Transcriber's Note:

 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U. S. Copyright on this publication was renewed. 

 H. BEAM PIPER

 ULLER UPRISING

 ACE SCIENCE FICTION BOOKS

 NEW YORK

 * * * * *

This Ace Science Fiction Book contains the complete text of theoriginal hardcover edition. It has been completely reset in a typefacedesigned for easy reading, and was printed from new film. 

PRINTING HISTORYTwayne edition/ 1952Ace edition/ June 1983

Copyright © 1952 by Twayne Publishers, Inc. Copyright © renewed 1983 by Charter Communications, Inc. Introduction © 1952, 1983 by Dr. John D. ClarkNew Introduction © 1983 by John F. CarrCover art by Gino D'Achille

 * * * * *

Introduction to

_ULLER UPRISING_

by John F. Carr

With the publication of this novel, _Uller Uprising_, all of H. BeamPiper's previously published science fiction is now available in Aceeditions. _Uller Uprising_ was first published in 1952 in a TwayneScience Fiction Triplet--a hardbound collection of three thematicallyconnected novels. (The other two were Judith Merril's _Daughters ofEarth_ and Fletcher Pratt's _The Long View_. ) A year later it appearedin the February and March issues of _Space Science Fiction_, edited byLester Del Rey. 

The magazine version, which was abridged by about a third, wasbelieved by many bibliographers to be the only version--and as anovella it was too short for book publication. The Twayne version hada small print run and is so scarce that few people have seen it. Thosebibliographers who knew of its existence assumed that both versions of_Uller_ were the same. It was through a telephone conversation withCharles N. Brown, publisher of _Locus_ and correspondent with Piper, that I learned about the Twayne edition and its greater length. Brownallowed me to photocopy his original, for which we owe him a debt ofthanks; because the Twayne version is not only novel length, but farbetter than the shorter one that appeared in _Space Science Fiction_. 

Probably the most surprising and interesting thing about the Twayneedition is the essay that forms the introduction to that volume, andis reprinted here. The essay is by Dr. John D. Clark, an eminentscientist of the fourties and fifties and one of the discoverers ofsulfa, the first "miracle drug. " It describes in great detail theplanetary system of the star Beta Hydri, and gives the names of thoseplanets: Uller and Niflheim. A publisher's note states that Clark'sessay was written first, and given to the contributors as backgroundmaterial for a novel they would then write. 

The fans of H. Beam Piper seem to owe a great debt to Dr. Clark. _Uller Uprising_ became the foundation of Piper's monumentalTerro-Human Future History; the first story where we encounter theTerran Federation. In it we learn about Odin, the planet that will oneday be the capital of the First Galactic Empire; and humble Niflheim, which in more decadent times will become a common expletive, a wordmeaning hell. This is also where Piper introduced and explained theAtomic Era dating system (A. E. ). _Uller Uprising_ is set in the earlyyears of the Terran Federation's expansion and exploration, an epochof great vitality. In "The Edge of the Knife" Piper compares this timeof discovery to the Spanish conquest of the Americas. This feeling ofvigor and unlimited possibilities runs through all the earlyFederation stories: _Uller Uprising_, "Omnilingual, " "Naudsonce, ""When in the Course--, " and, to a lesser degree, in the lateFederation novels, _Little Fuzzy_, _Fuzzy Sapiens_, and _Fuzzies andOther People_. (See _Federation_ by H. Beam Piper for a good overviewof this period. )

In these stories we see Terro-Humans at their best and at their worst:Individual heroism and bravery in the face of grave danger in _UllerUprising_; Federation law and justice in _Little Fuzzy_ and itssequels; and, in "Omnilingual" and "Naudsonce, " the spirit of scienceand rational inquiry. Yet we also see colonial exploitation andsubjugation in _Uller Uprising_ and "Oomphel in the Sky, " the greedand corruption of Chartered land companies in _Little Fuzzy_, andpolitical corruption in _Four-Day Planet_. These stories are about aliving Terro-Human culture, not a utopia. 

It was Piper's attention to historical realism and his use of actualhistorical models that have helped his work to pass the test of timeand have led to his becoming the favorite of a new generation ofreaders more than twenty-five years after his death. 

_Uller Uprising_ is the story of a confrontation between a humanoverlord and alien servants, with an ironic twist at the end. Likemost of Piper's best work, _Uller Uprising_ is modeled after an actualevent in human history; in this case the Sepoy Mutiny (a Bengaluprising in British-held India brought about when rumors were spreadto native soldiers that cartridges being issued by the British werecoated with animal fat. The rebellion quickly spread throughout Indiaand led to the massacre of the British Colony at Cawnpore. ). Piper'snovel is not a mere retelling of the Indian Mutiny, but rather ananalysis of an historical event applied to a similar situation in thefar future. 

 * * * * *

Like many philosophers and social theorists before him, Piperattempted to chart the progress of human-kind; unlike most, however, he did not envision or try to create a system of ethics that would endall of humanity's problems. The best he could offer was his model ofthe self-reliant man: The man who "actually knows what has to be doneand how to do it, and he's going to go right ahead and do it, withoutholding a dozen conferences and round-table discussions and givingeverybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him. "

Piper brought his own ideas and judgments about society and historyinto all of his work, but they appear most clearly in his Terro-HumanFuture History. While not everyone will agree with Piper's theoriesthey give his work a bite that most popular fiction lacks. One cannotread Piper complacently. And one can often find a wry insightsandwiched in between the blood and thunder. 

Other future histories may span more centuries or better illuminatethe highlights of several decades, but until a rival is created withmore historical depth and attention to detail, H. Beam Piper'sTerro-Human Future History will stand as the Bayeux Tapestry ofscience fiction histories. 

In many ways--certainly during his lifetime--Piper was the mostunderrated of the John W. Campbell's "Astounding" writers. He wasprobably also the most Campbellian; his _self-reliant man_ is almost amirror image of Campbell's "Citizen. "

Piper died a bitter man, a failure in his own mind; shortly before hisdeath he believed he could no longer earn a living as a writer withoutcharity from his friends or the state. 

Now he's the cornerstone of Ace Books. Had he lived long enough tofinish another half dozen books, he would have been among the sfgreats of the sixties. . . . 

But maybe he does know, after all. Jerry Pournelle, who was very muchinfluenced by Piper and in many ways considers himself Beam'sspiritual descendant--and incidently was John W. Campbell's last major_discovery_--has said that sometimes, when he's gotten down aparticularly good line, he can hear the "old man" chuckle and whisper, _atta boy_. 

Introduction

Dr. John D. Clark

THE SILICONE WORLD

1. THE STAR AND ITS MOST IMPORTANT PLANET

The planet is named Uller (it seems that when interstellar travel wasdeveloped, the names of Greek Gods had been used up, so those of Norsegods were used). It is the second planet of the star Beta Hydri, rightangle 0:23, declension-77:32, G-0 (solar) type star, of approximatelythe same size as Sol; distance from Earth, 21 light years. 

Uller revolves around it in a nearly circular orbit, at a distance of100, 000, 000 miles, making it a little colder than Earth. A year is ofthe approximate length of that on Earth. A day lasts 26 hours. 

The axis of Uller is in the same plane as the orbit, so that at acertain time of the year the north pole is pointed directly at thesun, while at the opposite end of the orbit it points directly away. The result is highly exaggerated seasons. At the poles the temperatureruns from 120°C to a low of-80°C. At the equator it remains not farfrom 10°C all year round. Strong winds blow during the summer andwinter, from the hot to the cold pole; few winds during the spring andfall. The appearance of the poles varies during the year from bakeddeserts to glaciers covered with solid CO_{2}. Free water exists inthe equatorial regions all year round. 

2. SOLAR MOVEMENT AS SEEN FROM ULLER

As seen from the north pole--no sun is visible on Jan. 1. On April 1, it bisects the horizon all day, swinging completely around. April 1 toJuly 1, it continues swinging around, gradually rising in the sky, thespiral converging to its center at the zenith, which it reaches July1. From July 1 to October 1 the spiral starts again, spreading outfrom the center until on October 1 it bisects the horizon again. OnOctober 1 night arrives to stay until April 1. 

At the equator, the sun is visible bisecting the southern horizon forall 26 hours of the day on January 1. From January 1 to April 1, thesun starts to dip below the horizon at night, to rise higher above itduring the day. During all this time it rises and sets at the samehours, but rises in the southeast and sets in the southwest. At noonit is higher each day in the southern sky until April 1, when it risesdue east, passes through the zenith and sets due west. From April 1 toJuly 1, its noon position drops down to the north, until on July 1, itis visible all day, bisected by the northern horizon. 

3. CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY OF ULLER

Calcium and chlorine are rarer than on earth, sodium is somewhatcommoner. As a result of the shortage of calcium there is a higherration of silicates to carbonates than exists on earth. The water isslightly alkaline and resembles a very dilute solution of sodiumsilicate (water glass). It would have a pH of 8. 5 and tastes slightlysoapy. Also, when it dries out it leaves a sticky, and then a glassy, crackly film. Rocks look fairly earthlike, but the absence or scarcityof anything like limestone is noticeable. Practically all thesedimentary rocks are of the sandstone type. 

All rivers are seasonal, running from the polar regions to the centralseas in the spring only, or until the polar cap is completely driedout. 

4. ANIMAL LIFE

As on Earth life arose in the primitive waters and with a carbon base, but because of the abundance of silicone, there was a strong tendencyfor the microscopic organisms to develop silicate exoskeletons, likediatoms. The present invertebrate animal life of the planet is of thistype and is confined to the equatorial seas. They run from amoeba-likeobjects to things like crayfish, with silicate skeletons. Later, somespecies of them started taking silicone into their soft tissues, andeventually their carbon-chain compounds were converted to siliconetype chains, from

 | | | | | | | |--C--C--C-- to O--Si--O--Si--O--Si, | | | | | | | |

with organic radicals on the side links. These organisms were atransitional type, with silicone tissues and water body fluids, resembling the earthly amphibians, and are now practically extinct. There are a few species, something like segmented worms, still to beseen in the backwaters of the central seas. 

A further development occurred when the silicone chain animals beganto get short-chain silicones into their circulatory systems, held insolution by OH or NH_{2} groups on the ends and branches of thechains. The proportion of these compounds gradually increased untilthe water was a minor and then a missing constituent. The largermobile species were, then, practically anhydrous. Their blood consistsof short-chain silicones, with quartz reinforcing for the soft partsand their armor, teeth, etc. , of pure amorphous quartz (opal). Most ofthese parts are of the milky variety, variously tinted with metallicimpurities, as are the varieties of sapphires. 

These pure silicone animals, due to their practical indestructibility, annihilated all but the smaller of the carbon animals, and drove thecompromise types into odd corners as relics. They developed into afish-like animal with a very large swim-bladder to compensate for therather higher density of the silicone tissues, and from these fish theland animals developed. Due to their high density and resulting highweight, they tend to be low on the ground, rather reptilian in look. Three pairs of legs are usual in order to distribute the heavy load. There is no sharp dividing line between the quartz armor and thesilicone tissue. One merges into the other. 

The dominant pure silicone animals only could become mobile andventure far from the temperate equatorial regions of Uller, since theyneither froze nor stiffened with cold, nor became incapacitated byheat. Note that all animal life is cold-blooded, with a negligibledifference between body and ambient temperatures. Since the animalsare silicones, they don't get sluggish like cold snakes. 

5. PLANT LIFE

The plants are of the carbon-metabolism, silicate-shell type, like theprimitive animals. They spread out from the equator as far as theycould go before the baking polar summers killed them. They have normalseasonal growth in the temperate zones and remain dormant and frozenin the winter. At the poles there is no vegetation, not because of thecold winter, but because of the hot summer. The winter windsfrequently blow over dead trees and roll them as far as the equatorialseas. Other dead vegetation, because of the highly silicious water, always gets petrified unless it is eaten first. What with thequartz-speckled hides of the living vegetation and the solid quartz ofthe dead, a forest is spectacular. 

The silicone animals live on the plants. They chew them up, dehydratethem, and convert their silicious outer bark and carbonaceousinteriors into silicones for themselves. When silicone tissue ismetabolized, the carbon and hydrogen go to CO_{2} and H_{2}O, whichare breathed out, while the silicone goes into SiO_{2}, which isdeposited as more teeth and armor. (Compare the terrestrial octopus, which makes armor-plating out of calcium urate instead of excretingurea or uric acid. ) The animals can, of course, eat each other too, ormake a meal of the small carbonaceous animals of the equatorial seas. 

Further note that the animals cannot digest plants when they are cold. They can eat them and store them, but the disposal of the solid waterand CO_{2} is too difficult a problem. When they warm up, the water inthe plants melts and can be disposed of, and things are simpler. 

II

THE FLUORINE PLANET

1. THE STAR AND PLANET

The planet named Niflheim is the fourth planet of Nu Puppis, rightangle 6:36, declension-43:09; B8 type star, blue-white and hot, 148light years distant from Earth, which will require a speed in excessof light to reach it. 

Niflheim is 462, 000, 000 miles from its primary, a little less than thedistance of Jupiter from our sun. It thus does not receive too great atotal amount of energy, but what it does receive is of high potential, a large fraction of it being in the ultra-violet and higherfrequencies. (Watch out for really super-special sunburn, etc. , onunwarned personnel. )

The gravity of Niflheim is approximately 1 g, the atmospheric pressureapproximately 1 atmosphere, and the average ambient temperatureabout-60°C;-76°F. 

2. ATMOSPHERE

The oxidizer in the atmosphere is free fluorine (F_{2}) in a ratherlow concentration, about 4 or 5 percent. With it appears a madcollection of gases. There are a few inert diluents, such as N_{2}(nitrogen), argon, helium, neon, etc. , but the major fraction consistsof CF_{4} (carbon tetrafluoride), BF_{3} (boron trifluoride), SiF_{4}(silicon tetrafluoride), PF_{5} (phosphorous pentafluoride), SF_{6}(sulphur hexafluoride) and probably others. In other words, thefluorides of all the non-metals that can form fluorides. Thephosphorous pentafluoride rains out when the weather gets cold. Thereis also free oxygen, but no chlorine. That would be liquid except invery hot weather. It sometimes appears combined with fluorine inchlorine trifluoride. The atmosphere has a slight yellowish tinge. 

3. SOIL AND GEOLOGY

Above the metallic core of the planet, the lithosphere consistsexclusively of fluorides of the metals. There are no oxides, sulfides, silicates or chlorides. There are small deposits of such things asbromine trifluoride, but these have no great importance. Sincefluorides are weak mechanically, the terrain is flattish. Nothingtough like granite to build mountains out of. Since the fluoride ionis colorless, the color of the soil depends upon the predominant metalin the region. As most of the light metals also have colorless ions, the colored rocks are rather rare. 

4. THE WATERS UNDER THE EARTH

They consist of liquid hydrofluoric acid (HF). It melts at-83°C andboils at 19. 4°C. In it are dissolved varying quantities of metallicand non-metallic fluorides, such as boron trifluoride, sodiumfluoride, etc. When the oceans and lakes freeze, they do so from thebottom up, so there is no layer of ice over free liquid. 

5. PLANTS AND PLANT METABOLISM

The plants function by photosynthesis, taking HF as water from thesoil, and carbon tetrafluoride as the equivalent of carbon dioxidefrom the air to produce chain compounds, such as:

 H H H H | | | |--C--C--C--C-- | | | | F F F F

and at the same time liberating free fluorine. This reaction couldonly take place on a planet receiving lots of ultra-violet because somuch energy is needed to break up carbon tetrafluoride andhydrofluoric acid. The plant catalyst (doubling for the magnesium inchlorophyll) is nickel. The plants are colored in various ways. Theyget their metals from the soil. 

6. ANIMALS AND ANIMAL METABOLISM

Animals depend upon two main reactions for their energy, and for theconstruction of their harder tissues. The soft tissues are about thesame as the plant molecules, but the hard tissues are produced by thereaction:

 H H H F F F | | | | | |--C--C--C-- + F_{2} --> --C--C--C-- + HF | | | | | | F F F F F F

resulting in a teflon boned and shelled organism. He's going to betough to do much with. Diatoms leave strata of powdered teflon. Themain energy reaction is:

 H H H | | |--C--C--C-- . . . + F_{2} --> CF_{4} + HF | | | F F F

The blood catalyst metal is titanium, which results in colorlessarterial blood and violet veinous, as the titanium flips back andforth between tri and tetra-valent states. 

7. EFFECT ON INTRUDING ITEMS

Water decomposes into oxygen and hydrofluoric acid. All organic matter(earth type) converts into oxygen, carbon tetrafluoride, hydrofluoricacid, etc. , with more or less speed. A rubber gas mask lasts about anhour. Glass first frosts and then disappears. Plastics act likerubber, only a little slower. The heavy metals, iron, nickel, copper, monel, etc. , stand up well, forming an insoluble coat of fluorides atfirst and then doing nothing else. 

8. WHY GO THERE?

Large natural crystals of fluorides, such as calcium difluoride, titanium tetrafluoride, zirconium tetrafluoride, are extremely usefulin optical instruments of various forms. Uranium appears as uraniumhexafluoride, all ready for the diffusion process. Compounds of suchnon-metals as boron are obtainable from the atmosphere in high puritywith very little trouble. All metallurgy must be electrical. There areconsiderable deposits of beryllium, and they occur in highconcentration in its ores. 

PROLOGUE

On Satan's Footstool

The big armor-tender vibrated, gently and not unpleasantly, as thecontragravity field alternated on and off, occasionally varying itsnormal rate of five hundred to the second when some thermal updraftlifted the vehicle and the automatic radar-altimeter control acted toalter the frequency and lower it again. Sometimes it rocked slightly, like a boat on the water, and, in the big screen which served in lieuof a window at the front of the control cabin, the dingy-yellowlandscape would seem to tilt a little. If unshielded human eyes couldhave endured the rays of Nu Puppis, Niflheim's primary, the whole scenewould have appeared a vivid Saint Patrick's Day green, the effect ofthe blue-predominant light on the yellow atmosphere. The outside'visor-pickup, however, was fitted with filters which blocked out thegamma-rays and X-rays and most of the ultra-violet-rays, and added thelonger light-waves of red and orange which were absent, so that thingslooked much as they would have under the light of a G0-type star likeSol. The air was faintly yellow, the sky was yellow with a greenishcast, and the clouds were green-gray. 

A thousand feet below, the local equivalent of a forest grew, thetrees, topped with huge ragged leaves, looking like hundred-footstalks of celery. There would be animal life down there, too--littleround things, four inches across, like eight-legged crabs, gnawing atthe vegetation, and bigger things, two feet long, with articulatedshell-armor and sixteen legs, which fed on the smaller herbivores. Beyond, in the middleground, was open grassland, if one could so calla mat of wormlike colorless or pastel-tinted sprouts, and a rivermeandered through it. On the skyline, fifty miles away, was a range oflow dunes and hills, none more than a thousand feet high. 

No human had ever set foot on the surface, or breathed the air, ofNiflheim. To have done so would have been instant death; the air was amixture of free fluorine and fluoride gasses, the soil was metallicfluorides, damp with acid rains, and the river was pure hydrofluoricacid. Even the ordinary spacesuit would have been no protection; theglass and rubber and plastic would have disintegrated in a matter ofminutes. People came to Niflheim, and worked the mines and uraniumrefineries and chemical plants, but they did so inside power-drivenand contragravity-lifted armor, and they lived on artificialsatellites two thousand miles off-planet. This vehicle, for instance, was built and protected as no spaceship ever had to be, completelyinsulated and entered only through a triple airlock--an outer lock, which would be evacuated outward after it was closed, a middle lockkept evacuated at all times, and an inner lock, evacuated into theinterior of the vehicle before the middle lock could be opened. Niflheim was worse than airless, much worse. 

The chief engineer sat at his controls, making the minor lateraladjustments in the vehicle's position which were not possible to theautomatic controls. One of the radiomen was receiving from the orbitalbase; the other was saying, over and over, in an exasperatedlypatient voice: "Dr. Murillo. Dr. Murillo. Please come in, Dr. Murillo. " At his own panel of instruments, a small man with grizzledblack hair around a bald crown, and a grizzled beard, chewed nervouslyat the stump of a dead cigar and listened intently to what was--or forwhat wasn't--coming in to his headset receiver. A couple of assistantschecked dials and refreshed their memories from notebooks and peeredanxiously into the big screen. A large, plump-faced, young man insoiled khaki shirt and shorts, with extremely hairy legs, was doodlingon his notepad and eating candy out of a bag. And a black-haired girlin a suit of coveralls three sizes too big for her, and, apparently, not much of anything else, lounged with one knee hooked over herchair-arm, staring into the screen at the distant horizon. 

"Dr. Murillo. Dr. Mur--" The radioman broke off in mid-syllable andlistened for a moment. "I hear you, doctor, go ahead. " Then, a momentlater "What's your position, now, doctor?"

"I can see them, " the girl said, lifting a hand in front of her. "Attwo o'clock, about one of my hand's-breadths above the horizon. "

The man with the grizzled beard put his face into the fur around theeyepiece of the telescopic-'visor and twisted a dial. "You have goodeyes, Miss Quinton, " he complimented. "Only four personal armors;Ahmed, ask him where the fifth is. "

"We only see four of your personal-armors, " the radioman said. "Who'smissing, and why?" He waited for a moment, then lowered the hand-phoneand turned. "The fifth one's inside the handling-machine. One of theUllerans. Gorkrink. "

The larger of the specks that had appeared on the horizon resolveditself into a handling-machine, a thing like an oversizedcontragravity-tank, with a bulldozer-blade, a stubby derrick-boominstead of a gun, and jointed, claw-tipped arms to the sides. Thesmaller dots grew into personal armor--egg-shaped things that sproutedarms and grab-hooks and pushers in all directions. The man with thegrizzled beard began talking rapidly into his hand-phone, then hung itup. There was a series of bumps, and the armor-tender, weightless oncontragravity, shook as the handling-machine came aboard. 

"You ever see any nuclear bombing, Miss Quinton?" the young man withthe hairy legs asked, offering her his candy bag. 

"Only by telecast, back Sol-side, " she replied, helping herself. "Test-shots at the Federation Navy proving-ground on Mars. I nevereven heard of nuclear bombs being used for mining till I came here, though. "

"Well, if this turns out as well as the other job, three months ago, it'll be something to see, " he promised. "These volcanoes have beendormant for, oh, maybe as long as a thousand years; there ought to bea pretty good head of gas down there. And the magma'll be thick, viscous stuff, like basalt on Terra. Of course, this won't be anythinglike basalt in composition--it'll be intensely compressed metallicfluorides, with a very high metal-content. The volcanoes we shot threemonths ago yielded a fine flow of lava with all sorts ofmetals--nickel, beryllium, vanadium, chromium, indium, as well ascopper and iron. "

"What sort of gas were you speaking about?" she asked. 

"Hydrogen. That's what's going to make the fireworks; it combinesexplosively with fluorine. The hydrogen-fluorine combination is whatpasses for combustion here; the result is hydrofluoric acid, thelocal equivalent of water. See, the metallic core of this planet iscovered, much less thickly than that of Terra, with fluoriderock--fluorspar, and that sort of thing. There's nothing like granitehere, for instance. That's why those big dunes, out there, are thebest Niflheim has in the way of mountains. The subsurface hydrogen isproduced when the acid filters down through the rock, combines withpure metals underneath. "

"Dr. Murillo's inside, now, " the radioman said. "Just came out of theinner airlock. He'll be up as soon as he gets out of hispressure-suit. "

"As soon as he gets here, I'll touch it off, " the bearded man said. "Everything set, de Jong?"

"Everything ready, Dr. Gomes, " one of his assistants assured him. 

The door at the rear of the control-cabin opened, and Juan Murillo, the seismologist, entered, followed by an assistant. Murillo was a bigman, copper-skinned, barrel-chested; he looked like a third-orfourth-generation Martian, of Andes Indian ancestry. He came forwardand stood behind Gomes' chair, looking down at the instruments. Hisassistant stopped at the door. This assistant was not human. He was abiped, vaguely humanoid, but he had four arms and a face like alizard's, and, except for some equipment on a belt, he was entirelynaked. 

He spoke rapidly to Murillo, in a squeaking jabber. Murillo turned. 

"Yes, if you wish, Gorkrink, " he said, in theEnglish-Spanish-Afrikaans-Portuguese mixture that was Sixth Century, A. E. , Lingua Terra. Then he turned back to Gomes as the Ulleran satdown in a chair by the door. 

"Well, she's all yours, Lourenço, shoot the works. "

Gomes stabbed the radio-detonator button in front of him. A voice cameout of the PA-speaker overhead: "In sixty seconds, the bombs will bedetonated . . . Thirty seconds . . . Fifteen seconds . . . Ten seconds . . . Five seconds, four seconds, three seconds, two seconds, onesecond. . . . "

Out on the rolling skyline, fifty miles away, a lancelike ray ofblue-white light shot up into the gathering dusk--a clump of fiverays, really, from five deep shafts in an irregular pentagon half amile across, blended into one by the distance. An instant later, therewas a blinding flash, like sheet-lightning, and a huge ball ofvaricolored fire belched upward, leaving a series of smoke-rings tofloat more slowly after it. That fireball flattened, then spread toform the mushroom-head of a column of incandescent gas that mounted toovertake it, engorging the smoke-rings as it rose, twisting, writhing, changing shape, turning to dark smoke in one moment and belching flameand crackling with lightning the next. The armor-tender began to pitchand roll; it was all the engineer and one of the assistants could do, together, to keep it level. 

"In about half an hour, " the large young man told the girl, "the realfireworks should be starting. What's coming up now is just smalldebris from the nuclear blast. When the shockwaves get down far enoughto crack things open, the gas'll come up, and then steam and ash, andthen the magma. This one ought to be twice as good as the one we shotthree months ago; it ought to be every bit as good as Krakatoa, onTerra, in 59 Pre-Atomic. "

"Well, even this much was worth staying over for, " the girl said, watching the screen. 

"You going on to Uller on the _City of Canberra_?" Lourenço Gomesasked. "I wish I were; I have to stay over and make another shot, in amonth or so, and I've had about all of Niflheim I can take, now. Thesooner I get onto a planet where they don't ration the air, the betterI'll like it. "

"Well, what do you know!" the large young man with the hairy legsmock-marveled. "He doesn't like our nice planet!"

"Nice planet!" Gomes muttered something. "They call Terra God'sFootstool; well, I'll give you one guess who uses this thing to prophis cloven hoofs on. "

"When are you going to Terra?" the girl asked him. 

"Terra? I don't know, a year, two years. But I'm going to Uller on thenext ship--the _City of Pretoria_--if we get the next blast off intime. They want me to design some improvements on a couple ofpower-reactors, so I'll probably see you when I get there. "

"Here she comes!" the chief engineer called. "Watch the base of thecolumn!"

The pillar of fiery smoke and dust, still boiling up from where thebombs had gone off far underground, was being violently agitated atthe bottom. A series of new flashes broke out, lifting and spreadingthe incandescent radioactive gasses, and then a great gush of flamerose. A column of pure hydrogen must have rushed up into the vacuumcreated by the explosion; the next blast of flame, in a lateral sheet, came at nearly ten thousand feet above the ground, and great rags offire, changing from red to violet and back through the spectrum to redagain, went soaring away to dissipate in the upper atmosphere. Thengeysers of hot ash and molten rock spouted upward; some of thewhite-hot debris landed almost at the acid river, half-way to thearmor-tender. 

"We've started a first-class earthquake, too, " the Hispano-IndianMartian Murillo said, looking at the instruments. "About six bigcracks opening in the rock-structure. You know, when this quiets downand cools off, we'll have more ore on the surface than we can handlein ten years, and more than we could have mined by ordinary means infifty. "

About four miles from the original blast, another eruption began witha terrific gas-explosion. 

"Well, that finishes our work, " the large young man said, going to akitbag in the corner of the cabin and getting out a bottle. "Get someof those plastic cups, over there, somebody; this one calls for adrink. "

"That's right, " Gomes said. "You do something once, it may be anaccident; you repeat the performance, and it's a success. " He beganpushing papers aside on his desk, and the girl in the too-amplecoveralls brought drinking cups. 

The Ulleran, in the background, rose quickly and squeakedapologetically. Murillo nodded. "Yes, of course, Gorkrink. No need foryou to stay here. " The Ulleran went out, closing the door behind him. 

"That taboo against Ullerans and Terrans watching each other eat anddrink, " Murillo said. "What is that, part of their religion?"

"No, it's their version of modesty, " the girl replied. "Like some ofour sex-inhibitions, which they can't even begin to understand. . . . Butyou were speaking to him in Lingua Terra; I didn't know any of themunderstood it. "

"Gorkrink does, " Murillo said, uncorking the bottle and pouring intothe plastic cups. "None of them can speak it, of course, because ofthe structure of their vocal organs, any more than we can speak theirlanguages without artificial aids. But I can talk to him in LinguaTerra without having to put one of those damn gags in my mouth, and hecan pass my instructions on to the others. He's been a big help; I'llbe sorry to lose him. "

"Lose him?"

"Yes, his year's up; he's going back to Uller on the _Canberra_. Youknow, it's impossible to keep some trace of fluorine from the air inthe handling-machines, or even out on the orbiters, and it plays thedevil with their lungs. He wanted to stay on another three months, tohelp with the next shot, but the medics wouldn't hear of it. . . . He'sfrom Keegark, wherever on Uller that is; claims to be a prince, orsomething. I know all the other geeks kowtow to him. But he's a damngood worker. Very smart; picks things up the first time you tell him. I'll recommend him unqualifiedly for any kind of work withcontragravity or mechanized equipment. "

They all had drinks, now, except the chief engineer, who wanted arain-check on his. 

"Well, here's to us, " Murillo said. "The first A-bomb miners inhistory. . . . "

I. 

Commander-in-Chief Front and Center

General Carlos von Schlichten threw his cigarette away, flexed hishands in his gloves, and set his monocle more firmly in his eye, stepping forward as the footsteps on the stairway behind him ceasedand the other officers emerged from the squat flint keep--CaptainCazabielle, the post CO; big, chocolate-brown Brigadier-GeneralThemistocles M'zangwe; little Colonel Hideyoshi O'Leary. Far in frontof him, to the left, the horizon was lost in the cloudbank over TakkadSea; directly in front, and to the right, the brown and gray and blackflint mountains sawed into the sky until they vanished in thedistance. Unseen below, the old caravan-trail climbed one side of thepass and slid down the other, a sheer five hundred feet below theparapet and the two corner catapult-platforms which now mounted 90-mmguns. On the little hundred-foot-square parade ground in front of thekeep, his aircar was parked, and the soldiers were assembled. 

Ten or twelve of them were Terrans--a couple of lieutenants, sergeants, gunners, technicians, the sergeant-driver andcorporal-gunner of his own car. The other fifty-odd were Ullerannatives. They stood erect on stumpy legs and broad, six-toed feet. They had four arms apiece, one pair from true shoulders and the otherconnected to a pseudo-pelvis midway down the torso. Their skins wereslate-gray and rubbery, speckled with pinhead-sized bits of quartzthat had been formed from perspiration, for their body-tissues weresilicone instead of carbon-hydrogen. Their narrow heads wereunpleasantly saurian; they had small, double-lidded red eyes, andslit-like nostrils, and wide mouths filled with opalescent teeth. Except for their belts and equipment, they were completely naked; theuniform consisted of the emblem of the Chartered Uller Companystencil-painted on chests and backs. Clothing, to them, wasunnecessary, either for warmth or modesty. As to the former, they werecold-blooded and could stand a temperature-range of from a hundred andtwenty to minus one hundred Centigrade. Von Schlichten had seen themsleeping in the open with their bodies covered with frost or freezingrain; he had also seen them wade through boiling water. As to thesecond, they had practically no sex-inhibitions; they were all of thesame gender, true, functional, hermaphrodites. Any individual amongthem could bear young, or fertilize the ova of any other individual. Fifteen years ago, when he had come to Uller as a former TerranFederation captain newly commissioned colonel in the army of the UllerCompany, it had taken some time before he had become accustomed to thedetailing of a non-com and a couple of privates out of each platoonfor baby-sitting duty. At least, though, they didn't have thesquaw-trouble around army posts on Uller that they had on Thor, wherehe had last been stationed. 

An airjeep, coming in out of the sun, circled the crag-top fort andlet down onto the terrace next to von Schlichten's command-car. Itcarried a bristle of 15-mm machine-guns, and two of the eight 50-mmrocket-tubes on either side were empty and freshly smoke-stained. Theduraglass canopy slid back, and the two-man crew--lieutenant-driverand sergeant-gunner--jumped out. Von Schlichten knew them both. 

"Lieutenant Kendall; Sergeant Garcia, " he greeted. "Good afternoon, gentlemen. "

Both saluted, in the informal, hell-with-rank-we're-all-human mannerof Terran soldiers on extraterrestrial duty, and returned thegreeting. 

"How's the Jeel situation?" he asked, then nodded toward the firedrocket-tubes. "I see you had some shooting. "

"Yes, sir, " the lieutenant said. "Two bands of them. We sighted thefirst coming up the eastern side of the mountain about two miles thisside of the Blue Springs. We got about half of them with MG-fire, andthe rest dived into a big rock-crevice. We had to use two rockets onthem, and then had to let down and pot a few of them with our pistols. We caught the second band in that little punchbowl place about a milethis side of Zortolk's Old Fort. There were only six of them; theywere bunched together, feeding. Off one of their own gang, I'd say;the way we've been keeping them up in the high rocks, they've beeneating inside the family quite a bit, lately. We let them have tworockets. No survivors. Not many very big pieces, in fact. We let downat Zortolk's for a beer, after that, and Captain Martinelli told usthat one of his jeeps caught what he thinks was the same band that wasdown off the mountain night-before-last and ate those peasants onPrince Neeldink's estate. "

"By God, I'm glad to hear that!" There'd been a perfect hell of a flapabout that business. Before the Terrans came to Uller, it was a goodyear when not more than five hundred farm-folk would be killed andeaten by Jeel cannibals. The incident of two nights ago had been thefirst of its kind in almost six months, but the nobleman whose serfshad been eaten was practically accusing the Company of responsibilityfor the crime. "I'll see that Neeldink is informed. The more you dofor these damned geeks, the more they expect from you. . . . When you getyour vehicle re-ammoed, lieutenant, suppose you buzz back to where youmachine-gunned that first gang. If there are any more around, they'llhave moved in for the free meal by now. " This breakdown of the Jeels'taboo against eating fellow-tribesmen was one of the best things he'dheard from the cannibal-extermination project for some time. 

