Most men called it the Devil Planet. Only David Falkayn saw it as a world where he could make the greatest fortune of his career - if an entire alien armada could be kept at bay! In his magnificent Future History of mankind's second great age, Poul Anderson has conjured up a universe too immense for even the human race to despoil. Across this grand expanse of space roams the Polesotechnic League, a band of merchant princes from every inhabited planet, in search of adventure and riches beyond the wildest dreams of our earthbound time!