The issue at front and center right now was the Svalbard Global Trust. The existence of the vaults and their value for colonists had circulated quickly, probably thanks to the Spitsbergen group. Now Valter was playing his trump card. He was demanding to be at the top of the colonization list, or no one would be getting the contents of the vaults. But Butterworth’s group would fill both ships, and he was adamantly unwilling to give up all or part of a ship, or leave part of his group behind. We’d circled around several times, always returning to the same arguments and rebuttals, and I was seriously considering assigning Guppy to cover for me.