He turned to Themistocles M'zangwe. "In about two weeks, get a littletask-force together. Say ten combat-cars, about twenty airjeeps, and abattalion of Kragan Rifles in troop-carriers. Oh, yes, and thisgood-for-nothing Konkrook Fencibles outfit of Prince Jaizerd's; theycan be used for beaters, and to block escape routes. " He turned backto Lieutenant Kendall and Sergeant Garcia. "Good work, boys. And ifthe synchro-photos show that any of that first bunch got away, don'tfeel too badly about it. These Jeels can hide on the top of apool-table. "

He climbed into the command-car, followed by Themistocles M'zangwe andHideyoshi O'Leary. Sergeant Harry Quong and Corporal Hassan Bogdanofftook their places on the front seat; the car lifted, turned to noseinto the wind, and rose in a slow spiral. Below, the fort grewsmaller, a flat-topped rectangle of masonry overlooking the pass, agun covering each approach, and two more on the square keep to coverthe rocky hogback on which the fort had been built, with the flagpolebetween them. Once that pole had lifted a banner of ragged blackmarsh-flopper skin bearing the device of the Kragan riever-chieftainwhose family had built the castle; now it carried a neat rectangle ofblue bunting emblazoned with the wreathed globe of the TerranFederation and, below that, the blue-gray pennant which bore thevermilion trademark of the Chartered Uller Company. 

"Where now, sir?" Harry Quong asked. 

He looked at his watch. Seventeen-hundred; there wasn't time for avisit to Zortolk's Old Fort, ten miles to the north at the next pass. 

"Back to Konkrook, to the island. "

The nose of the car swung east by south; the cold-jet rotors beganhumming and then the hot-jets were cut in. The car turned from thefort and the mountains and shot away over the foothills toward thecoastal plain. Below were forests, yellow-green with new foliage ofthe second growing season of the equatorial year, veined with narrowdirt roads and spotted with occasional clearings. Farther east, thedirty gray woodsmoke of Uller marked the progress of thecharcoal-burnings. It took forty years to burn the forests clear backto the flint cliffs; by the time the burners reached the mountains, the new trees at the seaward edge would be ready to cut. Off to thesouth, he could see the dark green squares, where the hemlocks andNorway spruce had been planted by the Company. With a little chemicalfertilizer, they were doing well, and they made better charcoal thanthe silicate-heavy native wood. That was the only natural fuel onUller; there was no coal, of course, since fallen timber and evenstanding dead trees petrified in a matter of a couple of years. Therewas too much silica on Uller, and not enough of anything else; whatwould be coal-seams on Terra were strata of silicified wood. And, ofcourse, there was no petroleum. There was less charcoal being burnednow than formerly; the Uller Company had been bringing in greatquantities of synthetic thermoconcentrate-fuel, and had been settingup nuclear furnaces and nuclear-electric power-plants, wherever theygained a foothold on the planet. 

Beyond the forests came the farmlands. Around the older estates, thickwalls of flint and petrified wood had been built, and wide moats dug, to keep out the shellosaurs. But now the moats were dry, and the wallsfalling into disrepair. Some of the newer farms, land devoted toagriculture with the declining demand for charcoal, had neither moatsnor walls. That was the Company, too; the huge shell-armored beastshad become virtually extinct in the Konk Isthmus now, since theintroduction of bazookas and recoilless rifles. There seemed to bequite a bit of power-equipment working in the fields, and bigcontragravity lorries were drifting back and forth, scatteringfertilizer, mainly nitrates from Mimir or Yggdrasill. There were stilla good number of animal-drawn plows and harrows in use, however. 

As planets went, Uller was no bargain, he thought sourly. At times, hewished he had never followed the lure of rapid promotion andfantastically high pay and left the Federation regulars for the armyof the Uller Company. If he hadn't, he'd probably be a colonel, atfive thousand sols a year, but maybe it would be better to be amiddle-aged colonel on a decent planet--Odin, with its two moons, Hugin and Munin, and its wide grasslands and its evergreen foreststhat looked and even smelled like the pinewoods of Terra, or Baldur, with snow-capped mountains, and clear, cold lakes, and rocky riversdashing under great vine-hung trees, or Freya, where the people werehuman to the last degree and the women were so breathtakinglybeautiful--than a Company army general at twenty-five thousand onthis combination icebox, furnace, wind-tunnel and stonepile, where thewater tasted like soapsuds and left a crackly film when it dried;where the temperature ranged, from pole to pole, between two hundredand fifty and minus a hundred and fifty Fahrenheit and theBeaufort-scale ran up to thirty; where nothing that ran or swam orgrew was fit for a human to eat, and where the people. . . . 

Of course, there were worse planets than Uller. There was Nidhog, coldand foggy, its equatorial zone a gloomy marsh and the rest of the planetlocked in eternal ice. There was Bifrost, which always kept the sameface turned to its primary; one side blazingly hot and the other closeto absolute zero, with a narrow and barely habitable twilight zonebetween. There was Mimir, swarming with a race of semi-intelligentquasi-rodents, murderous, treacherous, utterly vicious. Or Niflheim. TheUller Company had the franchise for Niflheim, too; they'd had to takethat and agree to exploit the planet's resources in order to get thefranchise for Uller, which furnished a good quick measure of thecomparative merits of the two. 

Ahead, the city of Konkrook sprawled along the delta of the Konk riverand extended itself inland. The river was dry, now. Except in spring, when it was a red-brown torrent, it never ran more than a trickle, andnot at all this late in the northern summer. The aircar lost altitude, and the hot-jet stopped firing. They came gliding in over the suburbsand the yellow-green parks, over the low one-story dwellings andshops, the lofty temples and palaces, the fantastically twistedtowers, following a street that became increasingly mean and squalidas it neared the industrial district along the waterfront. 

Von Schlichten, on the right, glanced idly down, puffing slowly onhis cigarette. Then he stiffened, the muscles around his right eyeclamping tighter on the monocle. Leaning forward, he punched HarryQuong lightly on the shoulder. 

"Circle back, sergeant; let's have a look at that street again, " hedirected. "Something going on, down there; looks like a riot. "

"Yes, sir; I saw it, " the Chinese-Australian driver replied. "Terransin trouble; bein' mobbed by geeks. Aircar parked right in the bloodymiddle of it. "

The car made a twisting, banking loop and came back, more slowly. Colonel Hideyoshi O'Leary was using the binoculars. 

"That's right, " he said. "Terrans being mobbed. Two of them, backed upagainst a house. I saw one of them firing a pistol. "

Von Schlichten had the handset of the car's radio, and was punchingout the combination of the Company guardhouse on Gongonk Island; heheld down the signal button until he got an answer. 

"Von Schlichten, in car over Konkrook. Riot on Fourth Avenue, just offSeventy-second Street. " No Terran could possibly remember the names ofKonkrook's streets; even native troops recruited from outside foundthe numbers easier to learn and remember. "Geeks mobbing a couple ofTerrans. I'm going down, now, to do what I can to help; send troops ina hurry. Kragan Rifles. And stand by; my driver'll give it to you asit happens. "

The voice of somebody at the guardhouse, bawling orders, came out ofthe receiver as he tossed the phone forward over Harry Quong'sshoulder; Quong caught it and began speaking rapidly and urgently intoit while he steered with the other hand. Von Schlichten took one ofthe five-pound spiked riot-maces out of the rack in front of him. Themistocles M'zangwe had already drawn his pistol; he shifted it tohis left hand and took a mace in his right. The Nipponese-Irishcolonel, looking like a homicidally infuriated pixie, had an automaticin one hand and a long dagger in the other. 

Harry Quong and Hassan Bogdanoff were old Uller hands; they'd donethis sort of work before. Bogdanoff rose into the ball-turret andswung the twin 15-mm's around, cutting loose. Quong brought the car infast, at about shoulder-height on the mob. Between them, they left aswath of mangled, killed, wounded, and stunned natives. Then, spinningthe car around, Quong set it down hard on a clump of rioters as closeas possible to the struggling group around the two Terrans. VonSchlichten threw back the canopy and jumped out of the car, O'Learyand M'zangwe behind him. 

There was another aircar, a dark maroon civilian job, at the curb; itsnative driver was slumped forward over the controls, a shortcrossbow-bolt sticking out of his neck. Backed against the closed doorof a house, a Terran with white hair and a small beard was clubbingfutilely with an empty pistol. He was wounded, and blood was streamingover his face. His companion, a young woman in a long fur coat, waslaying about her with a native bolo-knife. 

Von Schlichten's mace had a spiked ball-head, and a four-inch spike infront of that. He smashed the ball down on the back of one Ulleran'shead, and jabbed another in the rump with the spike. 

"_Zak! Zak!_" he yelled, in pidgin-Ulleran. "_Jik-jik_, youlizard-faced Creator's blunder!"

The Ulleran whirled, swinging a blade somewhere between a bigbutcherknife and a small machete. His mouth was open, and there wasfroth on his lips. 

"_Znidd suddabit!_" he screamed. 

Von Schlichten parried the cut on the steel shaft of his mace. "_Suddabit_ yourself, you geek bastard!" he shouted back, ramming thespike-end into the opal-filled mouth. "And _znidd_ you, too, " headded, recovering and slamming the ball-head down on the narrowsaurian skull. The Ulleran went down, spurting a yellow fluid aboutthe consistency of gun-oil. Then, without wasting words, he macedanother of the things. 

Ahead, one of the natives had caught the wounded Terran with bothlower hands, and was raising a dagger with his upper right. The girlin the fur coat swung wildly, slashing the knife-arm, then choppeddown on the creature's neck. To one side, a native somewhat betterdressed than the others, to the extent of a couple of belts with goldornaments, drew a Terran automatic. Von Schlichten hurled his mace anddrew his pistol, thumbing off the safety as he swung it up, but beforehe could fire, Hassan Bogdanoff had seen and swung his guns around;the double burst caught the native in the chest and fairly tore himapart. 

Another of them closed with the girl, grabbing her right arm with allfour hands and biting at her; she screamed and kicked her attacker inthe groin, where an Ulleran is, if anything, even more vulnerable thana Terran. The native howled hideously, and von Schlichten, jumpingover a couple of corpses, shoved the muzzle of his pistol into thecreature's open mouth and pulled the trigger, blowing its head apartlike a rotten pumpkin and splashing both himself and the girl withyellow blood and rancid-looking gray-green brains. 

Hideyoshi O'Leary, jumping forward after von Schlichten, stuck hisdagger into the neck of a rioter and left it there, then caught thegirl around the waist with his free arm. Themistocles M'zangwe droppedhis mace and swung the frail-looking man onto his back. Together, theystruggled back to the command-car, von Schlichten covering the retreatwith his pistol. Another rioter--a Zirk nomad from the North, heguessed--was aiming one of the long-barreled native air-rifles, holding the ten-inch globe of the air-chamber in both lower hands. VonSchlichten shot him, and the Zirk literally blew to pieces. 

For an instant, he wondered how the small bursting-charge of a 10-mmexplosive pistol-bullet could accomplish such havoc, and assumed thatthe native had been carrying a bomb in his belt. Then anotherexplosion tossed fragmentary corpses nearby, and another and another. Glancing quickly over his shoulder, he saw four combat-cars coming in, firing with 40-mm auto-cannon and 15-mm machine-guns. They sweptbetween the hovels on one side and the warehouses on the other, strafing the mob, darted up to a thousand feet, looped, and cameswooping back, and this time there were three long blue-graytroop-carriers behind them. 

These landed in the hastily cleared street and began disgorging nativeCompany soldiers--Kragan mercenaries, he noted with satisfaction. Theycarried a modified version of the regular Terran Federation infantryrifle, stocked and sighted to conform to their physical peculiarities, with long, thorn-like, triangular bayonets. One platoon ran forward, dropped to one knee, and began firing rapidly into what was left ofthe mob. Four-handed soldiers can deliver a simply astonishing volumeof fire, particularly when armed with auto-rifles having twenty-shotdrop-out magazines which can be changed with the lower hands withoutlowering the weapon. 

There was a clatter of shod hoofs, and a company of the King ofKonkrook's cavalry came trotting up on their six-legged, lizard-headed, quartz-speckled mounts. Some of these charged into sidealleys, joyfully lancing and cutting down fleeing rioters, whileothers dismounted, three tossing their reins to a fourth, and went towork with their crossbows. Von Schlichten, who ordinarily entertaineda dim opinion of the King of Konkrook's soldiery, admitted, grudgingly, that it was smart work; four hands were a big help inusing a crossbow, too. 

A Terran captain of native infantry came over, saluting. 

"Are you and your people all right, general?" he asked. 

Von Schlichten glanced at the front seat of his car, where HarryQuong, a pistol in his right hand, was still talking into theradio-phone, and Hassan Bogdanoff was putting fresh belts into hisguns. Then he saw that the Graeco-African brigadier and theIrish-Japanese colonel had gotten the wounded man into the car. Thegirl, having dropped her bolo, was leaning against the side of thecar, one foot heedlessly in what was left of an Ulleran who had gottensmashed under it, weak with nervous reaction. 

"We seem to be, Captain Pedolsky. Very smart work; you must have thosevehicles of yours on hyperspace-drive. . . . How is he, colonel?"

"We'd better get him to the hospital, right away, " O'Leary replied. "Ithink he has a concussion. "

"Harry, call the hospital. Tell them what the score is, and tell themwe're bringing the casualty in to their top landing stage. . . . Why, we'll make out very nicely, captain. You'd better stay around withyour Kragans and make sure that these geeks of King Jaikark's don'tlet the riot flare up again and get away from them. And don't let themget the impression that they can maintain order around here withoutour help; the Company would like to see that attitude discouraged. "

"Yes, sir, I understand. " Captain Pedolsky opened the pouch on hisbelt and took out the false palate and tongue-clicker without which noTerran could do more than mouth a crude and barely comprehensiblepidgin-Ulleran. Stuffing the gadget into his mouth, he turned andbegan jabbering orders. 

Von Schlichten helped the girl into the car, placing her on his right. The wounded civilian was propped up in the left corner of the seat, and Colonel O'Leary and Brigadier-General M'zangwe took thejump-seats. The driver put on the contragravity-field, and the carlifted up. 

"Them, see if there's a flask and a drinking-cup in the door pocketnext to you, " he said. "I think Miss Quinton could use a drink. "

The girl turned. Even in her present disheveled condition, she wasbeautiful--a trifle on the petite side, with black hair and black eyesthat quirked up oddly at the outer corners. Her nails wereblack-lacquered and spotted with little gold stars, evidently a newfeminine fad from Terra. 

"I certainly could, general. . . . How did you know my name?"

"You've been on Uller for the last three months; ever since the _Cityof Canberra_ got in from Niflheim. On Uller, there aren't enough of usthat everybody doesn't know all about everybody else. You're Dr. PaulaQuinton; you're an extraterrestrial sociographer, and you're afield-agent for the Extraterrestrials' Rights Association, likeMohammed Ferriera, here. " He took the cup and flask from ThemistoclesM'zangwe and poured her a drink. "Take this easy, now; Baldurhoney-rum, a hundred and fifty proof. "

He watched her sip the stuff cautiously, cough over the firstmouthful, and then get the rest of it down. 

"More?" When she shook her head, he stoppered the flask and relievedher of the cup. "What were you doing in that district, anyhow?" hewanted to know. "I'd have thought Mohammed Ferriera would have hadmore sense than to take you there, or go there, himself, for thatmatter. "

"We went to visit a friend of his, a native named Keeluk, who seems tobe a sort of combination clergyman and labor leader, " she replied. "I'm going to observe labor conditions at the North Pole mines in ashort while, and Mr. Keeluk was going to give me letters ofintroduction to friends of his at Skilk. "

With the aid of his monocle, von Schlichten managed to keep a straightface. Neither M'zangwe nor O'Leary had any such aid; the Africanrolled his eyes and the Japanese-Irishman grimaced. 

"We talked with Mr. Keeluk for a while, " the girl said, "and when wecame out, we found that our driver had been killed and a mob hadgathered. Of course, we were carrying pistols; they're part of thissurvival-kit you make everybody carry, along with the emergency-rationsand the water-desilicator. Mr. Ferriera's wasn't loaded, but mine was. When they rushed us, I shot a couple of them, and then picked up thatbig knife. . . . "

"That's why you're still alive, " von Schlichten commented. 

"We wouldn't be if you hadn't come along, " she told him. "I never inmy life saw anything as beautiful as you coming through that mobswinging that war-club!"

"Well, I never saw anything much more beautiful than those 40-mm'sbeginning to land in the mob, " von Schlichten replied. 

The aircar swung out over Konkrook Channel and headed toward theblue-gray Company buildings on Gongonk Island, and the Companyairport, swarming with lorries and airboats, where the tenthousand-ton _Oom Paul Kruger_ had just come in from Keegark, and theCompany's one real warship, the cruiser _Procyon_, was lifting out forGrank, in the North. Down at the southern tip of the island, thethree-thousand-foot globe of the spaceship _City of Pretoria_, fromNiflheim, was loading with cargo for Terra. 

"Just what happened, while you and Mr. Ferriera were in Keeluk'shouse. Miss Quinton?" Hideyoshi O'Leary asked, trying not to soundofficial. "Was Keeluk with you all the time? Or did he go out for awhile, say fifteen or twenty minutes before you left?"

"Why, yes, he did. " Paula Quinton looked surprised. "How did you guessit? You see, a dog started barking, behind the house, and he excusedhimself and. . . . "

"A dog?" von Schlichten almost shouted. The other officers echoed him, and on the front seat, Harry Quong said, "Coo-bli'me!"

"Why, yes. . . . " Paula Quinton's eyes widened. "But there are no dogs onUller, except a few owned by Terrans. And wasn't there somethingabout . . . ?"

Von Schlichten had the radio-phone and was calling the command car atthe scene of the riot. The sergeant-driver answered. 

"Von Schlichten here; my compliments to Captain Pedolsky, and tell himhe's to make immediate and thorough search of the house in front ofwhich the incident occurred, and adjoining houses. For hisinformation, that's Keeluk's house. Tell him to look for traces ofGovernor-General Harrington's collie, or any of the other terrestrialanimals that have been disappearing--that goat, for instance, or thoserabbits. And I want Keeluk brought in, alive and in condition to beinterrogated. I'll send more troops, or Constabulary, to help you. " Hehanded the phone to M'zangwe. "You take care of that end of it, Them;you know who can be spared. "

"But, what . . . ?" the girl began. 

"That's why you were attacked, " he told her. "Keeluk was afraid to letyou get away from there alive to report hearing that dog, so he wentout and had a gang of thugs rounded up to kill you. "

"But he was only gone five minutes. "

"In five minutes, I can put all the troops in Konkrook into action. Keeluk doesn't have radio or TV--we hope--but he has his forcesconcentrated, and he has a pretty good staff. "

"But Mr. Keeluk's a friend of ours. He knows what our Association istrying to do for his people. . . . "

"So he shows his appreciation by setting that mob on you. Look, he hasa lot of influence in that section. When you were attacked, why wasn'the out trying to quiet the mob?"

"When they jumped you, you tried to get back into the house, " M'zangweput in. "And you found the door barred against you. "

"Yes, but. . . . " The girl looked troubled; M'zangwe had guessed right. "But what's all the excitement about the dog? What is it, the sacredtotem-animal of the Uller Company?"

"It's just a big brown collie, named Stalin, like half the dogs onTerra. Somebody stole it, and Keeluk was keeping it, and we want toknow why. We don't like geek mysteries; not when they lead tomurderous attacks on Terrans, at least. "

The aircar let down on the hospital landing stage. A stretcher waswaiting, with a Terran interne and two Ulleran orderlies. They got thestill-unconscious Mohammed Ferriera out of the car. 

"You'd better go with them, yourself, Miss Quinton, " von Schlichtenadvised. "You have a couple of nasty-looking bruises and bumps. Acouple of abrasions, too, where those geeks grabbed you; they havehides like sandpaper. And better have that coat cleaned, before thatgoo on it hardens, or it'll be ruined. "

"Yes. You have a lot of it on your uniform, too. "

He glanced down at the blue-gray jacket. "So I have. And anotherthing. Those letters Keeluk was going to give you, the ones to hisfriends in Skilk. Did you get them?"

She felt in the pocket of her coat. "Yes. I still have them. "

"I wish you'd let Colonel O'Leary have a look at them. There may bemore to them than you think. . . . Hid, will you go with Miss Quinton?"

II. 

Rakkeed, Stalin, and the Rev. Keeluk

Von Schlichten, in a fresh uniform, sat at the end of the table inSidney Harrington's office; Harrington and Eric Blount, theLieutenant-Governor, faced each other across it, over the three-footdisc of an Ulleran chess-board. Harrington had the white, or center, position. Blount, sandy-haired and considerably younger, was playingblack, and his pieces were closing in relentlessly from the outer rim. 

"Well, then what?" Harrington asked. 

Von Schlichten dropped ash from his cigarette into the tray thatserved all three of them. 

"Nothing much, " he replied. "Keeluk bugged out as soon as he saw mycar let down. We picked up a few of his ragtag-and-bobtail, andthey're being questioned now, but I doubt if they'll tell us anythingwe don't know already. The dog had been kept in a lean-to back of thehouse; it had been removed, probably as soon as Keeluk called in hisgoon-gang. At least one of the rabbits had been kept on the premises, too, some time ago. No trace of the goat. "

He watched Blount move one of his pieces and nodded approvingly. "Theriot's been put down, " he continued, "but we're keeping two companiesof Kragans in the city, and about a dozen airjeeps patrolling thesection from Eightieth down to Sixty-fourth, and from the waterfrontback to Eighth Avenue. There is also the equivalent of a regiment ofKing Jaikark's infantry--spearmen, crossbowmen, and a fewriflemen--and two of those outsize cavalry companies of his, helpinghold the lid down. They're making mass arrests, indiscriminately. Moreslaves for Jaikark's court favorite, of course. "

"Or else Gurgurk wants them to use for patronage, " Blount added. "He'sbeen building quite a political organization, lately. Getting ready toshove Jaikark off the throne, I'd say. "

Harrington pushed one of his pieces out along a radial line toward therim. Blount promptly took a pawn, which, under Ulleran rules, entitledhim to a second move. He shifted another piece, a sort of combinationknight and bishop, to threaten the piece Harrington had moved. 

"Oh, Gurgurk wouldn't dare try anything like that, " theGovernor-General said. "He knows we wouldn't let him get away with it. We have too much of an investment in King Jaikark. "

"Then why's Gurgurk been supporting this damned Rakkeed?" Blountwanted to know, hastily interposing a piece. "Gurgurk can follow oneof two lines of policy. He can undertake to heave Jaikark off thethrone and seize power, or he has to support Jaikark on the throne. We're subsidizing Jaikark. Rakkeed has been preaching this crusadeagainst the Terrans, and against Jaikark, whom we control. Gurgurk hasbeen subsidizing Rakkeed. . . . "

"You haven't any proof of that, " Harrington protested. 

"My Intelligence Section has, " von Schlichten put in. "We can givesums of money, and dates, and the names of the intermediaries throughwhom they were paid to Rakkeed. Eric is absolutely correct in makingthat statement. "

"Personally, I think Gurgurk's plan is something like this: Rakkeedwill stir up anti-Terran sentiment here in Konkrook, and direct itagainst our puppet, Jaikark, as well as against us, " Blount said. "When the outbreak comes, Jaikark will be killed, and then Gurgurkwill step in, seize the Palace, and use the Royal army to put down therevolt that he's incited in the first place. That will put him in theposition of the friend of the Company, and most of his dupes will berounded up and sold as slaves, and King Gurgurk'll pocket theproceeds. The only question is, will Rakkeed let himself be used thatway? I think Rakkeed's bigger than Gurgurk ever can be. And more of athreat to the Company. Everywhere we turn, Rakkeed's at the bottom ofwhatever happens to be wrong. This business, for instance; Keeluk'sone of Rakkeed's followers. "

"Eric, you have Rakkeed on the brain!" Harrington exclaimedimpatiently, then moved the threatened piece counterclockwise on thecircle where he had placed it. "He's just a barbarian caravan-driver. "

Eric Blount moved the piece that had taken Harrington's pawn. 

"Your king's in danger, " he warned. "And Hitler was just apaper-hanger. "

"Rakkeed has no following, except among the rabble. " Harrington puffedfuriously at his pipe, trying to figure the best protection for hisking. 

"You just think he hasn't, " Blount retorted. "Here in Konkrook, he'salways entertained by one or another of the big ship-owning nobles. They probably deprecate his table-manners, but they just love hispolitics. And the same thing at Keegark, and at the Free Cities alongthe Eastern Shore. "

"The last time Rakkeed was in Konkrook, he was the guest of theKeegarkan Ambassador, " von Schlichten stated. "Intelligence got thatfrom a spy we'd planted among the embassy servants. "

"You sure this spy wasn't just romancing?" Harrington asked. "You getso confounded many wild stories about Rakkeed. Three days after he wasreported here at Konkrook, he was reported at Skilk, five thousandmiles away, said to be having an audience with King Firkked. "

"No mystery to that, " von Schlichten said. "He travels on our ships, in disguise, coolie-class, on the geek-deck. "

"Be a good idea if he could be caught at it, some time, " Blount said, making another move. "One of the lower-deck loading ports could beleft unlocked, by carelessness, and he could blunder overboard atabout five thousand feet. " He watched Harrington make a deceptivelypointless-looking move. "Sid, this damn dog business worries me. "

"Worries me, too. I'm fond of that mutt, and God only knows what sortof stuff he's been getting to eat. And I hate to think of why thosegeeks stole him, too. "

"Well, at risk of seeming heartless, I'm not so much worried forStalin as I am about why Keeluk was hiding him, and why he was willingto murder the only two Terrans in Konkrook who trust him, to preventour finding out that he had him. "

"A Mr. Keeluk, a clergyman, " von Schlichten quoted. He chain-litanother cigarette and stubbed out the old one. "Maybe the Rev. Keelukwanted Stalin for sacramental purposes. "

Blount looked up sharply. "Ritual killing?" he asked. "Or sympatheticmagic?"

Von Schlichten shrugged. "Take your choice. Maybe Rakkeed wanted thedog, to kill before a congregation of his followers, killing us byproxy, or in effigy. Or maybe they think we worship Stalin, andgetting control of him would give them power over us. I wish we knew alittle more about Ulleran psychology. "

That wasn't the first time he'd made that wish. Even if sex weren'tthe paramount psychological factor the ancient Freudians believed, itwas an extremely important one, and on Uller most of the fundamentalterms of Terran psychology were meaningless. At the same time, theaverage Ulleran probably had complexes and neuroses that would havehad Freud talking to himself, and they certainly indulged in practicesthat would have even stood Krafft-Ebing's hair on end. 

"One thing, " Blount said. "It doesn't take any Ulleran psychologist toknow that about eighty percent of them hate us poisonously. "

"Oh, rubbish!" Harrington blew the exclamation out around hispipe-stem with a gush of smoke. "A few fanatics hate us, and a fewmerchants who lost money when we replaced this primitive bartereconomy of theirs, but nine-tenths of them have benefited enormouslyfrom us, and continue to benefit. . . . "

"And hate us more deeply with each new benefit, " Blount added. "Theyresent everything we've done for them. "

"Yes, this spaceport proposition of King Orgzild of Keegark looks likeit, now doesn't it?" Harrington retorted. "He hates and resents us somuch that he's offered us a spaceport at his city. . . . "

"What's it going to cost him?" Blount asked. "He furnishes theland--sequestered from the estate of some noble he executed fortreason--and the labor--all forced. We furnish the structural steel, the machine-equipment, the engineering. We get a spaceport we don'treally need, and he gets all the business it'll bring to Keegark. Considering the fact that Rakkeed is a welcome guest at his embassyhere, and at the Royal Palace at Keegark, I'm beginning to wonder ifhe isn't fomenting trouble for us here at Konkrook to make us willingto move our main base to his city. "

He made a move. Instantly, Harrington slashed out from the middle ofthe board with one of his heavy-duty, all-purpose pieces and took apiece, then moved again. 

"Now look whose king's threatened!" he crowed. 

"Yes, I see. " Blount brought a piece clockwise around the board andtook the threatening piece, then moved again. "I hope you see whoseking's threatened, now. "

Harrington swore, reached out to move a piece, and then jerked hishand back as though the piece were radioactive. For a while, he satpuffing his pipe and staring at the board. 

"In fact, Orgzild's so sure that we're going to accept his offer thathe's started building two new power-reactors, to handle the additionalpower-demand that'll result from the increased business, " Blountcontinued. 

"Where's he getting the plutonium?" von Schlichten asked. 

"Where can he get it?" Harrington replied. "He just bought four tonsof it from us, off the _City of Pretoria_. "

"That's a hell of a lot of plutonium, " Blount said. "I wonder if hemightn't have some idea of what else plutonium can be used for, beside generating power. "

"Oh, God, I hope not!" Harrington exclaimed. "You're going to get mestarted seeing burglars under the bed, next. . . . "

"Maybe there are burglars, " Blount said, pointing with hiscigarette-holder to Harrington's threatened king. "Can't you dosomething about that, Sid?" Then he turned to von Schlichten. "Beforewe get off the subject, how about those letters the Rev. Keeluk gaveto the Quinton girl?"

"All addressed to Skilkans known to be Rakkeed disciples and rabidlyanti-Terran, " von Schlichten replied. "We radioed the list to Skilk;Colonel Cheng-Li, our intelligence man there, teleprinted us back alot of material on them that looks like the Newgate Calendar. Weturned the letters themselves over to Doc Petrie, the Ulleranphilology sharp, who is a pretty fair cryptanalyst. He couldn't findany indications of cipher, but there was a lot of gossip aboutKeeluk's friends and parishioners which might have arbitrarycode-meanings. I'm going to explain the situation to Miss Quinton, andadvise her to have nothing to do with any of the people Keeluk gaveher letters to. "

Harrington had gotten his king temporarily out of danger, losing apiece doing it. 

"Think she'll listen to you?" he asked. "These Extraterrestrials'Rights Association people are a lot of blasted fanatics, themselves. We're a gang of bloody-handed, flint-hearted, imperialistic sons ofbitches in their book, and anything we say's sure to be a Hitler-sizedlie. "

"Oh, they're not as bad as all that. I never met the girl beforetoday, but old Mohammed Ferriera's a decent bloke. And theirassociation's really done a lot of good. For one thing, they put anend to the peonage system on Yggdrasill, and I know what conditionswere like, there, before they did. "

A calculating look came into Harrington's eye. He puffed slowly at hispipe and slid a piece from the center toward the sector of the boardnearest him. Blount whistled softly and made a quick re-arrangement. 

"Carlos, did you say she told you she was going to Skilk, in the nearfuture?" Harrington asked. "Well, look here; you're going up that way, yourself, with that battalion of Kragans, on the _Aldebaran_. Whydon't you invite her to make the trip with you? You can be quiteattractive to young ladies, when you try, and she'll be grateful forthat rescue this afternoon, which is always a good foundation. Maybeyou can plant a couple of ideas where they'll do the most good. She'sonly been here for three months--since the _Canberra_ got in fromNiflheim. You know and I know and we all know that there are a lot ofthings up there at the polar mines that would look like hell toanybody who didn't understand local conditions. . . . "

"Well, Miss Quinton's company won't be any particularly heavy crossfor me to bear, " von Schlichten replied. "I won't guarantee anything, of course. . . . "

The intercom-speaker on the table whistled several times. Harringtonswore, laid down his pipe, and got up, brushing ashes from the frontof his coat. He flipped a switch and spoke into the box. 

"Governor, " a voice replied out of it, "there's a geek procession justlanded from a water-barge in front, and is coming up the roadway toCompany House. A platoon of Jaikark's Household Guards, with rifles;the Spear of State; a royal litter; about thirty geek nobles, on foot;a gift-litter; another platoon of riflemen, if you say the lastsyllable quick enough. "

"That'll be Gurgurk, coming to tell us how unhappy his Sodden andInebriated Geekship is about that fracas on Seventy-second Street, "Harrington said. "The gift-litter will contain the customaryindemnity, at the current market quotation. Have Gurgurk and partyadmitted, all but the rifle-platoons; give him an honor guard of ourKragans, and keep his own gun-toters outside. Take them to theReception Hall, and hold them there till I signal from the AudienceHall, and then herd them in. "

He came back and made a move. Immediately, Blount took one of hispieces, moved again, took another, and made the third move to which hewas entitled. 

"I'll mate you in four moves, " he predicted. "Want to play it out, before we go down?"

"Sure; what's time to a geek? Gurgurk'd think we were worried aboutsomething if we didn't keep him waiting. . . . Good Lord! You do have meover a barrel, Eric!"

III. 

Four-and-Twenty Geek Heads

Governor-General Sidney Harrington sat on the comfortably upholsteredbench on the dais of the Audience Hall, flanked by von Schlichten andEric Blount. He didn't look particularly regal, even on that highseat--with his ruddy outdoorsman's face and his ragged gray mustacheand his old tweed coat spotted with pipe-ashes, he might have been anyof the dozen-odd country-gentleman neighbors of von Schlichten'sboyhood in the Argentine. But then, to a Terran, any of the kings ofUller would have looked like a freak birth in a lizard-house at a zoo;it was hard to guess what impression Harrington would make on anUlleran. 

He took the false palate and tongue-clicker, officially designated asan "enunciator, Ulleran" and, colloquially, as a geek-speaker, out ofhis coat pocket and shoved it into his mouth. Von Schlichten andBlount put in theirs, and Harrington pressed the floor-button with histoe. After a brief interval, the wide doors at the other end of thehall slid open, and the Konkrookan notables, attended by a dozenCompany native-officers and a guard of Kragan Rifles, entered. Thehonor-guard advanced in two columns; between them marched an uncladand heavily armed native carrying an ornate spear with a three-footblade upright in front of him with all four hands. It was theKonkrookan Spear of State; it represented the proxy-presence of KingJaikark. Behind it stalked Gurgurk, the Konkrookan equivalent of PrimeMinister or Grand Vizier; he wore a gold helmet and a thing like astring-vest made of gold wire, and carried a long sword with atwo-hand grip, a pair of Terran automatics built for a hand with sixfour-knuckled fingers, and a pair of matched daggers. He wasconsiderably past the Ulleran prime of life--seventy or eighty, tojudge from the worn appearance of his opal teeth, the color of hisskin, and the predominantly reddish tint of his quartz-speckles. Animmature Ulleran would be a very light gray, white under the arms, andhis quartz-specks would run from white to pale yellow. The retinue ofnobles behind Gurgurk ran through the whole spectrum, from aprinceling who was almost oyster-gray to old Ghroghrank, the KeegarkanAmbassador, who was even blacker and more red-speckled than Gurgurk. All of them carried about as much ironmongery as the PrimeMinister--the pistols were all Terran, and the swords and daggers weremostly made either on Terra or at the Terran-operated steel-works onVolund. 

