition, bed any female of the crew he wished, he had found the captain's technique most agreeable, especially in low gravity. Wallenstein would make Peace 's long descent to the planet something other than a trial.

Peace was one of thirty-three ships now in system. Four of these were of the same, Spirit, class. Another twenty-three were of one of the older but similar classes. The Spirits were slightly larger than the rest, but only slightly. They were ovoid, at just under two hundred meters across and three hundred long. Their silvery skin shone when the sun was just right. Only on closer inspection could one see that the apparently smooth surfaces were pocked with the marks of hundreds, or in some cases thousands, of strikes by astral debris.

Still, at a distance the ships-all twenty-seven that could be seen from below by the locals if the locals used powerful telescopes, as some did-seemed pristine, powerful and invulnerable.

Only one of the petty states that infested the surface of the planet below had made any effort to match the power of the majestic and apparently invulnerable fleet. Just how successful that attempt had been was a matter of considerable conjecture, both above and below.