Four slaves brought up the rear carrying an ornately inlaid box onpoles. When the spear-bearer reached the exact middle of the hall, hehalted and grounded his regalia-weapon with a thump. Gurgurk came upand halted a couple of paces behind and to the left of the spear, andall the other nobles drew up in two curved lines some ten paces to therear, with considerable pushing and jostling and a _sotto voce_argument, with overtones of weapon-fingering, about precedence. All, that is, but Ghroghrank and another noble, who came up and plantedthemselves beside Gurgurk. Von Schlichten regarded the assemblagesourly through his monocle. Maybe Sid Harrington _did_ look regal, after all. 

The Governor-General rose slowly and descended from the dais, advancing to within ten paces of the Spear, von Schlichten and Blountaccompanying him. Out of the corner of his eye, von Schlichten watcheda couple of Kragan mercenaries with fifty-shot machine-rifles moveunobtrusively to positions from whence they could, if necessary, spraythe visitors with bullets without endangering the Terrans. 

"Welcome, Gurgurk, " Harrington gibbered through his false palate. "TheCompany is honored by this visit. "

"I come in the name of my royal master, His Sublime and IneffableMajesty, Jaikark the Seventeenth, King of Konkrook and of all thelands of the Konk Isthmus, " Gurgurk squeaked and clicked. "I have thehonor to bring with me the Lord Ghroghrank, Ambassador of King Orgzildof Keegark to the court of my royal master. "

"And I, " Ghroghrank said, after being suitably welcomed, "am honoredto be accompanied by Prince Gorkrink, special envoy from my master, his Royal and Imperial Majesty King Orgzild, who is in your city toreceive the shipment of power-metal my royal master has been honoredto be permitted to purchase from the Company. "

More protocol about welcoming Gorkrink. Then Gurgurk cleared histhroat with a series of barking sounds. 

"My royal master, His Sublime and Ineffable Majesty, is prostratedwith grief, " he stated solemnly. "Were his sorrow not so overwhelming, he would have come in His Own Sacred Person to express the pain andshame which he feels that people of the Company should be set uponand endangered in the streets of the royal city. "

If he weren't doped to the ears, von Schlichten substituted mentally. There was a native drug which had, on its users, the combined effectsof hashish, heroin and yohimbine; Jaikark and all his court circlewere addicts. He probably hadn't even heard of the riot. 

"The soldiers of His Sublime and Ineffable Majesty came most promptlyto the aid of the troops of the Company, did they not, General vonSchlichten?" Harrington asked. 

"Within minutes, Your Excellency, " von Schlichten replied gravely. "Their promptness, valor, and efficiency were most exemplary. "

Gurgurk spoke at length, expressing himself as delighted, on behalf ofhis royal master, at hearing such high praise from so distinguished asoldier. Eric Blount then contributed a short speech, beseeching thegods that the deep and beautiful friendship existing between theChartered Uller Company and His Sublime etcetera would continueunimpaired, and that His Sublime etcetera would enjoy long life andpeaceful reign, managing, by a trick of Konkrookan grammar, to implythat the second would be conditional upon the first. The KeegarkanAmbassador then spoke his piece, expressing on behalf of King Orgzildthe deepest regret that the people of the Company should be somolested, and managing to hint that things like that simply didn'thappen at Keegark. 

The Prince Gorkrink then spoke briefly, in sympathy for the great andgood friend of all Ulleran peoples, Mohammed Ferriera, who had beeninjured, and hoping that he would soon enjoy full health again. Healso managed to convey King Orgzild's pleasure at having obtained theplutonium. Von Schlichten noticed that a few of his more recentquartz-specks were slightly greenish in tinge, a sure sign that hehad, not long ago, been exposed to the fluorine-tainted air which menand geeks alike breathed on Niflheim. When a geek prince hired out asa laborer for a year on Niflheim, he did so for only one purpose--tolearn Terran technologies. 

Gurgurk then announced that so enormous a crime against the friends ofHis Sublime etcetera had not been allowed to go unpunished, signalingbehind him with one of his lower hands for the box to be broughtforward. The slaves carried it to the front, set it down, and openedit, taking from it a rug which they spread on the floor. On this, fromthe box, they placed twenty-four newly severed opal-grinning heads, infour neat rows. They had all been freshly scrubbed and polished, butthey still smelled like crushed cockroaches. 

The three Terrans looked at them gravely. A double-dozen heads wasstandard payment for an attack in which no Terran had been killed. Ostensibly, they were the heads of the ringleaders: in practice, theywere usually lopped from the first two-dozen prisoners or over-ageslaves at hand, without regard for whether the victims had even heardof the crime which they were expiating. If the Extraterrestrial'sRights Association were really serious about the rights of thesegeeks, they'd advocate booting out all these native princes andturning the whole planet over to the Company. That had been the TerranFederation's idea, from the beginning; why else give the Company'schief representative the title of Governor-General?

There was another long speech from Gurgurk, with the nobles behind himmurmuring antiphonal agreement--standard procedure, for which therewas a standard pun, geek chorus--and a speech of response from SidHarrington. Standing stiffly through the whole rigamarole, vonSchlichten waited for it to end, as finally it did. 

They walked back from the door, whence they had escorted thedelegation, and stood looking down at the saurian heads on the rug. Harrington raised his voice and called to a Kragan sergeant whosechevrons were painted on all four arms. 

"Take this carrion out and stuff it in the incinerator, " he ordered. "If any of you think you can clean up this rug and this box, you'rewelcome to them. "

"Wait a moment, " von Schlichten told the sergeant. Then he disgorgedand pouched his geek-speaker. "See that head, there?" he asked, rolling it over with his toe. "I killed that geek, myself, with mypistol, while Them and Hid were getting Ferriera into the car. MissQuinton killed that one with the bolo; see where she chopped him onthe back of the neck? The cut that took off the head was a little low, and missed it. And Hid O'Leary stuck a knife in that one. " He walkedaround the rug, turning heads over with his foot. "This was cut-ratehead-payment; they just slashed off two-dozen heads at the scene ofthe riot. I don't like this butchery of worn-out slaves and pettythieves any better than anybody else, but this I don't like either. Six months ago, Gurgurk wouldn't have tried to pull anything likethis. Now he's laughing up his non-existent sleeve at us. "

"That's what I've been preaching, all along, " Eric Blount took upafter him. "These geeks need having the fear of Terra thrown intothem. "

"Oh, nonsense, Eric; you're just as bad as Carlos, here!" Harringtontut-tutted. "Next, you'll be saying that we ought to depose Jaikarkand take control ourselves. "

"Well, what's wrong with that, for an idea?" von Schlichten demanded. "Don't you think we could? Our Kragans could go through that army ofJaikark's like fast neutrons through toilet-paper. "

"My God!" Harrington exploded. "Don't let me hear that kind of talkagain! We're not _conquistadores_; we're employees of a businessconcern, here to make money honestly, by exchanging goods and serviceswith these people. . . . "

He turned and walked away, out of the Audience Hall, leaving vonSchlichten and Blount to watch the removal of the geek-heads. 

"You know, I went a little too far, " von Schlichten confessed. "Or toofast, rather. He's got to be conditioned to accept that idea. "

"We can't go too slowly, either, " Blount replied. "If we wait for himto change his mind, it'll be the same as waiting for him to retire. And that'll be waiting too long. "

Von Schlichten nodded seriously. "Did you notice the green specks inthe hide of that Prince Gorkrink?" he asked. "He's just come back fromNiflheim. Not on the _Pretoria_, I don't think. Probably on the_Canberra_, three months ago. "

"And he's here to get that plutonium, and ship it to Keegark on the_Oom Paul Kruger_, " Blount considered. "I wonder just what he learned, on Niflheim. "

"I wonder just what's going on at Keegark, " von Schlichten said. "Orgzild's pulled down a regular First-Century-model iron curtain. Youknow, four of our best native Intelligence operatives have beenmurdered in Keegark in the last three months, and six more have justvanished there. "

"Well, I'm going there in a few days, myself, to talk to Orgzild aboutthis spaceport deal, " Blount said. "I'll have a talk with HendrikLemoyne and MacKinnon. And I'll see what I can find out for myself. "

"Well, let's go have a drink, " von Schlichten suggested, consultinghis watch. "About time for a cocktail. "

IV. 

If You Read It in Stanley-Browne

Von Schlichten and Blount entered the bar together--the Broadway Room, decorated in gleaming plastics and chromium in enthusiastic ifslightly inaccurate imitation of a First Century New York nightclub. There were no native servants to spoil the illusion, such as it was:the service was fully automatic. Going to a bartending machine, vonSchlichten dialed the cocktail they had decided upon and inserted hiskey to charge the drinks to his account, filling a four-portion jug. 

As they turned away, they almost collided with Hideyoshi O'Leary andPaula Quinton. The girl wore a long-sleeved gown to conceal a bandageon her right wrist, and her face was rather heavily powdered in spots;otherwise she looked none the worse for recent experiences. 

"Well, you seem to have gotten yourself repaired, Miss Quinton, " hegreeted her. "Feel better, now?. . . Miss Quinton, this isLieutenant-Governor Blount. Eric, Miss Paula Quinton. "

"Delighted, Miss Quinton, " Blount said. "Carlos tells us he found youstanding over poor Mohammed Ferriera, fighting like a commando. How isMohammed, by the way? No danger, I hope; we all like him. "

Mohammed Ferriera was still unconscious, the girl reported; he had aminor concussion, but the medics were not greatly disturbed, andexpected him to be fully recovered in a few weeks. Von Schlichteninvited her and her escort to join him and Blount. Colonel O'Leary wascarrying a cocktail jug and a couple of glasses; finding a table outof the worst of the noise, they all sat down together. 

"I suppose you think it's a joke, our being nearly murdered by thepeople we came to help, " Paula began, a trifle defensively. 

"Not a very funny joke, " von Schlichten told her. "It's been played onus till it's lost its humor. "

"Yes, geek ingratitude's an old story to all of us, " Blount agreed. "You stay on this planet very long and you'll see what I mean. "

"You call them that, too?" she asked, as though disappointed in him. "Maybe if you stopped calling them geeks, they wouldn't resent you theway they do. You know, that's a nasty name; in the First CenturyPre-Atomic, it designated a degraded person who performed some sort ofrevolting public exhibition. . . . "

"Biting off live chickens' heads, in a sideshow wild-man act, "Hideyoshi O'Leary supplied. "When you get up north, watch how thepeasants kill these little things like six-legged iguanas that theyraise for food. "

"That isn't the reason, though, " von Schlichten said. "As we use it, the word's pure onomatopoeia. You've learned some of the languages;you know what they sound like. _Geek-geek-geek. _"

"As far as that goes, you know what the geek name for a Terran is?"Blount asked. "_Suddabit. _"

She looked puzzled for a moment, then slipped in her enunciator. Evenin the absence of any native, she used her handkerchief to mask theact. 

"Suddabit, " she said, distinctly. "Sud-da-a-bit. " Taking out thegeek-speaker, she put it away. "Why, that's exactly how they'dpronounce it!"

"And don't tell me you haven't heard it before, " O'Leary said. "Thegeeks were screaming it at you, over on Seventy-second Street, thisafternoon. _Znidd suddabit_; kill the Terrans. That's Rakkeed theProphet's whole gospel. "

"So you see, " Eric Blount rammed home the moral, "this is just anothercase of nobody with any right to call anybody else's kettle black. . . . Cigarette?"

"Thank you. " She leaned toward the lighter-flame O'Leary had snappedinto being. "I suspect that of being a principle you'd like me to bearin mind at the polar mines, when I see, let's say, some laborer beingbeaten by a couple of overseers with three foot lengths ofthree-quarter-inch steel cable. "

"Well, you could also remember that a native's skin is about half aninch thick, and a good deal tougher than a human's, " von Schlichtentold her. "And it wouldn't hurt any if you found out how theselaborers are treated at home. Mostly they're serfs hired from the biglandowners; it's a fact you can easily verify that permission to jointhe labor-companies at the polar mines is regarded as a privilege, granted as a reward or denied as a punishment. And most of the geeklandowners are bitterly critical of the way we treat our labor at themines; they claim we make them dissatisfied with the treatment theyget at home. "

"Of course, they're always glad to have the peasants taken off theirhands during a slack agricultural season, " Blount added, "and we trainworkers to handle contragravity power-equipment. I won't deny thatthere's a lot of unnecessary brutality on the part of the nativeforemen and overseers, which we're trying, gradually, to eliminate. You'll have to remember, though, that we're dealing with a naturallybrutal race. "

"Of course, mistreatment of native labor is always blamed on othernatives, never on the gentle and kindly Terrans, " she replied. "That'sbeen SOP on every planet our Association's had any experience with. "

"Now look; you just came here from Niflheim, " von Schlichten objected. "The Company employs quite a few geeks there; how much brutality didyou run into there?"

"Well, I must admit, the Ullerans who work there are very welltreated. Except that I don't think it's right to employ any peoplewith silicone body-tissues where they're going to breathefluorine-tainted air. "

"Nobody ought to be employed on that planet!" Hideyoshi O'Learydeclared. "I did a two-year hitch there, when I was first commissionedin the Company service. "

"I put in two years there, too, " Blount supported him. "And I mightadd that that's a year longer than any Ulleran native is ever allowedto spend on Niflheim. You know what the setup is, there, don't you?The Terran Federation Space Navy discovered and explored both Ullerand Niflheim, which made both planets public domain. The Company wasoriginally formed to exploit Uller alone, but the Federation insistedthat both planets would have to be franchised to the same company. They wanted Niflheim exploited, mainly because of the uranium-depositsthere. As it turned out, the Company's making as much money out ofNiflheim as we are out of Uller. "

"What you miss is this, " von Schlichten pointed out. "On Niflheim, there are about a thousand Terrans, and not more than five hundredgeeks, all employed on construction-work and in the mines, on theplanet itself, working directly under Terran supervision. We use thembecause they have four hands, and in the power-driven contragravityarmor that's necessary there, they can manipulate more controls and domore things at once than we can. Here on Uller, at the polar mines, there are about ten thousand geeks working under five hundred Terrans, and most of the latter are engineers or technicians who don't dosupervisory work. So we have to use native foremen, and they're guiltyof what mistreatment the workers suffer. "

"And remember, too, " O'Leary added, "work at the polar mines can onlygo on for about two months out of the year--mid-September tomid-November at the Arctic, and mid-March to mid-May at the Antarctic. Naturally, things have to be done in a hurry and under pressure. "

"Well, why do you work mines at the poles? Aren't there mineraldeposits in places where you can work all year 'round?"

"Not as rich, or as accessible, " Blount said. "You know what theseasons are like, at the poles of this planet. The temperature willrange from about two-fifty Fahrenheit in mid-summer to a hundred andfifty below in winter. There's the most intense sort of thermalerosion you can imagine--the ice-cap melts in the spring to a sea, which boils away completely by the middle of the summer. There will beviolent circular storms of hot wind, blowing away the light sand anddust and leaving the heavier particles of metallic ores and metalsbehind. Then, when the winds fall, we move in for a couple of months. It isn't really mining, or even quarrying; we just scoop up ore fromthe surface, load it onto ore-boats, and fly it down to Skilk andKrink and Grank, where it's smelted through the winter. The nativesrun the smelters; use the heat to thaw frozen food for themselves andtheir livestock while they're melting the ore. In the north, metallurgy and food-preparation have always been combined that way. "

"Yes, if you think the natives who work at the mines feel themselvesill-treated, you might propose closing them down entirely and see whatthe native reaction would be, " von Schlichten told her. "Independentlyhired free workers can make themselves rich, by native standards, in acouple of seasons; many of the serfs pick up enough money from us inincentive-pay to buy their freedom after one season. "

"Well, if the Company's doing so much good on this planet, how is itthat this native, Rakkeed, the one you call the Mad Prophet, is ableto find such a following?" Paula demanded. "There must be somethingwrong somewhere. "

"That's a fair question, " Blount replied, inverting a cocktail jugover his glass to extract the last few drops. "When we came to Uller, we found a culture roughly like that of Europe during the SeventhCentury Pre-Atomic, or, more closely, like that of Japan before thebeginning of the First Century P. A. We initiated a technological andeconomic revolution here, and such revolutions have their casualties, too. A number of classes and groups got squeezed pretty badly, likethe horse-breeders and harness-manufacturers on Terra by the inventionof the automobile, or the coal and hydroelectric interests when directconversion of nuclear energy to electric current was developed, orthe railroads and steamship lines at the time of the discovery of thecontragravity-field. Naturally, there's a lot of ill-feeling on thepart of merchants and artisans who weren't able or willing to adaptthemselves to changing conditions; they're all backing Rakkeed andyelling '_Znidd suddabit!_' now. You know, it's a shame that geekmessiah isn't a smart crook, instead of an honest fanatic; he couldtake in the equivalent of a couple of million sols a year off theNorth Uller merchants and the Equatorial Zone shipowners. But it is afact, which not even Rakkeed can successfully deny, that we've raisedthe general living standard of this planet by about two hundredpercent. "

"Rakkeed is a Zirk, " von Schlichten said. "They're the nomads who hireout to the northern merchants as caravan-drivers, and also prey, orused to prey, on the caravans as brigands. Since our air-freightersgot into operation, neither caravan-driving nor caravan-raiding hasbeen a paying business, and our air-patrols have made caravan-raidingsuicidal as well. So the Zirks don't like us. The only thing they knowor are willing to learn is handling these six-legged riding-andpack-animals we call hipposaurs. We employ a few of them as cavalry, and a few more of them work as the local equivalent of _gauchos_, andthe rest just sit around and listen to Rakkeed's sermons. "

Both jugs were empty. Colonel O'Leary, as befitted his junior rank, picked them up; after a good-natured wrangle with von Schlichten, Blount handed the colonel his credit-key. 

"The merchants in the north don't like us; beside spoiling thecaravan-trade, we're spoiling their local business, because theland-owning barons, who used to deal with them, are now dealingdirectly with us. At Skilk, King Firkked's afraid his feudal nobilityis going to try to force a Runnymede on him, so he's been curryingfavor with the urban merchants; that makes him as pro-Rakkeed and asanti-Terran as they are. At Krink, King Jonkvank has the support ofhis barons, but he's afraid of his urban bourgeoisie, and we pay him ahandsome subsidy, so he's pro-Terran and anti-Rakkeed. At Skilk, Rakkeed comes and goes openly; at Krink he has a price on his head. "

"Jonkvank is not one of the assets we boast about too loudly, "Hideyoshi O'Leary said, pausing on his way from the table. "He's asbloody-minded an old murderer as you'd care not to meet in a darkalley anywhere. "

"We can turn our backs on him and not expect a knife between ourshoulders, anyhow, " von Schlichten said. "And we can believe, oh, upto eighty percent of what he tells us, and that's sixty percent betterthan any of the other native princes, except King Kankad, of course. The Kragans are the only real friends we have on this planet. " Hethought for a moment. "Miss Quinton, are you doing sociographicresearch-work here, in addition to your Ex-Rights work?" he asked. "Well, let me advise you to pay some attention to the Kragans. You'llonly find them treated at any length at all in that compendium ofmisinformation, Willard Stanley-Browne's _Short Sociographic Historyof Beta Hydrae II_, and ninety percent of what Stanley-Browne saysabout them is completely erroneous. "

"Oh, but they're just a parasite-race on the Terrans, " Dr. PaulaQuinton objected. "You find races like that all through the exploredgalaxy--pathetic cultural mongrels. "

Both men laughed heartily. Colonel O'Leary, returning with the jugs, wanted to know what he'd missed. Blount told him. 

"Ha! She's been reading that thing of Stanley-Browne's, " he said. 

"What's the matter with Stanley-Browne?" Paula demanded. 

"Stanley-Browne is one author you can depend on, " O'Leary assured her. "If you read it in Stanley-Browne, it's wrong. You know, I don't thinkshe's run into many Kragans. We ought to take her over and introduceher to King Kankad. "

Von Schlichten allowed himself to be smitten by an idea. "By Allah, sowe had!" he exclaimed. "Look, you're going to Skilk, in the next week, aren't you? Well, do you think you could get all your end-jobs clearedup here and be ready to leave by 0800 Tuesday? That's four days fromtoday. "

"I'm sure I could. Why?"

"Well, I'm going to Skilk, myself, with the armed troopship_Aldebaran_. We're stopping at King Kankad's Town to pick up abattalion of Kragan Rifles for duty at the polar mines, where you'regoing. Suppose we leave here in my command-car, go to Kankad's Town, and wait there till the _Aldebaran_ gets in. That would give us abouttwo to three hours. If you think the Kragans are 'pathetic culturalmongrels, ' what you'll see there will open your eyes. And I might addthat the nearest Stanley-Browne ever came to seeing Kankad's Town wasfrom the air, once, at a distance of four miles. "

"Well, they live entirely by serving as mercenary soldiers for theUller Company, don't they?"

"More or less. You see, when we came to Uller, they were barbarianbrigands; had a string of forts along caravan-roads and at fords andmountain-passes, and levied tolls. They raided into Konkrook andKeegark territory, too. Well, we had to break that up. We fought alittle war with them, beat them rather badly in a couple ofskirmishes, and then made a deal with them. That was before my time, when old Jerry Kirke was Governor-General. He negotiated a treaty withtheir King, bought their rievers'-forts outright, and paid them asubsidy to compensate for loss of tolls and raid-spoil, and agreed toemploy the whole tribe as soldiers. We've taught them a lot--you'llsee how much when you visit their town--but they aren't culturalmongrels. You'll like them. "

"Well, general, I'll take you up, " she said. "But I warn you; if thisis some scheme to indoctrinate me with the Uller Company's side of thecase and blind me to unjust exploitation of the natives here, I don'tpropagandize very easily. "

"Fair enough, as long as you don't let fear of being propagandizedblind you to the good we're doing here, or impair your ability toobserve and draw accurate conclusions. Just stay scientific about itand I'll be satisfied. Now, let's take time out for lubrication, " hesaid, filling her glass and passing the jug. 

Two hours and five cocktails later, they were still at the table, andthey had taught Paula Quinton some twenty verses of _The HeathenGeeks, They Wear No Breeks_, including the four printable ones. 

V. 

You Can Depend on It It's Wrong

Gongonk Island, with its blue-gray Company buildings, and the Terrangreen of the farms, and the spaceport with its ring of mooring-pylonsempty since the _City of Pretoria_ had lifted out, two days before, for Terra, was dropping away behind. Von Schlichten held his lighterfor Paula Quinton, then lit his own cigarette. 

"I was rather horrified, Friday afternoon, at the way you and ColonelO'Leary and Mr. Blount were blaspheming against Stanley-Browne, " shesaid. "His book is practically the sociographers' Koran for thisplanet. But I've been checking up, since, and I find that everybodywho's been here any length of time seems to deride it, and it's fullof the most surprising misstatements. I'm either going to make myselffamous or get burned at the stake by the Extraterrestrial SociographicSociety after I get back to Terra. In the last three months, I've beenreally too busy with Ex-Rights work to do much research, but I'mbeginning to think there's a great deal in Stanley-Browne's book thatwill have to be reconsidered. "

"How'd you get into this, Miss Quinton?" he asked. 

"You mean sociography, or Ex-Rights? Well, my father and mygrandfather were both extraterrestrial sociographers--anthropologistswhose subjects aren't anthropomorphic--and I majored in sociographyat the University of Montevideo. And I've always been in sympathywith extraterrestrial races; one of my great-grandmothers was aFreyan. "

"The deuce; I'd never have guessed that, as small and dark as youare. "

"Well, another of my great-grandmothers was Japanese, " she replied. "The family name's French. I'm also part Spanish, part Russian, partItalian, part English . . . The usual modern Argentine mixture. "

"I'm an Argentino, too. From La Rioja, over along the Sierra deVelasco. My family lived there for the past five centuries. They cameto the Argentine in the Year Three, Atomic Era. "

"On account of the Hitler bust-up?"

"Yes. I believe the first one, also a General von Schlichten, was whatwas then known as a war-criminal. "

"That makes us partners in crime, then, " she laughed. "The Quintonshad to leave France about the same time; they were what was known ascollaborationists. "

"That's probably why the Southern Hemisphere managed to stay out ofthe Third and Fourth World Wars, " he considered. "It was full of thedescendants of people who'd gotten the short end of the Second. "

"Do you speak the Kragan language, general?" she asked. "I understandit's entirely different from the other Equatorial Ulleran languages. "

"Yes. That's what gives the Kragans an entirely different semanticorientation. For instance, they have nothing like a subject-predicatesentence structure. That's why, Stanley-Browne to the contrarynotwithstanding, they are entirely non-religious. Their languagehasn't instilled in them a predisposition to think of everything asthe result of an action performed by an agent. And they have nodefinite parts of speech; any word can be used as any part of speech, depending on context. Tense is applied to words used as nouns, notwords used as verbs; there are four tenses--spatial-temporal present, things here-and-now; spatial present and temporal remote, things whichwere here at some other time; spatial remote and temporal present, things existing now somewhere else, and spatial-temporal remote, things somewhere else some other time. "

"Why, it's a wonder they haven't developed a Theory of Relativity!"

"They have. It resembles ours about the way the Wright Brothers'airplane resembles this aircar, but I was explaining theKeene-Gonzales-Dillingham Theory and the older Einstein Theory to KingKankad once, and it was beautiful to watch how he picked it up. Halfthe time, he was a jump ahead of me. "

The aircar began losing altitude and speed as they came in overKraggork Swamp; the treetops below blended into a level plain ofyellow-green, pierced by glints of stagnant water underneath andbroken by an occasional low hillock, sometimes topped by a stockadedvillage. 

"Those are the swamp-savages' homes, " he told her. "Most of what youfind in Stanley-Browne about them is fairly accurate. He spent a lotof time among them. He never seems to have realized, though, that theyare living now as they have ever since the first appearance ofintelligent life on this planet. "

"You mean, they're the real aboriginal people of Uller?"

"They and the Jeel cannibals, whom we are doing our best toexterminate, " he replied. "You see, at one time, the dominant type ofmobile land-life was the thing we call a shellosaur, a big thing, running from five to fifteen tons, plated all over with silicateshell, till it looked like a six-legged pine-cone. Some wereherbivores and some were carnivores. There are a few left, in remoteplaces--quite a few in the Southern Hemisphere, which we haven'texplored very much. They were a satisfied life-form. Outside of avolcano or an earthquake or an avalanche, nothing could hurt ashellosaur but a bigger shellosaur. 

"Finally, of course, they grew beyond their sustenance-limit, but inthe meantime, some of them began specializing on mobility instead ofarmor and began excreting waste-matter instead of turning it to shell. Some of these new species got rid of their shell entirely. _Parahomosapiens Ulleris_ is descended from one of these. 

"The shellosaurs were still a serious menace, though. The ancestors ofthe present Ulleran, the proto-geeks, when they were at about the JavaApe-Man stage of development, took two divergent courses to escape theshellosaurs. Some of them took to the swamps, where the shellosaurswould sink if they tried to follow. Those savages, down there, arestill living in the same manner; they never progressed. Othersencountered problems of survival which had to be overcome byinvention. They progressed to barbarism, like the people of thefishing-villages, and some of them progressed to civilization, likethe Konkrookans and the Keegarkans. 

"Then, there were others who took to the high rocks, where theshellosaurs couldn't climb. The Jeels are the primitive, originalexample of that. Most of the North Uller civilizations developed frommountaineer-savages, and so did the Zirks and the other northernplains nomads. "

"Well, how about the Kragans?" Paula asked. "Which were they?"

Von Schlichten was scanning the horizon ahead. He pulled over a pairof fifty-power binoculars on a swinging arm and put them where shecould use them. 

"Right ahead, there; just a little to the left. See that brown-grayspot on the landward edge of the swamp? That's King Kankad's Town. It's been there for thousands of years, and it's always been Kankad'sTown. You might say, even the same Kankad. The Kragan kings havealways provided their own heirs, by self-fertilization. That's acomplicated process, involving simultaneous male and femalemasturbation, but the offspring is an exact duplicate of the singleparent. The present Kankad speaks of his heir as 'Little Me, ' which isa fairly accurate way of putting it. "

He knew what she was seeing through the glasses--a massive butte offlint, jutting out into the swamp on the end of a sharp ridge, with acity on top of it. All the buildings were multi-storied, some pilingupward from the top and some clinging to the sides. The highwatchtower at the front now carried a telecast-director, aimed at anautomatic relay-station on an unmanned orbiter two thousand milesoff-planet. 

"They're either swamp-people who moved up onto that rock, or they'remountaineers who came out that far along the ridge and stopped, " shesaid. "Which?"

"Nobody's ever tried to find out. Maybe if you stay on Uller longenough, you can. That ought to be good for about eight to ten honorarydoctorates. And maybe a hundred sols a year in book royalties. "

"Maybe I'll just do that, general. . . . What's that, on the littleisland over there?" she asked, shifting the glasses. "A clump offlat-roofed buildings. Under a red-and-yellow danger-flag. "

"That's Dynamite Island; the Kragans have an explosives-plant there. They make nitroglycerine, like all the thalassic peoples; they alsomake TNT and catastrophite, and propellants. Learned that from us, ofcourse. They also manufacture most of their own firearms, some of thempretty extreme--up to 25-mm for shoulder rifles. Don't ever fire one;it'd break every bone in your body. "

"Are they that much stronger than us?"

He shook his head. "Just denser, heavier. They're about equal to us inweight-lifting. They can't run, or jump, as well as we can. We oftencome out here for games with the Kragans, where the geeks can't watchus. And that reminds me--you're right about that being a term ofderogation, because I don't believe I've ever knowingly spoken of aKragan as a geek, and in fact they've picked up the word from us andapply it to all non-Kragans. But as I was saying, our baseball teamhas to give theirs a handicap, but their football team can beat thedaylights out of ours. In a tug-of-war, we have to put two men on ourend for every one of theirs. But they don't even try to play tenniswith us. "

"Don't the other natives make their own firearms?"

"No, and we're not going to teach them how. The thalassic peoples herein the Equatorial Zone are fairly good empirical, teaspoon-measure, chemists. Well, no, alchemists. They found out how to makenitroglycerine, and use it for blasting and for bombs and mines, andthey screw little capsules of it on the ends of their arrows. Most oftheir chemistry, such as it is, was learned in trying to preventorganic materials, like wood, from petrifying. Up in the north, whereit gets cold, they learned a lot about metallurgy and ceramics, andabout forced-draft pneumatics, from having to keep fires going allwinter to thaw frozen food. They make air-rifles, to shoot metaldarts. "

The aircar came in, circling slowly over the town on the big rock, andlet down on the roof of the castle-like building from which thewatchtower rose. There were a dozen or so individuals waiting forthem--the five Terrans, three men and two women, from the telecaststation, and the rest Kragans. One of these, dark-skinned but withspeckles no darker than light amber, armed only with a heavy dagger, came over and clapped von Schlichten on the shoulder, grinningopalescently. 

"Greetings, Von!" he squawked in Kragan, then, seeing Paula, switchedover to the customary language of the Takkad Sea country. "It makeshappiness to see you. How long will you stay with us?"

"Till the _Aldebaran_ gets in from Konkrook, to pick up the rifles, "von Schlichten replied, in Lingua Terra. He looked at his watch. "Twohours and a half . . . Kankad, this is Paula Quinton; Paula, KingKankad. "

He took out his geek-speaker and crammed it into his mouth. Before anyother race on Uller, that would have been the most shocking sort ofbad manners, without the token-concealment of the handkerchief. Kankadtook it as a matter of course. At some length, von Schlichtenexplained the nature of Paula's sociographic work, her connection withthe Extraterrestrials' Rights Association, and her intention of goingto the Arctic mines. Kankad nodded. 

"You were right, " he said. "I wouldn't have understood all that inyour language. If I had read it, maybe, but not if I heard it. " He puthis upper right hand on Paula's shoulder and uttered a clickingapproximation of her name. "I make you one of us, " he told her. "Youmust come back, after the work stops at the mines; if you want tolearn about my people, I'll show you what you want to see, and tellyou what you want to know. But why not stay here? Why bother aboutthose geeks at the mines; the Company treats them much better thanthey deserve. Stay here with us; we will make you happy to be withus. "

Paula replied slowly: "I thank Kankad, but I must go. Those on Terrawho sent me here want me to learn for myself how the workers at themines are treated. But I will come back--in a hundred, a hundred andfifty days. "

Kankad's opal-jeweled grin widened. "Good! We'll be waiting for you. "He turned and introduced another Kragan, about his own age, who worethe equipment and insignia of a Company native-major and was freshlypainted with the Company emblem. "This is Kormork. He and I have borneyoung to each other. Kormork, you watch over Paula Quinton. " Hemanaged, on the second try, to make it more or less recognizable. "Bring her back safe. Or else find yourself a good place to hide. "

Kankad introduced the rest of his people, and von Schlichtenintroduced the Terrans from the telecast-station. Then Kankad lookedat the watch he was wearing on his lower left wrist. 

"We will have plenty of time, before the ship comes, to show Paula thetown, " he suggested. "Von, you know better than I do what she wouldlike to see. "

He led the way past a pair of long 90-mm guns to a stone stairway. VonSchlichten explained, as they went down, that the guns of KingKankad's Town were the only artillery above 75-mm on Uller innon-Terran hands. They climbed into an open machine-gun carrier andstrapped themselves to their seats, and for two hours King Kankadshowed her the sights of the town. They visited the school, whereyoung Kragans were being taught to read Lingua Terra and studied fromtextbooks printed in Johannesburg and Sydney and Buenos Aires. Kankadshowed her the repair-shops, where two-score descendants of Kraganriever-chieftains were working on contragravity equipment, under thesupervision of a Scottish-Afrikaner and his Malay-Portuguese wife; thesmall-arms factory, where very respectable copies of Terran rifles andpistols and auto-weapons were being turned out; the machine-shop; thephysics and chemistry labs; the hospital; the ammunition-loadingplant; the battery of 155-mm Long Toms, built in Kankad's own shops, which covered the road up the sloping rock-spine behind the city; theprinting-shop and book-bindery; the observatory, with a big telescopeand an ingenious orrery of the Beta Hydrae system; the nuclear-powerplant, part of the original price for giving up brigandage. 

Half an hour before the ship from Konkrook was due, they had arrivedat the airport, where a gang of Kragans were clearing a berth for the_Aldebaran_. From somewhere, Kankad produced two cold bottles of CapeTown beer for Paula and von Schlichten, and a bowl of some boiling-hotblack liquid for himself. Von Schlichten and Paula lit cigarettes;between sips of his bubbling hell-brew, Kankad gnawed on the stalk ofsome swamp-plant. Paula seemed as much surprised at Kankad's disregardfor the eating taboo as she had been at von Schlichten's open floutingof the convention of concealment when he had put in his geek-speaker. 

"This is the only place on Uller where this happens, " von Schlichtentold her. "Here, or in the field when Terran and Kragan soldiers aretogether. There aren't any taboos between us and the Kragans. "

"No, " Kankad said. "We cannot eat each others' food, and because ourbodies are different, we cannot be the fathers of each others' young. But we have been battle-comrades, and worksharers, and we have learnedfrom each other, my people more from yours than yours from mine. Before you came, my people were like children, shooting arrows atlittle animals on the beach, and climbing among the rocks atdare-me-and-I-do, and playing war with toy weapons. But we are growingup, and it will not be long before we will stand beside you, as thegrown son stands beside his parent, and when that day comes, you willnot be ashamed of us. "

It was easy to forget that Kankad had four arms and a rubbery, quartz-speckled skin, and a face like a lizard. 

"I have always wished that some of your people could come to Terra, tostudy, " von Schlichten said. "I was talking about it with SidHarrington, only a short while ago. He thinks it would be a goodthing, for your people and for mine. "

"Yes. I want Little Me, when he's old enough to travel, to visit yourworld, " Kankad said. "And some of the other young ones. And whenLittle Me is old enough to take over the rule of our people, I wouldlike to go to Terra, myself. "

"Some day, I am going to return to Terra; I would like to have youmake the trip with me, " von Schlichten said. 

"That would be wonderful, Von!" Kankad exclaimed. "I want to see yourworld, before I die. It must be a wonderful place. A world is what itspeople make it, and your people must be able to make anything of yourworld that you would want. "

"We almost made a lifeless desert, like the poles of Uller, out of ourworld, once, " von Schlichten told him. "Four hundred and more yearsago, we fought great wars among ourselves, with weapons such as I hopewill never even be thought of on Uller. Our whole Northern Hemisphere, where our greatest nations were, was devastated; much of it iswasteland to this day. But we put an end to that folly in time; wemade one nation out of all our people, and swore never to commit suchcrimes again, and then we built the ships that took us out to thestars. But I want you to see our world, and some of the other worldsthat we have visited, I think you would like it. "

"I know I would. And with you to tell me what the things I would seemeant. . . . " Kankad was silent for a moment. Then he spoke again, changing the subject abruptly. 

"I hope Paula will pardon me, but isn't Paula the kind of Terran thatbears young?"

"That's right, Kankad. I never bore any, yet, but that's the kind ofTerran I am. "

"I like Paula, " Kankad said. "She has come all the way from Terra tohelp us, and to learn about us. Of course, the Kragans don't need thatkind of help, and the geeks, who would stick a knife in her as soon asshe turned her back on them, don't deserve it. But she wants to learnabout us, just as I want to learn about Terra. Von, why don't you andPaula have young?" he asked. "I think that would be fine. Then, LittlePaula-Von and Little Me could be friends, long after the three of usare dead and gone. "

VI. 

The Bad News Came After the Coffee

The last clatter of silverware and dishes ceased as the nativeservants finished clearing the table. There was a remaining clatter ofcups and saucers; liqueur-glasses tinkled, and an occasionalcigarette-lighter clicked. At the head table, the voices seemedlouder. 

". . . Don't like it a millisol's worth, " Brigadier-General BarneyMordkovitz, the Skilk military CO, was saying to the lady on hisright. "They're too confounded meek. Nowadays, nobody yells '_Zniddsuddabit!_' at you. Nobody sticks all four thumbs in his mouth andwaves his fingers. Nobody commits nuisance on the sidewalk in front ofyou. They just stand and look at you like a farmer looking at a turkeythe week before Christmas, and that I don't like!"

"Oh, bosh!" Jules Keaveney, the Skilk Resident-Agent, at the head ofthe table, exclaimed. "You soldiers are all alike--begging yourpardon, General von Schlichten, " he nodded in the direction of theguest of honor. "If they don't bow and scrape to you and get off thesidewalk to let you pass, you say they're insolent and need a lesson. If they do, you say they're plotting insurrection. "

"What I said, " Mordkovitz repeated, "was that I expect a certainamount of disorder, and a certain minimum show of hostility toward usfrom some of these geeks, to conform to what I know to be ourunpopularity with many of them. When I don't find it, I want to knowwhy. "

"I'm inclined, " von Schlichten came to his subordinate's support, "toagree. This sudden absence of overt hostility is disquieting. ColonelCheng-Li, " he called on the local Intelligence officer andConstabulary chief. "This fellow Rakkeed was here, about a month ago. Was there any noticeable disorder at that time? Anti-Terrandemonstrations, attacks on Company property or personnel, shooting ataircars, that sort of thing?"

"No more than usual, general. In fact, it was when Rakkeed came herethat the condition General Mordkovitz was speaking of began to becomeconspicuous. We did catch some of Rakkeed's disciples trying to get inamong the enlisted men of the Tenth N. U. N. I. And the Fifth ZirkCavalry and promote disaffection. That was reported at the time, sir. "

"And acted upon, as far as the civil administration would permit, " vonSchlichten replied. "And I might say that Lieutenant-Governor Blounthas reported from Keegark, where he is now, that the same unnaturalabsence of hostility exists there. "

"Well, of course, general, " Keaveney said patronizingly. "King Orgzildhas things under pretty tight control at Keegark. He'd not allow a fewfanatics to do anything to prejudice these spaceport negotiations. "

"I wonder if the idea back of that spaceport proposition isn't to getus concentrated at Keegark, where Orgzild could wipe us all out in onesurprise blow, " somebody down the table suggested. 

"Oh, Orgzild wouldn't be crazy enough to try anything like that, "Commander Dirk Prinsloo, of the _Aldebaran_, declared. "He'd get awaywith it for just twelve months--the time it would take to get thenews to Terra and for a Federation Space Navy task-force to get here. And then, there'd be little bits of radioactive geek floating aroundthis system as far out as the orbit of Beta Hydrae VII. "

"That's quite true, " von Schlichten agreed. "The point is, doesOrgzild know it? I doubt if he even believes there is a Terra. "

"Then where in Space does he think we come from?" Keaveney demanded. 

"I believe he thinks Niflheim is our home world, " von Schlichtenreplied. "Or, rather, the string of orbiters and artificial satellitesaround Niflheim. Where he thinks Niflheim is, I wouldn't even try toguess. "

"Well, it takes six months for a ship to go between here and Nif, "Prinsloo considered. "Because of the hyperdrive effects, theexperienced time of the voyage, inside the ship, is of the order ofthree weeks. Taking that as the figure, he'd estimate the distance atabout a quarter-million miles, assuming the velocity as being thespeed of one of our contragravity-ships here on Uller. I'm assuming hedoesn't even know there is a hyperdrive. "

"Yes. After he'd wiped us out, he might even consider the idea of aninvasion of Niflheim with captured contragravity ships, " HideyoshiO'Leary chuckled. "That would be a big laugh--if any of us were alive, then, to do any laughing. "

"You don't really believe that, general?" Keaveney asked. His tone wasstill derisive, but under the derision was uncertainty. After all, vonSchlichten had been on Uller for fifteen years, to his two. 

"Any question of geek psychology is wide open as far as I'm concerned;the longer I stay here, the less I understand it. " Von Schlichtenfinished his brandy and got out cigarette-case and lighter. "I havean idea of the sort of garbled reports these spies of his who spend ayear on Niflheim as laborers bring back. "

"You know the line Rakkeed's been taking, of course, " Colonel Cheng-Liput in. "He as much as says that Niflheim's our home, and that thefarms where we raise food here, and those evergreen plantings on KonkIsthmus and between here and Grank are the beginning of an attempt todrive all native life from this planet and make it over forourselves. "

"And that savage didn't think an idea like that up for himself; he gotit from somebody like Orgzild, " the black-bearded brigadier-generaladded. "You know, the main base off Niflheim is practicallyself-supporting, with hydroponic-gardens and animal-tissue culturevats. And it's enough bigger than one of the _City_ ships to pass fora little world. Yes, somebody like Orgzild, or King Firkked here, could easily pick up the idea that that's our home planet. "

"But King Kankad was talking about. . . . " Paula Quinton began. 

"We were speaking of geeks, not Kragans. " Von Schlichten lit hiscigarette and held his lighter for hers. "You saw that big Beta Hydraeorrery at Kankad's observatory. Well, there's quite a little storyabout that. You know, it's generally realized by the natives here thatUller is a globe. The North Zirks have ridden all the way around it, on hipposaur-back, in the high latitudes, and the thalassic peoples atthe Equator have sailed all the five equatorial seas and portaged allthe isthmuses between. But, of course, Uller is the center of theuniverse; the sun travels around it, on a rather complicateddouble-spiral track. As a theory, it explains most of what they'reable to observe, and any minor effects that don't conform to it arejust ignored. They have a model, a most ingenious affair run byclockwork, at the University of Konkrook, to show the apparentmovement and position of Beta Hydrae in the sky; it does so fairlyaccurately. 

"Well, some of our astronomers constructed this orrery, and exhibitedit to a gathering of the leading native scholars, who are also thehigh-priests of the local religion. Sort of combined Academy of Artsand Sciences and College of Cardinals. They almost were massacred. Assoon as the assembled pundits saw this thing and grasped its meaning, they began geeking and skreeking and yorking and squawking andbrandishing knives--it was blasphemous, and sacrilegious, andundermined the Faith, and invalidated the whole logic-system. 

"I was brigadier-general, in command of Konkrook military district, then--the post Them M'zangwe has now. When I got a riot-call from theUniversity, I hustled around with a company of Kragans, and we clearedthe hall with the bayonet and ran the reverend professors out onto thecampus, and after we got things in hand, the Kragans crowded aroundthe orrery, trying to set it up to show the existing position of theplanet relative to the primary and figure out the theory back of it. They were very much interested; some of them must have sent word homeabout it, because Kankad came in on the next ship, wanting to see it. He was so much taken with it that Sid Harrington gave it to him. It'sone of his most cherished possessions, but the Konkrook pundits biteall four thumbs and wave their fingers every time they think of it. "He warmed his coffee from a controlled-temperature pot. "You can't useKragan thinking on any subject as a criterion of what somebody likeOrgzild's opinions will be. "

"I never could understand the admiration some of you military peoplehave for those cutthroats, " Keaveney declared. "Oh, yes, I can. Youlike them because they do your dirty work for you. "

"He reads Stanley-Browne, too, I'll bet, " Hideyoshi O'Leary said. "Miss Quinton, how did you like your visit to Kankad's Town? Stillthink the Kragans are cultural mongrels?"

"Why, they're wonderful! I never expected anything like it. They justseem to have picked up everything they could from us, and then gone onfrom there to develop a culture of their own with our techniques. Forinstance, those big guns, the ones they call the Ridge Battery, thatthey built for themselves. They aren't copies of Terran guns. Theydon't look like our work, or give you the feel our work would. Andthat telescope at the observatory, " she continued. "Did they buildthat, too?"

"Yes, all we furnished was a couple of textbooks on lens-grinding andtelescope-design, and a book on optics. You see, when we made thatdeal with them, they realized that we weren't any better fighters thanthey were; we just had better weapons. To have the same kind ofweapons, they'd have to learn to make them, and once they beganstudying technology, they found that they had to study science. Weapon-making was the entering-wedge; after that, they found that theycould use the same skills to make anything else they wanted. Give themanother century or so and they'll be one of the great races of thegalaxy. "

"Yes, and it's a good thing they're our friends, too, " Mordkovitzadded. "I'm only sorry there are so few of them, and so many of thegeeks. "

"Yes, the Company ought to let us stockpile nuclear weapons here, justto be on the safe side, " another officer, farther down the table, said. 

"Well, I'm not exactly in favor of that, " von Schlichten replied. "It's the same principle as not allowing guards who have to go inamong the convicts to carry firearms. If somebody like Orgzild gothold of a nuclear bomb, even a little old First-Century H-bomb, hecould use it for a model and construct a hundred like it, with all theplutonium we've been handing out for power reactors. And there are toofew of us, and we're concentrated in too few places, to last long ifthat happened. What this planet needs, though, is a visit by afifty-odd-ship task-force of the Space Navy, just to show the geekswhat we have back of us. After a show like that, there'd be a lot less_znidd suddabit_ around here. "

"General, I deplore that sort of talk, " Keaveney said. "I hear toomuch of this mailed-fist-and-rattling-saber stuff from some of thejunior officers here, without your giving countenance andencouragement to it. We're here to earn dividends for the stockholdersof the Uller Company, and we can only do that by gaining thefriendship, respect and confidence of the natives. . . . "

"Mr. Keaveney, " Paula Quinton spoke up. "I doubt if even you wouldseriously accuse the Extraterrestrials' Rights Association of favoringwhat you call a mailed-fist-and-rattling-saber policy. We've doneeverything in our power to help these people, and if anybody shouldhave their friendship, we should. Well, only five days ago, inKonkrook, Mr. Mohammed Ferriera and I were attacked by a mob, ournative aircar driver was murdered, and if it hadn't been for Generalvon Schlichten and his soldiers, we'd have lost our own lives. Mr. Ferriera is still hospitalized as a result of injuries he received. Itseems that General von Schlichten and his Kragans aren't trying toget friendship and confidence; they're willing to settle for respect, in the only way they can get it--by hitting harder and quicker thanthe geeks can. "

Somebody down the table--one of the military, of course--said, "Hear, hear!" Von Schlichten came as close as a man wearing a monocle can towinking at Paula. Good girl, he thought; she's started playing on theArmy team!

"Well, of course. . . . " Keaveney began. Then he stopped, as a Terransergeant came up to the table and bent over Barney Mordkovitz'shoulder, whispering urgently. The black-bearded brigadier roseimmediately, taking his belt from the back of his chair and putting iton. Motioning the sergeant to accompany him, he spoke briefly toKeaveney and then came around the table to where von Schlichten sat, the Resident-Agent accompanying him. 

"Message just came in from Konkrook, general, " he said softly. "SidHarrington's dead. "

It took von Schlichten all of a second to grasp what had been said. "Good God! When? How?"

"Here's all we know, sir, " the sergeant said, giving him a radioprintslip. "Came in ten minutes ago. "

It was an all-station priority telecast. Governor-General Harringtonhad died suddenly, in his room, at 2210; there were no details. Heglanced at his watch; it was 2243. Konkrook and Skilk were in the sametime-zone; that was fast work. He handed the slip to Mordkovitz, whogave it to Keaveney. 

"You from the telecast station, sergeant?" he asked. "All right, let'sgo. "

"Wait a minute, general. " Keaveney put out a hand to detain him as hetook his belt and put it on. "How about this?" He gestured nervouslywith the radioprint slip. 

"Get up and make an announcement, now, " von Schlichten told him, fastening the buckle and hitching his pistol and survival-kit intoplace. "It'll be out all over the planet in half an hour. Never holdnews out unnecessarily. " He stubbed out his cigarette. "Come on, sergeant. "

As he hurried from the banquet-room, he could hear Keaveney tapping onhis wine-glass. 

"Everybody, please! Let me have your attention! There has just come ina piece of the most tragic news. . . . "

VII. 

Bismillah! How Dumb Can We Get?

The lights had come on inside the semicircular and now openstorm-porch of Company House, but it was still daylight outside. Thesky above the mountain to the west was fading from crimson toburnt-orange, and a couple of the brighter stars were winking intovisibility. Von Schlichten and the sergeant hurried a hundred yardsdown the street between low, thick-walled office buildings to thetelecast station, next to the Administration Building. 

A woman captain met him just inside the door of the big soundproofedroom. 

"We have a wavelength open to Konkrook, general, " she said. "In booththree. "

He nodded. "Thank you, captain. . . . We've all lost a true friend, haven't we?"

Another girl, a tech-sergeant, was in the booth; on the screen was theimage of a third young woman, a lieutenant, at Konkrook station. Thesergeant rose and started to leave the booth. 

"Stick around, sergeant, " von Schlichten told her. "I'll want you totake over when I'm through. " He sat down in front of the combinationvisiscreen and pickup. "Now, lieutenant, just what happened?" heasked. "How did he die?"

"We think it was poison, general. General M'zangwe has ordered autopsyand chemical analysis. If you can wait about ten minutes, he'll beable to talk to you, himself. "

"Call him. In the meantime, give me everything you know. "

"Well, the governor decided to go to bed early; he was going huntingin the morning. I suppose you know his usual routine?"

Von Schlichten nodded. Harrington would have taken a shower, put onhis dressing-gown, and then sat down at his desk, lighted his pipe, poured a drink of Terran bourbon, and begun to write his diary. 

"Well, at 2210, give or take a couple of minutes, the Kraganguard-sergeant on that floor heard ten pistol-shots, as fast as theycould be fired semi-auto, in the governor's room. The door was locked, but he shot it off with his own pistol and went in. He found GovernorHarrington on the floor, wearing only his gown, holding an emptypistol. He was in convulsions, frothing at the mouth, in horriblepain. Evidently he'd fired his pistol, which he kept on his desk, tocall help; all the bullets had gone into the ceiling. The sergeantpunched the emergency button, beside the bed, and reported, then triedto help the governor, but it was too late. One of the medics got therein five minutes, just as he was dying. He'd written his diary up tonoon of today, and broken off in the middle of a word. There was abottle and an overturned glass on his desk. The Constabulary got therea few minutes later, and then Brigadier-General M'zangwe took charge. A white rat, given fifteen drops from the whiskey-bottle, died withthe same symptoms in about ninety seconds. "

"Who had access to the whiskey-bottle?"

"A geek servant, who takes care of the room. He was caught, an hourearlier, trying to slip off the island without a pass; they wereholding him at the guardhouse when Governor Harrington died. He's nowbeing questioned by the Kragans. " The girl's face was bleaklyremorseless. "I hope they do plenty to him!"

"I hope they don't kill him before he talks. "

"Wait a moment, general; we have General M'zangwe, now, " the girlsaid. "I'll switch you over. "

The screen broke into a kaleidoscopic jumble of color, then cleared;the chocolate-brown face of Themistocles M'zangwe was looking out ofit. 

"I heard what happened, how they found him, and about that geekchamber-valet being arrested, " von Schlichten said. "Did you getanything out of him?"

"He's admitted putting poison in the bottle, but he claims it was hisown idea. But he's one of Father Keeluk's parishioners, so. . . . "

"Keeluk! God damn, so that was it!" von Schlichten almost shouted. "Now I know what he wanted with Stalin, and that goat, and thoserabbits!"

Five thousand miles away, in Konkrook, Themistocles M'zangwe whistled. 

"_Bismillah_! How dumb can we get?" he cried. "Of course they'd needterrestrial animals, to find out what would poison a Terran! Wait aminute; I'll make a note of that, to spring on this geek, if theKragans haven't finished him by now. " Von Schlichten watched M'zangwepick up a stenophone and whisper into it for a moment. "All right, Carlos, what else?"

"Has Eric been notified?"

"We called Keegark, but he's in audience with King Orgzild, and wecan't reach him. "

"Well, who's in charge at Konkrook, now?"

"Not much of anybody. Laviola, the Fiscal Secretary, and HansMeyerstein, the Banking Cartel's lawyer, and Howlett, the PersonnelChief, and Buhrmann, the Commercial Secretary, have made up a sort ofquadrumvirate and are trying to run things. I don't know what wouldhappen if anything came up suddenly. . . . " A blue-gray uniformed arm, with a major's cuff-braid, came into the screen, handing a slip ofpaper to M'zangwe; he took it, glanced at it, and swore. VonSchlichten waited until he had read it through. 

"Well, something has, all right, " the African said. "We just got acall from Jaikark's Palace--a revolt's broken out, presumably headedby Gurgurk; Household Guards either mutinied or wiped out by themutineers, all but those twenty Kragan Rifles we loaned Jaikark. They, and about a dozen of Jaikark's courtiers and their personal retainers, are holding the approaches to the King's apartments. Thenative-lieutenant in charge of the Kragans just radioed in; says thesituation is desperate. "

"When a Kragan says that, he means damn near hopeless. Is this beingrecorded?" When M'zangwe nodded, he continued: "All right. Use therecording for your authority and take charge. I'm declaring martialrule at Konkrook, as of now, 2253. Tell Eric Blount what's happened, and what you've done, as soon as you can get in touch with him. I'mleaving for Konkrook at once; I ought to get in by 0800. 

"Now, as to the trouble at the Palace. Don't commit more than onecompany of Kragans and ten airjeeps and four combat-cars, and tellthem to evacuate Jaikark and his followers and our Kragans to GongonkIsland. And alert your whole force. These geek palace revolutions arealways synchronized with street-rioting, and this thing seems to havebeen synchronized with Sid Harrington's death, too. Get our Kragansout if you can't save anybody else from the Palace, but sacrificingthirty or forty men to save twenty is no kind of business. And keepsending reports; I can pick them up on my car radio as I come down. "He turned to the girl sergeant. "Keep on this; there'll be more comingin. "

He rose and left the booth. If we can pull Jaikark's bacon off thefire, he was thinking, the Company can dictate its own terms to himafterward; if Jaikark's killed, we'll have Gurgurk's head off for it, and then take over Konkrook. In either case, it'll be a long steptoward getting rid of all these geek despots. And with Eric Blount asGovernor-General. . . . 

The girl captain in charge of the station met him as he came out. 

"Poison, " he told her. "A geek servant did the job, on orders fromGurgurk and possibly Rakkeed. Gurgurk's started a putsch against KingJaikark; I'm going to Konkrook at once. Call the military airport andhave my command-car brought to Company House. "

Harry Quong and Hassan Bogdanoff had been at the banquet, too; on aworld of lizard-faced silicate-eaters, the social difference between ahuman general and a human aircar-driver was almost infinitesimal. He'dhave to talk to Barney Mordkovitz, too; when word of events atKonkrook got out among the local geeks, as it probably had already. . . . 

The inner door of the soundproofed telecast-room burst open, three menhurried inside, and it slammed shut behind them. In the briefinterval, there had been firing audible from outside. One of the menhad a pistol in his right hand, and with his left arm he supported acompanion, whose shoulder was mangled and dripped blood. The third manhad a burp-gun in his hands. All were in civilian dress-shorts andlight jackets. The man with the pistol holstered it and helped hisinjured companion into a chair. The burp-gunner advanced into theroom, looked around, saw von Schlichten, and addressed him. 

"General! The geeks turned on us!" he cried. "The Tenth North Uller'smutinied; they're running wild all over the place. They've taken theirbarracks and supply-buildings, and the lorry-hangars and themaintenance-yard; they're headed this way in a mob. Some of the ZirkCavalry's joined them. "

"How about the Kragans?"

"The Eighteenth Rifles? They're with us. I saw a party of them firinginto the mob; I saw some of the Tenth N. U. N. I. Tossing a dead Kraganon their bayonets. . . . "

"Have any ammo left for that burp-gun? Come on, then; let's see whatit's like at Company House, " von Schlichten said. "Captain Malavez, you know what to do about defending this station. Get busy doing it. And have that girl in booth three tell Konkrook what's happened here, and say that I won't be coming down, as planned, just yet. "

He opened the door, and the rattle of shots outside became audibleagain. The civilian with the burp-gun knew better than to let ageneral go out first; elbowing von Schlichten out of the way, hecrouched over his weapon and dashed outside. Drawing his pistol, vonSchlichten followed, pulling the door shut after him. 

Darkness had fallen, while he had been inside; now the whole CompanyReservation was ablaze with electric lights. Somebody at thepower-plant--either the regular staff, if they were still holding, orthe mutineers, if they had taken it--had thrown on the emergencylights. There was a confused mass of gray-skinned figures in front ofCompany House, reflected light twinkling on steel over them; from thedirection of the native-troops barracks more natives were coming onthe run. On the roof of a building across the street, two machine-gunswere already firing into the mob. A group of Terrans came running outof a roadway between two buildings, from the direction of therepair-shops; several of them paused to fire behind them with pistols. They started toward Company House, saw what was going on there, andveered, darting into the door of the building from which theauto-weapons were firing. From up the street, a hundred-oddsaurian-faced native soldiers were coming at the double, bayonetsfixed and rifles at high port; with them ran several Terrans. Motioning his companion to follow, von Schlichten ran to meet them, falling in beside a Terran captain who ran in front. 

"What's the score, captain?" he asked. 

"Tenth North Uller and the Fifth Cavalry have mutinied; so have theserag-tag Auxiliaries. That mob down there's part of them. " He waspuffing under the double effort of running and talking. "Whole thingblew up in seconds; no chance to communicate with anybody. . . . "

A Terran woman, in black slacks and an orange sweater, ran across thestreet in front of them, pursued by a group of enlisted "men" of theTenth North Uller Native Infantry, all shrieking "_Znidd suddabit!_"The fugitive ran into a doorway across the street; before her pursuerswere aware of their danger, the Kragans had swept over them. There wasno shooting; the slim, cruel-bladed bayonets did the work. From behindhim, as he ran, von Schlichten could hear Kragan voices in a new cry:"_Znidd geek! Znidd geek!_"

The mob were swarming up onto the steps and into the semi-rotunda ofthe storm-porch. There was shooting, which told him that some of thehumans who had been at the banquet were still alive. He wondered, half-sick, how many, and whether they could hold out till he couldclear the doorway, and, most of all, he found himself thinking ofPaula Quinton. Skidding to a stop within fifty yards of the mob, heflung out his arms crucifix-wise to halt the Kragans. Behind, he couldhear the Terrans and native-officers shouting commands to form front. 

"Give them one clip, reload, and then give them the bayonet!" heordered. "Shove them off the steps and then clear the porch!"

"One clip, fire, and reload, at will!" somebody passed it on inKragan. 

The hundred rifles let go all at once, and for five seconds theypoured a deafening two thousand rounds into the mutineers. There wassome fire in reply; a Zirk corporal narrowly missed him with a pistol, he saw the captain's head fly apart when an explosive rifle-bullet hithim, and half a dozen Kragans went down. 

"Reload! Set your safeties!" von Schlichten bellowed. "Charge!"

Under human officers, the North Uller Native Infantry would have stoodfirm. Even under their native-officers and sergeants, they should nothave broken as they did, but the best of these had paid for theirloyalty to the Company with their lives, and the rest had destroyedtheir authority by revolting against the source from which it wasderived. At that, the Skilkan peasantry who made up the Tenth Infantryand the Zirk cavalrymen tried briefly to fight as individuals, shrieking "_Znidd suddabit!_" until the Kragans were upon them, stabbing and shooting. They drove the rioters from the steps or killedthem there, they wiped out those who had gotten into the semicircle ofthe storm-porch. The inside doors, von Schlichten saw, were open, butbeyond them were Terrans and a dozen or so Kragans. Hideyoshi O'Learyand Barney Mordkovitz seemed to be in command of these. 

"We had about thirty seconds' warning, " Mordkovitz reported, "and theKragans in the hall bought us another sixty seconds. Of course, we allhad our pistols. . . . "

"Hey! These storm-doors are wedged!" somebody discovered. "Thosegoddam geek servants . . . !"

"Yeah, kill any of them you catch, " somebody else advised. "If wecould have gotten these doors closed. . . . "

The mob, driven from the steps, was trying to reform and renew theattack. From up the street, the machine-guns, silent during thebayonet-fight, began hammering again. The mob surged forward to getout of their fire, and were met by a rifle-blast and a hedge ofbayonets at the steps; they surged back, and the machine-guns flailedthem again. They started to rush the building from whence theautomatic-fire came, and there was a fusillade and a shriek of "_Zniddgeek!_" from up the street. They turned and fled in the direction fromwhence they had come, bullets scourging them from three directions atonce. 

For a moment, von Schlichten and the three Terrans and eighty-oddKragans who had survived the fight stood on the steps, weapons poised, seeking more enemies. The machine-guns up the street stuttered a fewshort bursts and were silent. From behind, the beleaguered Terrans andtheir Kragan guards were emerging. He saw Jules Keaveney and his wife, Commander Prinsloo of the _Aldebaran_, Harry Quong and Bogdanoff. Ah, there she was! He heaved a breath of relief and waved to her. 

The Kragans were already setting about their after-battle chores. About twenty of them spread out on guard; the others, by fours, wentinto the street, one covering with his rifle while the other threechecked on their own casualties, used the short, leaf-shaped swordsthey carried to slash off the heads of enemy wounded, and collectedweapons and ammunition. A couple of hundred more Kragans, led byNative-Major Kormork, the co-parent of young with King Kankad, came upat the double and stopped in front of Company House. 

"We were in quarters, aboard the _Aldebaran_ and in the guesthouse atthe airport, " Kormork reported. "We were attacked, fifteen minutesago, by a mob. We took ten minutes beating them off, and five moregetting here. I sent Native-Captain Zeerjeek and the rest of the forceto retake the supply-depot and the shops and lorry hangars, which hadbeen taken, and relieve the military airport, which is under attack. "

There was still firing from the commercial airport and the smallermilitary airfield. Once there was a string of heavy explosions thatsounded like 80-mm rockets. 

"Good enough. I hope you didn't spread yourself out too thin. What'sthe situation at the commercial airport?"

"The two ships, the _Aldebaran_ and the freighter _Northern Star_, areboth safe, " Kormork replied. "I saw them go on contragravity and riseto about a hundred feet. "

"Whose crowd is that you have?" he asked the Terran lieutenant who hadtaken over command of the first force of Kragans. 

"Company 6, Eighteenth Rifles, sir. We were on duty at the guardhouse;fighting broke out in the direction of the native barracks. A coupleof runners from Captain Retief of Company 4 came in with word that hewas being attacked by mutineers from the Tenth N. U. N. I. But that hewas holding them back. So Captain Charbonneau, who was killed a fewminutes ago, left a Terran lieutenant and a Kragan native-lieutenantand a couple of native-sergeants and thirty Kragans to hold theguardhouse, and brought the rest of us here. "

Von Schlichten nodded. "You'd pass the military airport and thepower-plant, wouldn't you?" he asked. 

"Yes, sir. The military airport's holding out, and I saw thered-and-yellow danger-lights on the fence around the power-plant. "

That meant the power-plant was, for the time, safe; somebody'd turnedtwenty thousand volts into the fence. 

"All right. I'm setting up my command post at the telecast station, where the communication equipment is. " He turned to the crowd that hadcome out onto the porch from inside. "Where's Colonel Cheng-Li?"

"Here, general. " The Intelligence and Constabulary officer pushedthrough the crowd. "I was on the phone, talking to the militaryairport, the commercial airport, ordnance depot, spaceport, ship-docksand power-plant. All answer. I'm afraid Pop Goode, at the citypower-plant, is done for; nobody answers there, but the TV-pickup isstill on in the load-dispatcher's room, and the place is full ofgeeks. Colonel Jarman's coming here with a lorry to get combat-carcrews; he's short-handed. Port-Captain Leavitt has all the nativelabor at the airport and spaceport herded into a repair dock; he'skeeping them covered with the forward 90-mm gun of the _NorthernStar_. Lorry-hangars, repair-shops and maintenance-yards don'tanswer. "

"That's what I was going to ask you. Good enough. Harry Quong, HassanBogdanoff!"

His command-car crew front-and-centered. 

"I want you to take Colonel O'Leary up, as soon as my car's broughthere. . . . Hid, you go up and see what's going on. Drop flares wherethere isn't any light. And take a look at the native-labor camp andthe equipment-park, south of the reservation. . . . Kormork, you take allyour gang, and half these soldiers from the Eighteenth, here, and helpclear the native-troops barracks. And don't bother taking anyprisoners; we can't spare personnel to guard them. "

Kormork grinned. The taking of prisoners had always been one of thoseirrational Terran customs which no Ulleran regarded with favor, oreven comprehension. 

VIII. 

Authority of Governor-General von Schlichten

There was fresh intelligence from Konkrook, by the time he returned tothe telecast station. Mutiny had broken out there among the laborersand native troops, who outnumbered the Terrans and their Kraganmercenaries on Gongonk Island by five thousand to five hundred andfifteen hundred respectively. The attempt to relieve Jaikark's palacehad been called off before the relief-force could be sent; there washeavy and confused fighting all over the island, and most of thecombat contragravity and about half the Kragan Rifles had had to becommitted to defend the Company farms across the Channel, on themainland, south of the city. There had also been an urgent call forhelp from Colonel Rodolfo MacKinnon, in command of Company troops atthe Keegark Residency, and another from the Residency at Kwurk, one ofthe Free Cities on the eastern shore of Takkad Sea. 

He called Keegark; a girl, apparently one of the civilian telecasttechnicians, answered. 

"We must have help, General von Schlichten, " she told him. "The nativetroops, all but two hundred Kragans, have mutinied. They haveeverything here except Company House--docks, airport, everything. We're trying to hold out, but there are thousands of them. Our TakkadNative Infantry, soldiers of King Orgzild's army, and townspeople. They all seem to have firearms. . . . "

"What happened to Eric Blount and your Resident-Agent, Mr. Lemoyne?"

"We don't know. They were at the Palace, talking to King Orgzild. We've tried to call the Palace, but we can't get through, general, wemust have help. . . . "

A call came in, a few minutes later, from Krink, five hundred miles tothe northeast across the mountains; the Resident-Agent there, oneFrancis Xavier Shapiro, reported rioting in the city and an attemptedpalace-revolution against King Jonkvank, and that the Residency wasunder attack. By way of variety, it was the army of King Jonkvank thathad mutinied; the Sixth North Uller Native Infantry and the twocompanies of Zirk cavalry at Krink were still loyal, along with theKragans. 

There was a pattern to all this. Von Schlichten stood staring at thebig map, on the wall, showing the Takkad Sea area at the EquatorialZone, and the country north of it to the pole, the area of Ulleroccupied by the Company. He was almost beginning to discern theunderlying logic of the past half-hour's events when Keaveney, theSkilk Resident, blundered into him in a half-daze. 

"Sorry, general, didn't see you. " His face was ashen, and his jowlssagged. Von Schlichten wondered if there could be another spectacle sowoe-begone as a back-slapping extrovert with the bottom knocked out ofhim. "My God, it's happening all over Uller! Not just here at Skilk;everywhere where we have a residency or a trading-station. Why, it'sthe end of all of us!"

"It's not quite that bad, Mr. Keaveney. " He looked at his watch. Itwas now nearly an hour since the native troops here at Skilk hadmutinied. Insurrections like this usually succeeded or failed in thefirst hour. It was a little early to be certain, but he was beginningto suspect that this one hadn't succeeded. "If we all do our part, we'll come out of it all right, " he told Keaveney, more cheerfullythan he felt, then turned to ask Brigadier-General Mordkovitz how thefighting was going at the native-troops barracks. 

"Not badly, general. Colonel Jarman's got some contragravity up andworking. They blew out all four of the Tenth N. U. N. I. 's barracks; theTenth and the Zirks are trying to defend the cavalry barracks. Some ofour Kragans managed to slip around behind the cavalry stables. They'releading out hipposaurs, and sniping at the rear of the cavalrybarracks. "

"That'll give us some cavalry of our own; a lot of these Kragans aregood riders. . . . How about the repair-shops and maintenance-yard andlorry-hangars? I don't want these geeks getting hold of that equipmentand using it against us. "

"Kormork's outfit are trying to take back the lorry-hangars. Jarman'sgot a couple of airjeeps and a combat-car helping them. "

". . . Won't be one of us left by this time tomorrow, " Keaveney waswailing, to Paula Quinton and another woman. "And the Company isfinished!"

"We'd better get him a drink, or a cup of coffee, general, " Mordkovitzsuggested. "With a knockout-drop in it. "

Colonel Cheng-Li, the Intelligence officer, seemed to have somewhatthe same idea. He approached Keaveney and tried to quiet him. At thesame time, a woman in black slacks and an orange sweater--the onewhose pursuers had been overrun by the Kragans at the beginning ofthe fighting--approached von Schlichten. 

"General, King Kankad's calling, " she said. "He's on the screen inbooth four. "

"Right. " To avoid any possibility of misunderstanding, he slipped hisgeek-speaker into his mouth before entering the booth. Kankad's facewas looking out of the screen at him, with Phil Yamazaki, the telecastoperator at Kankad's Town, standing behind him. 

"Von!" The Kragan spoke almost as though in physical pain. "What can Ido to help? I have twenty thousand of my people here who are capableof bearing arms, all with firearms, but I have transport for only fivehundred. Where shall I send them?"

Von Schlichten thought quickly. Keegark was finished; the Residencystood in the middle of the city, surrounded by two hundred thousand ofKing Orgzild's troops and subjects. Since Ullerans were bisexual, thetotal population, less the senile, crippled, and very young, was themilitary potential. Sending Kankad's five hundred warriors and hismeager contragravity there would be the same as shoveling them into afurnace. The people at Keegark would have to be written off, like thetwenty Kragans at Jaikark's palace. 

"Send them to Konkrook, " he decided. "Them M'zangwe's in command, there; he'll need help to hold the Company farms. Maybe he can findadditional transport for you. I'll call him. "

"I'll send off what force I can, at once, " Kankad promised. "How doesit go with you at Skilk?"

"We're holding, so far, " he replied. "Paula is with me, here; shesends her friendship. "

Captain Inez Malavez, the woman officer in charge of the station, puther head into the booth. 

"General! Immediate-urgency message from Colonel O'Leary, " she said. "Native laborers from the mine-labor camp are pouring into themine-equipment park. Colonel O'Leary's used all his rockets andMG-ammunition trying to stop them. "

"Call you back, later, " von Schlichten told Kankad. "I'll see whatThem M'zangwe can do about transport; get what force you can startedfor Konkrook at once. "

He left the booth, removing his geek-speaker. "Barney!" he called. "General Mordkovitz! Who's the ranking officer in direct contact withthe Eighteenth Rifles? Major Falkenberg?"

"That's right. "

"Well, tell him to get as many of his Kragans as he can spare down tothe equipment-park. " He turned to Inez Malavez. "You call Jarman; tellhim what O'Leary reported, and tell him to get cracking on it. Tellhim not to let those geeks get any of that equipment ontocontragravity; knock it down as fast as they try to lift out with it. And tell him to see what he can do in the way of troop-carriers orlorries, to get Falkenberg's Rifles to the equipment-park. . . . How'sbusiness at the lorry-hangars and maintenance-yard?"

"Kormork's still working on that, " the girl captain told him. "Nothingdefinite, yet. "

In one corner of the big room, somebody had thumbtacked aten-foot-square map of the Company area to the floor. Paula Quintonand Mrs. Jules Keaveney were on their knees beside it, pushing outhandfuls of little pink and white pills that somebody had brought intwo bottles from the dispensary across the road, each using abilliard-bridge. The girl in the orange sweater had a handful ofscribbled notes, and was telling them where to push the pills. Therewere other objects on the map, too--pistol-cartridges, and cigarettes, and foil-wrapped food-concentrate wafers. Paula, seeing him, straightened. 

"The pink are ours, general, " she said. "The white are the geeks. " VonSchlichten suppressed a grin; that was the second time he'd heard heruse that word, this evening. "The cigarettes are airjeeps, thecartridges are combat-cars, and the wafers are lorries ortroop-carriers. "

"Not exactly regulation map-markers, but I've seen stranger thingsused. . . . Captain Malavez!"

"Yes, sir?" The girl captain, rushing past, her hands full ofteleprint-sheets, stopped in mid-stride. 

"What we need, " he told her, "is a big TV-screen, and a pickup mountedon some sort of a contragravity vehicle at about two to five thousandfeet directly overhead, to give us an image of the whole area. Cando?"

"Can try, sir. We have an eight-foot circular screen that ought to doall right for two thousand feet. I'll implement that at once. "

Going into a temporarily idle telecast booth, he called Konkrook. First he spoke to a civilian who chewed a dead cigar, and then he gotThemistocles M'zangwe on the screen. 

"How is it, now?" he asked. 

"Getting a little better, " the Graeco-African replied. "Half an hourago, we were shooting geeks out the windows, here; now we have themcontained between the spaceport and the native-troops and laborbarracks, and down the east side of the island to the farms. We havethe wire around the farms on the island electrified, and we're usingalmost all our combat contragravity to keep the farms on the mainlandclear. " He hesitated for a moment. "Did you hear about Eric andLemoyne?"

Von Schlichten shook his head. 

"We just got a call from Rodolfo MacKinnon. He took a couple ofprisoners and made them talk. The whole party that were at Orgzild'spalace were massacred. Some of them were lucky enough to get killedfighting. The geeks took Eric and Hendrik alive; rolled them in apuddle of thermoconcentrate fuel and set fire to them. When we canspare the contragravity, we're going to drop something on the Kee-geekembassy, over in town. "

"Well, that was what I wanted to call you about--contragravity. " Hetold M'zangwe about King Kankad's offer. "His crowd ought to be comingin in a couple of hours. What can you scrape up to send to Kankad'sTown to airlift Kragans in?"

"Well, we have three hundred-and-fifty-foot gun-cutters, one 90-mm gunapiece. The _Elmoran_, the _Gaucho_, and the _Bushranger_. But they'renot much as transports, and we need them here pretty badly. Then, wehave five fertilizer and charcoal scows, and a lot of heavy transportlorries, and two one-eighty-foot pickup boats. "

"How about the _Piet Joubert_?" von Schlichten asked. "She was due inKonkrook from the east about 1300 today, wasn't she?"

M'zangwe swore. "She got in, all right. But the geeks boarded her atthe dock, within twenty minutes after things started. They tried tolift out with her, and the Channel Battery shot her down into KonkrookChannel, off the Fifty Sixth Street docks. "

"Well, you couldn't let the geeks have her, to use against us. What doyou hear from the other ships?"

"_Procyon_'s at Grank; we haven't had any reports of any kind fromthere, which doesn't look so good. The _Northern Lights_ is at Grank, too. The _Oom Paul Kruger_ should have been at Bwork, in the east, when the gun went off. And the _Jan Smuts_ and the _Christiaan DeWett_ were both at Keegark; we can assume Orgzild has both of them. "

"All right. I'm sending _Aldebaran_ to Kankad's, to pick up morereenforcements for you. "

"We can use them! And with _Aldebaran_, we ought to be able to takethe offensive against the city by this time tomorrow. Anything else?"

"Not at the moment. I'll see about getting _Aldebaran_ sent off, now. "

Leaving the booth, he heard, above the clatter ofcommunications-machines and hubbub of voices, Jules Keaveney arguingcontentiously. Evidently Colonel Cheng-Li's efforts to drag theResident out of his despondency had been an excessive success. 

"But it's crazy! Not just here; everywhere on Uller!" Keaveney wassaying. "How did they do it? They have no telecast equipment. "

"You have me stopped, Jules, " Mordkovitz was replying. "I know a lotof rich geeks have receiving sets, but no sending sets. "

The pattern that had been tantalizing von Schlichten took visibleshape in his mind. For a moment, he shelved the matter of the_Aldebaran_. 

"They didn't need sending equipment, Barney, " he said. "They usedours. "

"What do you mean?" Keaveney challenged. 

"Look what happened. Sid Harrington was poisoned in Konkrook. Thenews, of course, was sent out at once, as the geeks knew it would be, to every residency and trading-station on Uller, and that was thesignal they'd agreed upon, probably months in advance. All they had todo was have that geek servant put poison in Harrington's whiskey, andwe did the rest. "

"Well, what was our intelligence doing--sleeping?" Keaveney demandedangrily. 

"No, they were writing reports for your civil administration blokes tostuff in the wastebasket, and being called mailed-fist-and-rattling-saberalarmists for their pains. " He turned away from Keaveney. "Barney, where'sDirk Prinsloo?"

"Aboard his ship. He hitched a ride to the airport with Jarman, whenhe was here picking up air-crews. "

"Call him. Tell him to take the _Aldebaran_ to Kankad's Town, at once;as soon as he arrives there, which ought to be about 1100, he's topick up all the Kragans he can pack aboard and take them to Konkrook. From then on, he'll be under Them M'zangwe's orders. "

"To Konkrook?" Keaveney fairly howled. "Are you nuts? Don't you thinkwe need reenforcements here, too?"

"Yes, I do. I'm going to try to get them, " von Schlichten told him. "Now pipe down and get out of people's way. "

He crossed the room, to where two Kragans, a male sergeant, and theubiquitous girl in the orange sweater were struggling to get a bigcircular TV-screen up, then turned to look at the situation-map. Agirl tech-sergeant was keeping Paula Quinton and Mrs. Jules Keaveneyinformed. 

"Start pushing geeks out of the Fifth Zirk Cavalry barracks, " thesergeant was saying. "The one at the north end, and the one next toit; they're both on fire, now. " She tossed a slip into the wastebasketbeside her and glanced at the next slip. "And more pink pills back ofthe barracks and stables, and move them a little to the northwest;Kragans as skirmishers, to intercept geeks trying to slip away fromthe cavalry barracks. "

"Though why we want to do that, I don't know, " Mrs. Keaveney said, pushing out a handful of pink pills with her billiard-bridge. "Letthem go, and good riddance!"

"I never did like this bridge-of-silver-for-a-fleeing-enemy idea, "Paula Quinton said, evicting token-mutineers from the two northernbarracks. "There's usually two-way traffic on bridges. Kill them hereand we won't have to worry about keeping them out. "

Of course, it was easy to be bloodthirsty about pink pills and whitepills. Once, on a three-months' reaction-drive voyage from Yggdrasillto Loki, he had taught a couple of professors of extraterrestrialzoology to play _kriegspiel_, and before the end of the trip, he wasbeing horrified by the callous disregard they showed for casualties. But little Paula had the right idea; dead enemies don't hit back. 

A young Kragan with his lower left arm in a sling and a daub ofantiseptic plaster over the back of his head came up and gave him aradioprint slip. Guido Karamessinis, the Resident-Agent at Grank, hadreported, at last. The city, he said, was quiet, but King Yoorkerk'stroops had seized the Company airport and docks, taken the _Procyon_and the _Northern Lights_ and put guards aboard them, and weresurrounding the Residency. He wanted to know what to do. 

Von Schlichten managed to get him on the screen, after a while. 

"It looks as though Yoorkerk's trying to play both sides at once, " hetold the Grank Resident. "If the rebellion's put down, he'll comeforward as your friend and protector; if we're wiped out elsewhere, he'll yell '_Znidd suddabit!_' and swamp you. Don't antagonize him; wecan't afford to fight this war on any more fronts than we are now. We'll try to do something to get you unfrozen, before long. "

He called Krink again. A girl with red-gold hair and a dusting offreckles across her nose answered. 

"How are you making out?" he asked. 

"So far, fine, general. We're in complete control of the Company area, and all our native troops, not just the Kragans, are with us. Jonkvank's pushed the mutineers out of his palace, and we're keepingopen a couple of streets between there and here. We air-lifted all ourKragans and half the Sixth N. U. N. I. To the Palace, and we have theZirks patrolling the streets on 'saurback. Now, we have our lorriesand troop-carriers out picking up elements of Jonkvank's loyal troopsoutside town. "

"Who's doing the rioting, then?"

She named three of Jonkvank's regiments. "And the city hoodlums, andpriests from the temples of one sect that followed Rakkeed, andSkilkan fifth columnists. Mr. Shapiro can give you the details. ShallI call him?"

"Never mind. He's probably busy, he's not as easy on the eyes as youare, and you're doing all right. . . . How long do you think it'd take, with the equipment you have, to airlift all of Jonkvank's loyal troopsinto the city?"

"Not before this time tomorrow. "

"All right. Are you in radio communication with Jonkvank now?"

"Full telecast, audio-visual, " the girl replied. "Just a minute, general. "

He put in his geek-speaker. The screen exploded into multi-coloredlight, then cleared. Within a few minutes, a saurian Ulleran face waslooking out of it at him--a harsh-lined, elderly face, with an oldscar, quartz-crusted, along one side. 

"Your Majesty, " von Schlichten greeted him. 

Jonkvank pronounced something intended to correspond to vonSchlichten's name. "We have image-met under sad circumstances, general, " he said. 

"Sad for both of us, King Jonkvank; we must help one another. I amtold that your soldiers in Krink have risen against you, and that yourloyal troops are far from the city. "

"Yes. That was the work of my War Minister, Hurkkurk, who was in thepay of King Firkked of Skilk, may Jeels devour him alive! I haveHurkkurk's head here somewhere, if you want to see it, but that willnot bring my loyal soldiers to Krink any sooner. "

"Dead traitors' heads do not interest me, King Jonkvank, " vonSchlichten replied, in what he estimated that the Krinkan king wouldinterpret as a tone of cold-blooded cruelty. "There are too manytraitors' heads still on traitors' shoulders. . . . What regiments areloyal to you, and where are they now?"

Jonkvank began naming regiments and locating them, all at minorprovincial towns at least a hundred miles from Krink. 

"Hurkkurk did his work well; I'm afraid you killed him toomercifully, " von Schlichten said. "Well, I'm sending the _NorthernStar_ to Krink. She can only bring in one regiment at a trip, the waythey're scattered; which one do you want first?"

Jonkvank's mouth, until now compressed grimly, parted in a gleamingsmile. He made an exclamation of pleasure which sounded rather like aboy running along a picket fence with a stick. 

"Good, general! Good!" he cried. "The first should be the regimentMurderers, at Furnk; they all have rifles like your soldiers. Havethem brought to the Great Square, at the Palace here. And then, theregiment Fear-Makers, at Jeelznidd, and the regiment Corpse-Reapers, at. . . . "

"Let that go until the Murderers are in, " von Schlichten advised. "They're at Furnk, you say? I'll send the _Northern Star_ there, directly. "

"Oh, good, general! I will not soon forget this! And as soon as thework is finished here, I will send soldiers to help you at Skilk. There shall be a great pile of the heads of those who had part in thiswickedness, both here and there!"

"Good. Now, if you will pardon me, I'll go to give the necessaryorders. . . . "

As he left the booth, he saw Hideyoshi O'Leary in front of thesituation-map, and hailed him. 

"Harry and Hassan are getting the car re-ammoed; they dropped me offhere. Want to come up with us and see the show?"

"No, I want you to go to Krink, as soon as Harry brings the car hereagain. " He told O'Leary what he intended doing. "You'll probably haveto go around ahead of the _Star_ and alert these regiments. And assoon as things stabilize at Krink, prod Jonkvank into airliftingtroops here. You're authorized, in my name, to promise Jonkvank thathe can assume political control at Skilk, after we've stuffedFirkked's head in the dustbin. "

Jules Keaveney, who always seemed to be where he wasn't wanted, heardthat and fairly screamed. 

"General von Schlichten! That is a political decision! You have noauthority to make promises like that; that is a matter for theGovernor-General, at least!"

"Well, as of now, and until a successor to Sid Harrington can be senthere from Terra, I'm Governor-General, " von Schlichten told him, mentally thanking Keaveney for reminding him of the necessity for sucha step. "Captain Malavez! You will send out an all-station telecast, immediately: Military Commander-in-Chief Carlos von Schlichten, beinginformed of the deaths of both Governor-General Harrington andLieutenant-Governor Blount, assumes the duties of Governor-General, asof 0001 today. " He turned to Keaveney. "Does that satisfy you?" heasked. 

"No, it doesn't. You have no authority to assume a civil position ofany sort, let alone the very highest position. . . . "

Von Schlichten unbuttoned his holster and took out his authority, letting Keaveney look into the muzzle of it. 

"Here it is, " he said. "If you're wise, don't make me appeal to it. "

Keaveney shrugged. "I can't argue with that, " he said. "But I don'tfancy the Uller Company is going to be impressed by it. "

"The Uller Company, " von Schlichten replied, "is six and a halfparsecs away. It takes a ship six months to get from here to Terra, and another six months to get back. A radio message takes a littleover twenty-one years, each way. " He holstered the pistol again. "Youwere bitching about how we needed reenforcements, a while ago. Well, here's where we have to reverse Clausewitz and use politics as anextension by other means of war. "

"That brings up another question, general, " one of Keaveney'ssubordinates said. "Can we hold out long enough for help to get herefrom Terra?"

"By the time help could reach us from Terra, " von Schlichten replied, "we'll either have this revolt crushed, or there won't be a liveTerran left on Uller. " He felt a brief sadistic pleasure as he watchedKeaveney's face sag in horror. "What do you think we'll live on, for ayear?" he asked. "On this planet, there's not more than a threemonths' supply of any sort of food a human can eat. And the shipsthat'll be coming in until word of our plight can get to Terra won'tbring enough to keep us going. We need the farms and livestock and theanimal-tissue culture plant at Konkrook, and the farms at Krink and onthe plateau back of Skilk, and we need peace and native labor to workthem. "

Nobody seemed to have anything to say after that, for a while. ThenKeaveney suggested that the next ship was due in from Niflheim inthree months, and that it could be used to evacuate all the Terrans onUller. 

"And I'll personally shoot any able-bodied Terran who tries to boardthat ship, " von Schlichten promised. "Get this through your heads, allof you. We are going to break this rebellion, and we are going to holdUller for the Company and the Terran Federation. " He looked aroundhim. "Now, get back to work, all of you, " he told the group that hadformed around him and Keaveney. "Miss Quinton, you just heard me ordermy adjutant, Colonel O'Leary, on detached duty to Krink. I want you totake over for him. You'll have rank and authority as colonel for theduration of this war. "

She was thunderstruck. "But I know absolutely nothing about militarymatters. There must be a hundred people here who are better qualifiedthan I am. . . . "

"There are, and they all have jobs, and I'd have to find replacementsfor them, and replacements for the replacements. You won't leave anyvacancy to be filled. And you'll learn, fast enough. " He went over tothe situation-map again, and looked at the arrangement of pink andwhite pills. "First of all, I want you to call Jarman, at the militaryairport, and have an airjeep and driver sent around here for me. I'mgoing up and have a look around. Barney, keep the show going while I'mout, and tell Colonel Quinton what it's all about. "

IX. 

Don't Push Them Anywhere Put Them Back in the Bottle

He looked at his watch, and stood for a moment, pumping the stale airand tobacco-smoke of the telecast station out of his lungs, as thelight airjeep let down into the street. Oh-one-fifteen--two hours anda half since the mutiny at the native-troops barracks had broken out. The Company reservation was still ablaze with lights, and over theroof of the hospital and dispensary and test-lab he could see theglare of the burning barracks. There was more fire-glare to the south, in the direction of the mine-equipment park and the mine-labor camp, and from that direction the bulk of the firing was to be heard. 

The driver, a young lieutenant who seemed to be of predominantlyMalayan and Polynesian blood, slid back the duraglass canopy for himto climb in, then snapped it into place when he had strapped himselfinto his seat. 

"Can you handle the armament, sir?" he asked. 

Von Schlichten nodded approvingly. Not a very flattering question, butthe boy was right to make sure, before they started out. 

"I've done it, once or twice, " he understated. "Let's go; I want alook at what's going on down at the equipment-park and the labor-camp, first. "

They lifted up, the driver turning the nose of the airjeep in thedirection of the flames and explosions and magnesium-lights to thesouth and tapping his booster-button gently. The vehicle shot forwardand came floating in over the scene of the fighting. The situation-mapat the improvised headquarters had shown a mixture of pink and whitepills in the mine-equipment park; something was going to have to bedone about the lag in correcting it, for the area was entirely in thehands of loyal Company troops, and the mob of laborers and mutinoussoldiers had been pushed back into the temporary camp where theworkers had been gathered to await transportation to the Arctic. As hefeared, the rioting workers, many of whom were trained to handlecontragravity equipment, had managed to lift up a number ofdump-trucks and powershovels and bulldozers, intending to use them asimprovised airtanks, but Jarman's combat-cars had gotten on the jobpromptly and all of these had been shot down and were lying inwreckage, mostly among the rows of parked mining-equipment. 

From the labor-camp, a surprising volume of fire was being directedagainst the attack which had already started from the retakenequipment-park. This was just another evidence of the failure ofIntelligence and the Constabulary--and consequently of himself--toanticipate the brewing storm. There was, of course, practically nochance of keeping Ullerans from having native weapons, swords, knives, even bows and air-rifles, and a certain number of Volund-madetrade-quality automatic pistols could be expected, but most of thefire was coming from military rifles, and now and then he could seethe furnace-like backflash of a recoilless rifle or a bazooka, or thesteady flicker of a machine-gun. Even if a few of these weapons hadbeen brought from the barracks by retreating Tenth Infantry or FifthCavalry mutineers, there were still too many. 

Hovering above the fighting, aloof from it, he saw six longtroop-carriers land and disgorge Kragan Rifles who had been releasedby the liquidation of resistance at the native-troops barracks. Alittle later, two airtanks floated in, and then two more, going offcontragravity and lumbering on treads to fire their 90-mm rifles. Atthe same time, combat-cars swooped in, banging away with their lighterauto-cannon and launching rockets. The titanium prefab-huts, set up tohouse the laborers and intended to be taken north with them for theirstay on the polar desert, were simply wiped away. Among the wreckage, resistance was being blown out like the lights of a candelabrum. Pushthe white pills out, girls, he thought. Don't push them anywhere; putthem back in the bottle. This year, there wouldn't be any mining doneat the North Pole; next year, the stockholders'll be bitching abouttheir dividend-checks. And a lot of new machine operators are going tohave to be trained for next year's mining. If there is any mining, next year. 

He took up the hand-phone and called HQ. 

"Von Schlichten, what's the wavelength of the officer in command atthe equipment-park?"

A voice at the telecast station furnished it; he punched it out. 

"Von Schlichten, right overhead. That you, Major Falkenberg? Nicegoing, major, how are your casualties?"

"Not too bad. Twenty or thirty Kragans and loyal Skilkans, and eightTerrans killed, about as many wounded. "

"Pretty good, considering what you're running into. Get many of yourKragans mounted on those hipposaurs?"

"About a hundred, a lot of 'saurs got shot, while we were leadingthem out from the stables. "

"Well, I can see geeks streaming away from the labor-camp, out thesouth end, going in the direction of the river. Use what cavalry youhave on them, and what contragravity you can spare. I'll drop a fewflares to show their position and direction. "

Anticipating him, the driver turned the airjeep and started toward thedry Hoork River. Von Schlichten nodded approval and told him torelease flares when over the fugitives. 

"Right, " Falkenberg replied. "I'll get on it at once, general. "

"And start moving that mine-equipment up into the Company area. Someof we it can put into the air; the rest we can use to buildbarricades. None of it do we want the geeks getting hold of, and theequipment-park's outside our practical perimeter. I'll send people tohelp you move it. "

"No need to do that, sir; I have about a hundred and fifty loyal NorthUllerans--foremen, technicians, overseers--who can handle it. "

"All right. Use your own judgment. Put the stuff back of thenative-troops barracks, and between the power-plant and the Companyoffice-buildings, and anywhere else you can. " The lieutenant nudgedhim and pushed a couple of buttons on the dashboard. 

"Here go the flares, now. "

Immediately, a couple of airjeeps pounced in, to strafe the fleeingenemy. Somebody must have already been issuing orders on anotherwavelength; a number of Kragans, riding hipposaurs, were gallopinginto the light of the flares. 

"Now, let's have a look at the native barracks and themaintenance-yards, " he said. "And then, we'll make a circuit aroundthe Reservation, about two or three miles out. I'm not happy aboutwhere Firkked's army is. "

The driver looked at him. "I've been worrying about that, too, sir, "he said. "I can't understand why he hasn't jumped us, already. I knowit takes time to get one of these geek armies on the road, but. . . . "

"He's hoping our native troops and the mine laborers will be able towipe us out, themselves, " von Schlichten said. "For the timidity andstupidity of our enemies, Allah make us truly thankful, amen. It'ssomething no commander should depend on, but be glad when it happens. If Firkked had had a couple of regiments on hand outside thereservation to jump us as soon as the Tenth and the Zirks mutinied, hecould have swamped us in twenty minutes and we'll all have had ourthroats cut by now. "

There was nothing going on in the area between the native barracks andthe mountains except some sporadic firing as small patrols of Kragansclashed with clumps of fleeing mutineers. All the barracks, even thoseof the Rifles, were burning; the red-and-yellow danger-lights aroundthe power-plant and the water-works and the explosives magazines werestill on. Most of the floodlights were still on, and there was stillsome fighting around the maintenance-yard. It looked as though thesurvivors of the Tenth N. U. N. I. Were in a few small pockets which werebeing squeezed out. 

There was nothing at all going on north of the Reservation; thecountryside, by day a checkerboard of walled fields and smallvillages, was dark, except for a dim light, here and there, where theoccupants of some farmhouse had been awakened by the noise of battle. The airjeep dropped lower, and the driver slid open the window besidehim; von Schlichten could hear the grunts and snorts and squawks offarm-animals, similarly aroused. 

Then, two miles east of the Reservation, he caught a new sound--theflowing, riverlike, murmur of something vast on the move. 

"Hear that, lieutenant?" he asked. "Head for it, at about a thousandfeet. When we're directly above it, let go some flares. "

"Yes, sir. " The younger man had lowered his voice to a whisper. "That's geek, headed for the Reservation. "

"Maybe Firkked's army, " von Schlichten thought aloud. "Or maybe a citymob. "

"Not quite noisy enough for a mob, is it, sir?"

"A tired mob, " von Schlichten told him. "They'd start out on a run, yelling '_Znidd Suddabit_!' By the time they got across the bridges tothis side of the river, they'd be winded. They'd stop for a blow, andthen they'd settle down to steady slogging to save their wind. Sometimes a mob like that's worse than a fresh mob. They get stubborn;they act more deliberately. "

The noises were growing clearer, louder. He picked up the phone andpunched the wavelength of the military airport. 

"Von Schlichten, my compliments to Colonel Jarman. Tell him there's ageek mob, or possibly Firkked's regulars, on the main highway fromSkilk, two miles east of the Reservation. Get some combatcontragravity over here, at once. We'll light them up for you. Andtell Colonel Jarman to start flying patrols up and down along theHoork River; this may not be the only gang that's coming out to seeus. "

The sounds were directly below, now--the scuffing of horny-soled feeton the dirt road, the clink and rattle of slung weapons, the clickingand squeeking of Ulleran voices. 

The lieutenant said, "Here go the flares, sir. "

Von Schlichten shut his eyes, then opened them slowly. The driver, upon releasing the flares, had nosed up, banked, turned, and wascoming in again, down the road toward the advancing column. VonSchlichten peered into his all-armament sight, his foot on themachine-gun pedal and his fingers on the rocket buttons. The highwaybelow was jammed with geeks, and they were all stopped dead andstaring upward, as though hypnotized by the lights. A second later, they had recovered and were shooting--not at the airjeep, but at thefour globes of blazing magnesium. Then he had the close-packed mass ofnon-humanity in his sights; he tramped the pedal and began punchingbuttons. He still had four rockets left by the time the mob was behindhim. 

"All right, let's take another pass at them. Same direction. "

The driver put the airjeep into a quick loop and came out of it infront of the mob, who now had their backs turned and were staring inthe direction in which they had last seen the vehicle. Again, vonSchlichten plowed them with rockets and harrowed them with his guns. Some of the Skilkans were trying to get over the high fences on eitherside of the road--really stockades of petrified tree-trunks. Otherswere firing, and this time they were shooting at the airjeep. It tookone hit from a heavy shellosaur-rifle, and, immediately, the driverbanked and turned away from the road. 

"Dammit, why did you do that?" von Schlichten demanded, lifting hisfoot from the gun-pedal. "Are you afraid of the kind of popguns thosegeeks are using?"

"I am not afraid to risk my vehicle, or myself, sir, " the lieutenantreplied, with the extreme formality of a very junior officer chewingout a very senior one. "I am, however, afraid to risk my passenger. Generals are not expendable, sir; neither are they issued for use asclay pigeons. "

He was right, of course. Von Schlichten admitted it. "I'm too old toplay cowboy, like this, " he said. "Back to the Reservation, telecaststation. "

Looking back over his shoulder, he saw eight or ten more flaresalight, and the ground-flashes of exploding shells and rockets; theair above the road was sparkling with gun-flames. Jarman must have hadsome contragravity ready to be sent off on the instant. 

While he had been out, somebody had gotten a TV-pickup mounted on acontragravity-lifter and run up to two thousand feet, on the end of asteel-tough tensilon mooring-line. The big circular screen was lit, showing the whole Company Reservation, with the surroundingcountryside foreshortened by perspective to the distant lights ofSkilk. The map had been taken up from the floor, and a bigterrain-board had been brought in from the Chief Engineer's office andset up in its place. In front of the screen, Paula Quinton, BarneyMordkovitz, Colonel Cheng-Li, and, conspicuously silent, JulesKeaveney sat drinking coffee and munching sandwiches. Half a dozenTerrans, of both sexes, were working furiously to get the markerswhich replaced the pink and white pills placed on the board, and oneof Captain Inez Malavez's non-coms, with a headset, was gettingcombat reports directly from the switchboard. Everything was clickinglike well-oiled machinery. 

On the TV-screen, the Residency area was ablaze with light, and sowere the ship-docks, the airport and spaceport, the shops, and themaintenance-yard. On the terrain-board, the latter was now marked ascompletely in Company hands. The ruins of the native-troops barrackswere still burning, and there was a twinkle of orange-red here andthere among the ruins of labor-camp. Much of the equipment for thepolar mines had already been shifted into defensible ground. The restof the circle was dark, except for the distant lights of Skilk, wherethe nuclear power plant was apparently still functioning in nativehands. 

Then, without warning, a spot of white light blazed into beingsoutheast of the Company area and southwest of Skilk, followed byanother and another. Instantly, von Schlichten glanced up at the rowof smaller screens, and on one of them saw the view as picked up by apatrolling airjeep. 

The army of King Firkked of Skilk had finally put in its appearance, coming in two columns, one southward from Skilk and the othernorthward along the west bank of the dry river. The former had crossedover and joined the latter, about three miles south of theReservation. The scene in the screen was similar to the one he had, himself, witnessed through his armament-sight. The Skilkan regularshad been marching in formation, some on the road and some alongparallel lanes and paths. They had the look of trained and disciplinedtroops, but they had made the same mistake as the rabble that had beenshot up on the north side of the Reservation. Unused to attack fromthe air, they had all halted in place and were gaping open-mouthed, their opal teeth gleaming in the white flare-light. However, beforethe aircar had passed over them, the lead company of one regiment, armed with Terran rifles, had begun firing. 

In the big screen, it could be seen that Colonel Jarman had thrownmost of his available contragravity at them, including thecombat-cars, that had already started to form the second wave of theattack on the mob to the north. Other flares bloomed in the darkness, and the fiery trails of rockets curved downward to end in yellowflashes on the ground. 

The airjeep with the pickup circled back; the troops on the road andin the adjoining fields had broken. The former were caught between thefences which made Ulleran roads such death-traps when underair-attack. The latter had dispersed, and were running away, individually and by squads; at first, it looked like a panic, but hecould see officers signaling to the larger groups of fugitives to openout, apparently directing the flight. By this time, there were ten ortwelve combat-cars and about twenty airjeeps at work. In the movingview from the pickup-jeep, he saw what looked like a 90-mm rocket landin the middle of a company that was still trying to defend itself withsmall-arms fire on the road, wiping out about half of them. 

"Make the most of it, boys, " Barney Mordkovitz, his mouth full ofsandwich, was saying. "Heave it to them; you won't get another chancelike that at those buggers. "

"Why not?" Colonel Paula Quinton wanted to know. Her militaryeducation was progressing, but it still had a few gaps to fill in. 

"The next time they're air-struck, they won't stay bunched, "Mordkovitz replied. "A lot of them didn't stay bunched this time, ifyou noticed. And they'll keep out from between the fences. "

In the large screen, a quick succession of gun-flashes leaped up fromthe direction of the Hoork River, shells began bursting over the sceneof the attack. The screen tuned to the pickup on the airjeep wentdead; in the big screen, there was a twinkling of falling fire. Almostat once, thirty or forty rocket-trails converged on the gun-position, and, for a moment, explosions burned like a bonfire. 

"They had a 75-mm at the rear of the column, " somebody called from thebig switchboard. "Lieutenant Kalanang's jeep was hit; LieutenantVermaas is cutting in his pickup on the same wavelength. "

The small screen lighted again. In the big screen, a cluster ofmagnesium-lights appeared above where the Skilkan gun had been; in thesmall screen, there was a stubbled grain-field, pocked with craters, and the bodies of fifteen or twenty natives, all rather badly mangled. An overturned and apparently destroyed 75-mm gun lay on its side. 

Five or six fairly large fires had broken out, by this time, aroundthe point of attack. Von Schlichten nodded approvingly. 

"I was wondering how long it'd take somebody to think of that, " hesaid. "Granaries and forage-stacks on some of these farms. They'llburn for half an hour, at least. " He looked at his watch. "And by thattime, it'll be daylight. "

"As far as we know, that was the only 75-mm gun Firkked had, " ColonelCheng-Li said. "He has at least six, possibly ten, 40-mm's. It's awonder we haven't seen anything of them. "

"Well, there's no way of being sure, " Jules Keaveney said, "but Ihave an idea they're all at or around the Palace. Firkked knows abouthow much contragravity we have. He's probably wondering why we aren'tbombing him, now. "

"He doesn't know we've sold the Palace to King Jonkvank for an army, "von Schlichten said. "And that reminds me--how much contragravitycould Firkked scrape together, for an attack on us? I've beenexpecting a geek _Luftwaffe_ over here, at any moment. "

Colonel Cheng-Li studied the smoking tip of his cigarette for amoment. "Well, Firkked owns, personally, three ten-passenger aircars, a thing like a troop-carrier that he transports some of his courtiersaround in, four airjeeps armed with a pair of 15-mm machine-gunsapiece, and two big lorries. There are possibly two hundred vehiclesof all types in Skilk and the country around, but some of them are inthe hands of natives friendly to us and or hostile to Firkked. I canget the exact figures from the Constabulary office at Company House. "

"That's close enough, " von Schlichten told him. "And there'll beoodles of thermoconcentrate-fuel, and blasting explosives. ColonelQuinton, suppose you call Ed Wallingsby, the Chief Engineer, rightaway; have him commissioned colonel. Tell him to get to work makingthis place secure against air attack; tell him to consult with ColonelJarman. Tell him to get those geeks Leavitt has penned in therepair-dock at the airport and use them to dig slit-trenches and fillsandbags and so on. He can use Kragan limited-duty wounded to guardthem. . . . Mr. Keaveney, you'll begin setting up something in the way ofan ARP-organization. You'll have to get along on what nobody elsewants. You will also consult with Colonel Jarman, and with ColonelWallingsby. Better get started on it now. Just think of everythingaround here that could go wrong in case of an air attack, and try todo something about it in advance. "

X. 

The Geek Luftwaffe and the Kragan Airlift

At 0245, an attack developed on the northwestern corner of theReservation, in the direction of the explosives magazines. It turnedout to be relatively trivial. Remnants of the mob that had been brokenup by air attack on the road had gotten together and were makingrushes in small bands, keeping well spread out. Beating them off tookconsiderable ammunition, but it was accomplished with negligiblecasualties to the defenders. They finally stopped coming arounddaylight. 

In the meantime, Themistocles M'zangwe called from Konkrook, appearingin the screen with his left arm in a freshly white sling. 

"What the hell have you been doing to yourself?" von Schlichten wantedto know. 

"Crossbow-bolt, about half an hour ago. A couple of inches lower andacting Brigadier-General Colbert'd have been talking to you, now, instead of me. "

"Lucky it didn't have a nitro-capsule on the end. How are you makingout? Have Kankad's people started coming in, yet?"

"Oh, yes, about six hundred of them have gotten in already, in thedamnedest collection of vehicles you ever saw. Kankad must be usingevery scrap of contragravity he has; it's a regular airborneDunkirk-in-reverse. Kankad sent word that he's coming here in person, as soon as he has things organized at his place. And the geeks herehave scraped together an air-force of their own--farm-lorries, aircars, that sort of thing--and they're using them to bomb us hereand at the mainland farm, mostly with nitroglycerine. We've shot downabout twenty of them, but they're still coming. They tried aboat-attack across the Channel; that's how I got this. We've beendoing some bombing, ourselves; we made a down payment for Eric Blountand Hendrik Lemoyne. Took a fifty-ton tank off a fuel-lorry, fitted itwith a detonator, filled it with thermoconcentrate, and ferried itover on the _Elmoran_ and dumped it on the Keegarkan Embassy. It musthave landed in the middle of the central court; in about fifteenseconds, flames were coming out every window in the place. " His facebecame less jovial. "We had something pretty bad happen here, too, " hesaid. "That Konkrook Fencibles rabble of Prince Jaizerd's mutinied, along with the others; they got into the hospital and butcheredeverybody in the place, patients and staff. The Kragans got there toolate to save anybody, but they wiped out the Fencibles. Jaizerdhimself was the only one they took alive, and he didn't stay that wayvery long. "

"How are you making out with your Civil Administration crowd?"

M'zangwe grimaced. "I haven't had to put any of them under actualarrest, so far, but we've had to keep Buhrmann away from thecommunications equipment by force. He wanted to call you up and chewyou out for not evacuating everybody in the north to Konkrook. "

"Is he crazy?"

"No, just scared. He says you're going to get everybody on Ullermassacred by detail, when you could save Konkrook by bringing themall here. "

"You tell him I'm going to hold this planet, not just one city. Tellhim I have a sense of my duty to the Company and its stockholders, ifhe hasn't; put it in those terms and he may understand you. "

"Yes, I'll try that out on Meyerstein, too. He's in a hell of a stateabout the losses the Banking Cartel are taking on this deal. . . . Well, I'll call you when there's anything new. "

By 0330, it was daylight; the attacks against the northwest corner ofthe perimeter stopped entirely. Wallingsby had the three-hundred-oddSkilkan laborers at work; he had gathered up all the tarpaulin he couldfind, and had the two sewing-machines in the tentmaker's shop running onsandbags. Jules Keaveney, to von Schlichten's agreeable surprise, hadtaken hold of his ARP assignment, and was doing an efficient job inorganizing for fire-fighting, damage-control and first aid. ColonelJarman had his airjeeps and combat-cars working in ever-widening circlesover the countryside, shooting up everything in sight that even lookedlike contragravity equipment. Some of these patrols had to be recalled, around 1030, when sporadic nuisance-sniping began from the side of themountain to the west. And, along with everything else, Paula Quintonmanaged, along with her other work, to get a complete digest prepared ofthe situation elsewhere in the Terran-occupied parts of the planet. 

The situation at Konkrook was brightening steadily. The second wave ofKankad's improvised airlift, reenforced by contragravity fromKonkrook, had come in; there were now close to two thousand freshKragans on Gongonk Island and the mainland farms, Kankad himself withthem. The _Aldebaran_ had reached Kankad's Town, and was loadinganother thousand Kragans. . . . There was nothing more from Keegark. Amessage from Colonel MacKinnon had come in at dawn, to the effect thatthe geeks had penetrated his last defenses and that he was about toblow up the Residency; thereafter Keegark went off the air. . . . By0730, the _Northern Star_ had landed the regiment Murderers, armedwith first-quality Terran infantry-rifles and a few machine-guns andbazookas, at the Palace at Krink, and by 0845 she had returned withanother regiment, the Jeel-Feeders. The three-street lane connectingthe Palace and the Residency had been widened to six, and then toeight. . . . Guido Karamessinis, at Grank, was still at uneasy peace withKing Yoorkerk, who was still undecided whether the rebels or theCompany were going to be the eventual victors, and afraid to take anyirrevocable step in either direction. . . . Eight men and four women, thesurvivors of a trading-station on the eastern shore of Takkad Sea, reached Konkrook in a lorry; another trading station, on the southshore, reported by telecast that the natives there had refused to riseagainst them, and had crucified five of Rakkeed's disciples who hadcome among them preaching _znidd suddabit_. 

At 1100, Paula Quinton and Barney Mordkovitz virtually ordered him toget some sleep. He went to his quarters at Company House, downed aspaceship-captain's-size drink of honey-rum, and slept until 1600. Ashe dressed and shaved, he could hear, through the open window, theslow sputter of small-arms' fire, punctuated by the occasional_whump-whump-whump_ of 40-mm auto-cannon or the hammering of amachine-gun. 

Returning to his command-post at the telecast station, theterrain-board showed that the perimeter of defense had been pushed outin a bulge at the northwest corner; the TV-screen pictured a crudebreast-work of petrified tree-trunks, sandbags, mining machinery, packing-cases and odds-and-ends, upon which Wallingsby's nativelaborers were working under guard while a skirmish-line of Kragans hadbeen thrown out another four or five hundred yards and were exchangingpot-shots with Skilkans on the gullied hillside. 

"Where's Colonel Quinton?" he asked. "She ought to be taking a turn inthe sack, now. "

"She's taking one, " Major Falkenberg, who had commanded the action atthe native-troops barracks and the labor-camp, the night before, toldhim. "General Mordkovitz chased her off to bed a couple of hours ago, called me in to take her place, and then went out to replace me. Colonel Guilliford's in the hospital; got hit about thirteen hundred. They're afraid he's going to lose a leg. "

"That's a bloody shame!" He pointed to the northwest corner of theperimeter on the screen. "Whose idea was that?" he asked. "It's a goodone; I ought to have thought of it, myself. "

"Your new adjutant, " Falkenberg grinned. "She asked somebody whatthose big domes, up there, were. When they told her there were tenthousand tons of thermoconcentrate, five thousand tons ofblasting-explosives, and five tons of plutonium, under them, shedamned near fainted, and then she ordered that, right away. "

More reports came in. The entire garrison of the small Residency atKwurk, the most northern of the eastern shore Free Cities, had arrivedat Kankad's Town in two hundred-foot contragravity scows and fiveaircars. Two of the aircars arrived half an hour behind the rest ofthe refugee flotilla, having turned off at Keegark to pay theirrespects to King Orgzild. They reported the Keegark Residency inruins, its central buildings vanished in a huge crater; the _JanSmuts_ and the _Christiaan De Wett_ were still in the Company docks, both apparently damaged by the blast which had destroyed theResidency. One of the aircars had rocketed and machine-gunned someKeegarkans who appeared to be trying to repair them; the other blew upKing Orgzild's nitroglycerine plant. Von Schlichten called Konkrookand ordered a bombing-mission against Keegark organized, to make surethe two ships stayed out of service. 

The _Northern Star_ was still bringing loyal troops into Krink. KingJonkvank, whom von Schlichten called, was highly elated. 

"We are killing traitors wherever we find them!" he exulted. "The cityis yellow with their blood; their heads are piled everywhere! How isit with you at Skilk?"

"We have killed many, also, " von Schlichten boasted. "And tonight, wewill kill more; we are preparing bombs of great destruction, which wewill rain down upon Skilk until there is not one stone left uponanother, or one infant of a day's age left alive!"

Jonkvank reacted as he was intended to. "Oh, no, general, don't do allthat!" he exclaimed. "You promised me that I should have Skilk, on theword of a Terran. Are you going to give me a city of ruins andcorpses? Ruins are no good to anybody, and I am not a Jeel, to eatcorpses. "

Von Schlichten shrugged. "When you are strong, you can flog yourenemies with a whip; when you are weak, all you can do is kill them. If I had five thousand more troops, here. . . . "

"Oh, I will send troops, as soon as I can, " Jonkvank hastened topromise. "All my best regiments: the Murderers, the Jeel-Feeders, theCorpse-Reapers, the Devastators, the Fear-Makers. But, now that wehave stopped this sinful rebellion, here, I can't take chances that itwill break out again as soon as I strip the city of troops. "

Von Schlichten nodded. Jonkvank's argument made sense; he would havetaken a similar position, himself. 

"Well, get as many as you can over here, as soon as possible, " hesaid. "We'll try to do as little damage to Skilk as we can, but . . . "

At 1830, Paula joined him for her breakfast, while he sat in front ofthe big screen, eating his dinner. There had been light ground-actionalong the southern end of the perimeter--King Firkked's regulars, reenforced by Zirk tribesmen and levies of townspeople, all of whomseemed to have firearms, were filtering in through the ruins of thelabor-camp and the wreckage of the equipment-park--and there wasrenewed sniping from the mountainside. The long afternoon of thenorthern autumn dragged on; finally, at 2200, the sun set, and it wasnot fully dark for another hour. For some time, there was an ominousquiet, and then, at 0030, the enemy began attacking in force, drivingherds of livestock--lumbering six-legged brutes bred by the NorthUllerans for food--to test the defenses for electrified wire andland-mines. Most of these were shot down or blown up, but a few got asfar as the wire, which, by now, had been strung and electrifiedcompletely around the perimeter. 

Behind them came parties of Skilkan regulars with long-handledinsulated cutters; a couple of cuts were made in the wire, and asection of it went dead. The line, at this point, had been ratherthinly held; the defenders immediately called for air-support, andJarman ordered fifteen of his remaining twenty airjeeps and fivecombat-cars into the fight. No sooner were they committed than theradar on the commercial airport control-tower picked up air vehiclesapproaching from the north, and the air-raid sirens began howling andthe searchlights went on. 

As a protection from the sudden fury of the summer and winter gales, the buildings were all low, thick-walled, and provided with steeldoors and window-shutters which were electrically operated andcentrally controlled. These slammed shut in every occupied building. The contragravity which had been sent to support the ground-defense atthe south side of the Reservation turned to meet this new threat, andeverything else available, including the four heavy airtanks, liftedup. Meanwhile, guns began firing from the ground and from rooftops. 

There had been four aircars, ordinary passenger vehicles equipped withmachine-guns on improvised mounts, and ten big lorries converted intobombers, in the attack. All the lorries, and all but one of themakeshift fighter-escort, were shot down, but not before explosive andthermoconcentrate bombs were dumped all over the place. One lorryemptied its load of thermoconcentrate-bombs on the control-building atthe airport, starting a raging fire and putting the radar out ofcommission. A repair-shop at the ordnance-depot was set on fire, and aquantity of small-arms and machine-gun ammunition piled outside fortransportation to the outer defenses blew up. An explosive bomb landedon the roof of the building between Company House and the telecaststation, blowing a hole in the roof and demolishing the upper floor. And another load of thermoconcentrate, missing the power-plant, setfire to the dry grass between it and the ruins of the native-troopsbarracks. 

Before the air-attack had been broken up, the soldiers of King Firkkedand their irregular supporters were swarming through the dead sectionof wire. They had four or five big farm-tractors, nuclear-powered butunequipped with contragravity-generators, which they were using likeground-tanks of the First Century. This attack penetrated to themiddle of the Reservation before it was stopped and the attackerseither killed or driven out; for the first time since daybreak, thered-and-yellow lights came on around the power-plant. 

As soon as the combined air and ground attack was beaten off, vonSchlichten ordered all his available contragravity up, flying patrolsaround the Reservation and retaliatory bombing missions against Skilk, and began bombarding the city with his 90-mm guns. A number of firesbroke out, and at about 0200 a huge expanding globe of orange-redflame soared up from the city. 

"There goes Firkked's thermoconcentrate stock, " he said to Paula, whowas standing beside him in front of the screen. 

Half an hour later, he discovered that he had been overly optimistic. Much of the enemy's supply of Terran thermoconcentrate had beendestroyed, but enough remained to pelt the Reservation and the Companybuildings with incendiaries, when a second and more severe air-attackdeveloped, consisting of forty or fifty makeshift lorry-bombers andfifteen aircars. The previous attack von Schlichten had viewed in thescreen at the telecast station; it was his questionable good fortuneto observe the second one directly, having been out inspecting thedefenses around the ordnance-depot at the time. 

Like the first, the second air-attack was beaten off, or, moreexactly, down. Most of the enemy contragravity was destroyed; at leasttwo dozen vehicles crashed inside the Reservation. As in the firstinstance, there was a simultaneous ground attack from the southernside, with a demonstration-attack at the north end. For a while, vonSchlichten found himself fighting hand-to-hand, first with his pistoland then, when his ammunition was gone, with a picked-up rifle andbayonet. It was full daylight before the last of the attackers waseither killed or driven out. 

Five minutes later, while he was reloading his pistol-clips withsalvaged cartridges, the _Northern Star_ came bulking over themountains from the west. 

XI. 

Of Princedoms Which Have Been Won by Conquest

Holstering his pistol, he raced for the telecast station, to receive acall from a Colonel Khalid ib'n Talal, a Zanzibar Arab, aboard theapproaching ship. 

"I've one of Jonkvank's regiments, the Jeel-Feeders, armed with Terran9-mm rifles and a few bazookas; I have a company of our Zirks, withtheir mounts, and a battalion of the Sixth N. U. N. I. ; I also have four90-mm guns, Terran-manned, " he reported. "What's the situation, general, and where do you want me to land?"

Von Schlichten described the situation succinctly, in an ancient andunprintable military cliche. "Try landing south of the Reservation, alittle west of the ruins of the labor-camp, " he advised. "The bulk ofFirkked's army is in that section, and I want them run out as soon aspossible. We'll give you all the contragravity and fire support wecan. "

The _Northern Star_ let down slowly, firing her guns and droppingbombs; as she descended, rifle-fire spurted from all her lower-deckportholes. There was cheering, human and Ulleran, from inside thebattered defense-perimeter; combat-cars, airjeeps, and improvisedbombers lifted out to strafe the Skilkans on the ground, and the fourairtanks moved out to take position and open fire with their 90-mm's, helping to flush King Firkked's regulars and auxiliaries out of thegullies and ruins and drive them south along the mountain, away fromwhere the ship would land and also away from the city of Skilk. The_Northern Star_ set down quickly, and troops and artillery began to beunloaded, joining in the fighting. 

It was five hundred miles to Krink; three hours after lifting out, the_Northern Star_ was back again, with two more of King Jonkvank'sinfantry regiments, and by 1300, when the fourth load arrived fromKrink, the fighting was entirely on the eastern bank of the dry HoorkRiver. This last contingent of reenforcements was landed in theeastern suburbs of Skilk and began fighting their way into the cityfrom the rear. 

It was evident, however, that the pacification of Skilk would not beaccomplished as rapidly as von Schlichten wished--street fighting, against a determined enemy, is notoriously slow work--and he decidedto risk the _Northern Star_ in an attack against the Palace itself, and, over the objections of Paula Quinton, Jules Keaveney, and BarneyMordkovitz, to lead the attack in person. 

Inside the city, he found that the Zirk cavalry from Krink had thrustup one of the broader streets to within a thousand yards of thePalace, and, supported by infantry, contragravity, and a couple ofairtanks, were pounding and hacking at a mass of Skilkans whoseuniform lack of costume prevented distinguishing between soldiery andtownsfolk. Very few of these, he observed, seemed to be usingfirearms; with his glasses, he could see them shooting with longnorthern air-rifles and a few Takkad Sea crossbows. Either weaponwould shoot clear through a Terran or half-way through an Ulleran atfifty yards, but at over two hundred they were almost harmless. Therewere a few fires still burning from the bombardment of the nightbefore--Ulleran, and particularly North Ulleran, cities did not burnwell--and the blaze which had consumed the bulk of Firkked's stock ofthermoconcentrate fuel had long ago burned out, leaving an area of sixor eight blocks blackened and lifeless. 

The ship let down, while the six combat-cars which had accompanied herbuzzed the Palace roof, strafing it to keep it clear, and the Kragansaboard fired with their rifles. She came to rest on seven-eighthsweight reduction, and even before the gangplanks were run out, theKragans were dropping to the flat roof, running to stairheadpenthouses and tossing grenades into them. 

The taking of the Palace was a gruesome business. Knowing exactly howmuch mercy they would have shown had they been storming the Residency, Firkked's soldiers and courtiers fought desperately and had to beexterminated, floor by floor, room by room, hallway by hallway. Therewas some attempt at escape from the ground floor as von Schlichten andhis Kragans fought their way down from above, but the _Northern Star_and her escort of combat-cars and airjeeps bombed and machine-gunnedand rocketed the fugitives from above, and the loyal Zirk cavalry, bursting through the mob, came up shooting and lancing. By this time, an aircar fitted with a sound-amplifier was circling overhead, while aloyal native-officer of the Sixth N. U. N. I. Shouted offers of quarterand orders to the troops to spare any who surrendered. 

Driving down from above, von Schlichten and his Kragans slithered overfloors increasingly greasy with yellow Ulleran blood. He had picked upa broadsword at the foot of the first stairway down; a little later, he tossed it aside in favor of another, better balanced and with abetter guard. There was a furious battle at the doorways of the throneroom; finally, climbing over the bodies of their own dead and theenemy's, they were inside. 

Here there was no question of quarter whatever, at least as long asFirkked lived; North Ulleran nobles did not surrender under the eyesof their king, and North Ulleran kings did not surrender their thronesalive. There was also a tradition, of which von Schlichten wasmindful, that a king must only be killed by his conqueror, in personalcombat, with steel. 

With a wedge of Kragan bayonets around him and the picked-upbroadsword in his hand, he fought his way to the throne, where Firkkedwaited, a sword in one of his upper hands, his Spear of State in theother, and a dagger in each lower hand. With his left hand, vonSchlichten detached the bayonet from the rifle of one of his followersand went forward, trying not to think of the absurdity of a man of theSixth Century A. E. , the representative of a civilized CharteredCompany, dueling to the death with swords with a barbarian king for athrone he had promised to another barbarian, or of what could happenon Uller if he allowed this four-armed monstrosity to kill him. 

It was not as bad as it looked, however. The ornate Spear of State, inspite of its long, cruel-looking blade, was not an especially goodcombat-weapon, at least for one hand, and Firkked seemed confused bythe very abundance of his armament. After a few slashes and jabs, vonSchlichten knocked the unwieldy thing from his opponent's hand. Thisraised a fearful ululation from the Skilkan nobility, who had stoppedfighting to watch the duel; evidently it was the very worst sort of abad omen. Firkked, seemingly relieved to be disencumbered of thething, caught his sword in both hands and aimed a roundhouse swing atvon Schlichten's head; von Schlichten dodged, crippled one ofFirkked's lower hands with a quick slash, and lunged at the royalbelly. Firkked used his remaining dagger to parry, backed a stepcloser to his throne, and took another swing with his sword, which vonSchlichten parried on the bayonet in his left hand. Then, backing, heslashed at the inside of Firkked's leg with the thousand-year-old_coup-de-Jarnac_. Firkked, unable to support the weight of hisdense-tissued body on one leg, stumbled; von Schlichten ran him neatlythrough the breast with his sword and through the throat with thebayonet. 

There was silence in the throne room for an instant, and then, with ahorrible collective shriek, the Skilkans threw down their weapons. Oneof von Schlichten's Kragans slung his rifle and picked up the Spear ofState with all four hands, taking his post ceremoniously behind thevictor. A couple of others dragged the body of Firkked to the edge ofthe dais, and one of them drew his leaf-shaped short-sword andbeheaded it. 

 * * * * *

At mid-afternoon, von Schlichten was on the roof of the Palace, holding the Spear of State, with Firkked's head impaled on the point, while a Terran technician aimed an audio-visual recorder. 

"This, " he said, with the geek-speaker in his mouth, "is KingFirkked's Spear of State, and here, upon it, is King Firkked's head. Two days ago, Firkked was at peace with the Company, and Firkked wasKing in Skilk. If he had not dared raise his feeble hand against themight of the Uller Company, he would still be alive, and his Spearwould still be borne behind him. So must all those who rise againstthe Company perish. . . . Cut. "

The camera stopped. A Kragan came forward and took the Spear of State, with its grisly burden, carrying it to a nearby wall and leaning itup, like a piece of stage property no longer required for this scenebut needed for the next. Von Schlichten took out his geek-speaker, wiped and pouched it, and took his cigarette case from his pocket. 

"Well, this is the limit!" Paula Quinton, who had come up during thefilming of the scene, exploded. "I thought you had to kill himyourself in order to encourage your soldiers; I didn't think youwanted to make a movie of it to show your friends. I'm through; youcan find yourself a new adjutant!"

Von Schlichten tapped the cigarette on the gold-and-platinum case andstared at her through his monocle. 

"You can't resign, " he told her. "Resignations of officers are notbeing accepted until the end of hostilities. In any case, I shouldn'tcare to have you go; you're the best adjutant, Hideyoshi O'Leary notexcepted, I ever had. Sit down, colonel. " He lit the cigarette. "Yourpolitico-military education still needs a little filling in. 

"At Grank, we have two ships. One is the _Northern Lights_, sistership of the _Northern Star_. The other is the cruiser _Procyon_, theonly real warship on Uller, with a main battery of four 200-mm guns. How King Yoorkerk was able to get control of those ships I don't know, but there will be a board of inquiry and maybe a couple ofcourts-martial, when things get stabilized to a point where we canafford such luxuries. As it is, we need those ships desperately, andas soon as he gets in, I'm sending Hideyoshi O'Leary to Grank withthe _Northern Star_ and a load of Kragan Rifles, to pry them loose. The audio-visual of which this is the last scene is going to be one ofthe crowbars he's going to use. "

"Oh! I get it!" Her eyes widened with pleasure at having finallycaught on; she accepted the cigarette and the light von Schlichtenoffered. "Good old _nervenkrieg_!"

"Yes. A little idea I adapted from my Nazi ancestors of four hundredand fifty years ago. Hideyoshi's going to treat King Yoorkerk to amovie-show. Want to bet he won't loosen up and release _Procyon_ and_Northern Lights_ and unblockade the Grank Residency after he seesthat shot of Firkked's head leering at him off the point of thatovergrown asagai? As I said, that's only the last scene, too. I'vebeen having scenes shot all through this fight; some of them arereally horrifying. "

"But why did you have to fight Firkked yourself?" she asked. "You tookan awful chance, with two hands to his four. "

"Not so awful, remember what I told you about the physical limitationsof Ullerans. But I had to kill him myself, with a sword; according tolocal custom that makes me King of Skilk. "

"Why, your Majesty!" She rose and curtsied mockingly. "But I thoughtyou were going to make Jonkvank King of Skilk. "

He shook his head. "Just Viceroy, " he corrected. "I'm handing theSpear of State down to him, not up to him; he'll reign as my vassal, and, consequently, as vassal of the Company, and before long, he won'tbe much more at Krink either. That'll take a little longer--there'llhave to be military missions, and economic missions, andtrade-agreements, and all the rest of it, first--but he's on the wayto becoming a puppet-prince. "

Half an hour later, a large and excessively ornate air-launch, specially built at the Konkrook shipyards for King Jonkvank, wassighted coming over the mountain from the east. An escort ofcombat-cars was sent to meet it, and a battalion of Kragans and thesurvivors of Firkked's court were drawn up on the Palace roof. 

"His Majesty, Jonkvank, King of Krink!" the former herald of KingFirkked's court, now herald to King Carlos von Schlichten, shouted, banging on a brass shield with the flat of his sword, as Jonkvankdescended from his launch, attended by a group of his nobles and hisSpear of State, with Hideyoshi O'Leary and Francis N. Shapiroshepherding them. As the guests advanced across the roof, the heraldbanged again on his shield. 

"His Majesty, Carlos von Schlichten, "--which came out more or less asKarlok vonk Zlikdenk--"King, by right of combat, of Skilk!"

Von Schlichten advanced to meet his fellow-monarch, his own Spear ofState, with Firkked's head still grinning from it, two paces behindhim. 

Jonkvank stopped, his face contorted with saurian rage. 

"What is this?" he demanded. "You told me that I could be King ofSkilk; is this how a Terran keeps his word?"

"A Terran's word is always good, Jonkvank, " von Schlichten replied, omitting the titles, as was proper in one sovereign addressinganother. "My word was that you should reign in Skilk, and my wordstands. But these things must be done decently, according to customand law. I killed Firkked in single combat. Had I not done so, theSpear of Skilk would have been left lying, for any of the young ofFirkked to pick up. Is that not the law?"

Jonkvank nodded grudgingly. "It is the law, " he admitted. 

"Good. Now, since I killed Firkked in lawful manner, his Spear ismine, and what is mine I can give as I please. I now give you theSpear of Skilk, to carry in my name, as I promised. "

The Kragan who was carrying the ceremonial weapon tossed the head ofFirkked from the point; another Kragan kicked it aside and advanced towipe the spear-blade with a rag. Von Schlichten took the Spear andgave it to Jonkvank. 

"This is not good!" one of the Skilkan nobles protested. He had abetter right than any of the others to protest; he had, a few hoursbefore, ridden in at the head of a company of his retainers to swearloyalty to the Company. "That you should rule over us, yes. You killedFirkked in single combat, and you are the soldier of the Company, which is mighty, as all here have seen. But that this foreigner begiven the Spear of Skilk, that is not good!"

Some of the others, emboldened by his example, were jabberingagreement. 

"Listen, all of you!" von Schlichten shouted. "Here is no question ofKrink ruling over Skilk. Does it matter who holds the Spear of Skilk, when he does so in my name? And King Jonkvank will be no foreigner. Hewill come and live among you, and later he will travel back and forthbetween Krink and Skilk, and he will leave the Spear of Krink inKrink, and the Spear of Skilk in Skilk, and in Skilk he will be aSkilkan. "

That seemed to satisfy everybody except Jonkvank, and he had witenough not to make an issue of it. He even had the Spear of Krinkcarried back aboard his launch, out of sight, and when he accompaniedvon Schlichten, an hour later, to see Hideyoshi O'Leary off for Grank, he had the Spear of Skilk carried behind him. When he was alone withvon Schlichten, in the room that had been King Firkked's bedchamber, however, he exploded: "What is all this foolishness which you promisedthese people in my name and which I must now carry out? That I am toleave the Spear of Skilk in Skilk and the Spear of Krink in Krink, andcome here to live. . . . "

"You wish to hold Skilk?" von Schlichten asked. 

"I intend to hold Skilk. To begin with, there shall be a great killinghere. A very great killing: of all those who advised that fool of aFirkked to start this business; of those who gave shelter to the falseprophet, Rakkeed, when he was here; of the faithless priests who gaveear to his abominable heresies and allowed him to spew out hisblasphemies in the temples; of those who sent spies to Krink, tocorrupt and pervert my soldiers and nobles; of those who. . . . "

"All that is as it should be, " von Schlichten agreed. "Except that itmust be done quickly and all at once, before the memories of thesecrimes fade from the minds of the people. And great care must be takento kill only those who can be proven to be guilty of something; thusit will be said that the justice of King Jonkvank is terrible toevildoers but a protection and a shield to those who keep the peaceand obey the laws. Thus you will gain the name of being a wise andjust king. And when the priests are to be killed it should be doneunder the direction of those other priests who were faithful to thegods and whom King Firkked drove out of their temples, and it must bedone in the name of the gods. Thus will you be esteemed a pious, andnot an impious, king. As to why you must be a Skilkan in Skilk, youheard the words of Flurknurk, and how the others agreed with him. Itmust not be allowed to seem that the city has come under foreign rule. And you must not change the laws, unless the people petition you to doso, nor must you increase the taxes, and you must not confiscate theestates of those who are put to death, for the death of parents isalways forgiven before the loss of patrimonies. And you should selectcertain Skilkan nobles, and become the father of their young, andabove all, you must leave none of the young of Firkked alive, to raiserebellion against you later. "

Jonkvank nodded, deeply impressed. "By the gods, Karlok vonk Zlikdenk, this is wisdom! Now it is to be seen why the likes of Firkked cannotprevail against you, or against the Company as long as you are theCompany's upper sword-arm!"

Honesty tempted von Schlichten, for a moment, to disclaim originalityfor the principles he had just enunciated, even at the price of tryingto pronounce the name of Niccolo Machiavelli with a geek-speaker. Onsecond thought, however, considerations of policy restrained him. IfJonkvank ever heard of _The Prince_, nothing would satisfy him shortof an Ulleran translation, and von Schlichten would have been justabout as happy over an Ulleran translation of a complete set ofBethe-cycle bomb specifications. 

XII. 

The Shadow of Niflheim

The sun slid lower and lower toward the horizon behind them as theaircar bulleted south along the broad valley and dry bed of the HoorkRiver, nearing the zone of equal day and night. Hassan Bogdanoff drovewhile Harry Quong finished his lunch, then changed places to begin hisown. Von Schlichten got two bottles of beer from the refrigeratedsection of the lunch-hamper and opened one for Paula Quinton and onefor himself. 

"What are we going to do with these geeks, "--she was using the nastyand derogatory word unconsciously and by custom, now--"after this isall over? We can't just tell them, 'Jolly well played, nice game, wasn't it?' and go back to where we were Wednesday evening. "

"No, we can't. There's going to have to be a Terran seizure ofpolitical power in every part of this planet that we occupy, and assoon as we're consolidated around and north of Takkad Sea, we're goingto have to move in elsewhere, " he replied. "Keegark, Konkrook, and theFree Cities, of course, will be relatively easy. They're in armsagainst us now, and we can take them over by force. We had to makethat deal with Jonkvank, or, rather, I did, so that will be a slowerprocess, but we'll get it done in time. If I know that pair as well asI think I do, Jonkvank and Yoorkerk will give us plenty of pretexts, before long. Then, we can start giving them government by law insteadof by royal decree, and real courts of justice; put an end to thehead-payment system, and to these arbitrary mass arrests andtax-delinquency imprisonments that are nothing but slave-raids by thegeek princes on their own people. And, gradually, abolish serfdom. Ina couple of centuries, this planet will be fit to admit to theFederation, like Odin and Freya. "

"Well, won't that depend a lot on whom the Company sends here to takeHarrington's place?"

"Unless I'm much mistaken, the Company will confirm me, " he replied. "Administration on Uller is going to be a military matter for a longtime to come, and even the Banking Cartel and the mercantile interestsin the Company are going to realize that, and see the necessity fortaking political control. The Federation Government owns a biggerinterest in the Company than the public realizes, too; they've alwaysfavored it. And just to make sure, I'm sending Hid O'Leary to Terra onthe next ship, to make a full report on the situation. "

"You think it'll be cleared up by then? The _City of Montevideo_ isdue in from Niflheim in a little under three months. "

"It'll have to be cleared up by then. We can't keep this war goingmore than a month, at the present rate. Police-action, and mopping-up, yes, full-scale war, no. "

"Ammunition?" she asked. 

He looked at her in pleased surprise. "Your education has beenprogressing, at that, " he said. "You know, a lot of professionalofficers, even up to field rank in the combat branches, seem to thinkthat ammo comes down miraculously from Heaven, in contragravitylorries, every time they pray into a radio for it. It doesn't; it hasto be produced as fast as it's expended, and we haven't been doingthat. So we'll have to lick these geeks before it runs out, because wecan't lick them with gunbutts and bayonets. "

"Well, how about nuclear weapons?" Paula asked. "I hate to suggestit--I know what they did on Mimir, and Fenris, and Midgard, and whatthey did on Terra, during the First Century. But it may be our onlychance. "

He finished his beer and shoved the bottle into the waste-receiver, then got out his cigarettes. 

"I'd hate to have to make a decision like that, Paula, " he told her. "The military use of nuclear energy is the last--well, thenext-to-last--thing I'd want to see on Uller. Fortunately, orunfortunately, it's a decision I won't have to make. There isn't asingle nuclear bomb on the planet. The Company's always refused toallow them to be manufactured or stockpiled here. "

"I don't think there'd be any criticism of your making them, now, general. And there's certainly plenty of plutonium. You could makeA-bombs, at least. "

"There isn't anybody here who even knows how to make one. Most of ournuclear engineers could work one up, in about three months, when we'deither not need one or not be alive. "

"Dr. Gomes, who came in on the _Pretoria_, two weeks ago, can makethem, " she contradicted. "He built at least a dozen of them onNiflheim, to use in activating volcanoes and bringing ore-bearing lavato the surface. "

Von Schlichten's hand, bringing his lighter to the tip of hiscigarette, paused for a second. Then he completed the operation, snapped it shut, and put it away. 

"When did all this happen?"

She took time out for mental arithmetic; even a spaceship officer hadto do that, when a question of interstellar time-relations arose. 

"About three-fifty days ago, Galactic Standard. They'd put off thefirst shot, six bombs, before I got in from Terra. I saw the secondshot a day or so before I left Niflheim on the _Canberra_. Dr. Gomeshad to stay over till the _Pretoria_ to put off the third shot. Why?"

"Did you run into a geek named Gorkrink, while you were on Nif?" heasked her. "And what sort of work was he doing?"

"Gorkrink? I don't seem to remember. . . . Oh, yes! He was helping Dr. Murillo, the seismologist. His year was up after the second shot; hecame to Uller on the _Canberra_. Dr. Murillo was sorry to lose him. Heunderstood Lingua Terra perfectly; Dr. Murillo could talk to him, theway you do with Kankad, without using a geek-speaker. "

"Well, but what sort of work . . . ?"

"Helping set and fire the A-bombs. . . . _Oh! Good Lord!_"

"You can say that again, and deal in Allah, Shiva, and Kali, " vonSchlichten told her. "Especially Kali. . . . Harry! See if you can getsome more speed out of this can. I want to get to Konkrook while it'sstill there!"

 * * * * *

It was full dark when Konkrook came in view beyond the East KonkMountains, a lurid smear on the underside of the clouds, and, atGongonk Island and at the Company farms to the south, a couple ofbunches of searchlights fingering about in the sky. When vonSchlichten turned on the outside sound-pickup, he could hear thedistant tom-tomming of heavy guns, and the crash of shells and bombs. Keeping the car high enough to be above the trajectories of incomingshells, Harry Quong circled over the city while Hassan Bogdanofftalked to Gongonk Island on the radio. 

The city was in a bad way. There were seventy-five to a hundred bigfires going, and a new one started in a rising ball of thermoconcentrateflame while they watched. The three gun-cutters, _Elmoran_, _Gaucho_, and _Bushranger_, and about fifty big freight lorries converted tobombers, were shuttling back and forth between the island and the city. The Royal Palace was on fire from end to end, and the entire waterfrontand industrial district were in flames. Combat-cars and airjeeps werediving in to shell and rocket and machine-gun streets and buildings. Hesaw six big bomber-lorries move in dignified procession to unload, oneafter the other, on a row of buildings along what the Terrans calledSouth Tenth Street, and on the roofs of buildings a block away, red andblue flares were burning, and he could see figures, both human andUlleran, setting up mortars and machine-guns. 

Landing on the top stage of Company House, on the island, they weremet by a Terran whom von Schlichten had seen, a few days ago, bossingnative-labor at the spaceport, but who was now wearing a major'sinsignia. He greeted von Schlichten with a salute which he must havelearned from some movie about the ancient French Foreign Legion. VonSchlichten seriously returned it in kind. 

"Everybody's down in the Governor-General's office, sir, " he said. "Your office, that is. King Kankad's here with us, too. "

He accompanied them to the elevator, then turned to a telephone; whenvon Schlichten and Paula reached the office, everybody was crowded atthe door to greet them: Themistocles M'zangwe, his arm in a sling;Hans Meyerstein, the Johannesburg lawyer, who seemed to have even moreBantu blood than the brigadier-general; Morton Buhrmann, theCommercial Superintendent; Laviola, the Fiscal Secretary; a dozen orso other officers and civil administrators. There was a hubbub ofgreetings, and he was pleased to detect as much real warmth from thecivil administration crowd as from the officers. 

"Well, I'm glad to be back with you, " he replied, generally. "And letme present Colonel Paula Quinton, my new adjutant; Hid O'Leary's onduty in the north. . . . Them, this was a perfectly splendid piece ofwork here; you can take this not only as a personal congratulation, but as a sort of unit citation for the whole crowd. You've all behavedsimply above praise. " He turned to King Kankad, who was wearing a pairof automatics in shoulder-holsters for his upper hands and anotherpair in cross-body belt holsters for his lower. "And what I've saidfor anybody else goes double for you, Kankad, " he added, clapping theKragan on the shoulder. 

"All he did was save the lot of us!" M'zangwe said. "We were hangingon by our fingernails here till his people started coming in. Andthen, after you sent the _Aldebaran_. . . . "

"Where is the _Aldebaran_, by the way? I didn't see her when I camein. "

"Based on Kankad's, flying bombardment against Keegark, and keepingan eye out for those ships. Prinsloo caught the _De Wett_ in the docksthere and smashed her, but the _Jan Smuts_ got away, and we haven'tbeen able to locate the _Oom Paul Kruger_, either. They're probablyboth on the Eastern Shore, gathering up reenforcements for Orgzild, "M'zangwe said. 

"Our ability to move troops rapidly is what's kept us on top thislong, and Orgzild's had plenty of time to realize it, " von Schlichtensaid. "When we get _Procyon_ down here, I'm going to send her out, with a screen of light scout-vehicles, to find those ships and get ridof them. . . . How's Hid been making out, at Grank, by the way? I didn'thave my car-radio on, coming down. "

That touched off another hubbub: "Haven't you heard, general?" . . . "Oh, my God, this is simply out of this continuum!" . . . "Well, tellhim, somebody!" . . . "No, get Hid on the screen; it's his story!"

Somebody busied himself at the switchboard. The rest of them sat downat the long conference-table. Laviola and Meyerstein and Buhrmann wereespecially obsequious in seating von Schlichten in Sid Harrington'sold chair, and in getting a chair for Paula Quinton. After a while, the jumbled colors on the big screen resolved themselves into an imageof Hideyoshi O'Leary, grinning like a pussy-cat beside an emptygoldfish-bowl. 

"Well, what happened?" von Schlichten asked, after they had exchangedgreetings. "How did Yoorkerk like the movies? And did you get the_Procyon_ and the _Northern Lights_ loose?"

"Yoorkerk was deeply impressed, " O'Leary replied. "His story is thathe is and always was the true and ever-loving friend of the Company;he acted to prevent quote certain disloyal elements unquote fromharming the people and property of the Company. _Procyon's_ on the wayto Konkrook. I'm holding _Northern Lights_ here and _Northern Star_ atSkilk; where do you want them sent?"

"Leave _Northern Star_ at Skilk, for the time being. Tell theCompany's great and good friend King Yoorkerk that the Company expectshim to contribute some soldiers for the campaign here and againstKeegark, when that starts; be sure you get the best-armed andbest-trained regiments he has, and get them down here as soon aspossible. Don't send any of your Kragans or Karamessinis' troops here, though; hold them in Grank till we make sure of the quality ofYoorkerk's friendship. "

"Well, general, I think we can be pretty sure, now. You see, he turnedRakkeed the Prophet over to me. . . . "

"_What_?" Von Schlichten felt his monocle starting to slip and took afirmer grip on it. "Who?"

"Pay me, Them; he didn't drop it, " Hideyoshi O'Leary said. "Why, Rakkeed the Prophet. Yoorkerk was holding our ships and our people incase we lost; he was also holding Rakkeed at the Palace in case wewon. Of course, Rakkeed thought he was an honored guest, right up tillYoorkerk's guards dragged him in and turned him over to us. . . . "

"That geek, " von Schlichten said, "is too smart for his own good. Someof these days he's going to play both ends against the middle and bothends'll fold in on him and smash him. " A suspicion occurred to him. "You sure this is Rakkeed? It would be just like Yoorkerk to try tosell us a ringer. "

O'Leary shook his head solemnly. "I thought of that, right away. Thisis the real article; Karamessinis' Constabulary and Intelligenceofficers certified him for me. What do you want me to do, send himdown to Konkrook?"

Von Schlichten shook his head. "Get the priests of the locallyvenerated gods to put him on trial for blasphemy, heresy, impersonating a prophet, practicing witchcraft without a license, orany other ecclesiastical crimes you or they can think of. Then, afterhe's been given a scrupulously fair trial, have the soldiers of KingYoorkerk behead him, and stick his head up over a big sign, in allnative languages, 'Rakkeed the False Prophet. ' And have audio-visualsmade of the whole business, trial and execution, and be sure that thepriests and Yoorkerk's officers are in the foreground and our peoplestay out of the pictures. "

"Soap and towels, for General Pontius von Pilate!" Paula Quintoncalled out. 

"That's an idea; I was wondering what to give Yoorkerk as atestimonial present, " Hideyoshi O'Leary said. "A nice thirty-piecesilver set!"

"Quite appropriate, " von Schlichten approved. "Well, you did a first-classjob. I want you back with us as soon as possible--incidentally, you're nowa brigadier-general--but not till the situation Grank-Krink-Skilk isstabilized. And, eventually, you'll probably have to set up permanentheadquarters in the north. "

After Hideyoshi O'Leary had thanked him and signed off, and the screenwas dark again, he turned to the others. 

"Well, gentlemen, I don't think we need worry too much about thenorth, for the next few days. How long do you estimate this operationagainst Konkrook's going to take, to complete pacification, Them?"

"How complete is complete pacification, general?" ThemistoclesM'zangwe wanted to know. "If you mean to the end of organizedresistance by larger than squad-size groups, I'd say three days, giveor take twelve hours. Of course, there'll be small groups holding outfor a couple of weeks, particularly in the farming country and back inthe forest. . . . "

"We can forget them; that's minor-tactics stuff. We'll need to keepsome kind of an occupation force here for some time; they can dealwith that. We'll have to get to work on Keegark, as soon as possible;after we've reduced Keegark, we'll be able to reorganize for acampaign against the Free Cities on the Eastern Shore. "

"Begging your pardon, general, but reduce is a mild word for what weought to do to Keegark, " Hans Meyerstein said. "We ought to raze thatcity as flat as a football field, and then play football on it withKing Orgzild's head. "

"Any special reason?" von Schlichten asked. "In addition to theBlount-Lemoyne massacre, that is?"

"I should say so, general!" Themistocles M'zangwe backed Meyersteinup. "Bob, you tell him. "

Colonel Robert Grinell, the Intelligence officer, got up and took thecigar out of his mouth. He was short and round-bodied and bald-headed, but he was old Terran Federation Regular Army. 

"Well, general, we've been finding out quite a bit about the genesisof this business, lately, " he said. "From up north, it probably lookedlike an all-Rakkeed show; that's how it was supposed to look. But thewhole thing was hatched at Keegark, by King Orgzild. We've managed tocapture a few prominent Konkrookans"--he named half a dozen--"who'vebeen made to talk, and a number of others have come in voluntarily andfurnished information. Orgzild conceived the scheme in the beginning;Rakkeed was just the messenger-boy. My face gets the color of theCompany trademark every time I think that the whole thing was plannedfor over a year, right under our noses, even to the signal that was totouch the whole thing off. . . . "

"The poisoning of Sid Harrington, and our announcement of his death?"von Schlichten asked. 

"You figured that out yourself, sir? Well, that was it. " Grinell wenton to elaborate, while von Schlichten tried to keep the impatience outof his face. Beside him, Paula Quinton was fidgeting, too; she wasthinking, as he was, of what King Orgzild and Prince Gorkrink weredoing now. "And I know positively that the order for the poisoning ofSid Harrington came from the Keegarkan Embassy here, and was passeddown through Gurgurk and Keeluk to this geek here who actually put thepoison in the whiskey. "

"Yes. I agree that Keegark should be wiped out, and I'd like to havean immediate estimate on the time it'll take to build a nuclear bombto do the job. One of the old-fashioned plutonium fission A-bombs willdo quite well. "

Everybody turned quickly. There was a momentary silence, and thenColonel Evan Colbert, of the Fourth Kragan Rifles, the senior officerunder Themistocles M'zangwe, found his voice. 

"If that's an order, general, we'll get it done. But I'd like toremind you, first, of the Company policy on nuclear weapons on thisplanet. "

"I'm aware of that policy. I'm also aware of the reason for it. We'vebeen compelled, because of the lack of natural fuel on Uller, to setup nuclear power reactors and furnish large quantities of plutonium tothe geeks to fuel them. The Company doesn't want the natives herelearning of the possibility of using nuclear energy for destructivepurposes. Well, gentlemen, that's a dead issue. They've learned it, thanks to our people on Niflheim, and unless my estimate is entirelywrong, King Orgzild already has at least one First-CenturyNagasaki-type plutonium bomb. I am inclined to believe that he had atleast one such bomb, probably more, at the time when orders were sentto his embassy here, for the poisoning of Governor-GeneralHarrington. "

With that, he selected a cigarette from his case, offered it to Paula, and snapped his lighter. She had hers lit, and he was puffing on hisown, when the others finally realized what he had told them. 

"That's impossible!" somebody down the table shouted, as though thatwould make it so. Another--one of the civil administrationcrowd--almost exactly repeated Jules Keaveney's words at Skilk: "Whatthe hell was Intelligence doing, sleeping?"

"General von Schlichten, " Colonel Grinell took oblique cognizance ofthe question, "you've just made, by implication, a most grave chargeagainst my department. If you're not mistaken in what you've justsaid, I deserve to be court-martialed. "

"I couldn't bring charges against you, colonel; if it were acourt-martial matter, I'd belong in the dock with you, " von Schlichtentold him. "It seems, though, that a piece of vital information waspossessed by those who were unable to evaluate it, and until thisafternoon, I was ignorant of its existence. Colonel Quinton, supposeyou repeat what you told me, on the way down from Skilk. "

"Well, general, don't you think we ought to have Dr. Gomes do that?"Paula asked. "After all, he constructed those bombs on Niflheim, andit'll be he who'll have to build ours. "

"That's right. " He looked around. "Where's Dr. Lourenço Gomes, thenuclear engineer who came in on the _Pretoria_, two weeks ago? Sendout for him, and get him in here at once. "

There was another awkward silence. Then Kent Pickering, the chief ofthe Gongonk Island power-plant, cleared his throat. 

"Why, general, didn't you know? Dr. Gomes is dead. He was killedduring the first half hour of the uprising. "

XIII. 

A Bag of Tricks We Don't Have

He flinched inwardly, and tightened his eye-muscles on the edge of themonocle to keep from flinching physically as well, trying to freezeout of his face the consternation he felt. 

"That's bad, Kent, " he said. "Very bad. I'd been counting heavily onDr. Gomes to design a bomb of our own. "

"Well, general, if you please. " That was Air-Commodore LeslieHargreaves. "You say you suspect that King Orgzild has developed anuclear bomb. If that's true, it's a horrible danger to all of us. ButI find it hard to believe that the Keegarkans could have done so, withtheir resources and at their technological level. Now, if it had beenthe Kragans, that would have been different, but. . . . "

"Paula, you'd better carry on and explain what you told me, and addanything else you can think of that might be relevant. . . . Is thatsound-recorder turned on? Then turn it on, somebody; we want thistaped. "

Paula rose and began talking: "I suppose you all understand whatconditions are on Niflheim, and how these Ulleran native workers areemployed; however, I'd better begin by explaining the purpose forwhich these nuclear bombs were designed and used. . . . "

He smiled; she realized that he needed time to think, and she wasstalling to provide it. He drew a pencil and pad toward him and begandoodling in a bored manner, deliberately closing his mind to what shewas saying. There were two assumptions, he considered: first, thatKing Orgzild already possessed a nuclear bomb which he could use whenhe chose, and, second, that in the absence of Dr. Gomes, such a bombcould only be produced on Gongonk Island after lengthy experimentalwork. If both of these assumptions were true, he had just heard thedeath-sentence of every Terran on Uller. The first he did not for amoment doubt. The reasons for making it were too good. He dismissed itfrom further consideration and concentrated on the second. 

". . . What's known as a Nagasaki-type bomb, the first type ofplutonium-bomb developed, " Paula was saying. "Really, it's atechnological antique, but it was good enough for the purpose, and Dr. Gomes could build it with locally available materials. . . . "

That was the crux of it. The plutonium bomb, from a militarystandpoint, was as obsolete as the flintlock musket had been at thetime of the Second World War. He reviewed, quickly, the history ofweapons-development since the beginning of the Atomic Era. Theemphasis, since the end of the Second World War, had all been onnuclear weapons and rocket-missiles. There had been the H-bomb, itselfobsolescent, and the Bethe-cyle bomb, and the subneutron bomb, and theomega-ray bomb, and the nega-matter bomb, and then the end ofcivilization in the Northern Hemisphere and the rise of the newcivilization in South America and South Africa and Australia. Today, the small-arms and artillery his troops were using were merely slightrefinements on the weapons of the First Century, and all the modernnuclear weapons used by the Terran Federation were produced at theSpace Navy base on Mars, by a small force of experts whose skills werealmost as closed to the general scientific and technical world as thesecrets of a medieval guild. The old A-bomb was an historicalcuriosity, and there was nobody on Uller who had more than a layman'sknowledge of the intricate technology of modern nuclear weapons. Therewere plenty of good nuclear-power engineers on Gongonk Island, but howlong would it take them to design and build a plutonium bomb?

". . . Also has a good understanding of Lingua Terra, " Paula was saying. "He and Dr. Murillo conversed bilingually, just as I've heard Generalvon Schlichten and King Kankad talking to one another. I haven't anyidea whether or not Gorkrink could read Lingua Terra, or, if so, whatpapers or plans he might have seen. "

"Just a minute, Paula, " he said. "Colonel Grinell, what does yourbranch have on this Gorkrink?"

"He's the son of King Orgzild, and the daughter of Prince Jurnkonk, "Grinell said. "We knew he'd signed on for Nif, two years ago, but thestory we got was that he'd fallen out of favor at court and had beenexiled. I can see, now, that that was planted to mislead us. As towhether or not he can read Lingua Terra, my belief is that he can. Weknow that he can understand it when spoken. He could have learned toread at one of those schools Mohammed Ferriera set up, ten or fifteenyears ago. "

"And Dr. Gomes and Dr. Murillo and Dr. Livesey left papers and planslying around all over the place, " Paula added. "If he went to Niflheimas a spy, he could have copied almost anything. "

"Well, there you have it, " von Schlichten said. "When Gorkrink foundout that plutonium can be used for bombs, he began gathering all theinformation he could. And as soon as he got home, he turned it allover to Pappy Orgzild. "

"That still doesn't mean that the Kee-geeks were able to do anythingwith it, " Air-Commodore Hargreaves argued. 

"I think it does, " von Schlichten differed. "As soon as Orgzild wouldhear about the possibility of making a plutonium bomb, he'd set up anA-bomb project, and don't think of it in terms of the old FirstCentury Manhattan Project. There would be no problem of producingfissionables--we've been scattering refined plutonium over this planetlike confetti. "

"Well, an A-bomb's a pretty complicated piece of mechanism, even ifyou have the plans for it, " Kent Pickering said. "As I recall, therehave to be several subcritical masses of plutonium, or U-235, orwhatever, blown together by shaped charges of explosive, all of whichhave to be fired simultaneously. That would mean a lot of electricalfittings that I can't see these geeks making by hand. "

"I can, " Paula said. "Have you ever seen the work these nativejewelers do? And didn't you tell me about a clockwork thing they haveat the university here, to show the apparent movements of the sun. . . . "

"That's right, " von Schlichten said. "And what they couldn't make, they could have bought from us; we've sold them a lot of electricalequipment. "

"All right, they could have built an A-bomb, " Buhrmann said. "But didthey?"

"We assume they tried to. Gorkrink got back from Nif on the Canberra, three months ago, " von Schlichten said. "If Orgzild decided to buildan A-bomb, he wouldn't give the signal for this uprising until heeither had one or knew he couldn't make one, and he wouldn't give uptrying in only three months. Therefore, I think we can assume that hesucceeded, and had succeeded at the time he sent Gorkrink here to getthat four tons of plutonium we let him have, and, incidentally, totell Ghroghrank to pass the word to have Sid Harrington poisonedaccording to plan. "

"Then why didn't he just use it on us at the start of the uprising?"Meyerstein wanted to know. 

"Why should he? Getting rid of us is only the first step in Orgzild'splan, " Grinell said. "Back as far as geek history goes, the Kings ofKeegark have been trying to conquer Konkrook and the Free Cities andmake themselves masters of the whole Takkad Sea area. Let Konkrookwipe us out, and then he can move in his troops and take Konkrook. Or, if we beat off the geeks here, as we seem to be doing, he can bomb usout and then move in on Konkrook. I think that as long as we'refighting here, he'll wait. The more damage we do to Konkrook, theeasier it'll be for him. "

"Then we'd better start dragging our feet on the Konkrook front, "Laviola said. "And get busy trying to build a bomb of our own. "

Von Schlichten looked up at the big screen, on which the battle ofKonkrook was being projected from an overhead pickup. 

"I'll agree on the second half of it, " von Schlichten said. "And we'llalso have to set up some kind of security-patrol system againstbombers from Keegark. And as soon as _Procyon_ gets here, we'll haveto send her out to hunt down and destroy those two Boer-classfreighters, the _Jan Smuts_ and the _Kruger_. And we'll have toarrange for protection of Kankad's Town; that's sure to be another ofOrgzild's high-priority targets. As to the action against Konkrook, I'll rely on your advice, Them. Can we delay the fall of the city forany length of time?"

M'zangwe shook his head. "When we divert contragravity tosecurity-patrol work, the ground action'll slow up a little, ofcourse. But the geeks are about knocked out, now. "

"The hell with it, then. I doubt if we'd be able to buy much time fromOrgzild by delaying victory in the city, and we'll probably need thetroops as workers over here. " He turned to Pickering. "Dr. Pickering, what sort of a crew can you scrape together to design a bomb for us?"he asked. 

"Well, there's Martirano, and Sternberg, and Howard Fu-Chung, and Pietvan Reenen, and. . . . " He nodded to himself. "I can get six or eight ofthem in here in about twenty minutes; I'll have a project set up andworking in a couple of hours. There has to be somebody qualified onduty at the plant, all the time, of course, but. . . . "

"All right, call them in. I want the bomb finished by yesterdayafternoon. And everybody with you, and you, yourself, had betterrevert to civilian status. This isn't something you can do by thenumbers, and I don't want anybody who doesn't know what it's all aboutpulling rank on your outfit. Go ahead, call in your gang, and let meknow what you'll be able to do, as soon as possible. "

He turned to Hargreaves. "Les, you'll have charge of flying thesecurity patrols, and doing anything else you can to keep Orgzild frombombing us before we can bomb him. You'll have priority on everythingsecond only to Pickering. "

Hargreaves nodded. "As you say, general, we'll have to protectKankad's, as well as this place. It's about five hundred miles fromhere to Kankad's, and eight-fifty miles from Kankad's to Keegark. . . . "

He stopped talking to von Schlichten, and began muttering to himself, running over the names of ships, and the speeds and pay-loadcapacities of airboats, and distances. In about five minutes, he wouldhave a programme worked out; in the meantime, von Schlichten couldonly be patient and contain himself. He looked along the table, andcaught sight of a thin-faced, saturnine-looking man in a green shirt, with a colonel's three concentric circles marked on the shoulders insilver-paint. Emmett Pearson, the communications chief. 

"Emmett, " he said, "those orbiters you have strung around this planet, two thousand miles out, for telecast rebroadcast stations. How much ofa crew could be put on one of them?"

Pearson laughed. "Crew of what, general? White mice, or trainedcockroaches? There isn't room inside one of those things for anythingbigger to move around. "

"Well, I know they're automatic, but how do you service them?"

"From the outside. They're only ten feet through, by about twenty inlength, with a fifteen-foot ball at either end, and everything's insections, which can be taken out. Our maintenance-gang goes up in athing like a small spaceship, and either works on the outside inspacesuits, or puts in a new section and brings the unserviceable onedown here to the shops. "

"Ah, and what sort of a thing is this small spaceship, now?"

"A thing like a pair of fifty-ton lorries, with airlocks between, andconnected at the middle; airtight, of course, and pressurized andinsulated like a spaceship. One side's living quarters for a six-mancrew--sometimes the gang's out for as long as a week at a time--andthe other side's a workshop. "

That sounded interesting. With contragravity, of course, terms like"escape-velocity" and "mass-ratio" were of purely antiquarianinterest. 

"How long, " he asked Pearson, "would it take to fit that vehicle witha full set of detection instruments--radar, infrared and ultra-violetvision, electron-telescope, heat and radiation detectors, the wholeworks--and spot it about a hundred to a hundred and fifty miles aboveKeegark?"

"That I couldn't say, general, " Emmett Pearson replied. "It'd have tobe a shipyard job, and a lot of that stuff's clear outside mydepartment. Ask Air-Commodore Hargreaves. "

"Les!" he called out. "Wake up, Les!"

"Just a second, general. " Hargreaves scribbled frantically on his pad. "Now, " he said, raising his head. "What is it, sir?"

"Emmett, here, has a junior-grade spaceship that he uses to servicethose orbital telecast-relay stations of his. He'll tell you what it'slike. I want it fitted with every sort of detection device that can becrammed into or onto it, and spotted above Keegark. It should, ofcourse, be high enough to cover not only the Keegark area, butKonkrook, Kankad's, and the lower Hoork and Konk river-valleys. "

"Yes, I get it. " Hargreaves snatched up a phone, punched out acombination, and began talking rapidly into it in a low voice. After awhile, he hung up. "All right, Mr. Pearson--Colonel Pearson, I mean. Have your space-buggy sent around to the shipyard. My boys'll fix itup. " He made a note on another piece of paper. "If we live throughthis, I'm going to have a couple of supra-atmosphere ships in serviceon this planet. . . . Now, general, I have a tentative setup. We'regoing to need the _Elmoran_ for patrol work south and east ofKonkrook, and the _Gaucho_ and _Bushranger_ to the north andnortheast, based on Kankad's. We'll keep the _Aldebaran_ at Kankad's, and use her for emergencies. And we'll have patrols of lightcontragravity like this. " He handed a map, with red-pencil andblue-pencil markings, along to von Schlichten. "Red are Kankad-based;blue are Konkrook-based. "

"That looks all right, " von Schlichten said. "There's another thing, though. We want scout-vehicles to cover the Keegark area withradiation-detectors. These geeks are quite well aware ofradiation-danger from fissionables, but they're accustomed to theordinary industrial-power reactors, which are either very lightlyshielded or unshielded on top. We want to find out where Orgzild'sbomb-plant is. "

"Yes, general, as soon as we can get radiation detectors sent out toKankad's, we'll have a couple of fast aircars fitted with them forthat job. "

"We have detectors, at our laboratory and reaction-plant, " Kankadsaid. "And my people can make more, as soon as you want them. " Hethought for a moment. "Perhaps I should go to the town, now. I couldbe of more use there than here. "

Kent Pickering, who had been talking with his experts at a tableapart, returned. 

"We've set up a programme, general, " he said. "It's going to be a lotharder than I'd anticipated. None of us seem to know exactly what wehave to do in building one of those things. You see, the uranium orplutonium fission-bomb's been obsolete for over four hundred years. Itwas a classified-secret matter long after its obsolescence, because ithadn't been rendered any the less deadly by being superseded--therewas that A-bomb that the Christian Anarchist Party put together atBuenos Aires in 378 A. E. , for instance. And then, after it wasdeclassified, it had been so far superseded that it was of onlyantiquarian interest; the textbooks dealt with it only in generalterms. The principles, of course, are part of basic nuclear science;the "secret of the A-bomb" was just a bag of engineering tricks thatwe don't have, and which we will have to rediscover. Design oftampers, design of the chemical-explosive charges to bring subcriticalmasses together, case-design, detonating mechanism, things like that. "

"The complete data on even the old Hiroshima and Nagasaki types isstill in existence, of course. You can get it at places like theUniversity of Montevideo Library, or Jan Smuts Memorial Library atCape Town. But we don't have it here. We're detailing a couple ofjunior technicians to make a search of the library here on GongonkIsland, but we're not optimistic. We just can't afford to pass up anychance, even when it approaches zero-probability. "

Von Schlichten nodded. "That's about what I'd expected, " he said. "Isuppose Gomes got his data out of one of the dustier storage-stacks atJan Smuts or Montevideo, in the first place. . . . Well, I still wantthat bomb finished by yesterday afternoon, but since that'simpractical, you'll have to take a little--but as little aspossible--longer. "

"What are we going to do about publicity on this?" Howlett, thepersonnel man, asked. "We don't want this getting out in garbledform--though how it could be made worse by garbling I couldn'tguess--and having the troops watching the sky over their shoulders andgoing into a panic as soon as they saw something they didn'tunderstand. "

"No, we don't. I've seen a couple of troop-panics, " von Schlichtensaid. "There can't be anything much worse than a panic. "

"I think the Terrans ought to be told the worst, " Hargreaves said. "And told that our only hope is to get a bomb of our own built anddropped first. As to the Kragans. . . . What do you think, King Kankad?"

"Tell them that we are building a bomb to destroy Keegark; that we arerunning short of ammunition, and that it is our only hope of finishingthe war before the ammunition is gone, " Kankad said. "Tell themsomething of what sort of a bomb it is. But do not tell them that KingOrgzild already has such a bomb. Old Kankad, who made me out ofhimself, told me about how our people fled in panic from the weaponsof the Terrans, when your people and mine were still enemies. Thisthing is to the weapons they faced then as those weapons were to theold Kragans' spears and bows. . . . And when the geeks from Grank comehere, tell them that we are winning and that if they fight well, theycan share the loot of Konkrook and Keegark. "

Von Schlichten looked up at the big screen. Already, ThemistoclesM'zangwe had ordered the Channel Battery to reduce fire; the big gunswere firing singly, in thirty-second-interval salvos. There was lessbombing, too; contragravity was being drawn out of the battle. 

"Well, we all have things to do, " he said, "and I think we'vediscussed everything there is to discuss. Anybody think of anythingwe've forgotten?. . . Then we're adjourned. "

He and Paula Quinton took the elevator to the roof, and sat side byside, silently watching the conflagration that was raging across thechannel and the nearer flashes of the big guns along the island'scity side. 

"Wednesday night, I thought we were all cooked, " Paula told him. "Cleaning up the north in two days seemed like an impossibility, too. Maybe you'll do it again. "

"If I pull this one out of the fire, I won't be a general; I'll be amagician, " he said. "Pickering'll be a magician, I mean; he's the boywho'll save our bacon, if it's saveable. " He looked somberly acrossthe flame-reflecting water. "Let's not kid ourselves; we're justkicking and biting at the guards on the way up the gallows-steps. "

"Well, why stop till the trap's sprung?" she asked. "What'll happen tothese people on this planet, after we're atomized?"

"That I don't want to think about. Kankad's Town will get the secondbomb; Orgzild won't dare leave the Kragans after he's wiped us out. Yoorkerk and Jonkvank, in the north, will turn on Keaveney and Shapiroand Karamessinis and Hid O'Leary and wipe them out. And when the nextship gets in here and they find out what happened, they'll send theFederation Space Navy, and this planet'll get it worse than Fenrisdid. They'll blast anything that has four arms and a face like alizard. . . . "

Half a dozen aircars lifted suddenly from the airport and streakedaway to the northeast. As they went past, in the light of the burningcity, he could see that at least three of them had multiplerocket-launchers on top. In a matter of seconds, a gun-cutter racedafter them, and a second, which had been over Konkrook, jettisoned abomb and turned away to follow. 

"Maybe that's it, " Paula said. 

"Well, if it is, we won't be any better off anywhere else than here, "he told her. "Let's stay and watch. "

After what seemed like a long time, however, a twinkle of lightsshowed over the East Konk Mountains. They weren't the flashes ofexplosions; some were magnesium flares, and some were the lights of aship. 

"That's _Procyon_, from Grank, " he said. "Everybody gets a good markfor this--detection stations, interceptors, gun-cutters. If that hadbeen it, there'd have been a good chance of stopping it. " He feltbetter than he had since Pickering had told him that Lourenço Gomeswas dead. "It's a good thing Gorkrink didn't pick up any dope onguided missiles, while he was at it. As long as they have to deliverit with contragravity, we have a chance. "

They rose from the balustrade where they had been sitting, and, forthe first time, he discovered that he had had his left arm over hershoulder and that she had had her right hand resting on the point ofhis right hip, just above his pistol. He picked up the folder ofpapers she had been carrying, and put her into the elevator ahead ofhim, and it was only when they parted on the living-quarters levelthat he recalled having followed the older protocol of gallantryrather than the precedence of military rank. 

XIV. 

The Reviewers Panned Hell Out of It

He woke with a guilty start and looked up at the clock on the ceiling;it was 0945. Kicking himself free of the covers, he slid his feet tothe floor and sprinted for the bathroom. While he was fussing to getthe shower adjusted to the right temperature, he bludgeoned hisconscience by telling himself that a wide-awake general is more goodthan a half-asleep general, that there was nothing he could do buthope that Hargreaves's patrols would keep the bomb away from Konkrookuntil Pickering's brain-trust came up with one of their own, and thatthe fact that the commander-in-chief was making sack-time would bemuch better for morale than the spectacle of him running around incircles. He shaved carefully; a stubble of beard on his chin mightbetray the fact that he was worried. Then he dressed, put his monoclein his eye, and called the headquarters that had been set up in SidHarrington's--now his--office. A girl at the switchboard appeared onhis screen, and gave place to Paula Quinton, who had been up for thepast two hours. 

"The _Northern Lights_ got in about three hours ago, general, " shetold him. "She had four of King Yoorkerk's infantry regimentsaboard--the Seventh, Glorious-and-Terrible, the Fourth, Firm-in-Adversity, the Second, Strength-of-the-Throne, and theTwelfth, Forever-Admirable. They're the sorriest-looking rabble Iever saw, but Hideyoshi says they're the best Yoorkerk has, and theyall have Terran-style rifles. General M'zangwe broke them intobattalions, and put a battalion in with each of the Kragan regiments. I think they're more afraid of the Kragans than they are of therebels. "

He nodded. That was probably the best way to employ them, within theexisting situation. The trouble was, Them M'zangwe was incurablytactical-minded. Put those geeks of Yoorkerk's in with the Kragans andthey'd be most useful in conquering Konkrook, but the trouble wasthat, after associating with Kragans, they might develop intoreasonably good troops themselves, to the undesired improvement ofKing Yoorkerk's army. On the other hand maybe not. Keep them inCompany service long enough, and they might want to forget aboutYoorkerk and stay there. 

"How's the situation over in town?" he asked. 

"Well, it's slowing up, since we began pulling contragravity out, " shetold him, "but the geeks are breaking up rapidly. . . . Oh, there wassomething funny about that hassle, last evening, when the _Procyon_came in. Two contragravity vehicles, an aircar and an air-lorry, thatwent out to meet the ship, are unaccounted for. "

"You mean two of our vehicles are missing?"

She shook her head, frowning in perplexity. "Well, no. All thevehicles that answered that unidentified-aircraft alert returned, butthere were these two that went out that we haven't any record of. Colonel Grinell is investigating, but he can't find out anything. . . . "

"Tell him not to waste any more time, " he said. "Those two wereprobably geeks from Konkrook. You know, that's how the von Schlichtenfamily got out of Germany, in the Year Three--flew a bomber to Spain. The Konkrook war-criminals are getting out before the Army ofOccupation moves in. "

"Well, the posts at the old Kragan castles report some contragravity, and parties riding 'saurs, moving west from the city, " she told him. "There are a lot of refugees on the roads. And combat reports fromKonkrook agree that resistance is getting weaker every hour. . . . Andthe supra-atmosphere observation-craft--they're beginning to call herthe _Sky-Spy_--is up a hundred and fifty miles over Keegark. We haveradar and vision screens and telemetered radiation and other detectorshere, tuned to her. They're installing a similar set on the _NorthernLights_ at the shipyard. By the way, Air-Commodore Hargreaves wants toknow if he can take a pair of 155-mm rifles from the Channel Batteryand mount them on the _Lights_. "

"Yes, of course, he can have anything he wants, as long as it isn'turgently needed for the bomb project. "

"_Sky-Spy_ reports normal contragravity traffic between Keegark andthe farming-villages around--aircars, lorries, a few scows--butnothing suspicious. No trace of either of the Boer-class ships. Kankad's people are building receiving sets to install on the_Procyon_ and the _Aldebaran_, and another set for Kankad's Town. Pickering and his people are still working, but they all look prettyfrustrated. They have Major Thornton, at the ammunition plant, doingexperimental work on chemical-explosive charges to bring thesubcritical masses together and hold them together till an explosioncan be produced; they're using most of the skilled electrical andelectronics people to work up a detonating device. That's why Kankad'speople are doing most of the detection-device work. Hargreaves isfitting a lot of small craft-- combat-cars and civilian aircars--withradar sets, to use for patrolling. "

"That sounds good, " von Schlichten said. "I'll be around and see howthings are, after I've had some breakfast. "

He had breakfast at the main cafeteria, four floors down; there wasn'tas much laughing and talking as usual, but the crowd there seemed ingood spirits. He spent some time at headquarters, watching Keegark byTV and radar. So far, nothing had been done about directreconnaissance over Keegark with radiation-detectors, but Hargreavesreported that a couple of privately owned aircars were being fittedfor the job. 

He made a flying inspection trip around the island, and visited thefarms south of the city, on the mainland, and, finally, made a sweepin the command-car over the city itself. Reconnaissance in person wasan archaic and unprogressive procedure, and it was a good way to getgenerals killed, but one could see a lot of things that would bemissed on TV. He let down several times in areas that had already beentaken, and talked to company and platoon officers. For one thing, KingYoorkerk's flamboyantly named regiments weren't quite as bad as Paulahad thought. She'd been spoiled by the Kragans in her appreciation ofother native troops. They had good, standard-quality, Volund-madearms; they were brave and capable; and they had been just enoughinsulted by being integrated into Kragan regiments to try to make agood showing. 

By noon, resistance in the city was beginning to cave in. Surrenderflags were appearing on one after another of the Konkrookan rebelstrong-points, and at 1430, after he had returned to the Island, adelegation, headed by the Konkrookan equivalent of Lord Mayor andcomposed largely of prominent merchants, came across the channel undera flag of truce to surrender the city's Spear of State, with abjectapologies for not having Gurgurk's head on the point of it. Gurgurk, they reported, had fled to Keegark by air the night before, whichexplained the incident of the unaccountable aircar and lorry. TheChannel Battery stopped firing, and, with the exception of anoccasional spatter of small-arms fire, the city fell silent. 

At 1600, von Schlichten visited the headquarters Pickering had set upin the office building at the power-plant. As he stepped off the lifton the third floor, a girl, running down the hall with her arms fullof papers in folders, collided with him; the load of papers flew inall directions. He stooped to help her pick them up. 

"Oh, general! Isn't it wonderful?" she cried. "I just can't believeit!"

"Isn't what wonderful?" he asked. 

"Oh, don't you know? They've got it!"

"Huh? They have?" He gathered up the last of the big envelopes andgave them to her. "When?"

"Just half an hour ago. And to think, those books were around here allthe time, and. . . . Oh, I've got to run!" She disappeared into the lift. 

Inside the office, one of Pickering's engineers was sitting on themiddle of his spinal column, a stenograph-phone in one hand and a bookin the other. Once in a while, he would say something into themouthpiece of the phone. Two other nuclear engineers had similar booksspread out on a desk in front of them; they were making notes andlooking up references in the _Nuclear Engineers' Handbook_, and makingcalculations with their sliderules. There was a huddle around thedrafting-boards, where two more such books were in use. 

"Well, what's happened?" he demanded, catching Pickering by the arm ashe rushed from one group to another. 

"Ha! We have it!" Pickering cried. "Everything we need! Look!"

He had another of the books under his arm. He held it out to vonSchlichten, and von Schlichten suddenly felt sicker than he had everfelt since, at the age of fourteen, he had gotten drunk for the firsttime. He had seen men crack up under intolerable strain before, butthis was the first time he had seen a whole roomful of men blow theirtops in the same manner. 

The book was a novel--a jumbo-size historical novel, of some seven or eighthundred pages. Its dust-jacket bore a slightly-more-than-bust-lengthpicture of a young lady with crimson hair and green eyes and jade earringsand a plunging--not to say power-diving--neckline that left her affiliationwith the class of Mammalia in no doubt whatever. In the background, amushroom-topped smoke-column rose, and away from it something intended tobe a four-motor propeller-driven bomber of the First Century was racingmadly. The title, he saw, was _Dire Dawn_, and the author was oneHildegarde Hernandez. 

"Well, it has a picture of an A-bomb explosion on it, " he agreed. 

"It has more than that; it has the whole business. Casespecifications, tampers, charge design, detonating device, everything. Why, the end-papers even have diagrams, copies of the originalNagasaki-bomb drawings. Look. "

Von Schlichten looked. He had no more than the average intelligentlayman's knowledge of nuclear physics--enough to recharge or repair aconversion-unit--but the drawings looked authentic enough. They seemedto be copies of ancient blueprints, lettered in First Century English, with Lingua Terra translations added, and marked TOP SECRET and U. S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS and MANHATTAN ENGINEERING DISTRICT. 

"And look at this!" Pickering opened at a marked page and showed it tohim. "And this!" He opened where another slip of paper had beeninserted. "Everything we want to know, practically. "

"I don't get this. " He wasn't sick, anymore, just bewildered. "I readsome reviews of this thing. All the reviewers panned hell out ofit--'World War II Through a Bedroom Keyhole'; 'Henty in Black LacePanties'--that sort of thing. "

"Yeh, yeh, sure, " Pickering agreed. "But this Hernandez had illusionsof being a great serious historical novelist, see. She won't try towrite a book till she's put in years of research--actually, about sixmonths' research by a herd of librarians and college-juniors and othersuch literary coolies--and she boasts that she never yet has beencaught in an error of historical background detail. 

"Well, this opus is about the old Manhattan Project. The heroine is asort of super-Mata-Hari, who is, alternately and sometimessimultaneously, in the pay of the Nazis, the Soviets, the Vatican, Chiang Kai-Shek, the Japanese Emperor, and the Jewish InternationalBankers, and she sleeps with everybody but Joe Stalin and MaoTse-tung, and of course, she is in on every step of the A-bombproject. She even manages to stow away on the _Enola Gay_, with thehelp of a general she's spent fifty incandescent pages seducing. 

"In order to tool up for this production-job, La Hernandez did herresearching just where Lourenço Gomes probably did his--University ofMontevideo Library. She even had access to the photostats of the oldU. S. Data that General Lanningham brought to South America after thedebacle in the United States in A. E. 114. Those end-papers are part ofthe Lanningham stuff. As far as we've been able to checkmathematically, everything is strictly authentic and practical. We'llhave to run a few more tests on the chemical-explosive charges--wedon't have any data on the exact strength of the explosives they usedthen--and the tampers and detonating device will need to be tested alittle. But in about half an hour, we ought to be able to startdrawing plans for the case, and as soon as they're finished, we'llrush them to the shipyard foundries for casting. "

Von Schlichten handed the book back to Pickering, and sighed deeply. "And I thought everybody here had gone off his rocker, " he said. "Wewill erect, on the ruins of Keegark, a hundred-foot statue of SeñoritaHildegarde Hernandez. . . . How did you get onto this?"

Pickering pointed to a young man with dull brick colored hair, who waspunching out some kind of a problem on a small computing machine. 

"Piet van Reenen, over there, he has a girl-friend whose taste runs tothis sort of literary bubble-gum. She told him it was all in a bookshe'd just read, and showed him. We descended in force on the bookshopand grabbed every copy in stock. We are now running a sort ofgaseous-diffusion process, to separate the nuclear physics from thepornography. I must say, Hildegarde has her biological data very wellin hand, too. "

"I'll bet she'd have fun writing a novel about these geeks, " vonSchlichten said. "Well, how soon do you think you can have a bombready for us?"

"Casting the cases is going to slow us down the most, " Pickering said. "But, even with that, we ought to have one ready in three days, at themost. By two weeks, we'll be turning them out on an assembly-line. "

"I hope we don't need more than one. But you'd better produce at leasthalf a dozen. And have some practice-bombs made up, out of concrete oranything, as long as they're the right weight and airfoil and havesome way of releasing smoke. Get them done as soon as you have yourcase designed. We want to be able to make a couple of practice drops. "

There was no use, he thought, of raising hopes which might provepremature. He told Paula Quinton, of course, and ThemistoclesM'zangwe, and, by telecast on sealed beam, King Kankad andAir-Commodore Hargreaves. Beyond that, there was nothing to do butwait, and hope that Hargreaves could keep Orgzild's bombers away fromGongonk Island and Kankad's Town and that Hildegarde Hernandez hadbeen playing fair with her public. He visited the city, where a fewpockets of diehard resistance were being liquidated, and whereeverybody who had not been too deeply and publicly involved in the_znidd suddabit_ conspiracy was now coming forward and claiming tohave been a lifelong friend of the Terrans and the Company. VonSchlichten returned to Gongonk Island, debating with himself whetherto declare a general amnesty or to set up a dozen guillotines in thecity and run them around the clock for a week. There were cogentarguments for and against either procedure. 

By 2100, the last organized resistance had been wiped out, and curfewhad been imposed, and peace of a sort restored. There was still thethreat from Keegark, but it was looking less ominous now than it hadthe evening before. Von Schlichten and Paula were having dinner in theBroadway Room, confident that there was nothing left to do that theycould do anything about, when the extension phone that had beenplugged in at their table rang. 

"Colonel Quinton here, " Paula identified herself into it, and listenedfor a moment. "There has? When?. . . Well, where did it come from?. . . Isee. And the direction?. . . Anything else?"

Apparently there was nothing else. She hung up, and turned to vonSchlichten. 

"The _Sky-Spy_ just detected a ship lifting out from Keegark, presumedone of the Boer-class freighters, either the _Jan Smuts_ or the _OomPaul Kruger_. It was first picked up on contragravity at about ahundred feet, rising vertically from near the Palace. The suppositionis the geeks had her camouflaged since the time Commander Prinsloofirst bombarded Keegark with the _Aldebaran_. That was about twentyminutes ago; at last report, she's fifty miles north of Keegark, headed up the Hoork River. "

Von Schlichten started thinking aloud: "That could be a feint, to drawour ships north after her, and leave the approach to Konkrook orKankad's open, but that would be presuming that they know about the_Sky-Spy_, and I doubt that, though not enough to take chances on. They know we have ground and ship-radar, and they may think they canslip down the Konk Valley either undetected or mistaken for one of ourships from North Uller. "

He picked up the phone. "Get me through on telecast to Air-CommodoreHargreaves, aboard the _Procyon_, " he said. "I'll take it in theoffice; I'll be up directly. " He rose. "Finish your dinner, and havethe rest of mine sent up, " he told Paula. 

Leaving the elevator, he rushed into the big headquarters room just ascontact was established with the _Procyon_, on station over thenorthwestern corner of Takkad Sea, between Kankad's Town and Keegark. The _Aldebaran_, he knew, was west of Keegark; the _Northern Lights_, now fitted with a pair of 155-mm guns, in addition to her 90's, hadjust arrived at Kankad's. He had the _Aldebaran_ sent north along thecrest of the mountain-range between the Hoork and Konk river-valleys, where she could cover both with her own radar and otherdetection-devices and exchange information with the _Sky-Spy_, and the_Gaucho_ sent in what looked like the right course to intercept theBoer-class freighter from Keegark. The _Northern Lights_, also withscreens tuned to the _Sky-Spy_, was sent to take over the_Aldebaran's_ regular station. Finally, he called Skilk and had the_Northern Star_ sent south down the Hoork Valley. 

After that, there was nothing to do but wait, and watch the screens. Paula Quinton put in an appearance shortly after he had finishedcalling Skilk, pushing a cocktail-wagon on which their interrupteddinners had been placed. They finished eating, and drank coffee, andsmoked. Most of the rest of his staff who were not busy on thebomb-project or at the shipyards or with the occupation of Konkrookdrifted in; they all sat and stared from one to another of thescreens, which told, in radar-patterns and direct vision andtelescopic vision and heat and radiation detection, the story of whatwas going on to the northeast of them. 

Keegark was dark, on the vision-screen; evidently King Orgzild had inventedthe blackout, too. Not that it did him any good; the radar-screen showedthe city clearly, and it was just as clear on the radiation andheat-screens. The Keegarkan ship was completely blacked out, but theradiations from her engines and the distinctive radiation-pattern of hercontragravity-field showed clearly, and there was a speck that marked herposition on the radar-screen. The same position was marked with a pin-pointof light on the vision-screen--some device on the _Sky-Spy_, synchronizedwith the detectors, kept it focused there. The Company ships andcontragravity vehicles all were carrying topside lights, visible only fromabove, which flashed alternate red and blue to identify them. 

Time crawled slowly around the clock-face on the wall, thesixty-five-second minutes of Uller dragging like hours. The spots thatmarked the enemy ship and her hunters crawled, too; seen from thehundred-and-fifty-mile altitude of the _Sky-Spy_, even thesix-hundred-mile speed of the _Gaucho_ was barely visible. They drankcoffee till the stuff revolted them; they smoked until their throatsand mouths were dry, they watched the screens until they thought thatthey would see them in their dreams forever. Then the _Gaucho_reported radar-contact with the Keegarkan ship, which had begun toturn in a hairpin-shaped course and was coming south down the KonkValley. 

After that, the _Gaucho_ began reporting directly, and her topsideidentification-light went out. 

". . . Doused our lights; we're down in the valley, altitude about athousand feet. We're trying to get a glimpse of her against the sky, "a voice came in. "We're cutting in our forward TV-pickup. " The voicerepeated, several times, the wavelength, and somebody got an auxiliaryscreen tuned in. There was nothing visible on it but the darkness ofthe valley, the star-jeweled sky, and the loom of the East KonkMountains. "We still can't see her, but we ought to, any moment; radarshows her well above the mountains. Ah, there she is; she justobscured Beta Hydrae V; she's moving toward that big constellation tothe east of it, the one they call Finnegan's Goat. Now she'll be rightin the center of the screen; we're going straight for her. We're goingto try to slow her down till the _Aldebaran_ can get here. . . . "

The enemy ship was vaguely visible, now, becoming clearer in thestarlight. She was a Boer-class freighter, all right. Probably the_Jan Smuts_; the _Oom Paul Kruger_ had last been reported at Bwork, and there was little chance that she had slipped into Keegark sincethe uprising had started. For all anybody knew, she could have beendestroyed in the fighting before the Bwork Residency fell. 

"All right, we have her spotted; we're going to open up on her, " thevoice from the _Gaucho_ announced. "She has two 90's to our one; we'lltry to disable them, first. " The vision-screen lit with the indirectglare of the gun-flash, and the image in it jiggled violently as theship shook to the recoil, then steadied again, with the enemy shipvisible in the middle of it, growing larger and larger as the _Gaucho_rushed toward her. The gun fired again and again, flooding the screenwith momentary yellow light and disturbing the image as the recoilshook the gun-cutter. The enemy ship began firing in reply, the shotswere all wide misses. Apparently the geek guncrew didn't know how tosynchronize the radar sights, and were ignorant of the correct settingfor the proximity-fuses. The _Gaucho_'s searchlights came on, bathingher quarry in light. It was the _Jan Smuts_; the name and thefigurehead-bust of the old soldier-philosopher were plainly visible. Her forward gun had been knocked out, and she was trying to swingabout to get a field of fire for her stern-gun. 

"We're going to give her a rocket-salvo, " the voice said. "Watch this, now!"

The rockets leaped forward, from the topside racks, four and four andfour and four, at half-second intervals. The first four hit the_Smuts_ amidships and low, exploding with a flare that grew before itcould die away as the second four landed. Nobody ever saw the thirdand fourth four land. The _Jan Smuts_ vanished in a blaze of lightthat blinded everybody in the room; when they could see again, aftersome thirty seconds, the screen was dark. 

In the direct-vision screen from the _Sky-Spy_, the whole countrysideof the Konk Valley, five hundred miles north of Konkrook, was lighted. The heat and radiation detectors were going insane. And in theshifting confusion on the radar-screen, there was no trace either ofthe _Jan Smuts_ or the _Gaucho_. 

"Well, the geeks did have an A-bomb, " Themistocles M'zangwe said, atlength. "I'd been trying to kid myself that we were just preparingagainst a million-to-one chance. I wonder how many more they have. "

"Paula, find out who was in command of the _Gaucho_; he'd be ajunior-grade lieutenant. Fix up orders promoting him to navy captain, as of now. It's probably the only thing we can do for him, anymore. And promotions of the same order for everybody else aboard thatcutter. Authority Carlos von Schlichten, acting Governor-General. " Hepicked up a phone. "Get me Commander Prinsloo, on _Aldebaran_. . . . "

He ordered Prinsloo to launch airboats and make a search; cautionedhim to be careful of radiation, but to take no chances on any of the_Gaucho_'s complement being still alive and in need of help. Whilethat was going on, the _Sky-Spy_ reported another ship coming over herhorizon to the east, from the direction of Bwork. That would be the_Oom Paul Kruger_. Hargreaves had already learned of the advent of thesecond freighter. He was unwilling to take the _Procyon_ off herstation until the _Aldebaran_ returned from the Konk Valley. In this, von Schlichten concurred. 

Somebody suggested that a drink would be in order. They had justwatched the all-but-certain death of three Terran officers, fifteenTerran airmen, and ten Kragans, but they had all been living in tooclose companionship with death in the past three days--or was it threecenturies--to be too deeply affected. And they had also watched, atleast for a day or so, the removal of the threat that had hung overtheir heads. And they had seen proof that they had a defense againstKing Orgzild's bombs. 

They were still mixing cocktails when Pickering phoned in. 

"Some good news, general, from Operation 'Hildegarde. ' We ought tohave at least one bomb ready to drop by 1500 tomorrow, four or fivemore by next midnight, " he said. "We don't need to have cases cast. Wegot our dimensions decided, and we find that there are a lot of bigempty liquid-oxygen flasks, or tanks, rather, at the spaceport, that'll accommodate everything--fissionables, explosive-charges, tampers, detonator, and all. "

"Well, go ahead with it. Make up a few of them; as many as you canbetween now and 2400 Sunday. " He thought for a moment. "Don't wastetime on those practice bombs I mentioned. We'll make a practice dropwith a live bomb. And don't throw away the design for the cast case. We may need that, later on. "

XV. 

A Place in my Heart for Hildegarde

The company fleet hung off Keegark, at fifteen thousand feet, in abelt of calm air just below the seesawing currents from the warmingAntarctic and the cooling deserts of the Arctic. There was the_Procyon_, from the bridge of which von Schlichten watched themovements of the other ships and airboats and the distant horizon. The_Aldebaran_ was ten miles off, to the west, her metal sheathingglinting the red light of the evening sun. There was the _NorthernStar_, down from Skilk, a smaller and more distant twinkle ofreflected light to the north of _Aldebaran_. The _Northern Lights_ wasoff to the east, and between her and _Procyon_ was a fifth ship;turning the arm-mounted binoculars around, he could just make out, onher bow, the figurehead bust of a man in an ancient tophat and afringe of chin-beard. She was the _Oom Paul Kruger_, captured by the_Procyon_ after a chase across the mountains northeast of Keegark theday before. And, remote from the other ships, to the south, a tinyspeck of blue-gray, almost invisible against the sky, and a smallertwinkle of reflected sunlight--a garbage-scow, unflatteringly butsomewhat aptly rechristened _Hildegarde Hernandez_, which had beenaltered as a bomb-carrier, and the gun-cutter _Elmoran_. With theglasses, he could see a bulky cylinder being handled off the scow andloaded onto the improvised bomb-catapult on the _Elmoran_'s stern. Shortly thereafter, the gun-cutter broke loose from the tender andbegan to approach the fleet. 

"General, I must protest against your doing this, " Air-CommodoreHargreaves said. "There's simply no sense in it. That bomb can bedropped without your personal supervision aboard, sir, and you'reendangering yourself unnecessarily. That infernal machine hasn't beentested or anything; it might even let go on the catapult when you tryto drop it. And we simply can't afford to lose you, now. "

"No, what would become of us, if you go out there and blow yourself upwith that contraption?" Buhrmann supported him. "My God, I thought DonQuixote was a Spaniard, instead of a German!"

"Argentino, " von Schlichten corrected. "And don't try to sell me thatIrreplaceable Man line, either. Them M'zangwe can replace me, HidO'Leary can replace him, Barney Mordkovitz can replace him, and so ondown to where you make a second lieutenant out of some sergeant. We'vebeen all over this last evening. Admitted we can't take time for along string of test-shots, and admitted we have to use an untestedweapon; I'm not sending men out under those circumstances and stayinghere on this ship and watch them blow themselves up. If that bomb'sour only hope, it's got to be dropped right, and I'm not going to takea chance on having it dropped by a crew who think they've been sentout on a suicide mission. What happened to the _Gaucho_ when she blewthe _Smuts_ up is too fresh in everybody's mind. But if I, who orderedthe mission, accompany it, they'll know I have some confidence thatthey'll come back alive. "

"Well I'm coming along, too, general, " Kent Pickering spoke up. "Imade the damned thing, and I ought to be along when it's dropped, onthe principle that a restaurant-proprietor ought to be seen eating hisown food once in a while. "

"I still don't see why we couldn't have made at least one test shot, first, " Hans Meyerstein, the Banking Cartel man, objected. 

"Well, I'll tell you why, " Paula Quinton spoke up. "There's a goodchance that the geeks don't know we have a bomb of our own. They maybelieve that it was something invented on Niflheim for miningpurposes, and that we haven't realized its military application. There's more than a good chance that the loss of the _Jan Smuts_ hastemporarily demoralized them. Personally, I believe that both KingOrgzild and Prince Gorkrink were aboard her when she blew up. That'ssomething we'll never know, positively, of course. That ship andeverything and everybody in her were simply vaporized, and theparticles are registering on our geigers now. But I'm as sure as I amof anything about these geeks that one or both of them accompaniedher. "

"Paula knows what she's talking about, " King Kankad jabbered in theTakkad Sea language which they all understood. "Just like Von sayingthat he has to go on our cutter, to encourage the crew. They alwaysinsist that their kings and generals go into battle, particularly ifsomething important is to be done. They think the gods get angry ifthey don't. "

"And we have to hit them now, " von Schlichten said. "They still have acouple of bombs left. We haven't been able to locate them withdetectors, but those geeks Kankad's men caught on that commando-raid, last night, say that there were at least three of them made. We can'ttake a chance that some fanatic may load one into an aircar and makea kamikaze-raid on Gongonk Island. "

The _Elmoran_ ran alongside, with her Masai-warrior figurehead and theblack cylinder on her catapult aft. Somebody had painted, on the bomb:DIRE DAWN _by Hildegarde Hernandez. Compliments of the author to H. M. King Orgzild of Keegark. _ A canvas-entubed gangway was run out toconnect the ship with the cutter. Von Schlichten and Kent Pickeringwent down the ladder from the bridge, the others accompanying them. Ashe stepped into the gangway, Paula Quinton fell in behind him. 

"Where do you think you're going?" he demanded. 

"Along with you, " she replied. "I'm your adjutant, I believe. "

"You definitely are not going along. Personally, I don't believethere's any danger, but I'm not having you run any unnecessaryrisks. . . . "

"Von, I don't know much about the way Terrans think, except aboutfighting and about making things, " Kankad told him. "And I don't knowanything at all about the kind of Terrans who have young. But Ibelieve this is something important to Paula. Let her go with you, because if you go alone and don't come back, I don't think she willever be happy again. "

He looked at Kankad curiously, wondering, as he had so often before, just what went on inside that lizard-skull. Then he looked at Paula, and, after a moment, he nodded. 

"All right, colonel, objection withdrawn, " he said. 

Aboard the _Elmoran_, they gave the bomb a last-minute inspection andchecked the catapult and the bomb-sight, and then went up on thebridge. 

"Ready for the bombing mission, sir?" the skipper, a Lieutenant(j. G. ) Morrison, asked. 

"Ready if you are, lieutenant. Carry on; we're just passengers. "

"Thank you, sir. We'd thought of going in over the city at about fivethousand for a target-check, turning when we're half-way back to themountains, and coming back for our bombing-run at fifteen thousand. Isthat all right, sir?"

Von Schlichten nodded. "You're the skipper, lieutenant. You'd bettermake sure, though, that as soon as the bomb-off signal is flashed, your engineer hits his auxiliary rocket-propulsion button. We want tobe about fifteen miles from where that thing goes off. "

The lieutenant (j. G. ) muttered something that sounded unmilitarilylike, "You ain't foolin', brother!"

"No, I'm not, " von Schlichten agreed. "I saw the _Jan Smuts_ on theTV-screen. "

The _Elmoran_ pointed her bow, and the long blade of the figureheadwarrior's spear, toward Keegark. The city grew out of the ground-mist, a particolored blur at the delta of the dry Hoork River, and then acolor-splashed triangle between the river and the bay and the hills onthe landward side, and then it took shape, cross-ruled with streetsand granulated with buildings. As they came in, von Schlichten, whohad approached it from the air many times before, could distinguishthe landmarks--the site of King Orgzild's nitroglycerin plant, now acrater surrounded by a quarter-mile radius of ruins; the Residency, another crater since Rodolfo MacKinnon had blown it up under him; thesmashed _Christiaan De Wett_ at the Company docks; King Orgzild'sPalace, fire-stained and with a hole blown in one corner by the_Aldebaran_'s bombs. . . . Then they were past the city and over opencountry. 

"I wish we had some idea where the rest of those bombs are stored, sir, " Lieutenant Morrison said. "We don't seem to have gotten anythingsignificant when we flew reconnaissance with the radiation detectors. "

"No, about all that was picked up was the main power-plant, and theradiation-escape from there was normal, " Pickering agreed. "The bombsthemselves wouldn't be detectable, except to the extent that, say, anuclear-conversion engine for an airboat would be. They probably havethem underground, somewhere, well shielded. "

"Those prisoners Kankad's commandos dragged in only knew that theywere in the city somewhere, " von Schlichten considered. "How aboutmidway between the Palace and the Residency for our ground-zero, lieutenant? That looks like the center of the city. "

The cutter turned and started back, having risen another ten thousandfeet. Morrison passed the word to the bombardier. The city, with thesea beyond it now, came rushing at them, and von Schlichten, standingat the front of the bridge, discovered that he had his arm aroundPaula's waist and was holding her a little more closely than wasmilitary. He made no attempt to release her, however. 

"There's nothing to worry about, really, " he was assuring her. "Pickering's boys built this thing according to the best principles ofengineering, and the stuff they got out of that big-economy-sizeshilling-shocker all checked mathematically. . . . "

The red light on the bridge flashed, and the intercom shouted, "_Bomboff!_" He forced Paula down on the bridge deck and crouched besideher. 

"Cover your eyes, " he warned. "You remember what the flash was like inthe screen when the _Jan Smuts_ blew up. And we didn't get the worstof it; the pickup on the _Gaucho_ was knocked out too soon. "

He kept on lecturing her about gamma-rays and ultra-violet rays andX-rays and cosmic rays, trying to keep making some sort of intelligentsounds while they clung together and waited, and, with the other halfof his mind, trying not to think of everything that could go wrongwith that jerry-built improvisation they had just dumped onto Keegark. If it didn't blow, and the geeks found it, they'd know that anotherone would be along shortly, and. . . . 

An invisible hand caught the gun-cutter and hurled her end-over-end, sending von Schlichten and Paula sprawling at full length on the deck, still clinging to one another. There was a blast of almost palpablesound, and a sensation of heat that penetrated even the airtightsuperstructure of the _Elmoran_. An instant later, there was another, and another, similar shock. Two more bombs had gone off behind them, in Keegark; that meant that they had found King Orgzild's remainingnuclear armament. There were shattering sounds of breaking glass, andheavy thumps that told of structural damage to the cutter, and hoarseshouts, and lurid cursing as Morrison and his airmen struggled withthe controls. The cutter began losing altitude, but she was back on areasonably even keel. Von Schlichten rose, helping Paula to her feet, and found that they had been kissing one another passionately. Theywere still in each other's arms when the pitching and rolling of thecutter ceased and somebody tapped him on the shoulder. 

He came out of the embrace and looked around. It was Lieutenant (j. G. )Morrison. 

"What the devil, lieutenant?" he demanded. 

"Sorry to interrupt, sir, but we're starting back to _Procyon_. Andhere, you'll want this, I suppose. " He held out a glass disc. "Inever expected to see it, but at that it took three A-bombs to blowyou loose from your monocle. "

"Oh, that?" Von Schlichten took his trademark and set it in his eye. "I didn't lose it, " he lied. "I just jettisoned it. Don't you know, lieutenant, that no gentleman ever wears a monocle while he's kissinga lady?"

He looked around. They were at about eight hundred to a thousand feetabove the water, with a stiff following wind away from the explosionarea. The 90-mm gun, forward, must have been knocked loose and carriedaway; it was gone, and so was the TV-pickup and the radar. Something, probably the gun, had slammed against the front of the bridge--themetal skeleton was bent in, and the armor-glass had been knocked out. The cutter was vibrating properly, so the contragravity-field had notbeen disturbed, and her jets were firing. 

"It was the second and third bombs that did the damage, sir, " Morrisonwas saying. "We'd have gone through the effects of our own bomb withnothing more than a bad shaking--of course, on contragravity, we'reweightless relative to the air-mass, but she was built to stand thewinds in the high latitudes. But the two geek bombs caught us offbalance. . . . "

"You don't need to apologize, lieutenant. You and your crew behavedsplendidly, lieutenant-commander, best traditions, and all that sortof thing. It was a pleasure, commander, hope to be aboard with youagain, captain. "

They found Kent Pickering at the rear of the bridge, and joined himlooking astern. Even von Schlichten, who had seen H-bombs andBethe-cycle bombs, was impressed. Keegark was completely obliteratedunder an outward-rolling cloud of smoke and dust that spread out forfive miles at the bottom of the towering column. 

There had been a hundred and fifty thousand people in that city, evenif their faces were the faces of lizards and they had four arms andquartz-speckled skins. What fraction of them were now alive, he couldnot guess. He had to remind himself that they were the people who hadburned Eric Blount and Hendrik Lemoyne alive; that two of the threebombs that had contributed to that column of boiling smoke had beenmade in Keegark, by Keegarkans, and that, with a few causal factorsaltered, he was seeing what would have happened to Konkrook. Perhapsevery Terran felt a superstitious dread of nuclear energy turned tothe purposes of war; small wonder, after what they had done on theirown world. 

For one thing, he thought grimly, the next geek who picks up the ideaof soaking a Terran in thermoconcentrate and setting fire to him willdrop it again like a hot potato. And the next geek potentate who triesto organize an anti-Terran conspiracy, or the next crazycaravan-driver who preached _znidd suddabit_, will be lynched on thespot. But this must be the last nuclear bomb used on Uller. . . . 

Drunkard's morning-after resolution! he told himself contemptuously. The next time, it will come easier, and easier still the time afterthat. After you drop the first bomb, there is no turning back, anymore than there had been after Hiroshima, four-hundred-and-fifty-oddyears ago. Why, he had even been considering just where, against themountains back of Bwork, he would drop a demonstration bomb as aprelude to a surrender demand. 

You either went on to the inevitable catastrophe, or you realized, intime, that nuclear armament and nationalism cannot exist together onthe same planet, and it is easier to banish a habit of thought than apiece of knowledge. Uller was not ready for membership in the TerranFederation; then its people must bow to the Terran Pax. The Kraganswould help--as proconsuls, administrators, now, instead ofmercenaries. And there must be manned orbital stations, and theResidencies must be moved outside the cities, away from possibleblast-areas. And Sid Harrington's idea of encouraging the natives toown their own contragravity-ships must be shelved, for a long time tocome. Maybe, in a century or so. . . . 

Kankad had a good idea, at that, a most meritorious idea. He was soldon it, already, and he doubted if it would take much salesmanship withPaula, either. Already, she was clinging to his arm with obviouspossessiveness. Maybe their grandchildren, and the Kankad of thattime, would see Uller a civilized member of the Federation. . . . 

They paused, as the gun-cutter nuzzled up to the _Procyon_ and thecanvas-entubed gangway was run out and made fast, looking back at thefearful thing that had sprouted from where Keegark had been. 

"You know, " Paula was saying, echoing his earlier thought, "but forthat female pornographer, that would have been Konkrook. "

He nodded. "Yes. I hope you won't mind, but there will always be aplace in my heart for Hildegarde. "

Then they turned their backs upon the abomination of Keegark'sdesolation and went up the gangway together, looking very little likea general and his adjutant. 

 * * * * *

 With a broadsword in his hand, von Schlichten fought his way toward the throne. There Firkked waited, a sword in one of his upper hands, his Spear of State in the other, and a dagger in each lower hand. Von Schlichten fought on, trying not to think of the absurdity of a man of the Sixth Century A. E. , the representative of a civilized Chartered Company, dueling to the death with a barbarian king for a throne he had promised to another barbarian . . . Or of what could happen on Uller if he allowed this four-armed monstrosity to kill him!

_Ace Science Fiction Books by H. Beam Piper_

EMPIREFEDERATIONFIRST CYCLEFOUR-DAY PLANET/LONE STAR PLANETFUZZY PAPERSFUZZY SAPIENSLITTLE FUZZYLORD KALVAN OF OTHERWHENPARATIME!SPACE VIKINGULLER UPRISINGTHE WORLDS OF H. BEAM PIPER

 * * * * *

ULLER UPRISING

"ZNIDD SUDDABIT!"

So the Ulleran challenge begins, with the rantings of a prophet and aseemingly incidental street riot. Only when a dose of poison lands inthe governor-general's whiskey does it become clear that the "geeks"have had it up to their double-lidded eyeballs with the imperialistTerran Federation's Chartered Uller Company. Then, overnight, war iseverywhere. 

How it will end is in the (merely) two Terran hands of the newgovernor-general, a man shrewd enough to know that "it is easier tobanish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge. " The problem is, the particular piece of knowledge he needs hasn't been used in 450years. . . . 

 * * * * *